Welcome to this edition of What about Ukraine?, a newsletter that helps you keep updated about what has been said recently about Ukraine in Ukraine, and in the international media.

How do families cope when a son or daughter goes missing in a war? This is what is tackled in the article the Europe-Ukraine Desk translated from Ukrainian into English this week. Ukrainian mothers share the stories of their sons who went MIA (missing in action) while fighting Russia at the frontline. What they feel can only be understood by those who have gone through a similar experience, so they gather together in support groups: "People over here don’t ask meaningless questions about how I’m feeling or whether I spend my nights in tears," says one mother, "they just know what it’s like."

This week’s edition also looks at Bulgaria, which is - like many individual European countries - planning to strengthen its army in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The German Süddeutsche Zeitung also considers that security should be a topic at a European level to fight "against enemies of democracy". Ukrainian refugees are also at the centre of attention, as they have become the largest national minority in Hungary. Meanwhile, those who found shelter in Spain have started to face the daunting challenge of receiving help promised by the state. 

In Ukraine, reports Italy’s Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso, post-traumatic stress disorder is affecting more and more people, and France’s Mediapart observes that citizens and activists keep organising resistance in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. 

Have a good read!

Sarah-Lou Lepers
Editor of this week's edition

This January, when good news from the frontline is as rare as sunny days in Ukraine’s winter, there was one piece of news that united many Ukrainians in a moment of happiness. On 3 January, 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned from Russian captivity. They were mostly soldiers. Many were captured in the first days of the full-scale invasion. 48 of them were considered missing in action (MIA). 

According to officials, almost 26,000 people: have gone missing since 24 February 2022. 15,000 are service personnel and 11,000 are civilians. This means that thousands of families must learn to live waiting for their loved ones, with nothing but hope to lean on.

In the article, translated by n-ost this week, the journalist Vira Kuryko and the photographer Katya Moslalyuk report on support groups for the relatives of soldiers MIA. The reporters went to a small town in the Lviv region and talked to wives and parents who have organised a group that provides psychological support.

As one woman in the article, Halyna, explains: 

“I didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to hear them. I was trying to wrap my brain around the conversations that were held. I was perplexed: how can the people here be smiling in the face of such sorrow? I didn’t feel better. I didn’t even register anything, except for the faint feeling that I wanted to visit another session. Because… people here don’t ask meaningless questions about how I’m feeling or whether I spend my nights in tears, they just know what it’s like.”

The piece was originally published by Reporters, an online and print media that focuses on long-form reportage.

Translated by Tetiana Evloeva.

France

Ahead of Paris Olympics, Russian athletes’ neutrality under question

The "neutrality" criteria asked of Russian and Belarussian athletes who take part in the 2024 Paris Olympics is under question, as Russian wrestlers have been accused of supporting the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Two pre-selected athletes have appeared in Moscow at a gathering supporting the war in March 2022. A letter signed by more than 240 Ukrainian sportsmen and women and athletes, asking to exclude all Russian and Belarussian athletes from the Paris Olympics was sent to the International Olympic Committee, President Macron and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo. (Le Monde)

A reportage in occupied Crimea in the daily Les Echos quotes pro-Russian citizens praising how modernised the territory has been since its annexation in 2014, and foreseeing the same happening in Donbas and other Ukrainian territories newly occupied by Russia since 2022 (Les Echos). This article gives no context on the conditions in which it has been written, and, as RSF reminded it in its 2023 report, freedom of press has disappeared in Crimea with most media now "spreading Kremlin propaganda". A different point of view appears in Le Monde describing the forced Russification of Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. New school books for example are spreading Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine, and administrative obstacles force people to take on Russian passports. (Le Monde)

How are resistance networks organised in Ukraine? An article by the investigative online press Mediapart tells the story of women who started resisting Russian occupation in 2022. Like Lilia Alexandrova who became a graffiti artist at night during Kherson’s occupation, and the judge Yuliya Matvieva from Mariupol who was detained for seven months and tortured by the Russian army because she refused to work under their occupation. Some of these rebels are members of activist networks like the Yellow Ribbon, or trained by the National Resistance Centre of Ukraine. (Mediapart)

Hungary

Orbán may be forced to make a deal on EU aid

Since 2021 Hungary’s governing party Fidesz does not belong to any political family in the European Parliament, due to previous political conflicts with the EU, and its non-supportive position on Ukraine. If Prime Minister Viktor Orbán does not change his Ukraine-policy, joining the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), a group dominated by Polish and Italian eurosceptics, will remain a dream for him, says Péter Krekó, director of the Political Capital think tank. (Magyar Narancs) According to press reports, Italian Prime Minister and ECR-president Giorgia Meloni is trying to convince Orbán to back down from his veto on EU aid to Ukraine, in exchange for opening the way for Fidesz to join the ECR. (Bloomberg) 

The number of foreigners living in Hungary has risen, according to the 2022 census. Ukrainians have become the largest national minority, increasing from 12,000 to 36,000 over the last decade. This trend was already observed before the Russian invasion, due to the increase in the number of Ukrainian workers. After the full-scale invasion, half a million Ukrainian refugees arrived in Hungary, but most have moved on to other countries. One of the reasons for this could be Hungary’s difficulties in issuing refugee status applications, like the lack of proper information available to refugees. (Telex)

Refugee parents from Ukraine are not eager for their children to learn Hungarian, according to a journal article published in the Hungarian journal Modern Language Teaching. They see their time here as temporary, and learning Hungarian seems unnecessary to them, compared to other world languages. The majority of parents would like their children to receive online education in Ukrainian, so they can obtain their certificates in time. However, this is not possible under Hungarian law, or only in very exceptional cases. (Népszava)

Spain

Spain no longer a Russian paradise

Nearly two years after the announcement of U.S. sanctions against Russia, the only sanctioned Spanish company among a list of 21, ‘Invention Bridge SL’, has closed down. The enterprise was accused of being a front company for Moscow-based Serniya Engineering, which allegedly facilitated the procurement of key equipment for the Russian government and the FSB. The financial blockade by the U.S. Treasury led to the liquidation of the enterprise at the beginning of this month. Documentation indicates the use of a corporate scheme to receive money from different countries, to hide the origin and purpose of the money, and the identities of the final Russian beneficiaries. (El Confidencial)

Spain’s Department of Homeland Security has also shared some results of the sanctions against Russian oligarchs. So far, the Spanish authorities have seized 65 bank accounts, 70 properties, five ships and four airplanes. In the same document, other interesting figures about the Spain-Ukraine relationship have been made public, such as the official presence of 196,000 refugees in Spain (30 percent of whom are minors) and the registration in the employment system of more than 20,000 Ukrainians. (Huffington Post)

Not everything is easy for Ukrainians in Spain. Ihor Yusov, a refugee in northeastern Spain, has reported difficulties with the administration. A lawyer before fleeing Kharkiv, he can no longer work due to a visual impairment but was denied several subsidies because his wife also receives unemployment income. In an interview, he denounces the bureaucratic obstacles for Ukrainian refugees, who do not know the language or local laws. In this case, the couple explained they had to legally divorce in order to access economic assistance. (La Voz de Galicia). In addition, El País reported that last year eight of the 17 Spanish regions were not complying with giving promised aid to Ukrainians. (El País)

Italy

Olena Zelenska: contain Russia now before war spreads

Russia’s full-scale invasion is like radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion: "it will spread far beyond Ukraine [and all over Europe] if it is not contained now". This is how President Zelensky’s wife Olena Zelenska, in an interview, describes the risk of blocking military aid by the U.S. and EU countries. To counter Western countries’ war fatigue, Zelenska refers to the last New Year’s Eve in Ukraine, which suffered massive bombing raids: "Instead of making toasts and offering good wishes, we were counting the dead". (Il Corriere della Sera)

Italians’ consensus on sending weapons to Ukraine has reduced in almost two years, according to a poll by research institute Demos-LaPolis. In April 2022, 51 percent of people in Italy were in favour of military aid, while in December 2023 the percentage reduced to 42 percent. Most of the supporters of sending weapons to Kyiv are centre-left voters (56 percent), even if the majority of their MPs abstained. The voter base of the extreme right government, that backed military aid in Parliament, expressed more limited consensus: between 45 to 48 percent. (La Repubblica)

Living the war means not only defending the country but also coping with everyday life, writes translator and author Claudia Bettiol. Everybody in Ukraine, says the author, including soldiers, rescuers, doctors, civilians and children, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder: anxiety, anger, fear and panic are some of the emotions. All people discharged from military service are given free psychological assistance, but "the lack of psychologists and counsellors and the stigma linked to mental health make it more difficult for people to receive prompt and constant care," explains Bettiol. (Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso)

Bulgaria

Is compulsory military service needed in Europe?

Many European countries are planning to strengthen their defence capabilities by reintroducing compulsory military service, including in Bulgaria, where it was abolished in 2007. According to experts, writes Svobodna Evropa, the best strategy for the country would probably be to enlarge the military reserves. Attempts made in recent years, however, had little success, due to limited resources and potential problems at work for those interested in joining the active reserve. (Svobodna Evropa/Radio Free Europe)

Newspaper Dnevnik reflects on how the war in Ukraine is redefining the role of women in the country, reiterating and questioning many stereotypes at the same time. "Women [in Ukraine] do a lot today: they have to take care of many things now that the men are at the front. On the other hand, the war shows there are burdensome tasks that only men can complete," says one Ukrainian woman interviewed. Even when it comes to active fighting, a lot of Ukrainian women have answered the call: about 42,000 women serve in the Ukrainian army, with around 5,000 currently on the front line. (Dnevnik)

After oil, sanctions against Russia will also hit Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) imports by the end of 2024. In Bulgaria today, writes weekly Capital, around 40 percent of the LPG consumed is imported from Russia, both due to the competitive price and the relative convenience of the import chain across the Black Sea. Now alternatives will have to be looked for to replace the import quotas from Russia: the biggest obstacle, however, is the backwardness of the port infrastructure, which today does not have the capacity for the docking of large oil tankers from the Middle East. (Capital)

Germany 

Macron and Scholz must secure Europe "in the here and now"

Daniel Brössler, a correspondent in the Berlin parliamentary office, underscores the shared responsibility of Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron for building a more secure and militarily self-sufficient Europe. While Macron initiated a wake-up call in a speech at the Sorbonne in 2017, introducing the concept of a "militarily self-confident Europe", Scholz has a "much more modest" interpretation of this idea. Brössler notes: "But there is no time for that. Macron and Scholz must secure Europe in the here and now". However, he contends that "the Franco-German duo" alone will not suffice, emphasising the need for Donald Tusk as an ally in the fight "against enemies of democracy". (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Die Zeit analyses Russia's growing weapons production, drawing on regional economic data. In the Tambov region, home to a major ammunition factory, production doubled in 2023. The Moscow region, known for manufacturing missiles, saw a 49.9 percent increase in finished metal product output. This surge is fuelled by a heightened federal budget for the defence industry, constituting around six percent of Russia's economic output. A key factor is the use of Western components likely smuggled from factories of Western companies located in Asia, where customs controls are less strict. (Die Zeit)

A moving photo story from Konrad Schuller and Daniel Pilar for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung pictures Ukrainian soldiers on the front line in Donbass. "Everybody is on edge in their own way," comments the article. Fear, fragility, broken marriages and lost comrades – these are the fragments of the front reality portrayed by the journalists. Roman Kryvdyk joined the army as a paramedic, but now is a fighter and sees it as the only way to combat this war: “You do not win a war by putting on bandages”. (FAZ)

The Europe-Ukraine Desk curated this newsletter. This week's edition has been composed by our team all over Europe: Marika Ikonomu, Kornelia Kiss, Sarah Lou Lepers, Oksana Mamchenkova, Francesco Martino, Antonina Rybka and Fermin Torrano.
Michael Bird was our proofreader. 

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