A weekend is a time to get my soul into order. Today, I suggest you enjoy three documentary films and two texts on the fate of the arts in Ukraine during the war: www.patreon.com/posts/arts-a...

Finally! There are gasoline shortages in parts of Moscovia and an electricity blackout in Bilhorod today. The more the Moscovites feel the war, the closer the peace is. Please send more peacemaking instruments to Ukraine. If you don't own a Tomahawk, you still can support the Ukrainian army today:

Ukraine has finally refurbished its recruitment website - and some of the internal processes - for the international servicemen willing to join the Ukrainian Army in the fight for Ukraine's freedom (and for the defeat of the bloody Moscovian Empire). Here's the link: www.joinuarmy.org/en/

I must say the British, with all their mistakes, are one of the nations that have a character, and that can think and act, and even learn from history. Apparently, it does help to lose a global empire once in a while: youtu.be/QgkUVIj3KWY

1) A Ukrainian engineering Army unit is looking for international specialists to join their ranks. The unit is looking for "drivers, electronic specialists, engineers, architects".⬇️

Kharkiv War Diaries: Stories from a City on the Edge - BBC World Service Documentaries. From the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion until now: #Ukraine #Kharkiv #Documentary

International firms’ taxes paid in Russia in 2024 are equivalent to 1 million soldiers for Putin. This is the bloody mathematics we Ukrainians have to face today. Unfortunately, the companies from the "collective West" (and China) lead the rating. Read more in the latest @b4ukraine.org report.

Happy Ukrainian Independence Day, everybody! Thank you for standing with us! Please carry on - the fighting continues every day and night, right now! www.patreon.com/posts/happy-...

Another serving of my #UkrainianVoices series: Vitaly Portnikov, on when Putin went off the rails. Available for free, but your signing up on Patreon is much appreciated - it shows me that there is a real interest - and, possibly, a need - in what I do: www.patreon.com/posts/136497...

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Night in the Crimea. View of Ayu Dag", 1850, by Ivan Aivazovsky. Born Hovhannes Aivazian, he was a descendant of Ukrainian Armenians, who settled in Galicia in the 18th century. His family moved to Crimea in 1812. "Ayu Dag" means "Bear Mountain" in Crimean Tatar.

Get your head out of the meaningless newsstream, and enjoy some real-life stories. Cuba & Alaska, a documentary about two Ukrainian combat medics, hits the Ukrainian cinemas tomorrow: www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0qK...

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Noon. A herd in the steppe", 1895, by Arkhyp Kuindzhy. Today, Ukrainian steppe is known as an endless field of grain crops. However, until the 1950s, the steppe was mostly used for livestock farming, with large herds of sheep, cows, and horses grazing under the sky.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Steamship Moskva at the storm", 1884, by Rufin Sudkovsky Sudkovsky (1850-1885) was born in Ochakiv. He studied painting in Odesa and St. Petersburg, reaching success there, but returning home for health reasons. He loved the Black Sea and mostly painted marine art.

A new post in my #UkrainianVoices Series: Oksana Zabuzhko, on the time-proven method of negotiations with the Russians: www.patreon.com/posts/136184... Enjoy! #Ukraine #Russia #Putin

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Justice of the peace", 1887, by Mykola Kuznetsov Kuznetsov (1850-1929) was born in a wealthy family in the Kherson region. As a young man, he went against the will of his parents and started living with a seasonal worker girl from Volyn, eventually marrying her.

Back in 2019, it appears that HBO used a Russian subcontractor to advise them on certain legal issues related to their famous TV series "Chernobyl". Yes, to the place, events, and people who were located in #Ukraine. What could go wrong? Read more here: www.patreon.com/posts/lookin...

You can now read part 2 of my Cossacks series: Names and Peoples. Cossacks or Zaporizhians? Cherkasy and Circassians. Hetmanate and Zaporizhzhia Cossacks. Cossacks and Kazakhs. Dnipro Cossacks and Don Cossacks. Everything is connected. Enjoy your reading: www.patreon.com/posts/135175...

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Before the rain", 1880, by Kostiantyn Kryzhytsky Despite living in St. Petersburg, Kryzhytsky often travels to his native Kyiv and draws mostly Ukrainian landscapes. The weather in the picture is the exact weather we have had in Kyiv for the last two weeks or so.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Bohdan Khmelnytsky entering Kyiv in December 1648", by Mykola Ivasiuk. Ivasiuk (1865–1937) was born in Zastavna, Bukovyna. He studied at the Munich and Vienna art academies. Ivasiuk lived in [Romanian] Chernivtsi until he moved to [Soviet] Kyiv in 1926, ⬇️

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Ukrania quae et Terra Cosaccorum cum vicinis Walachiae, Moldoviae", 1720, by Johann Baptiste Homann". One of the illustrations for my new Patreon post on the various names of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Paid members can see it now, free members will see it on August 1.

In Ukraine, "1984" or "Animal Farm" are required senior school reading. In Russia, "1984" used to be listed in "additional reading" recommendations, and was fully excluded from the list in 2024.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "The sunrise in Feodosia", 1855, by Ivan Aivazovsky. Aivazovsky was born in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in Crimea, an ancient city known historically as Kaffa. Though he enjoyed great success all over Europe, he decided to live, teach, and work in his home town.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Prisoner", 1878, by Mykola Yaroshenko. Born in Poltava, a successful military engineer (retired in the rank of general), Yaroshenko maintained a passion for painting. His home was a regular meeting place for the most famous artists and intellectuals of his time.

1. Here is a rule of thumb for the primary evaluation of any "analytic" or "expert" material on Ukraine: Never trust a Ukraine analysis by a person who did not spend at least three months of his life in Ukraine during the last three years.

One of the most evil, most vile crimes of Russia in this war - the burning alive of the 40 Mariupol defenders POWs in the Russian Olenivka prison on July 29, 2022 - has been investigated: militarnyi.com/en/news/chrc... We remember.

Dear #USA subscribers, here is a Monday challenge for you: Fundraiser by 30 States for #Ukraine: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHms...

Ukraine ClassicArt of the Day: murals in Lviv’s Armenian Cathedral (1925-1929) by Jan Henryk de Rosen. De Rosen (1891-1982) was born in Warsaw to the scions of Polish Jewish families that had converted to Calvinism in the 19th century. During the 1930s, he taught at the Lviv Politechnic University.

#Italy, with its decentralised government system, used to be a weak link in Europe's standing up to the Moscovian hybrid warfare. Good to see the Italian central government providing the moral example for the treatment of the artists who support mass murderers like Putin and his gang.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Fair in Poltava", by Volodymyr Makovsky, 1885-1910. Poltava was founded around 900. From the 17th century, it became an important administrative and economic centre. For some period in the 19th century, the Poltava Fair was the third biggest in the Russian Empire.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Red sunset over Dnipro", by Arkhyp Kuindzhy, 1905-8. Kuindzhy, born in Mariupol, painted many different landscapes. His most impressive and famous works, however, are the landscapes of southern Ukraine, with their deep, saturated colours, and warm lighting.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: Taras Shevchenko, Autoportrait, 1840, and Autoportrait, 1861. Born as a slave, through his talent for painting, Shevchenko became a popular artist. But he chose to be Ukraine's national poet, which brought him exile and poverty. And eternal reverence from his people.

1/5 This is exactly what I said several days ago: Russian assault begins with undermining a person's dignity. Or the dignity of a group. An institution. A nation. Once you lose your dignity by earning an extra dollar in dealing with Moscovia, you: - begin believing that it is not a problem⬇️

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "A sunny day", 1889, by Kostiantyn Kryzhytsky. This picture, along with hundreds of others, was stolen by the Moscovian army from the Kherson Art Museum in 2022. The Russian Federation is a thief. It has to be prosecuted and punished to become a normal world citizen.

1/4 I am pretty sure that Poland would do nothing about that. I still remember how European companies kept mum when their businesses were captured and plundered by Moscow-backed bandits in Crimea and especially in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014. Plus Ukraine's 20-30% GDP dive resulting from ⬇️

Oleksii Kopytko, former Ukrainian MOD advisor, on Trump, Rutte, Patriots, Europe, Moscovia, and #Ukraine. "On Melania, the Air Defense Provider. The wheels of pre-vacation activity have started spinning; let's look at the manifestations..." Read full text (free) here: www.patreon.com/posts/134212...

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "A wonderer", 1880, by Kostiantyn Trutovsky. In the isolated pre-industrial and early industrial society of 19th-century Ukraine, any person coming from outside the village, especially from afar, was a significant figure, bearing knowledge about the unknown world.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: let's get the work week started with "Preparing the nets", 1892, by Volodymyr Orlovsky (1842-1914). In 1897, Orlovsky became ill with typhoid and, following the advice of his doctors, moved from St. Petersburg to Kyiv, and, later, to Genoa in Italy.

1/2 By the way, please stop calling the Russian Federation "Russia", because it is not. Russia proper is a small region of the vast Russian Federation. And, of course, the current Russian Federation is not a federation anymore. It is a centralised despotia governed by Tsar Putin from Moscow, ⬇️

A couple of weeks ago, I was struck by the realisation that many foreigners do not know who the Ukrainian Cossacks were. For almost every modern Ukrainian, it is nonsense, as a Cossack = Ukrainian. So, I tried to fill the void with a list of recommended basic reading: www.patreon.com/posts/who-ar...

1/4 Next time a troll asks you whether there is any objective, proven evidence of the Russian crimes in Ukraine, show them this: "The Court found that Russia was responsible for repeated human-rights violations over a period of more than eight years. This included indiscriminate military attacks; ⬇️

As a Ukrainian, I can attest that in any war, Moscovia's main goal is to break enemy's dignity. Once your dignity is broken, you are halfway conquered by Russia. You can be bought, you can be scared, blackmailed - Moscovians are experts in all of that. Your only protection is maintaining dignity.

1. A new book about Kharkiv in English: Kharkiv: Architectural Guide, by Ievgeniia Gubkina. Buy here: dom-publishers.com/products/kha... #UkrainianArchitecture #architecture #history #Ukraine "Born from waves of migration, modernisation, industrialisation, and revolution, Kharkiv trod a stormy path

I am on vacation now, so no classic pictures these days. But here is a view of the beautiful Ukrainian Carpathians, near mountain Smotrych. #Ukraine #BeautifulUkraine

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Fair in Poltava", 1902 by Kostiantyn Makovsky. In 1863, Makovsky and thirteen other students of the Imperial Academy of Arts refused the Academy's decision to impose a classical scene for the main academic competition. All of them left the Academy without a diploma.

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Peasants returning from the fields at sunset", second half of the XIX century, by Ivan Aivazovsky. Aivazovsky is best known for his marine paintings, but he also drew a significant number of terrestrial landscapes, mostly depicting southern Ukraine and Crimea.

On June 25, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, signed an Agreement on establishing a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. I wrote about some context of this event here: www.patreon.com/posts/132319...

This gives me shivers. So proud of this guy. We will sing, we will fight, we will win. #amazingukrainians #resilience #ukraine

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "A view from Tsarsky Garden on the Dnipro and Podil", 1887, by Volodymyr Orlovskyi. Orlovsky was born in Kyiv to a landowning noble family of Ukrainian descent. His talent was spotted by gymnasium art teacher Ivan Soshenko, who had earlier helped Taras Shevchenko.

Big deal! 1) On 25 June 2025, Ukraine and the Council of Europe signed the Agreement on establishing a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. #Europe #justiceforukraine #justice #peace

#Ukraine #ClassicArt of the day: "Kyiv Governorate Types", 1844, by Fedor Solntsev. Solntsev (1801–1892) was a Russian painter and historian of art. Born as a slave, he was granted freedom for his talent in painting. He discovered and restored mosaics and frescoes of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.