Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

Subterms

    Latest story

    100 Shares

    ‘Porcelain War’ Review: A Defiant Dispatch From Ukraine

    by

    A new documentary follows artists in wartime, on and off the battlefield.The latest documentary dispatch from Ukraine, “Porcelain War,” brings a message of hope rooted in art. Making art does feel like an act of resistance during the Russian invasion, when Kremlin propaganda attacks the very existence of Ukrainian culture. But what’s intriguing is that the directors, Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, also celebrate Ukraine’s military defense, making for a jangly mix of idyll and warfare.Slava, who appears in the film, is both a ceramist and a member of a Ukraine special forces unit who gives weapons training to civilians turned soldiers. His partner, Anya, paints the whimsical figurines he creates, and the irrepressible couple weather the war in bombed-out Kharkiv with their more anxious pal Andrey, a painter and cameraman.Anya and Slava find some refuge in their house, and saccharine sequences show off tranquil fields and their cute dog. Some lovely animated moments set Anya’s finely wrought porcelain painting into motion; singing by the Ukrainian quartet DakhaBrakha rings out on the soundtrack.But then the focus shifts decisively to Slava’s army unit on the battlefield. Drone shots track bombs falling on Russian tanks and soldiers; Slava’s comrades hustle through ravaged buildings, equipped with GoPro cameras that give a first-person feel. Elsewhere, Andrey anguishes over spiriting his daughters away to Poland.Impressively, nearly everything was shot by the documentary’s subjects. Yet although their double duty is an awful fact of life in Ukraine, the film lurches between its varying components and tones. As the filmmakers repeatedly tie an inspirational bow on art and beauty, the good intentions yield cold comfort.Porcelain WarRated R for language and images of death. In Ukrainian, Russian and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Intercepted’ Review: The Awful Intimacy of the War in Ukraine

      by

      In leaked phone calls home, Russian soldiers grapple with the war they’re waging. This new documentary sets the calls’ swagger and anguish against images of the invasion’s devastation.The voices of the offscreen Russian soldiers and their acquaintances in the powerful Ukraine-set documentary “Intercepted” are matter-of-fact, swaggering and anguished. “I tell you, they live better than us here,” a soldier tells a woman back home. “Right, look how the West supports them,” she says.Sometime later, another soldier explains to a different woman, “We were given the order to kill everyone we see” to protect Russia’s miliary positions. “I’m telling you, I’ve already seen a forest full of corpses, more than a cemetery.” He adds, “I said that I won’t kill anyone.”Not long after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and Russian troops started flooding into the country, their communications began leaking out, at times with dire consequences. Ham-radio operators and open-source groups began capturing unencrypted battlefield radio transmissions among Russian forces on the ground. Ukraine also intercepted more prosaic phone calls that Russian soldiers made to their families and friends, to their wives and mothers and children. The soldiers talked about how they were doing, what they’d seen, what their orders were and even disclosed their locations; some spoke about whom they had killed.You hear a number of these phone calls in “Intercepted,” which was directed by the Ukrainian-Canadian filmmaker Oksana Karpovych. In a director’s statement for the movie, Karpovych explains that she was working in Ukraine as a producer for the news network Al Jazeera when the invasion began. After the intercepted calls were publicly released, she and a crew of four — including her cinematographer, the British photographer Christopher Nunn — traveled across Ukraine gathering images of devastation, which she has juxtaposed with calls intercepted between March and November 2022. The result is a haunting, often jolting depiction of the profound toll that the war has exerted on soldiers and civilians alike.“Intercepted” is at once subtle and blunt. It opens on three children — one on a swing — next to an otherwise empty country road that stretches down the middle of the shot. It’s an outwardly ordinary, pacific tableaux. There are chalk marks scrawled on the road, a couple of bikes resting on the grass and a woman lingering off to the side. The trees are lush and green, and there are no obvious signs of war. At one point, a car in the distance slowly crosses the road. Karpovych then cuts to a closer shot of the kids, which allows you to see their faces more fully; I think that she wants you to remember them as you watch.That first country street leads to many more. The movie starts in the north and moves south and then west, a route that Karpovych has explained in interviews is meant to suggest the trajectory of the invasion. Using a mixture of vivid, precisely framed moving and still images, she takes you across the war-ravaged country. You travel down dirt and paved roads, some flanked by incinerated military vehicles, and into heavily bombed villages and cities. She also recurrently brings you into people’s homes, including some that look like they were hastily abandoned. In one, a carton of eggs still rests on a kitchen table amid a jumble of crockery, suggestive of an unfinished breakfast. In another house, a woman sweeps up shattered glass.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Ukrainian Poet and Rock Star Fights Near Front and Performs Behind It

      by

      Serhiy Zhadan, 50, is a beloved Ukrainian poet as well as a novelist, lyricist and rock star. Furious over the invasion, he enlisted to fight even as his band still plays and his readings fill halls.When the Ukrainian army hit a crisis of recruitment earlier this year amid rising losses on the battlefield, one of the most popular cultural personalities in the country stepped up and enlisted.“At some point it became uncomfortable not to join up,” said Serhiy Zhadan, in an interview at a military base in July.A beloved poet, novelist, lyricist and rock star in Ukraine, Mr. Zhadan, 50, joined a local National Guard brigade in his home city of Kharkiv in May and started a two-month stint in boot camp. By summer he was serving in an engineering unit on the second line of defense.Many of his friends were already fighting, he said of his decision to enlist. “This feeling that someone is fighting for you, instead of you, while you are also able to join, was also important.”Although he said he did not intend to set an example, Mr. Zhadan’s decision to join the army resonated with many, across generations and with lovers of both his words and music.He can fill a sports hall or a Kyiv theater for poetry readings, as he did on occasions this summer, and his rock band was acclaimed for delivering the best set at the Atlas music festival, Ukraine’s largest, in July. Proceeds of his performances go toward buying medical supplies and other equipment for the soldiers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      As Ukraine War Goes On, Where Is Teodor Currentzis’s Red Line?

      by

      Teodor Currentzis, whose MusicAeterna receives funding from a Russian state bank, has eluded censure at the prestigious Salzburg Festival.When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the classical music world’s reaction was swift. Artists with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin, or those who had publicly supported his war efforts, were dropped by orchestras and opera houses across the West.One person who seemed to elude such punishment, though, was Teodor Currentzis, who is leading concerts and a production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria. More than two years into the war, his continued presence there is frustrating to many, raising uncomfortable questions about what is acceptable in service of music.Currentzis, who was born in Greece, was given Russian citizenship by Putin’s government in 2014, the year Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula. Two decades ago, he founded MusicAeterna, a small musical empire that started as an orchestra and now includes a choir and dance company in St. Petersburg.MusicAeterna doesn’t have any direct affiliation with Putin, but it came under scrutiny after the 2022 invasion because of support from the state-controlled VTB Bank (which has been penalized by the United States), as well as other government-related donors. Currentzis has been silent about the war, neither denouncing Russia nor supporting Ukraine.And he has lost some work as a result. Earlier this year, the Wiener Festwochen in Austria canceled an appearance by him and the German SWR Symphony Orchestra after fierce criticism from the Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv, who appeared at the same festival with Ukrainian musicians.Salzburg has stood by Currentzis but not by his Russian musicians. The “Don Giovanni” here is a revival of a production that originated in 2021, with him conducting. Then, the pit ensemble was MusicAeterna. Now it’s Utopia, the all-star group, in the spirit of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, that he started in 2022; pointedly, it is based in Western Europe.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Anna Netrebko, Shunned in U.S. Over Putin Support, to Sing in Palm Beach

      by

      The star soprano, who lost work at American opera companies after Russia invaded Ukraine, will sing at a gala for Palm Beach Opera, her first American engagement since 2019.Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the superstar soprano Anna Netrebko has been persona non grata at cultural institutions in the United States, shunned for her past support of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.But in February, Ms. Netrebko will make her first appearance in the United States since 2019: She will perform in Florida at a gala concert at the Breakers Palm Beach hotel to benefit Palm Beach Opera, the company announced on Wednesday.Ms. Netrebko, one of the biggest stars in classical music, has in recent months returned to many top concert halls and opera houses in Paris, Milan, Berlin and elsewhere in Europe, prompting some protests but also winning ovations and strong reviews.But most American institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, where she reigned as a prima donna for two decades, have continued to refuse to engage her because of her past support for Mr. Putin and her unwillingness to criticize him now. Her last performance in the United States was before the pandemic, when she headlined a gala New Year’s Eve performance at the Met Opera.In a statement, Ms. Netrebko said she was looking forward to singing in Florida.“I am honored to be lending my voice to the Palm Beach Opera’s annual gala,” she said. “I am excited to spend time in this beautiful community.”James Barbato, who leads the Palm Beach Opera, said in a statement that Ms. Netrebko was “more than a great artist with a magnetic stage presence and a voice of breathtaking beauty and power.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      France’s Army Is Singing for Ukraine

      by

      The Choir of the French Army will join the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Paris to show support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.When President Emmanuel Macron of France refused in February to rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine, he shattered a taboo and spooked his NATO allies. But five months later, his statement looks more like a provocation than a promise, and the idea of French boots on the ground seems a distant prospect.There are other ways, however, that France’s military can aid the Ukrainian cause.In a Paris church on Friday, 30 members of the Choir of the French Army will lend their voices to a free concert to honor Ukraine’s fighting spirit.“We are here on a mission,” said the conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson during a recent rehearsal for the concert, “a mission to support Ukraine, on the artistic and cultural front.”Then she led the singers of the all-male military choir, joined by 30 female members of a Ukrainian vocal ensemble, through a rendition of the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the famous “Ode to Joy.” The massed voices soared in the echoing space.At Friday’s concert, Wilson, a Canadian with Ukrainian roots, will conduct the singers alongside the 74-musician Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Saint-Eustache church. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the orchestra — some of whose members still live in the country at war — have been coming together each summer to perform across Europe, with Wilson conducting.The concert in Paris is the first stop on the orchestra’s third tour. The ensemble will perform with local choirs when it plays concerts in London, Poland and the United States, where it will perform in Washington and, on Aug. 1, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      As Ukraine Rebuilds Its Identity, Folk Songs Are the New Cool

      by

      At first sight, it looked like a typical party in a nightclub. It was mid-March in central Kyiv and a hundred or so people were wiggling on the dance floor of V’YAVA, one of the Ukrainian capital’s most popular live music venues. The hall was dark, lit only by bright blue and red spotlights. Bartenders were busy pouring gin and tonics.But the lineup that night, in a concert hall that typically hosts pop artists and rappers, was unexpected: four Ukrainian folk singers, filling the room with their high-pitched voices and polyphonic choruses, accompanied by a D.J. spinning techno beats — all to a cheering crowd.These days, Ukrainian folk music “is becoming something cool,” said Stepan Andrushchenko, one of the singers from Shchuka Ryba, the band onstage that night. “A very cool thing.”More than two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, folk music is enjoying a surge of popularity in the war-torn nation. Faced with Moscow’s efforts to erase Ukrainian culture, people have embraced traditional songs as a way to reconnect with their past and affirm their identity.“It’s like a defensive measure,” said Viktor Perfetsky, 22, who started traditional singing classes after the war broke out. “If we don’t know who we are, the Russians will come and force us to be what they want us to be.”Members of the Ukrainian band Shchuka Ryba rehearsing for an upcoming concert.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Peter Morgan Turns His Pen From ‘The Crown’ to the Kremlin

      by

      His new play “Patriots,” now on Broadway, follows Putin’s rise to power and the Russian oligarchs who mistakenly thought he’d be their puppet.Going from Princess Diana, a lovely icon who generated waves of sympathy, to Vladimir Putin, an icy villain who generates waves of disdain, might be difficult for some writers.Not Peter Morgan.After pulling back the curtain on the British royal family for six seasons of “The Crown,” Morgan was keen to move on. He had an idea for a play about the oligarchs who, in the 1990s, helped propel an obscure Putin to power and then had to watch as their Frankenstein changed the course of Russian history in a disastrous way.The resulting drama, “Patriots,” which opens on Broadway on April 22, offered Morgan a different way to approach recent history, and a new challenge: switching from the royals, who are household names but not ultimately very powerful, to oligarchs, who are super powerful but not generally household names.Morgan enjoys writing about the vilified, giving them a fighting chance. In “Patriots,” he creates a jigsaw of four Russian men, their fates intertwining in the post-Soviet era, who represent a Byzantine spectrum of moral values.“It’s just a delicious combination of characters,” Morgan, 60, told me, in an interview at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in Times Square. “There’s a sort of violence, whereas in ‘The Crown,’ there’s this politeness and there’s repression, and it’s very female. There’s something very male, very violent about this play. It felt like a natural thing to do, having spent so much time in the one world to go into another world just to relax a little.”Will Keen, left, as Vladimir Putin and Michael Stuhlbarg as Boris Berezovsky in “Patriots,” at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in Manhattan.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Mariinsky Dancers Barred From Youth Ballet Gala in New York

      by

      Two dancers from the Russian company were set to perform at a benefit for a prestigious competition for young dancers, but they were sidelined after protests by pro-Ukrainian activists.Two dancers from the Mariinsky Theater in Russia were barred from performing at a youth ballet gala in New York this week after their participation drew criticism from pro-Ukrainian officials and activists.The dancers had been set to take part in two performances, at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, that celebrate the 25th anniversary of Youth America Grand Prix, a prestigious ballet competition and scholarship program based in New York.But Youth America Grand Prix’s leaders removed the dancers from the program after critics said the organization was lending support to the Russian government by hosting the artists. The Mariinsky is a state-run theater in St. Petersburg led by the conductor Valery Gergiev, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.Youth America Grand Prix said in a statement that the decision “gives us great pain.” It said that in the hours before the first performance on Thursday, it had learned — along with Lincoln Center and others in the ballet world — of possible protests. After consulting with New York City Ballet, which operates the Koch Theater, it said that “it was agreed to cancel the performances of the scheduled Mariinsky Ballet dancers.”“Art should unite us, not divide us,” Larissa Saveliev, the founder of Youth America Grand Prix, said in a statement. “In a difficult period, ballet should be healing. This is terribly sad.”Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russian artists and institutions have come under intense scrutiny on the global stage. The Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Mariinsky have faced cancellations abroad and have lost prestigious partnerships. Some stars, including Gergiev, who also leads the Bolshoi, and the soprano Anna Netrebko, have been shunned in the West because of their ties to Mr. Putin.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More