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Resources for Understanding the War in Ukraine

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Resources for Understanding the War in Ukraine

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UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies

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War on Culture/War on Memory | Cultural Destruction in Ukraine Now

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DakhaBrakha Fund: 100% of funds allocated to organizations providing relief to civilians in Ukraine.

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DakhaBrakha Fund: 100% of funds allocated to organizations providing relief to civilians in Ukraine.

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As an expression of solidarity with the people of Ukraine, SFJAZZ presents a special free live broadcast of DakhaBrakha's March 14 performance in Miner Auditorium. Immediately following the live broadcast, DakhaBrakha's performance will be available on-demand through Friday, March 24.

Now through March 27, we encourage everyone to donate generously to the "DakhaBrakha Fund", where 100% of the proceeds go directly to the band, which will be reallocated to organizations aiding civilians in Ukraine.

Fridays Live (formerly Fridays at Five) was created to provide much needed support to musicians during the pandemic - raising over $600K for artists to date. With another crisis now affecting the lives of one of our artists, we hope this special broadcast can continue to unify and generate support in a time of need.

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As an expression of solidarity with the people of Ukraine, SFJAZZ presents a special free live broadcast of DakhaBrakha's March 14 performance in Miner Auditorium. Immediately following the live broadcast, DakhaBrakha's performance will be available on-demand through Friday, March 24.

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One week before the anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, about twenty young people gathered in a house in Kharkiv. It was an odd setting, both an anomaly and a function of this moment: a rare private house in the very center of town, owned by a prominent architect but currently inhabited by his twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter, Iryna Lapina, known to most people as Lapa-a term of endearment that means "paw." On this night, the house was the venue for a semi-regular event, a performance in a genre known as Playback Theatre. It involves a group of actors; a person referred to as the conductor, who directs the show in real time; and an audience. Members of the audience come forward to tell stories, which the actors, prompted by the conductor, reinterpret.

Two nights before, several Russian rockets had hit the city, damaging civilian infrastructure. Now, as the actors prepared in an adjacent room, applying glitter makeup to their cheekbones, audience members arranged themselves in the main room of the house. A dozen people crowded onto a couch, an armchair, and the floor. Lapa, who had just that day dyed her hair platinum blond with pink tips, sat on the kitchen counter, playing a guitar. A dildo lay on the gray slate floor near the stainless-steel stove. A few people grabbed pillows and went to sit on an open-riser staircase. Above the stairs, two pieces of plaster, each about three by twelve feet, hung precariously from the ceiling; two white pendant lights, still connected to the wiring above, hung down from each of them. The ceiling had been like this since March 1, 2022, when a Russian missile destroyed the regional administration building nearby. A small sign in a large gilded frame on an exposed-brick wall behind the audience said, in Russian, "This Will Not Last Forever."

The sign predated the war by about a year, but now its message referred to the war, as did its language. Kharkiv had long been a Russian-speaking city. Russia's first invasion, in 2014, made a dent in the dominance of Russian, along with a series of laws passed by the national government: signage is in Ukrainian now, and official city business is conducted in Ukrainian. Some people have switched to Ukrainian in their private lives. But much of the graffiti is still in Russian, as are most conversations. When the actors came out to introduce themselves, four out of five spoke Russian. By this time, someone had discreetly stowed away the dildo.

Kharkiv theatres closed at the start of the war; by the summer, the city's famous puppet theatre performed a show about wartime in Bucha. Lapa has been hosting these performances at her house for the past three months. The actors, all of them dressed in black, sat down on folding chairs, facing the audience to wait for stories. "My name is Sasha," the first speaker began. He had close-cropped blond hair and a sharp nose and, like the actors, was wearing a black hoodie. "For the past year, none of us have been stories in ourselves-all of us are absorbing other people's stories, many of them very painful," he said. He was struggling to put words to an experience familiar to anyone who has lived or visited Ukraine during the war. Stories of pain and loss, death and destruction, are everywhere, and, however bad one's story is, there is always a worse one. The conductor, a large man in a hot-pink hoodie with buzzed hair and a long, untrimmed beard, goes by the name Shabanov. He tried to coax a story out of Sasha.

"My story is that we are all sinking together," Sasha finally said.

"Are you sinking?" Shabanov asked.

"I am a buoy. I am holding everyone afloat."

Four of the actors stood up to enact Sasha's story. All of them were under thirty. Two of them were now living in Germany and were visiting family and friends in Kharkiv. The other two had stayed in Kharkiv through the worst of the shelling, and both had become involved with Playback Theatre in the past year. After a few moments of stillness, they interacted, entangling with one another. They moved slowly, tenderly, apparently trying to hold one another and hold one another up, but in the end their common motion brought them down to the floor.

The audience clapped loudly. Lapa's two puppies, Hanna and Pichie, barked in an upstairs room.

A man with a ponytail, wearing a red cowl-neck sweater and a green jacket, spoke next. "My story is about it being harder to change homes than to change people," he said. He'd lived in the same apartment for most of his life. A few years ago, he had moved-first abroad, then back to Kharkiv, but to a different apartment. When the war started, he felt he had to return to his old home. But he found that the connection to home that had always felt so secure was barely a trace, like a pencil drawing that had been erased. "I am living in a home with which I cannot have a connection, because I don't know what will happen tomorrow-what if I have to change homes again?" he asked.

As Lapa played guitar, an actor named Deniza danced. She appeared to be holding on to something, and then she was lost, she was flailing, she grabbed on to things that seemed like ropes but turned out to be just pieces of string, she held out her hands, waiting for something, she cautiously touched invisible surfaces, she balanced on one foot with her hands behind her back, then she was set in motion again, scrambling, searching, then back on one foot, but she kept losing her balance.

"I'm warning you, I may cry," a woman named Inna said, before starting her story. She had long, copper-colored, straight hair, and was wearing orange pants and a gray hoodie. Inna was a psychologist who had been working for an international relief organization since the beginning of the war. This work had felt more meaningful than anything that she had done before. Now her organization was wrapping up in Kharkiv, and Inna was grieving. The next storyteller, a tall, baby-faced man with dark, wavy hair, spoke of something similar. The war had awakened him, he said, turning a "provincial boy" into a driven, full-time relief worker. "I'm interested in everything and ready to do anything," he said.

The actors riffed on these stories, looking for ways to capture the sense that a war that had upended their lives had now become a way of life, that it gave life meaning and took it away, that the feeling that the war had receded was at once welcome and disappointing, and also, likely, misleading. At one point, the actors were interrupting one another, almost shouting their reassurances, all of them desperate and unconvincing.

An actor named Illia played an important role in this scene. He is twenty-six and writes grants for one of Kharkiv's many universities. His work now involved applying for relief funds. About two weeks earlier, a rocket had hit his university, destroying an entire wing. The strike came in the morning and no one was killed. Ukrainian authorities do not disclose the exact locations of Russian strikes, to avoid feeding information to the enemy, but, when Illia saw a photo of the damaged building on a local Telegram channel, he knew where the explosion he had heard in the wee hours had been. For a moment, he felt like he couldn't breathe.

A stocky woman with dark, curly hair and blue eyes, wearing a green hoodie and black jeans, had been giving Shabanov angry looks since the start of the evening. He finally called on her. Her name was Sasha. She herself had been a part of Playback performances, but hadn't been participating in recent weeks. "All I can think about is why everyone is speaking Russian," she said.

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War as Theatre, at a Private Home in Kharkiv

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One week before the anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, about twenty young people gathered in a house in Kharkiv. It was an odd setting, both an anomaly and a function of this moment: a rare private house in the very center of town, owned by a prominent architect but currently inhabited by his twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter, Iryna Lapina, known to most people as Lapa-a term of endearment that means "paw."

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Marta Trotsiuk has always loved Ukrainian contemporary art. Her personal collection brightens up her dim but warm living room in central Lviv, illuminated only by twinkling lights. Even when the power is on, energy conservation has become a way of life in Ukraine.

When the Russian invasion happened nearly a year ago, Trotsiuk recognized that Ukrainian art and culture - and her connections as president of the Ukrainian Gallerists Association - could be the weapons by which she contributed to the war effort.

She says the conflict in Ukraine has highlighted the importance of art and how it can help document history while offering insight into Ukraine's dynamic culture. Trotsiuk hopes art can also be used as a pressure point to help end the war.

It took only five days for her to assemble like-minded Ukrainian artists and art curators in a group she called Culture Against Aggression.

CBC News has been on the ground covering Russia's invasion of Ukraine from the start. What do you want to know about their experience there? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca. Our reporters will be taking your questions as the one-year anniversary approaches.

"We decided to enrol in this cultural diplomacy," Trotsiuk said. "We decided to communicate with our colleagues abroad and first ask them to impose cultural sanctions on the Russian Federation, and then to ask them to invite Ukrainians to talk on the international level through culture and art about the situation and about the truth that we have here."

She said the ask seemed simple enough, but it was initially met with a great deal of resistance.

"When the war started we saw that many of our colleagues abroad - in museums, cultural institutions - they wanted to do something," Trotsiuk said. "And they made a lot of mistakes."

She says they wanted to bring Ukrainians together with Russians and Belarusians to show unity and to show that art can be bigger than politics.

"It's impossible to have in one room representatives of those three countries. But our colleagues, they just didn't understand that," she said.

Sanctions aim to 'put pressure' on Russia

Trotsiuk has felt disappointed that some of the most famous and visible Russian personalities in the cultural sphere have failed to speak out against the violence their government is perpetrating. She said international institutions then giving them the spotlight is unacceptable, and that barring individuals from their respective fields may put pressure on them to change their approach.

This week, the latest ask by Ukraine on the cultural sanctions front has been for Russian athletes to be excluded from the 2024 Summer Olympics to be held in Paris, a request being supported by a lengthening list of countries from around the world, excluding Canada.

"For the whole Ukrainian sports community, this is a question of principle," said Ukraine's sports minister Vadym Guttsait.

Trotsiuk said it's not hard to find examples to explain why Ukrainians and Russians standing next to one another on a stage can feel impossible. She points to a vivid painting on her wall, set in dramatic shades of pink. It was made by local artist Zirka Savka before the invasion.

"Her husband, from the second day of the war, he went as a volunteer to the army. He's also an artist and he exchanged his paint brush for a machine gun," Trotsiuk said.

She said Savka travelled to Taiwan late in 2022 with Trotsiuk, to showcase Ukrainian culture and the way of life that Ukrainian soldiers are fighting to save. All the while, she was worried about if her husband would live to see tomorrow. Trotsiuk said the idea that anyone would ask this artist or any Ukrainian to then share a stage with a Russian is unthinkable.

"And her art, it's changed also because of the war," Trotsiuk said.

Scrolling through Savka's Instagram account, the brilliant pinks and purples are no more, swapped out now for reds, blacks and oranges. The images have a much more visceral, graphic or violent feel to them now.

WATCH | Destroyed vehicles being used as artists' canvases in Ukraine

The shifting of art in all its forms will document the timeline of this conflict, of this dark chapter in Ukrainian history. The Ukrainian government has invested in a number of programs to capitalize on the country's rich resource of artists.

One such program is the Metahistory Museum, which is publishing a work of art every day of the war to document the conflict's progression from an artist's point of view. Those digital images are then sold as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to raise funds for Ukrainian cultural institutions, many of which have been targeted by Russian bombs.

For Alice Zhuravel, this project was a welcome opportunity to step back into the art world. Zhuravel had been trying to make a name for herself as an artist but last February, she felt so pressed by the urgency to help her country, she instead moved into the humanitarian aid sector, where she documents the experiences of Black Ukrainians and Ukrainians with diverse backgrounds.

"With the humanitarian work, you can see your results in the same day," Zhuravel said. Initially, that's what she needed, but a year in, she is eager to return to art in a public way. She has, all along, done it as a manner of reflection and self-care, and hopes to find more time and space for her art moving forward.

"Art, for me, is a very important field in the long-term, the best for social change and for the building up of positive culture," she said.

The work she submitted to The Metahistory Museum was a digital 3D piece meant to document the tragedy in the destruction of Ukrainian land.

"They destroyed for many years our harvest," Zhuravel said. "This harvest of grain and sunflowers, for example."

But, in the autumn of 2022, I created an artwork for significant and inspiring NFT project <a href="https://twitter.com/Meta_History_UA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Meta_History_UA</a>!<br>MetaHistory NFT museum is created to commemorate the history of the current events in Ukraine, preserve the truth, and collect donations for humanitarian aid.<br>5/ <a href="https://t.co/9DI8SkQmqd">pic.twitter.com/9DI8SkQmqd</a>
&mdash; @AliceZhuravel

The Metahistory Museum has raised more than $1.3 million so far.

This year, Ukrainian governments and citizens are engaging in broad conversations about how to remove Russian cultural influences from all realms of Ukrainian life - the derussification of the country - from street names to the debate about removing Russian poet and playwright Alexander Pushkin's name from the theatre in Kharkiv. Conversely, Ukrainians are trying to reclaim other famous artists they say had been previously identified as Soviet, or Russian.

"It's complicated because all the time Ukraine was suffering, we couldn't get our full independence for a long time," Trotsiuk said. "But our culture was, all that time, with us and identity also. [And it is time] to reclaim our art, reclaim our artists."
CBC News has been on the ground covering Russia's invasion of Ukraine from the start. What do you want to know about their experience there? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca. Our reporters will be taking your questions as the one-year anniversary approaches.

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Ukrainian art and culture being used to document history, heal and fight back | CBC News

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Marta Trotsiuk has always loved Ukrainian contemporary art. Her personal collection brightens up her dim but warm living room in central Lviv, illuminated only by twinkling lights. Even when the power is on, energy conservation has become a way of life in Ukraine.

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Winter Is Coming. How Is the Art World Supporting Ukraine?

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Recent efforts to assist Ukraine include a cross-border arts assembly, a building-sized projection in Chicago, and a $1 million donation from the Getty Trust.

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The Ukrainian people and their supporters worldwide are working to preserve Ukraine's culture and to document the damage Russia's military has caused.

For its part, the U.S. Department of State announced February 23 that its Ukraine Cultural Heritage Response Initiative will invest $7 million to support Ukrainian efforts to protect Ukraine's cultural heritage.

Working with experts in Ukraine and international partners, the funds will help:

Document damaged sites and collections.

Protect works and sites from damage and theft.

Stabilize damaged sites.

Provide specialized training.

Ukraine's Ministry of Culture reports that Russia's forces have damaged more than 550 sites and objects important to Ukraine's history and cultural identity.

Since the start of the Kremlin's full-scale invasion last February, Russia's forces have looted paintings, icons and sculptures from several museums. A December 2022 report from the Conflict Observatory, an independent research initiative supported by the U.S. government, used satellite imagery to document the looting in Kherson. By one count, occupiers stole 15,000 paintings from the Oleksii Shovkunenko Art Museum in Kherson.

The Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv has published online "Postcards from Ukraine," a series featuring photos and historical sketches of cultural facilities to record and demonstrate the damage Vladimir Putin's invasion has caused to Ukrainian culture.

"Destroying our culture is the purpose of everything the Russians are doing," said Marjana Varchuk, communications director at the Khanenko Museum, in 2022. "That's why the Russians are shelling our monuments, our museums, and our history."

Global efforts underway

While Ukrainians act to protect their cultural heritage, private and public organizations in the United States and around the world have also rallied to this cause.

Among initiatives to protect Ukraine's culture:

PEN America, a nonprofit in New York, created a $2.2 million fund to aid visual artists in Ukraine.

The J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles pledged $1 million to preserve museums, libraries and archives.

Google created a digital archive, Ukraine Is Here, showcasing more than 1,800 artifacts, 40 curated exhibitions with audio, 100 street views and several virtual immersive galleries.

The World Monuments Fund, a nonprofit organization based in New York, launched an initiative to preserve vulnerable sites.

The European Commission is providing 5 million Euros to national culture organizations and Ukrainian artists outside their country.

The international alliance for the protection of heritage in conflict areas, ALIPH, in Switzerland has invested nearly $4 million to support over 260 cultural organizations preserving Ukrainian culture.

Since 2001, the United States has provided $1.7 million to support 18 cultural preservation projects in Ukraine through the State Department's Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. Some examples include helping to restore the Old Academic Building in Kyiv and the Lviv Historical Museum.

Reflecting on how Russia's attacks on culture have galvanized Ukrainians' spirit and global solidarity, Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych said, "It's quite ironic that each attempt Russia has made to destroy Ukrainian culture has had the opposite effect."

Invaluable items at risk

The International Council of Museums published a "red list" of 53 invaluable cultural objects in Ukraine that are at risk of being stolen, looted or traded illegally. The council hopes that by publishing the list, it will discourage individuals and collectors from taking items without researching their origins.

Categories of cultural heritage on the list include:

Rare books or manuscripts dating back to the 13th century.

Icons in wood or canvas of religious imagery.

Paintings or drawings from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Textiles and folk costumes.

On the one-year mark of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, "Putin's first objective was to erase Ukraine from the map, to erase its identity, to absorb it into Russia. That has failed and will never succeed."

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Defending Ukraine's art and culture from destruction

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The Ukrainian people and their supporters worldwide are working to preserve Ukraine's culture and to document the damage Russia's military has caused. For its part, the U.S. Department of State announced February 23 that its Ukraine Cultural Heritage Response Initiative will invest $7 million to support Ukrainian efforts to protect Ukraine's cultural heritage.

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Gogol Bordello is going on tour to spread the message of freedom for Ukraine. Every show of the upcoming "Solidaritine" tour will be dedicated to the brave Ukrainian defenders, and a significant portion of proceeds will go to Ukraine's battle for democracy. We will also partner with human rights organizations providing relief in Ukraine throughout the tour. Come stand in solidarity with us.

Amigo the Devil will join us for most dates. Check local venue listings for more info. Presale tickets will be available starting Wed, March 9 at 12pm ET: https://gogolbordello.shop.ticketstoday.com
SOLIDARITINE TOUR
May 04 - Boston, MA
May 05 - New Haven, CT
May 06 - Jersey City, NJ
May 07 - Washington, DC
May 09 - Charlottesville, VA
May 10 - Asheville, NC
May 11 - Raleigh, NC
May 13 - Atlanta, GA
May 14 - St. Petersburg, FL
May 15 - Orlando, FL
May 16 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL
May 18 - Birmingham, AL
May 19 - New Orleans, LA
May 20 - Chattanooga, TN
May 21 - Nashville, TN

Tickets on sale Fri, March 11 at 10am (local venue time) at gogolbordello.com.

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Gogol Bordello is going on tour to spread the message of freedom for Ukraine. Every show of the upcoming "Solidaritine" tour will be dedicated to the brave Ukrainian defenders, and a significant portion of proceeds will go to Ukraine's battle for democracy. We will also partner with human rights organizations providing relief in Ukraine throughout the tour.

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Yale CELI List of Companies

Updated By: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Yale Research Team: Wiktor Babinski, Ricardo Barcelo, Yash Bhansali, Forrest Michael Bomann, Michal Boron, Katie Burke, Adriana Coleska, Samuel Choi, Drew D'Alelio, Kevin Grold, Hunter Harmon, Georgia Hirsty, Daniel Jensen, Mateusz Kasprowicz, Cate Littlefield, Maksimas Milta, Rémi Moët-Buonaparte, Christophe Navarre, Marina Negroponte, Camillo Padulli, Jeremy Perkins, Magdalena Rego, Nick Shcherban, Franek Sokolowski, Steven Tian, Ryan Vakil, Michal Wyrebkowski, Israel Yolou, and Steven Zaslavsky.

Last Updated: September 6, 2022

How We Do It: We have a team of experts with backgrounds in financial analysis, economics, accounting, strategy, governance, geopolitics, and Eurasian affairs with collective fluency in ten languages including Russian, Ukrainian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Polish and English, compiling this unique dataset using both public sources such as government regulatory filings, tax documents, company statements, financial analyst reports, Bloomberg, FactSet, MSCI, S&P Capital IQ, Thomson Reuters and business media from 166 countries; as well as non-public sources, including a global wiki-style network of 250+ company insiders, whistleblowers and executive contacts.

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Over 1,000 Companies Have Curtailed Operations in Russia-But Some Remain

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Yale CELI List of Companies Updated By: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Yale Research Team: Wiktor Babinski, Ricardo Barcelo, Yash Bhansali, Forrest Michael Bomann, Michal Boron, Katie Burke, Adriana Coleska, Samuel Choi, Drew D'Alelio, Kevin Grold, Hunter Harmon, Georgia Hirsty, Daniel Jensen, Mateusz Kasprowicz, Cate Littlefield, Maksimas Milta, Rémi Moët-Buonaparte, Christophe Navarre, Marina Negroponte, Camillo Padulli, Jeremy Perkins, Magdalena Rego, Nick Shcherban, Franek Sokolowski, Steven Tian, Ryan Vakil, Michal Wyrebkowski, Israel Yolou, and Steven Zaslavsky.

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What can you do?

1. 1

Put pressure on companies to #BoycottRussia by tagging them on social media, participating in protests, publicly boycotting their products and asking them to immediately cut all ties with russia.

2. 2

Reach out to CEOs and companies' stakeholders and ask them to #BoycottRussia. Businesses that continue to do business with Russia during this war will suffer withdrawals from investors who increasingly look to invest in companies with strong ESG commitments.

3. 3

Demand more sanctions: Every day, the US, UK and EU buy more than $800m of oil, gas and other goods from russia, financing Putin's war. The US, UK and EU must immediately impose more sanctions to stop this war.

Why pull out of Russia?

Apple, McDonald's, Netflix and Ford. PayPal and Mastercard. LVMH, Hermès, and over 350 more companies have announced their withdrawal from russia. To the world, doing business with russia means supporting a terrorist country. Businesses who continue to operate in russia will suffer long-lasting reputational damage that will affect their attractiveness to customers, partners and talent. Don't support terrorism. Boycott russia. Boycott putin's regime.

1. doing business

2. Paying Taxes & supporting THE economy

3. funding the war MAchine

Companies list

While we thank those companies that have decided to stand on the right side of history and have already taken decisive action to cut ties with the terrorist country, we call on those which continue to trade with russia to follow their example.

list of shame

Companies that continue operating in russia

Samsung has said it will suspend shipments to russia but continues to operate in russia.

Liebherr continues its operations in Russia.

Citigroup (CitiBank) said it is no longer taking on new clients and will further cut its exposure, but continues to operate in russia.

Legrand continues its operations in Russia.

Nestle said that it has suspended all capital investment in russia and halted all advertising.

Globus continues its operations in russia.

Hyundai and Kia, the largest suppliers and manufacturers of cars in russia continue operating in the market.

Mondi group reportedly reversed their decision to withdraw.

New Holland Agriculture hasn't made any statements in regard to stopping their operations in russia.

Raiffeisen Bank continues its operations in Russia. Many companies are now moving to this bank from European banks that came under sanctions.

Claas hasn't made any statements in regard to stopping their operations in russia.

Schlumberger said it suspended investment and technology deployment to its russia operations.

Yves Rocher continues to operate in russia.

Sanofi continues to operate in russia.

Pfizer has halted its investments in russia but still supplies medicines.

list of boycotts

Companies that stopped doing business with russia

Danone announced that it will divest its dairy food business in russia.

Apple has left russia and its products will no longer be available in Apple shops once the existing stock is depleted.

Dell ceased all russian operations after August offices closure.

Waters Corp has left russia.

SEGA has suspended sales in russia.

OMV said that it will not pursue future investments in russia and has pulled the plug on its planned $1 billion acquisition of a quarter interest in russia's Achimov 4A/5A project in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Nike Inc said it would temporarily close all its stores in russia.

Netflix said that it was leaving russia and that it will cut off all users when billing periods ends.

Visa and Mastercard announced it is suspending its russia operations and ceasing all transactions in the country.

Société Générale ceases its activities in russia and signs an agreement to sell Rosbank and its russian insurance subsidiaries.

Slack has said that it has blocked access to Slackand disabled the accounts of sanctioned russia-related entities and individuals.

Shell announced that it will stop buying russian oil and gas.

Pandora suspended all business with russia and Belarus.

PayPal said it will no longer accept new users in russia and will support withdrawls for another period of time before all services end.

PwC stated that it should not have a member firm in russia and that consequently PwC russia will leave the Network

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Put pressure on companies to #BoycottRussia by tagging them on social media, participating in protests, publicly boycotting their products and asking them to immediately cut all ties with russia. Reach out to CEOs and companies' stakeholders and ask them to #BoycottRussia.

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More than 550 international companies, many from Europe, are still doing business in Russia to a lesser or greater extent, defying public pressure to pull out of the country following the invasion of Ukraine, according to a new report by Yale University.

Out of these, 223 companies are considered to be operating "business as usual," including prominent firms from Italy (Boggi, Benetton, Calzedonia), France (Clarins, Etam, Lacoste), Germany (Siemens Healthineers, B. Braun), and the Netherlands (Philips).

The "business as usual" list also features some well-known American firms, like Tom Ford, Tupperware and TGI Friday's, as well as numerous Chinese enterprises, like Alibaba, Tencent and ZTE, and air passenger carries, like Emirates Airlines, Egyptair, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines

The numbers are compiled and regularly updated by an expert team from Yale University, which has been tracking corporate announcements since the war broke out in February 2022.

In total, the Yale database features 1,389 companies from all over the world, split into five categories:

Digging in: 223 companies that are still doing "business as usual," including the aforementioned firms.

Buying time: 162 companies that have postponed future operations but continue doing "substantive business" in Russia.

Scaling back: 170 companies that have scaled back some "significant" operations but continue others.

Suspension: 493 companies that have temporarily curtailed "most or neatly all" operations in Russia but maintain the option of earning residual financial returns.

Clean break: 341 companies that have "totally" halted engagements in Russia.

Put together, the three worst-performing categories - digging in, buying time and scaling back - add up to 555 companies, making up almost 40% of the database.

Among the companies still "buying time," there are multiple renowned firms from both the EU and the G7, such as AstraZeneca (UK), Barilla (Italy), Bayer (Germany), BlaBlaCar (France).

Engie (France), Giorgio Armani (Italy), ING Bank (the Netherlands), Merck (Germany), Nestle (Switzerland), Red Bull (Austria), Total Energies (France), Unilever (UK) and Yves Rocher (France) are some of the European companies also included in that category.

The ones who are in process of "scaling back" features easily recognisable names like Adobe (US), Allianz (Germany), Google's parent company Alphabet (US), Bosch (Germany), Coca-Cola (US), Duolingo (US), Eni (Italy), Ferrero (Italy), JPMorgan (US), Microsoft (US), Ørsted (Denmark), Pirelli (Italy), Spotify (Sweden), Toyota (Japan) and Vattenfall (Sweden).

It's unclear how much money these companies are making through their Russian operations, given the country's economic slowdown and the trade disruption caused by Western sanctions.

However, their continued presence in Russia appears to undermine the political unity of Western countries, who have for months been trying to slash revenues that can bankroll the Kremlin's war machine.

"Our sanctions per se do not oblige companies to leave Russia, many decided to go on their own," a European Commission spokesperson told Euronews, in response to the Yale findings.

"Those who are staying are not necessarily violating the EU sanctions - as long as they do not engage in sectors or with entities which are under sanctions."

According to the Yale team, 493 international firms remain in the limbo of "suspension," which means they have halted or blocked the majority of commercial activities, sales, shipments, flights, bookings, financial transactions and other services in relation to Russia, but without completing severing ties with the country.

Among the 341 companies that have totally pulled out of Russia, we can find Accenture (Ireland), Aldi (Germany), Asda (UK), Deloitte (US), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Equinor (Norway), Heineken (the Netherlands), IBM (US), Ikea (Sweden), Lufthansa (Germany), McDonald's (US), Mercedes-Benz (Germany), Netflix (US), Nike (US), Nissan (Japan), Nokia (Finland), Renault (France) and Vodafone (UK).

This group also features Eurovision and various sports organisations that have banned Russian nationals from participating in their competitions.

Yale updates the database by analysing a variety of sources of information, such as government regulatory filings, tax documents, company statements and media reports, as well as a network of company insiders and whistle-blowers.

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More than 550 firms still do business in Russia. Many are from the EU

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More than 550 international companies, many from Europe, are still doing business in Russia to a lesser or greater extent, defying public pressure to pull out of the country following the invasion of Ukraine, according to a new report by Yale University.

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LeaveRussia: The List Of International Companies That Continue To Do Business In Russia

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Please consider supporting Ukraine by donating directly to The Ukrainian Culture Center Foundation, Inc., our 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, at http://ukrainianculturecenterla.com/support/. All donations are currently being used for humanitarian and other aid to Ukraine (including to third party organizations providing and shipping such aid).

The following organizations are also accepting donations for Ukraine:

Ukrainian Catholic University Foundation: A fund established by Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv supporting humanitarian aid and emergency relief efforts at the University. https://ucufoundation.org/donate

This list is provided for informational purposes only. The Ukrainian Culture Center of Los Angeles is not affiliated in any way with any of the above groups and has no additional information as to their use of donated funds. Please use your own diligence and judgment in donating to any of the groups above.
Host or Sponsor Displaced Persons from Ukraine
Please consider hosting or becoming a sponsor of displaced persons from Ukraine. If you are interested in doing so, please visit Ukraine Take Shelter at UkraineTakeShelter.com or Welcome.US at https://ukraine.welcome.us/. Note: UkraineTakeShelter.com and Welcome.US are 3rd party sites not affiliated with the Ukrainian Culture Center of Los Angeles.
Physician Services
If you are a physician and would like to offer pro bono medical services to refugees fleeing Ukraine and arriving in the Los Angeles area, please fill out the form located at https://forms.gle/qsVKTkiRnqNViPeX7. The details that you provide will be posted on our website for informational purposes only. Refugees and/or their sponsors or hosts may contact you directly to seek medical assistance. Please note that the Ukrainian Culture Center does not vet any potential patients, their medical conditions and/or their status as refugees.
Volunteer to Help
For volunteer opportunities in Los Angeles, visit our page Community Aid Organizations.
Justice for Ukraine Petition
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently investigating the war crimes committed as a result of the attack. The ICC is not, however, able to investigate the crime of aggression unless it is referred by the United Nations Security Council. Russia, as a member of the UN, has veto rights to this, which it would, of course, exercise immediately. Sign this petition to calling for an international tribunal to try President Putin for the crime of aggression. By signing, you will help ensure that all those involved in the terrible crimes against Ukraine are brought to justice.
https://justice-for-ukraine.com/
Contact the White House and our Congressmen
Call the White House at (202) 456-1111 (or write a message at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/) as well as our Senators from California and demand/include more assistance for Ukraine and continued sanctions against Russia.

Dianne Feinstein: (202) 224-3841
Alex Padilla: (202) 224-3553

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Please consider supporting Ukraine by donating directly to The Ukrainian Culture Center Foundation, Inc., our 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, at http://ukrainianculturecenterla.com/support/. All donations are currently being used for humanitarian and other aid to Ukraine (including to third party organizations providing and shipping such aid).

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As Russia pursues its relentless attack on Ukraine, with tragic consequences for tens of millions of people globally, CERS is launching a fundraising program intended to support Ukrainian students at UCLA and scholars displaced or at risk as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.

As Russia pursues its relentless attack on Ukraine, with tragic consequences for tens of millions of people globally, CERS is launching a fundraising program intended to support Ukrainian students at UCLA and scholars displaced or at risk as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. These efforts form part of an emerging response at CERS and the International Institute that includes scholarly forums and cross-center and cross-disciplinary initiatives concerning current crises across diverse regions.

Our first priority is to secure funding that would provide stipends for UCLA students whose financial situation and travel plans have been directly affected by the conflict. There are currently 17 students from Ukraine enrolled in UCLA programs. As many of them will likely need to extend their stay beyond the end of the current academic year, into the summer months and possibly longer, our support will help alleviate some of their immediate and medium-term financial concerns, allowing them to continue their studies.

We also seek funding that would allow us to host one or more visiting scholars at UCLA in the next academic year, working in conjunction with other UCLA departments and with national organizations such as Scholars at Risk. Scholars impacted by the conflict would be able to pursue their academic projects and activities at UCLA, while their expertise would greatly contribute to diversifying the university's curriculum, enhancing our center's programming, and deepening our students' understanding of a conflict with major geopolitical and humanitarian implications.

Your contributions will provide crucial support for students and scholars at the time of their greatest need. Thank you!

ONLINE DONATIONS
To make a donation online, please visit our dedicated Ukraine Fund donation page: http://giving.ucla.edu/Ukraine

CHECK DONATIONS

Please make your check payable to the UCLA Foundation, specify "Ukraine Fund" in the memo line, and mail to:

UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies
11367 Bunche Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1446

UKRAINE INITIATIVES AT UCLA

CERS in partnership with other UCLA departments is disseminating information about UCLA initiatives designed to support UCLA students and provide visiting positions at UCLA for scholars directly affected by the war in Ukraine. For more information, visit the Ukraine Initiatives at UCLA page.

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Call for Donations: Ukraine Fund for Students and Scholars at Risk

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As Russia pursues its relentless attack on Ukraine, with tragic consequences for tens of millions of people globally, CERS is launching a fundraising program intended to support Ukrainian students at UCLA and scholars displaced or at risk as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.

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By Tatyana Meshcheryakova One of Nova Ukraine's ongoing medical initiatives is making organized, professional tac med training available for civilians. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear that even people who...

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Your donation will provide emergency relief and help grow our efforts in assisting Ukrainians with humanitarian aid during this war.

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Russia's massive assault on an independent Ukraine menaces not only Eastern Europe, but the human effort, since World War II, to build global peace through the international rule of law. USIP provides analysis and support for policies that can help sustain the democracy, dialogue and diplomacy that will be required to ultimately defeat this threat.

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A Year of the War in Ukraine | The New Yorker Radio Hour | WNYC Studios

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David Remnick talks with the historian Stephen Kotkin and the Kyiv-based journalist Sevgil Musaieva about a year of disaster, and what a Ukrainian victory would look like.

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A year ago, in January, I went to Moscow to learn what I could about the coming war-chiefly, whether it would happen. I spoke with journalists and think tankers and people who seemed to know what the authorities were up to. I walked around Moscow and did some shopping. I stayed with my aunt near the botanical garden. Fresh white snow lay on the ground, and little kids walked with their moms to go sledding. Everyone was certain that there would be no war.

I had immigrated to the U.S. as a child, in the early eighties. Since the mid-nineties, I'd been coming back to Moscow about once a year. During that time, the city kept getting nicer, and the political situation kept getting worse. It was as if, in Russia, more prosperity meant less freedom. In the nineteen-nineties, Moscow was chaotic, crowded, dirty, and poor, but you could buy half a dozen newspapers on every corner that would denounce the war in Chechnya and call on Boris Yeltsin to resign. Nothing was holy, and everything was permitted. Twenty-five years later, Moscow was clean, tidy, and rich; you could get fresh pastries on every corner. You could also get prosecuted for something you said on Facebook. One of my friends had recently spent ten days in jail for protesting new construction in his neighborhood. He said that he met a lot of interesting people.

The material prosperity seemed to point away from war; the political repression, toward it. Outside of Moscow, things were less comfortable, and outside of Russia the Kremlin had in recent years become more aggressive. It had annexed Crimea, supported an insurgency in eastern Ukraine, propped up the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, interfered in the U.S. Presidential election. But internally the situation was stagnant: the same people in charge, the same rhetoric about the West, the same ideological mishmash of Soviet nostalgia, Russian Orthodoxy, and conspicuous consumption. In 2021, Vladimir Putin had changed the constitution so that he could stay in power, if he wanted, until 2036. The comparison people made most often was to the Brezhnev years-what Leonid Brezhnev himself had called the era of "developed socialism." This was the era of developed Putinism. Most people did not expect any sudden moves.

My friends in Moscow were doing their best to wrap their minds around the contradictions. Alexander Baunov, a journalist and political analyst, was then at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank. We met in his cozy apartment, overlooking a typical Moscow courtyard-a small copse of trees and parked cars, all covered lovingly in a fresh layer of snow. Baunov thought that a war was possible. There was a growing sense among the Russian élite that the results of the Cold War needed to be revisited. The West continued to treat Russia as if it had lost-expanding NATO to its borders and dealing with Russia, in the context of things like E.U. expansion, as being no more important or powerful than the Baltic states or Ukraine-but it was the Soviet Union that had lost, not Russia. Putin, in particular, felt unfairly treated. "Gorbachev lost the Cold War," Baunov said. "Maybe Yeltsin lost the Cold War. But not Putin. Putin has only ever won. He won in Chechnya, he won in Georgia, he won in Syria. So why does he continue to be treated like a loser?" Barack Obama referred to his country as a mere "regional power"; despite hosting a fabulous Olympics, Russia was sanctioned in 2014 for invading Ukraine, and sanctioned again, a few years later, for interfering in the U.S. Presidential elections. It was the sort of thing that the United States got away with all the time. But Russia got punished. It was insulting.

At the same time, Baunov thought that an actual war seemed unlikely. Ukraine was not only supposedly an organic part of Russia, it was also a key element of the Russian state's mythology around the Second World War. The regime had invested so much energy into commemorating the victory over fascism; to turn around and then bomb Kyiv and Kharkiv, just as the fascists had once done, would stretch the borders of irony too far. And Putin, for all his bluster, was actually pretty cautious. He never started a fight he wasn't sure he could win. Initiating a war with a NATO-backed Ukraine could be dangerous; it could lead to unpredictable consequences. It could lead to instability, and stability was the one thing that Putin had delivered to Russians over the past twenty years.

For liberals, it was increasingly a period of accommodation and consolidation. Another friend, whom I'll call Kolya, had left his job writing life-style pieces for an independent Web site a few years earlier, as the Kremlin's media policy grew increasingly meddlesome. Kolya accepted an offer to write pieces on social themes for a government outlet. This was far better, and clearer: he knew what topics to stay away from, and the pay was good.

I visited Kolya at his place near Patriarch's Ponds. He had married into a family that had once been part of the Soviet nomenklatura, and he and his wife had inherited an apartment in a handsome nineteen-sixties Party building in the city center. From Kolya's balcony you could see Brezhnev's old apartment. You could tell it was Brezhnev's because the windows were bigger than the surrounding ones. As for Kolya's apartment, it was smaller than other apartments in his building. The reason was that the apartment next to his had once belonged to a Soviet war hero, and the war hero, of course, needed the building's largest apartment, so his had been expanded, long ago, at the expense of Kolya's. Still, it was a very nice apartment, with enormously high ceilings and lots of light.

Kolya was closely following the situation around Alexey Navalny, who had returned to Russia and been imprisoned a year before. Navalny was slowly being tortured to death in prison, and yet his team of investigators and activists continued to publish exposés of Russian officials' corruption. There was still some real journalistic work being done in Russia, though a number of outlets, such as the news site Meduza, were primarily operating from abroad. Kolya said that he worried about outright censorship, but also about self-censorship. He told me about journalists who had left the field. One had gone to work in communications for a large bank. Another was now working on elections-"and not in a good way." The noose was tightening, and yet no one thought there'd be a war.

What is one to make, in retrospect, of what happened to Russia between December, 1991, when its President, Boris Yeltsin, signed an agreement with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus to disband the U.S.S.R., and February 24, 2022, when Yeltsin's hand-picked successor, Vladimir Putin, ordered his troops, some of whom were stationed in Belarus, to invade Ukraine from the east, the south, and the north? There are many competing explanations. Some say that the economic and political reforms which were promised in the nineteen-nineties never actually happened; others that they happened too quickly. Some say that Russia was not prepared for democracy; others that the West was not prepared for a democratic Russia. Some say that it was all Putin's fault, for destroying independent political life; others that it was Yeltsin's, for failing to take advantage of Russia's brief period of freedom; still others say that it was Mikhail Gorbachev's, for so carelessly and naïvely destroying the U.S.S.R.

When Gorbachev began dismantling the empire, one of his most resonant phrases had been "We can't go on living like this." By "this" he meant poverty, and violence, and lies. Gorbachev also spoke of trying to build a "normal, modern country"-a country that did not invade its neighbors (as the U.S.S.R. had done to Afghanistan), or spend massive amounts of its budget on the military, but instead engaged in trade and tried to let people lead their lives. A few years later, Yeltsin used the same language of normality and meant, roughly, the same thing.

The question of whether Russia ever became a "normal" country has been hotly debated in political science. A famous 2004 article in Foreign Affairs, by the economist Andrei Shleifer and the political scientist Daniel Treisman, was called, simply, "A Normal Country." Writing during an ebb in American interest in Russia, as Putin was consolidating his control of the country but before he started acting more aggressively toward his neighbors, Shleifer and Treisman argued that what looked like Russia's poor performance as a democracy was just about average for a country with its level of income and development. For some time after 2004, there was reason to think that rising living standards, travel, and iPhones would do the work that lectures from Western politicians had failed to do-that modernity itself would make Russia a place where people went about their business and raised their families, and the government did not send them to die for no good reason on foreign soil.

That is not what happened. The oil and gas boom of the last two decades created for many Russians a level of prosperity that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times. Despite this, the violence and the lies persisted.

Alexander Baunov calls what happened in February of last year a putsch-the capture of the state by a clique bent on its own imperial projects and survival. "Just because the people carrying it out are the ones in power, does not make it less of a putsch," Baunov told me recently. "There was no demand for this in Russian society." Many Russians have, perhaps, accepted the war; they have sent their sons and husbands to die in it; but it was not anything that people were clamoring for. The capture of Crimea had been celebrated, but no one except the most marginal nationalists was calling for something similar to happen to Kherson or Zaporizhzhia, or even really the Donbas. As Volodymyr Zelensky said in his address to the Russian people on the eve of the war, Donetsk and Luhansk to most Russians were just words. Whereas for Ukrainians, he added, "this is our land. This is our history." It was their home.

About half of the people I met with in Moscow last January are no longer there-one is in France, another in Latvia, my aunt is in Tel Aviv. My friend Kolya, whose apartment is across from Brezhnev's, has remained in Moscow. He does not know English, he and his wife have a little kid and two elderly parents between them, and it's just not clear what they would do abroad. Kolya says that, insofar as he's able, he has stopped talking to people at work: "They are decent people on the whole but it's not a situation anymore where it's possible to talk in half-tones." No one has asked him to write about or in support of the war, and his superiors have even said that if he gets mobilized they will try to get him out of it.

When we met last January, Alexander Baunov did not think that he would leave Russia, even if things got worse. "Social capital does not cross borders," Baunov said. "And that's the only capital we have." But, just a few days after the war began, Baunov and his partner packed some bags and some books and flew to Dubai, then Belgrade, then Vienna, where Baunov had a fellowship. They have been flitting around the world, in a precarious visa situation, ever since. (A book that Baunov has been working on for several years, about twentieth-century dictatorships in Portugal, Spain, and Greece, came out last month; it is called "The End of the Regime.")

I asked him why it was possible for him to live in Russia before the invasion, and why it was impossible to do so after it. He admitted that from afar it could look like a distinction without a difference. "If you're in the Western information space and have been reading for twenty years about how Putin is a dictator, maybe it makes no sense," Baunov said. "But from inside the difference was very clear." Putin had been running a particular kind of dictatorship-a relatively restrained one. There were certain topics that you needed to stay away from and names you couldn't mention, and, if you really threw down the gauntlet, the regime might well try to kill you. But for most people life was tolerable. You could color inside the lines, urge reforms and wiser governance, and hope for better days. After the invasion, that was no longer possible. The government passed laws threatening up to fifteen years' imprisonment for speech that was deemed defamatory to the armed forces; the use of the word "war" instead of "special military operation" fell under this category. The remaining independent outlets-most notably the radio station Ekho Moskvy and the newspaper Novaya Gazeta-were forced to suspend operations. That happened quickly, in the first weeks of the war, and since then the restrictions have only increased; Carnegie Moscow Center, which had been operating in Russia since 1994, was forced to close in April.

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Russia, One Year After the Invasion of Ukraine

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A year ago, in January, I went to Moscow to learn what I could about the coming war-chiefly, whether it would happen. I spoke with journalists and think tankers and people who seemed to know what the authorities were up to. I walked around Moscow and did some shopping.

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A comprehensive list of actions, resources and what you can do right now.

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A comprehensive list of actions, resources and what you can do right now.

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How can I help? Here's a list of resources curated by RazomForUkraine.org

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Stories from the ground

Shatabdi traveled with her cat Crimsee into Poland, walking for 37 miles before waiting in a 12-hour line to cross the border, all with no food or water. She found a wheelchair to sit in and ate her first meal from WCK since embarking on her journey.

"Right before this I was shopping for my prom dress; it's my final year of school & life was good, life felt normal." Alioa, 17, fled Mykolaiv with her 3 siblings & mother. Her father stayed behind. "I don't know what will happen... to him, to us-to Ukraine."

Sasha, a single parent, who is physically impaired raised Oleg since he was two years old. With the help of his brother, all three traveled by bus and foot to Iasi, Romania. In Odesa, Sasha worked as a chef's helper-now he's volunteering at the kitchen shelter where he is temporarily staying. "We'll do anything to give back the help we have receiveed. For my son, to receive shelter, a warm meal, and a kind word after so many days alone, on the road, with our backs broken and our bellies empty, it's just a blessing that we need to pay forward."

©2022 World Central Kitchen

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World Central Kitchen | Fearing for safety, thousands of families flee their homes in Ukraine

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On February 24, Russia launched a large-scale military operation on neighboring Ukraine, invading the country on several fronts. Since then, millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes, finding refuge within the country or leaving for other countries altogether. As families travel for days, and live under ongoing threats and occupation, many are going days without food.

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91% of every dollar goes directly toward our programs

Last year, we reached more than 25 million people in 45+ countries through our lifesaving programs to prevent and treat malnutrition, improve access to clean water, and more.

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91% of every dollar goes directly toward our programs Last year, we reached more than 25 million people in 45+ countries through our lifesaving programs to prevent and treat malnutrition, improve access to clean water, and more. Give by cryptocurrency, stock, check, wire transfer, donor advised funds or vehicle donation.

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Documenting the participation of Ukrainian women in the war against the Russian army of occupants. 

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Documenting the participation of Ukrainian women in the war against the Russian army of occupants. 

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The "Invisible Battalion" global advocacy project began with researching and documenting the participation of Ukrainian women in the war against the Russian army of occupants.

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The global advocacy project Invisible Battalion Our story The "Invisible Battalion" global advocacy project began with researching and documenting the participation of Ukrainian women in the war against the Russian army of occupants. Education and training We work to help...

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Real ways you can help Ukraine as a foreigner

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Real ways you can help Ukraine as a foreigner

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Supporting artists' collectives in art resistance initiatives in occupied areas of Ukraine.

We have identified several artists' collectives who stayed on the occupied area of Ukraine (Kherson, Berdyansk, Melitopol) and are leading peaceful artistic resistance there. Art is a strong force to keep the Ukrainian resistance alight, rallying local residents to the Ukrainian cause through public space interventions, public and/or clandestine performances or other artistic means. With any forms of income-generation nonexistent under the occupation, we want the artistic collectives to continue their activities.

Our Ukrainian partner YoKu helps us in artistis' identification, verification and communication.

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Supporting artists' collectives in art resistance initiatives in occupied areas of Ukraine. We have identified several artists' collectives who stayed on the occupied area of Ukraine (Kherson, Berdyansk, Melitopol) and are leading peaceful artistic resistance there.

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Thank you for your support! Slava Ukraini!

HUMANITARIAN AND MEDICAL SUPPORT ITEMS

Due to the significant cost of air transport, ONLY the priority items listed below are accepted.

***We DO NOT accept any used clothes at this time.***

Medical Supplies

SURVIVAL ITEMS/TOOLS:

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HUMANITARIAN AND MEDICAL SUPPORT ITEMS Due to the significant cost of air transport, ONLY the priority items listed below are accepted. ***We DO NOT accept any used clothes at this time.*** Medical Supplies SURVIVAL ITEMS/TOOLS:

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The National Bank of Ukraine has decided to open a special fundraising account to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The central bank's decision comes after the Ukrainian government imposed martial law throughout Ukraine in response to armed aggression by Russia and the renewed threat to Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity.

NBU Governor Kyrylo Shevchenko announced the opening of this special account in his 24 February video address.

The number of the special account: UA843000010000000047330992708

This account accepts multiple currencies. It has been established and opened to receive transfers from international partners and donors in both foreign currency (U.S. dollars, euros, UK pounds) and hryvnias.

Support the Armed Forces of Ukraine!

Humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Among Nova Ukraine's projects is a humanitarian effort, Heart2Heart, which assembles and delivers aid packages directly to Ukraine.

United Help Ukraine

Life-saving medical supplies to Ukraine front lines.

The Ukraine Humanitarian Fund is one of the UN's country-based pooled funds. Contributions are collected into a single, un-earmarked fund and managed locally under UN leadership. As crises evolve, funds are made directly and immediately available to a wide range of partner organizations at the front lines of response. This way, funding reaches the people most in need when they need it.

Official website https://crisisrelief.un.org/t/ukraine

Project Hope is an international organization that coordinates with healthcare workers to provide on-the-ground medical support to countries in crisis. "With some 3 million people in Ukraine already in need of urgent humanitarian assistance even before the Russian military incursion, immediate medical support is needed to prevent the country from spiraling even deeper into a humanitarian crisis that could impact millions of people," Project Hope writes on its website. It's currently sending medical supplies to Ukrainians. You can make donations via its website using a credit/debit card, bank transfer, or PayPal.

This English-language media outlet was launched three months ago and created on the principles of the free press and editorial independence. Donations can be made via its GoFundMe and Patreon accounts, which will be used to keep the news source running.

Razom for Ukraine is a Ukrainian-American nonprofit dedicated to unlocking Ukraine's democratic potential by creating collaborative spaces that foster international civic engagement. While it has its own fundraiser to support its emergency response to the war, it also provides a whole host of resources for people looking to help, including a round-up of rallies and events for people interested in showing their support for the #StandWithUkraine movement.

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Stand with Ukraine Los Angeles - Stop War in Ukraine

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The National Bank of Ukraine has decided to open a special fundraising account to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The central bank's decision comes after the Ukrainian government imposed martial law throughout Ukraine in response to armed aggression by Russia and the renewed threat to Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity.

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"We can't make any music," the singer and cellist Nina Garenetska said. "This is our life now: An air raid siren goes off."

DakhaBrakha onstage at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, in 2017. The Ukrainian band has dozens of concert dates scheduled for North America this spring. If the war stops, "We will go, and we will continue our work and show our culture to the world," its manager said. Credit... Carlos Gonzalez for The New York Times

For years, the Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha has ended its shows chanting, "Stop Putin! No war!" What they had protested has now come to pass.

DakhaBrakha, based in Kyiv, has long served as ambassadors for Ukrainian music and culture, at once preserving and transforming them. The group gives the polyphonic harmonies of Ukrainian traditional songs a contemporary, internationalist makeover, using African, Australian, Arabic, Indian and Russian instrumentation alongside punk, scatting, hip-hop, trance and dance influences. Their appearance has always been equally striking, especially for the three women in the quartet: towering fur hats, long matching dresses and wildly colorful Iris Apfel-style jewelry.

"DhakhaBrakha often sings about love, heartbreak or the seasons, but as stand-in for bigger things - sometimes political things - and how they do it expands upon Ukrainian traditional music that uses metaphor in this way," said Maria Sonevytsky, an associate professor of anthropology and music at Bard College, in New York, who devoted a chapter in a recent book to DakhaBrakha and gave a public lecture Wednesday on "Understanding the War on Ukraine Through Its Musical Culture."

The singer and cellist Nina Garenetska, the singer and multi-instrumentalist Marko Halanevych, the singer and multi-instrumentalist Iryna Kovalenko, and the singer and percussionist Olena Tsybulska came together in 2004 as a house band for the experimental theater company Dakh in Kyiv. The three women had studied as ethnomusicologists, and they had delved into Ukraine's varied regional styles. About eight years ago, the band's concerts began integrating videos of the violence near Kyiv's Maidan Nezalezhnosti ("Independence Square"), when paramilitary police in Kyiv cracked down on people protesting after then-President Viktor Yanukovych broke a promise to sign political and free-trade agreements with the European Union, tilting his nation toward Russia instead. The Yanukovych government was ousted; later in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea.

In the years since, as DakhaBrakha has gone on to tour the world many times over, the band has turned up the volume on its political messaging and activism.

DakhaBrakha first performed in North America in 2013, in Toronto. It came to the United States a few months later, and has since performed at Globalfest in New York, Bonnaroo in Tennessee and twice as part of NPR's Tiny Desk concert series. On Friday and Saturday, the San Francisco Jazz Festival will offer two free online broadcasts of the DakhaBrakha concert that was filmed at the SFJazz Center on July 18, 2018, and is encouraging viewers to donate to a fund to support the band.

In a video chat on Tuesday, Halanevych and Garenetska spoke with The New York Times through translators alongside their longtime artistic manager, Iryna Gorban, about their last shows before the war began and their hopes for the future. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

"The risk is that Ukrainians will disappear as a nation and that the Ukrainian culture will disappear," the singer and multi-instrumentalist Marko Halanevych said. Credit... Carlos Gonzalez for The New York Times

Marko, I can see you are pulled over by the side of the road. Have you left Kyiv?
HALANEVYCH Yes. It's a total mess on the Ukrainian roads. I have with me my wife, also a musician, for Dakh Daughters, and two beautiful girls, 4 and 12. I am trying to save their lives by moving to a safer place near my relatives in the west - far from the border with Russia and Belarus. Not necessarily safe. My parents decided to stay. They said they would defend our house. [Laughs] I couldn't persuade them. And I haven't told my family yet, but I will be going back to Kyiv, to offer my help anywhere where it is needed, maybe in local defense.

And you, Nina?
GARENETSKA I am in our apartment with my son, who is a year and 10 months old, my husband and my mother, in Kyiv.
How has it been, staying in Kyiv?
GARENETSKA We can't make any music. Because this is our life now: An air raid siren goes off - you go downstairs, you wait, you go back up. And this is nonstop. When it is too dangerous, we will run to the bomb shelter.
Tell me about your last concert.
GARENETSKA During our last concert, I was tearing up all the time with a weird mix: fear, love, but also hope and faith that everything will be OK. We had a small tour of five or six concerts in Europe - Ukraine, Slovenia, Prague, Oslo. From Oslo we flew to Zaporizhzhya [in southeastern Ukraine], and we came back to Kyiv literally for the day. The next day, we were going to continue touring, but we didn't go because at 5 a.m. Thursday, the war started.
And since then, what has DakhaBrakha heard from your fan base in Ukraine?
GORBAN To share their emotions, many people here are posting on social media the last picture or video they took just before the war started. And we saw that many are from DakhaBrakha's last concerts, where, as usual, DakhaBrakha says "Stop Putin!" and "No War!" and "Free Ukraine!" - and of course people are really in solidarity with this.
How and when did DakhaBrakha decide to bring more overt statements about the conflict with Russia to your concerts?
HALANEVYCH At a certain moment, we understood that this threat needed to be talked about more to send a stronger message to the world. And we started speaking out about how Ukraine had decided once and for all to leave Russia's orbit and separate absolutely. We began saying "Stop Putin!" We showed the videos of the events at Maidan, we had posters, and since then, we say those mottos at every concert. But we were not heard.

Musically, have your concerts addressed this conflict about Ukrainian sovereignty?
GORBAN DakhaBrakha has produced songs from many different regions of Ukraine, and we tried to unite our country in this way, through music. At our concerts, during the last year, we played at each concert a song for people who defend our freedom. It is a very special moment for people; it makes them stand up and feel brave and confident. It makes you believe in our nation. We also have a special requiem devoted to those who gave their lives in this struggle. We almost never play this live, only very special occasions.

What is at risk if this war lasts, culturally speaking?
HALANEVYCH The risk is that Ukrainians will disappear as a nation and that the Ukrainian culture will disappear. For 300 years, Russia did everything for Ukrainian culture to disappear. Also, in recent years, the last 30 and especially the last eight, we Ukrainians feel what it is like to be a free people.

To be a free people is something that Russia hasn't had for a very long time. They will never understand us. And we will never understand them. And it is important to understand that what is happening with Ukraine now - if you will not stop this evil, it will spread to the rest of the world.
What kind of support is DakhaBrakha getting from fellow musicians and fans?
GORBAN All the venues, festivals, partners, musicians we have met at the festivals have sent hundreds and hundreds of messages. People have offered to donate money through the fund we support and to host DakhaBrakha and our families.
You were supposed to be finishing a European tour around now. What will happen to those shows, and the more than 70 dates you had booked for a tour of North America?

GORBAN We are just a month until the start of the tour, so it's too early to discuss it, because the situation is changing every hour. Of course, we hope that the war will stop in the nearest future. This was supposed to be the first tour after two years of the Covid pandemic. And we don't want to live in these kind of conditions for months or years. If it stops, we will go, and we will continue our work and show our culture to the world. People are waiting for us.

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DakhaBrakha, a Band From Kyiv, Saw a War Coming

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"We can't make any music," the singer and cellist Nina Garenetska said. "This is our life now: An air raid siren goes off." For years, the Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha has ended its shows chanting, "Stop Putin! No war!" What they had protested has now come to pass.

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Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis raised $36M, here’s what’s next - CNN Video

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The ‘That 70s Show’ stars talk with Chris Wallace about their efforts to help the Ukrainian people and what they are doing with the $36 million they raised online. ‘Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?’ is available on CNN+ — CNN’s new subscription streaming service.

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Send Books to Ukrainian Children who Have Fled the Country

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Send Books to Ukrainian Children who Have Fled the Country

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Видавництво Старого Лева

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Support Ukraine – help to collect books for Ukrainian refugees

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Читайте про Support Ukraine – help to collect books for Ukrainian refugees. Завжди актуальна інформація на сайті видавництва Старого Лева

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Opinion | Putin Is ‘Profoundly Anti-Modern.’ Masha Gessen Explains What That Means for the World.

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The Russian American journalist on how Putin’s war in Ukraine is playing out inside Russia’s highly controlled media environment.

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As Russia's war against Ukraine intensified, Valentin Silvestrov, 84, fled to Germany and has become a musical spokesman for his country.

The Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov's subtle, consoling music has taken on new significance for listeners in a war-torn country. Credit... Najib Nafid/Hollandse Hoogte, via R​edux

His "Prayer for Ukraine" was a centerpiece of a Metropolitan Opera benefit concert this month. His Fourth Symphony was played in recent weeks by the London Philharmonic Orchestra; his Eighth, by the Lithuanian National Opera; his "Silent Music," on Sunday, in a concert for peace organized by the Berlin Philharmonic. His publisher lists dozens of coming performances of his works.

As Russia's war against Ukraine enters its second month, Valentin Silvestrov, Ukraine's best-known living composer, has become a musical spokesman for his country. And like millions of Ukrainians, he has been turned into a refugee by the conflict: Over three days in early March, he and his family made their way by bus from their home in Kyiv to Lviv, and from there across Poland to Berlin, where he is now sheltering.

"We're more or less OK," Silvestrov, 84, said in a video call last week. But he added that he remains in shock about the war.

"I don't know how we lived to see this," he said.

Silvestrov's subtle, consoling music has taken on new significance for listeners in a war-torn country. "Putin's bombardments of Kyiv have killed and destroyed people, houses and music," his friend Constantin Sigov, a professor and book publisher, said by phone from that city. "But with some kind of unbelievable sense of hearing, Silvestrov has realized how they might be resurrected."

Born in Kyiv in 1937, Silvestrov made his name in the 1960s with avant-garde scores that challenged Soviet aesthetic norms by hovering between austere modernism and eclectic polystylism. The finely textured contrasts and sharp outbursts of his Symphony No. 3, "Eschatophony," attracted attention from Western experimentalists; the influential composer and conductor Bruno Maderna led it at Darmstadt, a West German contemporary music hotbed, in 1968.

"Right from the beginning, he very clearly showed a very original streak," the Ukrainian American composer Virko Baley, Silvestrov's longtime friend, said from his home in Las Vegas.

Silvestrov chafed at the Soviet government's restrictions and demands. After protesting during an official gathering in Kyiv in 1970, he was expelled from the Ukrainian Union of Composers. He was allowed to rejoin three years later, but the punishment contributed to a change already percolating in his writing, as he shifted from noisy scores to soft, intimate ones, like his 24 "Quiet Songs" for voice and piano, a tour de force of stillness and solitude. This tone of quiet meditativeness allowed Silvestrov largely to avoid politics during the rest of the Soviet period, when he commented on current affairs only very rarely and obliquely; his international stature gradually grew.

But with the independence of Ukraine in 1991, and especially after the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Maidan protests against Russian influence in 2014, he turned more openly to political and religious subjects. Silvestrov responded to Maidan by composing a series of songs later collected as "Maidan-2014," for a cappella chorus. (Its 13th movement is the "Prayer for Ukraine" performed at the Met.) The collection also included five new settings of the Ukrainian national anthem.

The current war, Silvestrov said in the recent interview, is "a continuation of the Maidan. Only the Maidan revolution was only in Kyiv, and now all Ukraine has become the Maidan."

Thus his sober, reflective compositions "have again become relevant," he added - among them the Maidan songs and his choral composition "In Memoriam," written between 2019 and 2020.

As the threats to Kyiv grew in the days after the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, Silvestrov's daughter and granddaughter urged him to evacuate, and he reluctantly agreed. (His grandson stayed behind as a volunteer with the war effort.) Their circuitous journey westward required last-minute adjustments because of the Russian bombing of Vinnytsia, entailing an overnight stop at a nursery school before they finally arrived in Lviv.

In the interview, Silvestrov was more relaxed discussing music, but seemed almost upset with himself for allowing the discussion to drift from the war. He spoke passionately in favor of NATO establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Since his arrival in Berlin, he has not explicitly commented on the war in music, as he did about the Maidan. Yet more than traces of the conflict exist in short piano pieces that Silvestrov said he "spontaneously" wrote after arriving in Germany - both called "Elegy," a favorite genre of his.

The first isdated March 9, the day after he reached Berlin. He said that its melody "arose" during his escape from Ukraine, traveling toward and across the Polish border, "as we saw endless crowds of refugees, endless cars piled up for kilometers on end, and this feeling of disaster." He intended its brief, simple melody in thirds with a low bass line to be a "sign of Ukraine," recalling the country's folk music and 18th-century choral works by composers like Artemy Vedel.

The second elegy, dated March 16, is part of "Pastorale and Elegy," composed after he had been in Berlin for several days, witnessing from afar the events in Ukraine and growing increasingly despondent. The elegy here is a chaconne with a characteristic dotted funereal rhythm; he called it a "reaction of mourning."

Sigov said that Silvestrov "melts down - refines - the din of history, its massive verbal and sonic constructions."

He is, Sigov added, "a true voice of Kyiv that is connected with the whole world and hopes to speak directly with the world."

Yet Silvestrov's sudden soaring global reputation has caused him some unease. He said he feels strange, even irritated, "that this misfortune needed to happen for them to begin playing my music."

"Does music not have any value in and of itself without any kind of war?" he added.

War had already been on Silvestrov's mind when he composed "In Memoriam" three years ago, in response to a request for music for the 2020 celebration of May 8, the commemoration of the end of World War II, celebrated in Ukraine since 2015 as the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation. Instead of writing an entirely new composition, Silvestrov adapted "Maidan-2014." He removed the distinctly Ukrainian features, including the anthem settings, and added, as a culmination, a setting of John Donne's words: "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

In the interview Silvestrov spoke fervently about this unheeded moral, lamenting the continued timeliness of a composition meant to mark the horrors of decades ago, as another war rages over some of the same lands, threatening again to engulf Europe.

"It's very obvious," he said just before the call ended, "that this is not a problem of Ukraine and Russia. It is a problem of civilization."

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Ukraine's Most Famous Living Composer Is Now a Refugee

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As Russia's war against Ukraine intensified, Valentin Silvestrov, 84, fled to Germany and has become a musical spokesman for his country. His "Prayer for Ukraine" was a centerpiece of a Metropolitan Opera benefit concert this month.

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The war in Ukraine is growing more atrocious by the day, with Russian forces increasingly aiming bombs and missiles at civilians. Yesterday, airstrikes hit a theater sheltering hundreds of displaced families in the besieged city of Mariupol, the latest in a concerning number of recent "indiscriminate attacks" flagged by the United Nations as possible war crimes.

Ukrainians are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, and while global aid organizations ramp up their important work, the arts community is doing its part to support them, raising funds and awareness. Some initiatives are already proving successful: Polish artist Karol Radziszewski's print of renowned Ukrainian poet and feminist pioneer Lesya Ukrainka, illustrated above, was sold out in less than three days and helped raise over $11,000 for relief efforts.

Below is a selection of ongoing art fundraisers, from online print sales to an in-person concert in New York City. All the organizers have said they will donate 100% of the proceeds to verified entities helping to alleviate the suffering caused by Russia's senseless war.

Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund

Four Ukraine-based art organizations - the Museum of Contemporary Art NGO (MOCA), Zaborona, the Naked Room, and Mystetskyi Arsenal - launched the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund (UEAF) to assist the nation's art community impacted by the war. The fund, administered by MOCA, offers one-time financial aid or stipends for up to three months for cultural workers from different sectors, from independent curators to researchers and writers. Donations can be made directly on the fund's website, which also provides a Google Docs form for those in danger to request help.

"We immediately felt that this was not just an unexpected tyranny move from Putin, but actually a carefully planned imperialistic ambition of Russia to neo-colonise Ukraine in full spectrum: territory, soil, people and culture," Ilya Zabolotnyi, CEO and co-founder of UEAF, told Hyperallergic. "That's when we understood that even during this war it is our task is to ensure the continuity and development of the Ukrainian cultural process during the war, so that the voice of cultural actors of Ukraine remains free, alive and strong."

Solidarity Prints for Artists at Risk

Rirkrit Tiravanija, "untitled 2022 (shine light into dark places, New York Times, February 24, 2022)" (2022), pigmented inkjet print on Ilford Fine Art Smooth Pearl (courtesy the artist and Artists at Risk)

Artists at Risk (AR), a nonprofit founded by Marita Muukkonen and Ivor Stodolsky in 2013 to protect cultural workers escaping persecution and war, said it has received hundreds of applications from Ukrainian artists and others seeking relocation in recent weeks. The organization is raising funds for emergency resources, travel aid, and shelter through its Solidarity Prints fundraiser, featuring works by 70 artists all priced at €200 (~$222). The sale includes an untitled inkjet print by Rirkrit Tiravanija, whose newsprint collages invite a more profound reflection on current events. In this particular print, the artist overlaid the New York Times 's surreal front page on February 24, the day of the Russian invasion, with a message of hope: "Shine Light Into Dark Places." Other artists in AR's sale include Nan Goldin, Isaac Julien, Sanya Kantarovsky, and Amy Sillman.

Artists for Ukraine by Her Clique

This sensual and humorous painting by Brooklyn-based artist Jay Miriam is included in a fundraising sale for Ukraine organized by Her Clique, a group that elevates the work of women artists and supports like-minded nonprofits. Miriam is joined by Katharine Bradford, Deborah Kass, Marilyn Minter, Laurie Simmons, Cindy Sherman and other artists who donated work to help Voices of Children, a Ukrainian organization providing psychological support to the youngest victims of war. As the Russian invasion continues, Voices of Children is also aiding in evacuation efforts. New works will be added on Her Clique's website every few days throughout the month of March, coinciding with Women's Month worldwide.

Ortega y Gasset Projects Fundraiser for Ukraine

The Brooklyn artist-run center Ortega y Gasset (OyG) will be auctioning one artwork per day on its Instagram account through March 25 with all proceeds benefiting the Ukrainian human rights organization Razom and the UN World Food Programme. The works were donated by artists currently included in OyG's Surface Tension exhibition andby the center's own directors. Bidding for each work will start at $100 and last 24 hours, with all bids recorded in the comments section of each artwork's Instagram post.

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery Art Fundraiser

Through mid-April, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood is running a fundraising sale featuring many of the artists in its program, including Sandra Cinto, Sabine Hornig, Tomás Saraceno, and Sarah Sze. All proceeds will be evenly distributed between the International Committee of the Red Cross; the Fundacja Ocalenie, which is helping Ukrainian refugees who arrive in Poland; and Voices of Children. According to a gallery spokesperson, the sale has raised over $400,000 so far.

10,000 Tones for Peace: A Benefit Concert in New York

This Friday, March 18, over 50 musicians, dancers, and poets will perform in a five-hour concert to benefit Doctors Without Borders in Ukraine at the Clemente Flamboyán Theater in Manhattan's Lower East Side. The event is organized by the Clemente Soto Cultural Center and two sound and music nonprofits, Arts for Art and Deep Tones for Peace. The lineup includes Frank the London Brass Band and a string ensemble led by violinist Jason Kao Hwang. William Parker, hailed as " the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time," will close the event with a full ensemble. Both virtual and in-person tickets are available, with a suggested donation of $25.

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Support Critical Aid Efforts in Ukraine With These Art Fundraisers

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The war in Ukraine is growing more atrocious by the day, with Russian forces increasingly aiming bombs and missiles at civilians. Yesterday, airstrikes hit a theater sheltering hundreds of displaced families in the besieged city of Mariupol, the latest in a concerning number of recent "indiscriminate attacks" flagged by the United Nations as possible war crimes.

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As Russia's devastating attacks on Ukraine continue to escalate, it's easy to feel that the influence one person has in the context of such a global conflict is futile. But an individual can indeed make a difference, especially with the support of one's local community. In response to the humanitarian crisis-which has seen nearly three million Ukrainians become refugees-gallerists, artists, and photographers from around the world have banded together to launch various sales and donate the proceeds to charities assisting in relief efforts. As gallery owner Tanya Bonakdar shared in a statement, "Unfortunately, empathy is not enough when confronting such challenging moments in history."

Here, Galerie provides a selection of those initiatives, which show that buying a $50 print or an artwork by a more established artist can help innumerable lives.

1. Tanya Bonakdar Sale

The blue-chip Chelsea gallery has launched a sale of important works by the gallery artists with 100 percent of proceeds donated to relief organizations helping to alleviate the suffering of those seeking refuge from the conflict in Ukraine. Artists include Martin Boyce, Sandra Cinto, Mark Dion, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Olafur Eliasson, Sarah Sze, Mark Manders, Wong Ping, and Sabine Hornig, whose powerful work is pictured above. "We are shocked and appalled by the catastrophic human rights tragedy taking place in Ukraine," the gallery stated in an announcement. "Our hearts go out to the innocent civilians, families, and especially children, caught in the crossfire of violent conflict. Unfortunately, empathy is not enough when confronting such challenging moments in history."

2. Magnum Square Print Sale

For one week only, artist-signed or estate-stamped six-by-six-inch prints by Magnum photographers are selling for $100 each. The museum-quality series is part of three sales launching for the agency's 75th anniversary throughout 2022. Each photographer and estate has curated their selection so that the images work alone or in dialogue with each other. The photographers are donating 50 percent of their proceeds from the sale to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which will help fund the ICRC's humanitarian mission to protect the lives of the victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence and to provide them with assistance in Ukraine.

3. Pictures for Purpose

Through March 24, the third edition of Pictures for Purpose is supporting those affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine by raising money for World Central Kitchen, which provides critical food supplies during crises. Some 41 artists have donated prints, including Ukrainians such as Daria Svertilova, Julie Poly, and Synchrodogs alongside such global names as Rineke Dijkstra, Jamie Hawkesworth, Nadav Kander, and Alec Soth. All prints measure 20cm by 30cm, are unsigned, in open editions and are priced at €125. Artists can choose to receive 25 percent of the proceeds or donate the entire amount. Pictures for Purpose was founded in 2020 to raise money for urgent causes through photography.

4. International Creatives for Ukraine

This online charity auction, running on Instagram through March 31, gathers works by widely acclaimed creatives such as Formafantasma, Faye Toogood, Bethan Laura Wood, DRIFT, Martino Gamper, and many others. The proceeds from the auction will go to the Poland-based NGO Fundacji Ocalenie (Rescue Foundation), which offers help to refugees and migrants in Poland by providing them with support on all fronts.

5. Her Clique Print Sale

The online art platform Her Clique, founded by Izabela Depczyk who was formerly at Paddle8 auction house, is hosting "Artists for Ukraine," a sale featuring work by artists including Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Marilyn Minter, Austyn Weiner, and Katherine Bradford, with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting the Voices of Children foundation. "These recent events are tragic and incomprehensible," says Depczyk. "My heart is aching for the millions of people affected. My words of deep gratitude to the kind and generous artists who donated their work for this fundraiser, and to the collectors around the world for supporting our cause."

6. Yoko Ono

This month, Yoko Ono launched a powerful project that paused commercial advertisements on the world's most prominent billboards to share a message of peace with the global community. An invitation for the world to unite her ongoing message IMAGINE PEACE is broadcast every evening at 8:22. The public art installation, presented by CIRCA in collaboration with Serpentine, features local translations of her message to the world. Ono has also created this new time-limited edition silkscreen print, which is available to purchase on CIRCA through March 31.

7. Synchrodogs

Roman Noven and Tania Shcheglova are a creative duo of fashion photographers from the Ukraine. Represented by Dymchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine as well as Gallerie Urbane in Dallas and Fahey Klein gallery in L.A among others, their sale includes 31 prints available in editions of 12 ranging from 150€ to 380€ with proceeds going directly to Ukrainian volunteers and community members.

8. Alasdair McLellan

British photographer and filmmaker Alasdair McLellan took to Instagram to share a beautiful photograph of hay bales, the golden color of the wheat contrasting against the bright blue sky recalling the Ukrainian flag. The new limited-edition print was created in collaboration with Claire De Rouen and is being sold to raise money for Save The Children's DEC Ukraine Humanitarian appeal. The organization will deliver lifesaving aid to 3.5 million vulnerable children and their families in Ukraine by providing food, water, essential supplies, shelter, and medical assistance. There are 45 editions plus 5 APs available, each one signed and numbered.

9. Solidarity Prints for Artists at Risk

A group of major international artists have come together to support the NGO Artists at Risk. On their website, they state "The war in Ukraine has put artists at high risk...We have each donated a print in an open edition." All proceeds from sales will help Artists at Risk facilitate emergency travel, shelter and financial support to help our peers gain safety. Works are available for €200 by such talents as Nan Goldin, Matthew Barney, Pierre Huyghe, Thomas Struth, Julian Schnabel, Amy Sillman, Luc Tuymans, and more.

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How to Help Support Ukraine's Aid Relief by Buying Art

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As Russia's devastating attacks on Ukraine continue to escalate, it's easy to feel that the influence one person has in the context of such a global conflict is futile. But an individual can indeed make a difference, especially with the support of one's local community.

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The Art Newspaper - International art news and events

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In response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine following Russia's invasion, a number of artistic organisations in Europe and beyond are offering their support to at risk Ukrainian artists, art workers and cultural activists. Here is a list of 11 initiatives offering help with relocation, living and working spaces and legal aid. Also included are ways in which those not at risk can help.

Artists at Risk (AR) is a non-profit network that focuses on the intersection of human rights and the arts. AR is dedicated to mapping the field of persecuted art practitioners, facilitating their safe passage from their countries of origin, hosting them at AR-Residencies, and curating related projects.

Since 2013, it has created over 25 residencies for artists across 19 countries, from Finland, Germany, and Spain to Tunisia and the Ivory Coast, offering temporary relocation to artists who face persecution or imprisonment for exercising their right to freedom of expression. The network provides residencies for Ukrainian artists, curators, and cultural workers in many European cities and beyond.
For Ukrainian Artists: How to Apply: How You Can Help Join as a Hosting Organization: Support AR financially:
Donations can be made on their website or directly through PayPal.

The Estonian Academy of Arts offers Ukrainian students free study opportunities in the field of Fine Arts, Design, Architecture, and Art Culture for the spring semester 2022.

The placements will enable students to continue their studies in the fields of fine art, animation, photography, architecture, urban studies, interior architecture, interaction design, graphic design, design and crafts, cultural heritage (in English), and media graphics (in Russian). Both MA and BA level students can apply.

The academy will help to organise housing and offer additional support with land transportation.
How to Apply:
This emergency fund supports responses to the illegal destruction of cultural heritage during military operations, including in Ukraine, and urges full adherence to international humanitarian law. Its programme offers expert advice and first aid to cultural heritage that has been damaged or is under threat.
How to Apply:
Requests for assistance to protect heritage can be sent via social media channels or to this email: cer@princeclausfund.nl

This Ukraine-based organisation has launched an emergency support initiative for Ukraine's cultural community. Its goal is to help people who have stayed in Ukraine, providing them with immediate financial support for their basic needs.
How to Apply:
If you are either in need of help or want to contribute to this effort you can contact the VCRC team via email, or .

This foundation supports artists and other members of the creative community of Ukraine, offering placements on the PAiR residency in Pāvilosta, Latvia. They will host up to four artists in March and four artists in April. Here, artists, researchers, and curators are encouraged to develop their practice, with a focus on interdisciplinary dialogue.

The PAiR residency offers a studio, living space, access to the library and gallery, administrative support, and, if necessary, materials, tools, and research resources. The PAiR residency will cover travel costs to and from Pāvilosta, as well as accommodation. VV Foundation will also help with relocation, legal matters, and all related costs.
How to Apply:
To apply please send your CV and portfolio to this email: info@vvfoundation.org

This association invites artists in the fields of the visual and performing arts, filmmaking, research, sound, or any other disciplines to be part of the programme that takes place in Bucharest, Cluj, and Timisoara. It will provide accommodation and financial support during the stay. Each artist will be supported according to their individual needs. There will be no formal obligations, but the organisation is happy to support the practice of artists at risk in any possible way.
How to Apply:
Due to the state of emergency, please register your interest to this email: agacor.association@gmail.com

This residency aims to provide a safe artistic environment, consultations, and support for Ukrainian dance artists, cultural managers, and producers. The organisers will provide private transport from the Polish or Lithuanian borders, accommodation for up to four people (including an artist with a partner or family) free of charge for at least three months. Space and dance studios, consultations and help on further career development are also available.
How to Apply:
To apply, please contact the organisers via , or or email: info@lowair.lt

Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts on the Curonian Spit in Lithuania has space to host Ukrainian art institutional teams, artists, and culture professionals along with their families. It also offers full study courses for students to continue with their academic work. They can also help with transportation and logistics.

Nida Art Colony operates all year round and receives about 700 people a year. It provides space for workshops, intensive courses, exhibitions, seminars, rehearsals, artist's talks, and screenings in its premises of 2,500 sq.m. Its activities can result in presentations, exhibitions, broadcasts, and publications.
How to Apply:
Contact the organisers via email: info@nidacolony.lt

These organisations are prepared to help culture workers who need to leave Ukraine because of war. They offer a two week residency in Trondheim, Norway. Kunsthall Trondheim will cover flights and provide an official invitation letter if needed. Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder will provide accommodation.
How to Apply:
Write an email to Kunsthall Trondheim: office@kunsthalltrondheim.no

This is an emergency residency program in Lithuania for Ukrainian artists and families from the war zone. Menu Zona Residency is a creative space in Klaipeda and Nida (Lithuania) dedicated to the experimentation, research, and dissemination of artistic practices in which both local and international artists come together. This residency program can host three artists with their families for one month (between May-August) for free. Accommodation, food, transportation, and materials are provided.

How to Apply:

Send your CV and portfolio by 17 April 2022 by email. Include whether you have a partner of children with you: mezoresidency@gmail.com

How You Can Help:
The residency is looking for possibilities to find financial help for food, materials, and artist fees. If you can contribute please send an email: mezoresidency@gmail.com

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw has redirected its resources to provide humanitarian aid to people fleeing the war in Ukraine. At the moment their facilities are used as a sorting office for medical aid, which is shipped directly to a hospital in Ukraine.

The Museum has launched three-month-long paid internships for 15 Ukrainian refugees. Together with their Ukrainian partners in Warsaw, they are transforming our facilities at 3 Pańska Street into a cultural and integration centre for refugees fleeing the war. In a partnership with major humanitarian aid and pro-migrant NGO, Fundacja Ocalenie, the Museum will host an auction of artworks with all the proceeds to support refugees

How to Apply:
Contact the Museum on their website.

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Funding, shelter and emergency resources for artists affected by war in Ukraine-and how you can support them

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In response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine following Russia's invasion, a number of artistic organisations in Europe and beyond are offering their support to at risk Ukrainian artists, art workers and cultural activists. Here is a list of 11 initiatives offering help with relocation, living and working spaces and legal aid.

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#SongsOfComfort Brahms for Ukraine with Emanuel Ax

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LVIV, Ukraine - Slava Vakarchuk is used to filling stadiums. He's the lead singer of Okean Elzy, Ukraine's biggest rock band.

But on the day the war began, he was at home in the capital Kyiv. He woke up early, to news of Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing a "military operation" in Ukraine.

"And the moment I read it - I mean, literally, the next second - I hear a big blow, probably five miles from my house," Vakarchuk, 46, recalls.

He jumped into his car and made a big decision in that moment.

"I started touring the country once again. But not with music," he says. "I decided to go to the points that are in danger."

For the past three weeks, Vakarchuk has been driving back and forth into frontline cities where some of the worst fighting has been - Kharkiv, Zaphorizhzha, Odesa - delivering food and medicine. He's also, in a way, delivering moral support to his countrymen, he says.

"For example, you're at a gas station and somebody sees you and wants to hug you, embrace you, cuddle you," he told NPR in an interview in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. "It's emotional. People need it."

Ukrainian musicians and artists are responding to war in lots of different ways. Vakarchuk is one of many Ukrainian celebrities who are using their fame and connections to speed relief supplies to those who need them most.

Others are doubling down on their art. There's been an outpouring of protest art online. Some Ukrainian musicians have already recorded new songs about the war. Some of those songs are quite angry.

"Russians get out, go to hell," say the lyrics of a new song by the Ukrainian rapper Stepan Burban, better known as Palindrom. "You're not even fit to be fertilizer on Ukrainian soil."

"I had to express my anger [about the war]," Burban, 27, tells NPR. "I couldn't keep it inside."

When NPR met Burban, he was rushing to buy groceries for war evacuees at an art gallery in Lviv, where traumatized evacuees and artists have been camping out together, helping one another process their anger.

At the Lviv Municipal Arts Center, there are yoga mats on the floor, piles and piles of groceries and phone chargers - and a huge grand piano in the middle. The modern cement arts space has become a shelter for war evacuees, as well as a place where people are creating art in the middle of a war.

Mytsko says artists and musicians keep contacting her and asking how they can help.

Here's what she tells them: Art is not an extra little thing - a sidebar - in this war. Putin has said Ukraine is not a real country - that it doesn't have a real culture of its own. Go out and prove him wrong, Mytsko says.

"Artists now, they feel like, 'I cannot take a gun into my hands! What should I do?' " she says. "But they really must know that every one of them is a gun of Ukrainian culture. Every one of them can make music and make pictures, and can take our soul up, up, up."

But for some artists, making art these days is difficult.

Vakarchuk, the rock star, has been away from his piano, spending long days in his car, delivering aid to the needy. At a stop Lviv's train station, though, he gave an impromptu outdoor concert to war evacuees.

While driving, he composed a poem in his head. Just like the rapper Palindrom's new song, it's dark and angry. Vakarchuk isn't sure if he'll ever be able to put it to music.

"Where have you come from, my hatred," is the opening line.

"The theme is, for 46 years of my life, I never experienced, never faced, this feeling of hatred - and now it's present in my veins," Vakarchuk says. "It's toxic. I want to get rid of it. But the only way to get rid of it now is to win the war."

Win the war. Go back to his piano. Try to go back to what things were like before, he says.

He wishes he could.

This story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog.

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How some people are trying to make art, not war, in Ukraine right now

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LVIV, Ukraine - Slava Vakarchuk is used to filling stadiums. He's the lead singer of Okean Elzy, Ukraine's biggest rock band. But on the day the war began, he was at home in the capital Kyiv. He woke up early, to news of Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing a "military operation" in Ukraine.

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Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Nova Ukraine continues to help organize rallies in the US to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine, increase awareness of the ongoing crisis, help influence public opinion, and raise money to help the people of Ukraine. Upcoming Eve…

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Support Ukraine: Write to your Reps in Congress   

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Support Ukraine: Write to your Reps in Congress   

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Support Ukraine: Write to your Reps in Congress

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Demanding the world to help Ukraine (Apr 4th)

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Find your members of Congress by typing in your address on Congress.gov.

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(SINGING) When you walk in the room, do you have sway?

nayeema raza

I'm not Kara Swisher, but yes, you are listening to "Sway". This is Nayeema Raza, "Sway's" showrunner. Kara's recovering from a cold, so while she did tape this interview on death's doorstep, she asked me to fill in for the intro. Our conversation today is about a topic that has too often been reduced to, quote, "woke capitalism."

Whether it's McDonald's pausing its burger business in Russia, Major League Baseball leaving Georgia over voting rights, or Disney's debacle with the "Don't Say Gay Bill" in Florida, these days, it seems like corporations have had to become our conscience. Kara discusses this trend with our guest, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, also known as the "C.E.O. whisperer." He's a professor of leadership at the Yale School of Management. He convenes C.E.O. forums, and he consults with big bosses at Fortune 500 companies.

As it turns out, he's something of a moral compass for them. These days, Sonnenfeld and his team are busy compiling a corporate watchlist of companies who have taken a stand on Putin's invasion of Ukraine and those that haven't followed through. So we wanted to ask him what the end goal is with this list and press him on whether we really can rely on profit-seeking C.E.O.s for political change. Now over to Kara.

kara swisher

Jeffrey, welcome to "Sway."

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Thanks. I'm delighted to join you, Kara.

kara swisher

We talked a lot over the course of the Ukraine situation about what's happening there. First of all, explain what you've been doing with the list that you've been compiling.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Well, as you know, I've been tracking business social impact. We've always tried to separate out who's really doing something and who isn't. And as you know, war broke out on February 24. Immediately, there was three sets of companies that moved very quickly, and they weren't the three that I would have ever predicted would have been the early movers.

That was shocking, and then I saw a lot of the cling on effect. A lot of companies that had their artful PR people create lookalike images of things that sounded like they were doing something, too, but they really weren't. And we thought, you know, let's just create a list that chronicles and separates out who's really done something and who's not.

kara swisher

So just data of who's really done something. Who were the three companies?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Well, the three sets were energy. I mean, when do you see the oil companies as the early movers on social change? And the three particular players in the oil were BP, Shell and Exxon. And they left a lot on the table to do it. The second set, which was pretty surprising, is everything from the big heavy metal, you know, device companies to the platforms and social media. And the third cluster are the professional service firms that the lawyers and the accountants and the consultants, these folks would usually rather jump off a cliff than be identified with political controversy. And those three clusters were the first movers.

kara swisher

So what was your goal here? To celebrate them or shame the rest?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Well, I wanted to first just calibrate and certify that they were, in fact, truly moving. So that was the first thing, was just to make sure this reporting is accurate. But it turns out, you're exactly right. It had a salutary effect on the early movers. It gave them confidence. The wannabe early movers that often had nervous boards on that corporate speak word of benchmarking, this gave them peer affirmation.

So those C.E.O.s go back to their boards and say, hey, look, we're not going to be out there on some limb or the tall poppy syndrome, as the Australians call it. We're not going to get cut down the scale because we've stepped out in front. We're going to be with the thundering herd. And then it also had an unexpectedly punitive effect as a Hall of Shame of sorts.

kara swisher

So the list went viral. Over 400 companies have since pulled out. Is that correct?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yeah, it's actually almost approaching 500. Many of the changes are marginal at this point. There are very few that are the big changes. What we had to do - and I should explain that - is, originally, we just had a dichotomous, who has curtailed and who's not. But now we realized that because of clever public relations spin and some corporate challenges, there were some different levels. So we now have five different categories, almost like an A, B, C, D, and F ratings.

kara swisher

Right, so we're going to get to those specifically in a minute. But you hosted a large C.E.O. forum this week. So I think you can't talk about specifics because this was an off the record thing. But can you give us some high level ideas of what was happening with these C.E.O.s, with what's happening in Ukraine? There's inflation, there's all kinds of things.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

The runaway biggest concern that they had had to do with supply chain issues. It was a huge spike of concern of the ripple effects in global supply chains because of being on the edge of World War III that had them quite alarmed. Also there's a major shift. It was almost universal that people are rethinking their global strategies. People are dramatically pushing for domestic self-reliance, which would have been seen as Neanderthal in the 1990s.

And we had a wild spectrum there from hospitality, airlines and hotels, and information technology companies, and lots of sort of creative new startups, and professional services. And we looked at for industry differences. This was one weird, rare time. There was such unanimity here that it was shocking.

kara swisher

And these were largely Western companies, correct?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Oh, yeah, it was Europe or U.S. and one Asian company, a major company, but.

kara swisher

So there's self-selection in that in terms of what's going on, correct?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

There's self-selection in this particular in-person conversation because this was not hybridized. However, the list that we've created, which started out as being purely European and U.S., of course, envelops the whole world. And it is more global than we have the ready competencies to unravel.

kara swisher

So let's do a lightning round with the bigger players on your list. I want to get your take on how they're doing and what more they could be doing. All right, BP. They've suspended operations completely.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Shockingly, leaving billions on the table.

kara swisher

What grade would you give them?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Both by being a first mover and by the drama of the cutback, we give them, you know, an A on our list if we were doing the grading. But it's a complete withdrawal of category one, clean break. It was impressive. And frankly, I wouldn't have seen that in prior leadership of BP for a lot of obvious reasons.

kara swisher

All right, Amazon.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Amazon, I was surprised that they were in the lead and pulled out when they did. So that's been a cutback, but it's not as dramatic. I think they still have some degree of AWS engagement for very little.

kara swisher

But they're keeping their options open, correct?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yeah, so they haven't said that this is a permanent withdrawal. They've suspended operations.

kara swisher

Right, so is that a good job or a bad job?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

I think that's a great. We'd give it a B, B plus.

kara swisher

OK, McDonald's, which was such an important company in Russia for anyone who remembers Glasnost, et cetera.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Now watch out. You're dealing with a school teacher. Do we do an hour on that one? Because -

kara swisher

jeffrey sonnenfeld

-s top me when you need to on that one because McDonald's is a very complicated but fascinating saga. They are representative of this post-perestroika symbolism, believe it or not, of Western liberal values of freedom and the rest. Your colleague, Tom Friedman, was famous for his golden arches rule of diplomacy. And his theory was any two countries with McDonald's don't go to war with each other.

kara swisher

Oh, that didn't work. That didn't work.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

It didn't work there or anywhere else. And McDonald's persisted. And it was only through public shame that Chris Kempczinski, who's the very good new C.E.O., there, realized they had to respond. So you got to -

kara swisher

So what grade? What grade would you give them on that?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

McDonald's, even though they were late, I think they deserve at least a B. So they're in our second category.

kara swisher

And their restaurants, Russia could take over. And then they have a logo that looks like McDonald's, correct? Uncle Vanya's, is that correct?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yeah, and see, that's why we don't give them an A. And they're also paying their people to do nothing, their original employees, over 50,000 people. That doesn't quite do what we all would have needed for a top, you know, A categorization or a complete withdrawal because that's still pumping cash into the economy. The well-intended perhaps explanation for that is we don't want to cut off loyal long service employees who are innocent, not a part of all this. I don't buy that.

There's a famous book called "Hitler's Willing Executioners," which is that the Second World War, the Holocaust, the Third Reich, is not all attributed to Hitler. It was the complicity of the everyday German at that time, and the complicity here of Russians. To want to support these people by paying them salaries is not what needs to be done. We need to stop civil society. Make it hurt.

kara swisher

Right. OK, J&J, Pfizer, Merck, all you categorize as buying time - what does that mean?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

They have cut back on their clinical trials. They have some partnerships. They have forestalled future investment. But we would hope for more. And by the way, I love those companies. They've obviously been heroic on the vaccine front. And I've talked with the C.E.O.s of each of the companies you mentioned or their recent past C.E.O.s or chairs. And they have humanitarian explanations, but I don't buy them.

kara swisher

jeffrey sonnenfeld

kara swisher

A D. Oh, that's like an F, Jeff. That's an F. You know that. A D is an F.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yeah, they're right on the borderline. So it's a C minus then, if you want to call it that. But because they aren't intending to do harm, but they should completely shut down, and they don't understand the purpose of this, you know, so.

kara swisher

OK, what about the tech platforms? Meta didn't choose to leave, but the Russians banned Facebook and Instagram. Is that a good thing, even though it's denying people access to information?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Well, you know, one famous expert on this space once said, "there's the right way to do something, and then there's the Facebook Meta way to do something." You ever hear that one?

kara swisher

Is it from me? It sounds like me.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

It is you. And I hope it was from you because I attribute it to you at the time.

kara swisher

That sounds like me, yeah. Yeah.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

And in this case, I've gotten some blowback because Cloudflare has stayed. Citrix stayed till quite late and finally moved.

kara swisher

Cogent came out quickly.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Oracle. I mean, really, Larry Ellison? I mean, I wouldn't have thought, but they're saying, well, it's important to maintain cloud platforms for at least the possibility of free flow of information to go through there. Even this morning, I got some folks arguing that we're too unidimensional on when it comes to that space. So I'm not sure in terms of the truth there -

kara swisher

Meaning some should stay in order to give people access to information.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Right, yeah, so we're being purists right now.

kara swisher

Although let's just be clear, it's not involuntary. They've been kicked out, some of these companies.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Some were kicked out, but it's a challenge as to whether or not some who have stayed, like the Cloudflare who stayed, if that's a good or a bad thing. And right now, Cloudflare is feeling more virtuous as if somehow that the IBMs, the Dells, Oracles, and others that were providing their web support, their cloud support or not - are somehow evil. I think those companies are doing the right thing. This country should be a pariah, and everything should be cut.

kara swisher

Well, talk about that because how much of the business flight from Russia is rooted in corporate morality versus just sheer business pragmatism, and for those who stay - and we'll get to the Koch Industries in a second - opportunity for new business?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

I think the early movers, some of them may have had some oligarchical engagement that they wanted to preemptively avoid the bad press on, but they moved so quickly that they were very effective on that front, that it came off looking like it was based in responsibility and ethics. So I give them the benefit of the doubt on that. Same with the professional service firms.

Some people say it's clouded because they have surviving entities that are now separated out from the company. Who cares? The global company severed ties, which is the right thing. They're not going to be part of the global support mechanisms. And the thing that made those companies so valuable was their global branding that gave investors and others trust in them. And if that's severed, that's great.

kara swisher

Yeah, so what was the grade you would give tech overall, although it's quite - they're very different, the Cogents from the Facebooks or the Apples.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

I give tech A, A minus. I'm very impressed, impressed they moved so quickly. And for whatever their motives were -

kara swisher

All right, some companies have doubled down on staying in Russia, like Koch Industries. Its president and C.O.O. wrote in a statement that, quote, "we will not walk away from our employees there or hand them these manufacturing facilities to the Russian government so it can operate and benefit from them. Doing so would only put our employees at greater risk and do more harm than good." Does he have a legitimate point?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

kara swisher

Why is that? Explain.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

It is an excuse for cowardice. Any company would have that. Any company that has a significant workforce and many of the companies we talked about did have significant workforces. They could all say that. I mean, what we're talking about so far, Kara - I should mention this. We haven't mentioned this anywhere.

But it looks like the numbers we have is we have just above 23 percent of the Russian G.D.P. of these voluntary, corporate-led retreats. This has nothing to do directly with the economic sanctions, which are a large percent of the Russian G.D.P. But that's incredible impact, and that's because these companies have stalled down. You want civil society to come to a halt to show a totalitarian is not truly in total control because that's one way to weaken them.

kara swisher

So the goal here is to get Russia to be such a pariah that people push Putin out. That is your thought.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yes, is Putin is not in power because he's loved. It's obviously he's feared.

kara swisher

No, some people think that's not true, Jeff. I have a lot of -

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Who's going to honestly answer, though, an opinion survey in Russia? But he's there not as a legitimate democratic leader, of course. He's there by brute force. Do we take him on because the coercive bloody reign, which means war, or do we take them on by the aura of totalitarian effectiveness that he claims he has? If you can take on the totalitarian side and show that he doesn't have the control he does, then he loses support.

And also, the symbolic messaging here, everything we've talked about is substantive. The symbolic side, Bishop Tutu had told me personally, Desmond Tutu in the early '90s, that the symbolic side of the corporate pullout of South Africa was as important as was the substantial hit to their economy. And by the way, it was a big sacrifice for companies. People forget.

kara swisher

So this is a South Africa moment when 1980s and '90s, when businesses finally boycotted the country to protest apartheid.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yes, South Africa was a watershed moment. This is independently happening, and no coercive hands of government. Only do we hear the president of Ukraine call out Nestlé, as he did yesterday.

kara swisher

Yes, see, Nestlé remains there, correct?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yeah, largely. After that call-out, there are some slight pullback.

kara swisher

It's so interesting because my son knows that. He was like, Nestlé's still there, Mom. This is a 16-year-old. And he's like, we're not using Nestlé products. It was really interesting.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Can we hire him? I love that. Yeah, that's good.

kara swisher

Maybe. So let me give you some pushback. South Africa worked because there was strong Western unity in the U.S. and in Europe. Now China is ascendant. You had only one Asian company at that C.E.O. forum that's not representative of the continent or the country's economic power. Russia has approached them for military and economic aid. Chinese banks and businesses may be happy to do business in Moscow. And this is where ultimately revise the Western world order.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

We worry about certainly the creation of a new Axes powers, and but we take a look at what's China doing, is the largest banks of China, I.C.B.C., which is one of the top three banks in the world, including every Western bank, I.C.B.C., which is surprisingly progressive on a lot of fronts and not even lending to flimsy Chinese companies that the Ministry of Finance wanted them to do. It's amazing, I.C.B.C. has said no to helping Russia out with credit. Also, Bank of China has said no to helping out. And then also their version of an XM Bank and things like that, which is China-sponsored, has said no to all Russia. In fact -

kara swisher

So is that directed by the government? Because China's been very tough on the tech sector - Chinese government has. It does have control of a lot of these entities.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

It does, and it's impossible that Xi Jinping doesn't know about this. It's coming from the Ministry of Finance in China, which really controls these banks.

kara swisher

So it's hard to say if this will be a South Africa moment right now. If you were to bet, because the fundamentals are different - the U.S. is not the sole driver. China is a big player. If you were to bet, do you think this is that South Africa moment?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Putin's staying power is pretty strong. It's interesting that I believe that nobody in the top levels of Western governments has any idea that if there's a Brutus moment, although last week was the Ides of March and he got past it. If anybody was going to take Putin out -

kara swisher

Thank you, Lindsey Graham. Thank you, Lindsey Graham.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Lindsey, thank you. Yeah, who would've thought?

kara swisher

So that's a no, which is, in which case, what's the point of squeezing the Russian people and the economy? Is there an argument to be made, or you think it will eventually have an effect, you just don't know?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

It'll eventually have an effect, such a corrosive thing, that the most likely option is that Putin has to pull back. And there's some face-saving territorial compromise, a negotiated - I can't call it peaceful negotiation, but some sort of a negotiated solution, where there's very little confidence it's going to be a lasting one, but it's something which stops the mass slaughter right now. And then Putin goes back with his tail between his legs, trying to claim victory. And he'll have to deal with his domestic consequences on that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

nayeema raza

We'll be back in a minute.

If you like this interview and want to hear others, follow us on your favorite podcast app. You'll be able to catch up on "Sway" episodes you may have missed, like our conversation with former Disney C.E.O., Bob Iger. And you'll get new ones delivered directly to you. More with Jeffrey Sonnenfeld after the break.

kara swisher

Let's talk about the overall. Goldman Sachs C.E.O., David Solomon, recently said - and I recently interviewed him also - that it's not the job of businesses to decide whether to ostracize Russia. It's the government's job. Do companies need to have a point of view on everything?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

The slippery slope argument that people use in the business community is look at the array of injustices in the world and different governmental regimes that we're not a business to be a humanitarian and social change operations. And the old Milton Friedman argument, by the way, of course, about the bottom line is the only responsibility of business. And I love David Solomon. I think he's a terrific C.E.O. But no matter who you are on this planet, you can't ignore that bombing children's hospitals is not a good thing. If there's anything you can do to condemn the people that are doing that, you should do that.

kara swisher

So this one's not a hard one, but on other things, let's talk about Disney C.E.O. Bob Chapek's initial silence on Florida's "Don't Say Gay Bill." It's turned into a fiasco for him. He's had fiasco after a fiasco, actually. What did you think of that? And what will happen to him?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

You know, I've studiously avoided comment on this one, but I will comment because -

kara swisher

jeffrey sonnenfeld

- I have no escape, is, Bob Iger had a much more developed public presence. His values, though, perhaps were not the exact same as Bob Chapek's either. But in terms of his comfort in public discourse, Bob Iger was very smooth and one of the most underestimated new C.E.O.s when he took over.

But at this stage, they thought they kind of had it right and weren't going to worry about slightly different politics of Bob Chapek versus Bob Iger. But as sure of the maladroitness there, I think he's learning on the job, and it's expensive learning. But I would not write Chapek off for having gotten this one wrong because he's learning quickly now not only who his workforce is, but the role of a C.E.O. there. I think I'd give him an opportunity to see this as expensive training.

kara swisher

So you think he's fine? You think he handled it well, the recovery?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

No, but I think he and the company are learning how to handle this better. And he's gotten undercut even from Governor DeSantis when they made statements that we were trying to work privately behind the scenes.

kara swisher

Yeah, he got hit on all sides, yeah.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yeah, so he was out on a limb that then got sawed off. So it was a terrible spot to be in. And I give him -

kara swisher

So what do you imagine is going to happen? You think he's going to learn. Do you think he's in any trouble?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

In this case, I think they definitely need to learn like, how not to fight the critics, but embrace critics, embrace - and I think they're going to. And it's more than just spin. It's showing that you have a great pipewind -

kara swisher

So he probably should do an interview with a well-known lesbian reporter of media and tech, for example. Anyway, a similar dynamic happened last year after Georgia passed a bill restricting voting rights. Delta and Coca-Cola were initially silent about it until it was pressured by the public. Do you think that was a misstep?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

It was a huge misstep, and I took them on in a Newsweek column. They had this constructive engagement nonsense where they thought they were convincing the governor of Georgia to not come out with the ridiculous voting restrictions that had no justifications. And worse than the access restrictions was the political intervention and the validation of whose ballots count, which was missed by many of the voting rights groups as the worst part is what happens after people vote, is that the companies didn't engage. They learned their lesson, and they spun on that.

kara swisher

OK, let me ask you, does employee activism fit into this equation? You mentioned that Disney has employees walking out. Microsoft had to change its tune on PAC donations due to employee strife. Do you think it works?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Huge, huge. That's my big learning for me, is the importance of internal voice at the professional service firms and the tech companies. The professional service firms, they don't have investors that need to worry about. They don't have a lot of consumer boycotts. So those critical sensitive constituencies weren't what helped drive these guys to move so quickly. It was the huge internal dissent by employees who had revulsion about their exposure in those countries that was so noteworthy. That's a big change. I've never seen that in my lifetime.

There's one firm, it's a major firm, that is not with the PAC on this. They're right now, as I learned yesterday, facing a walkout of some of the most senior people in this firm. And that's going to be devastating to them. And so, yeah, I think employee voice has been critical. And I wish we saw more of that employee voice, by the way, in the voting rights because we didn't.

kara swisher

Yeah, we do, yeah.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

What's happening in Texas and Florida with tech companies and things that should be speaking out more -

kara swisher

I think they get weary. I think they get weary after -

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Well, there's too much pressure on C.E.O.s already. I mean, the 1960s social change movement had clergy walking together across face, hands in hands. And all these trade unions and employee groups that spoke out, the pension funds -

kara swisher

So employees need to speak up for whatever they want.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Employees have to, and the Russian retreat is the proof they should have done that on voting rights.

kara swisher

So let me ask, are corporations now meant to be on the side of the left really? They get a lot of C.E.O.s are dismissed as woke C.E.O.s. DeSantis did that with Chapek in Florida. I was astonished by that. But do they have to just ignore it?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Laugh at it. When people tell you, the C.E.O.s to get back in your lane, this is the lane of business. What do they think the right lane is, the breakdown lane? The social impact is very critical. Understanding uncertainties and technological disruption where you're second to none, of course, are very important. Understanding, of course, a changing demography and understanding new competitors and all the rest, they're very important in all operational changes in business and things. However, this is also part of the social context of business. When de Tocqueville came, Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States, as a French jurist to understand our legal system -

kara swisher

Oh my God, we're going into Tocqueville, but go ahead.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

He understood that - and "Democracy in America" was his book in 1840. He said it's not the tightness of our laws that make things work here. It's something that people think was created last year, called social capital, but it's as important as financial capital. It's public trust. None of these C.E.O.s want angry workforces. They don't want communities finger pointing. So out of self-interest, they want social harmony. That makes for a better enterprise. You have to have trust and -

kara swisher

So they should not care if they're called woke C.E.O.s, and they seem like they're with the left.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

A lot better to be awake than asleep, that's right.

kara swisher

Oh, all right. Last question, you also consulted - you've written about this with Donald Trump before his presidential run. You told him not to do it. Do you think he's going to run again?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

No, I think he wants to create a lot of that noise, but I think he won't be able to because of all the legal complications. And there's certainly a lot of leaders in the Republican Party that are hoping he won't, ranging from -

kara swisher

Yes, there are.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

- DeSantis to Romney. There's quite a portfolio in that. So I think that it's not likely, but it's possible.

kara swisher

Would corporations back him if he does run again?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

kara swisher

jeffrey sonnenfeld

There would be a revolution in all those critical constituencies I spoke about. And you know what? They didn't support him when he ran in either of his elections. Our C.E.O. summits, the secret here is - I'll tell you this, Kara - is that 70 percent of our participants are Republicans, 65, 70 percent. And Donald Trump came to one of our C.E.O. summits before he was president.

And some of the most vocal prominent Republican business leaders today were in that room. They said if he walks in the room - that clown walks in the room was the expression of one of the biggest financiers, still active today - I'm walking out. And you know what? He walked in. We were at the Waldorf. He walked in, and the whole top tier walked out. And so I reminded Trump about that in January 2017. He said, well, Jeff, they're all coming by here now. I said, well, why do you think that is?

kara swisher

But they did show up. I wrote a whole piece when all the tech C.E.O.s lined up like sheep and walked right into Trump Tower.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

You did write about that, and I asked a few of them that were there about that. And they told me they were glad that he seemed to be listening, and there was a lot of enthusiasm. That was in December after the election, but that in 2017, they went off to these advisory councils and maintained that excitement, but melted down by February because his modus operandi is divide and conquer.

kara swisher

So were they Pollyannas?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Yes, they were naive and hoping that they could manipulate him. And they did get, of course, concessions on the tax front, but on the regulatory front, very few business leaders wanted the sustainability and climate change rollbacks. In fact, the energy industries -

kara swisher

So they got what they wanted, Jeff, correct?

jeffrey sonnenfeld

A little bit. They got the taxes. But -

kara swisher

But let me just say, when I had a discussion with one of them and they said we're going to change his mind, and I go, guess what? You're not Jesus. It's not happening. This guy is very clear on what he said. And he -

jeffrey sonnenfeld

I must tell you, I thought he would pivot more to the center than he did. But no, exactly, right.

kara swisher

You know what? Peter Thiel will always be there. That's what you have to keep in mind. Anyway, thank you so much. This has been a fascinating discussion.

jeffrey sonnenfeld

Thank you so much. [MUSIC PLAYING]

nayeema raza

"Sway" is a production of New York Times Opinion. It's produced by Nayeema Raza, Blakeney Schick, Daphne Chen, Caitlin O'Keefe, and Wyatt Orme; with original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Sonia Herrero and Carole Sabouraud; and fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Michelle Harris, and Mary Marge Locker. Special thanks to Shannon Busta, Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski. The senior editor of "Sway" is Nayeema Raza. And the executive producer of New York Times Opinion audio is Irene Noguchi.

If you're in a podcast app already, you know how to get your podcasts, so follow this one. If you're listening on The Times website and want to get each new episode of "Sway" delivered to you, like an Uncle Vanya's burger with a side of freedom fries, download any podcast app, then search for "Sway", and follow the show. We release every Monday and Thursday. Thanks for listening.

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Opinion | The Corporations Passing - and Failing - the Ukraine Morality Test

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(SINGING) When you walk in the room, do you have sway? nayeema raza I'm not Kara Swisher, but yes, you are listening to "Sway". This is Nayeema Raza, "Sway's" showrunner. Kara's recovering from a cold, so while she did tape this interview on death's doorstep, she asked me to fill in for the intro.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a virtual speech before Congress on March 16. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post)

In his gut-wrenching address to Congress, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the United States for more - and more he will get.

U.S. leaders across the spectrum saluted Zelensky after he spoke to them Wednesday from Kyiv in his olive-drab T-shirt - part Winston Churchill and part Che Guevara. For all the cheap politics of the moment (Republicans reflexively blaming President Biden and refusing to applaud when Zelensky thanked Biden), Washington is uncommonly unified in purpose. Neither lawmakers nor the administration support a U.S.-led no-fly zone or any other troop commitment, and congressional hawks are successfully pushing Biden toward giving Ukraine whatever weaponry it desires, likely including aircraft.

Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates

But Zelensky made another ask on Wednesday morning, and it's something all Americans can help with. We can stop buying the products of businesses that continue to fund Vladimir Putin's war machine, even after its full horrors - indiscriminately targeting civilians, murdering children - are obvious to the world.

"All American companies must leave Russia. ... Leave their market immediately, because it is flooded with our blood," the young leader said, asking lawmakers "to make sure that the Russians do not receive a single penny that they use to destroy our people in Ukraine, the destruction of our country, the destruction of Europe. ... Peace is more important than income."

Most American companies get that. Some 400 U.S. and other multinational firms have pulled out of Russia, either permanently or temporarily, according to Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who has kept the authoritative list of corporate actions in Russia. Oil companies (BP, Shell, ExxonMobil) and tech companies (Dell, IBM, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter) led the way, and many others (McDonald's, Starbucks, Coca-Cola) eventually followed.

But, according to Sonnenfeld, there are, at the other extreme, 33 companies (as of Wednesday afternoon) that form a "hall of shame," defying demands that they exit Russia or reduce their activities there.

"They are funding the Russian war machine, and they are undermining the whole idea of the sanctions," Sonnenfeld told me. "The whole idea is to freeze up civil society, to get people out on the streets and outraged. They're undermining an effective resolution" and increasing the likelihood of continued bloodshed.

Hotel brands are pausing development in Russia, but they aren't pulling out completely

Those who want to stop Russia's murderous attack against Ukraine should stop investing in or buying the products of these companies.

Koch Industries, whose owners gave to right-wing causes for years, is now financing Putin's war. The people who make Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Quilted Northern toilet paper, Vanity Fair napkins and Georgia-Pacific lumber are abetting the spilling of Ukrainians' blood.

Like Reebok shoes? They're being used to stomp on Ukraine. Authentic Brands Group, which also owns Aeropostale, Eddie Bauer, Brooks Brothers and Nine West, among others, is in the hall of shame.

Before you bite into a Cinnabon (or Carvel ice cream, Schlotzsky's sandwich or Auntie Anne's pretzel) consider that parent company Focus Brands is taking a bite out of democracy in Ukraine.

So is Subway. While selling you the All-American Club, it's giving Ukrainians the Cold-Cock Combo by refusing to cut loose its 446 Russian franchises.

Several other household brands - Truvia and Diamond Crystal salt (Cargill), Avon cosmetics (Natura), LG appliances, ASUS laptops, Mission tortillas (Gruma) and Pirelli tires - are produced by companies on the shameful list.

Are you or your mutual fund invested in Halliburton, Baker Hughes or Schlumberger? Then you should know that these oil-services companies could deal a huge blow to Putin's ability to wage war - but they choose profit instead.

Let's name and shame all the others among the 33: advertising firms BBDO, DDB and Omnicom; accountant Baker Tilly; industrial companies Air Liquide, Air Products, Greif, IPG Photonics, Linde, Mettler Toledo, Nalco and Rockwool; French hotelier Accor and retailers Auchan, Decathlon and Leroy Merlin; German wholesaler Metro; cloud service Cloudflare; International Paper; and Sweden's Oriflame Cosmetics.

An additional 72 multinationals have made only partial pullbacks from Russia, such as reducing current operations or holding off on new investments - actions Sonnenfeld calls "very questionable" and "smokescreens." Included here: Dunkin Donuts, General Mills, Mondelez (Oreos and other Nabisco products), candymaker Mars, Procter & Gamble, Yum Brands (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott.

All these businesses could be doing more to stop Putin's savagery and war crimes. Because they won't, we all should do more to stop them. Go to Sonnenfeld's website via Yale's School of Management to make sure you aren't funding the businesses that are funding Putin's war machine - and reward the vast majority of companies that share Zelensky's belief that peace is more important than profit.

Since publication, Yale's Sonnenfeld has moved the following companies from Category 4 ("Digging In - Defying Demands for Exit or Reduction of Activities") to Category 3 ("Scaling Back - Reducing Current Operations/Holding Off New Investments"): Air Liquide, Baker Tilly, Focus Brands, Linde and Rockwool. Mettler Toledo moved from Category 4 to Category 2 ("Suspension - Keeping Options Open for Return"). Young Living, a seller of essential oils, was added to Category 4. For future updates, visit Sonnenfeld's site.

OPINIONS ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE

HAND CURATED

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Opinion | Stop buying from these companies. They're funding Putin's war.

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In his gut-wrenching address to Congress, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the United States for more - and more he will get. U.S. leaders across the spectrum saluted Zelensky after he spoke to them Wednesday from Kyiv in his olive-drab T-shirt - part Winston Churchill and part Che Guevara.

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1. Mondelez

Mondelez International is still doing business with Russia, despite growing pressure and calls for boycotts among its consumers. The food and beverage conglomerate owns a wide variety of popular brands including Oreo, Ritz, Cadbury, and Trident. According to Sonnenfeld, Mondelez generates 3.5% of its total revenue from Russia, an estimated total of $1 billion.

A Mondelez spokesperson directed Insider to a statement made by CEO Dirk Van de Put on March 9 that said the company is "scaling back all non-essential activities" in Russia, "while helping maintain continuity of the food supply during the challenging times ahead."

"We will focus our operation on basic offerings, discontinue all new capital investments, and suspend our advertising media spending," de Put wrote.

2. Salvatore Ferragamo

The Italian fashion company is still operating Russia, where it makes an estimated 1% of its revenue, or $10 million. A representative for Salvatore Ferragamo told Insider the company "does not operate directly in Russia" and that its "activities there are managed by a local distributor."

3. Mars Inc.

While Mars announced on March 1 that it was suspending advertising in Russia and Belarus, the company is continuing to produce goods at its factories in Russia, where Sonnenfield estimates the company has invested more than $2 billion.

Mars makes a significant amount of its pet food in Russia, where it operates five facilities that produce its Whiskas, KitKat, Pedigree, Chappi, and Sheba brands. In August 2021, the company expanded production in Russia, after first ramping up investments in pet food production in the region in 2018.

In response to a request to comment, a Mars representative directed Insider to a statement from CEO Grant F. Reid on March 1 announcing that in addition to halting advertising in the region, the company would also donation $2 million to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

"We join the world in supporting the innocent victims of this war and calling for a peaceful resolution immediately," Reid said in the statement.

4. Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark is continuing business in Russia, where it conducts 3% of its revenue, or an estimated $600 million. The consumer products conglomerate - which owns several personal care brands like Kleenex, Kotex, and Cottenelle - opened its first manufacturing plant in Russia in 2010 and expanded its business in the region in 2019.

A representative for Kimberly-Clark did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

6. Hilton

Hilton is continuing business in Russia, where its 29 locations remain open. A representative for Hilton did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

7. Hyatt

Hyatt is also still operating in Russia, where its six locations remain open. A representative for Hyatt did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

8. Intercontinental Hotels Group

Intercontinental Hotels Group is continuing business in Russia, where its 26 locations remain open.

According to an IHG spokesperson, while the company is suspending future investments, development activity, and new hotel openings in the country, the company holds "long-term management or franchise agreements with independent third-party companies that own the hotels in Russia."

"IHG has a commitment to look after the people and communities where we have a presence around the world," a spokesperson said in a statement to Insider, adding that the company is also closing its corporate office in Moscow, but will "continue to support our colleagues."

9. Marriott

Marriott's 10 hotel locations in Russia remain open. A representative for Marriott did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

10. Accor

The French hospitality group Accor is still operating its 55 hotel locations in Russia. A representative for Accor did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

11. Citigroup

Citigroup is continuing business in Russia, where it risks losing an estimated $4 billion due to exposure in the country. The company disclosed it had a total of $9.8 billion in exposures in Russia at the end of 2021, which put it at a higher risk than many other Western banks, The Financial Times reported.

In a statement shared to the company's website on March 9, Edward Skyler - Citigroup's executive vice president of global public affairs - wrote that the company is working toward exiting its consumer banking business in Russia.

"As we work toward that exit, we are operating that business on a more limited basis given current circumstances and obligations," Skyler wrote. "We are also supporting our corporate clients in Russia, including many American and European multi-national corporations who we are helping as they suspend or unwind their business."

12. Bridgestone Tire

Bridgestone Tire, the largest manufacturer of tires in the world, has continued business in Russia, where it operates several facilities. The company first started tire production in the country in 2016.

A representative for Bridgestone did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

14. Caterpillar

Caterpillar is continuing business in the country as its shares climb. The company's stock increased by 6.5% on March 8, as demand for localized mining, energy, and agricultural needs rises globally in response to the impact of sanctions on Russia.

"The Russia/Ukraine crisis has fundamentally altered global commodity markets and is likely to drive a decade of reinvestment, similar to what the world experienced in the 1970s," Jefferies analyst Steven Volkmann wrote in a note, as reported by Bloomberg.

The company has a self-proclaimed "long history in Russia," which began over a century ago when Caterpillar began exhibiting tractors in trade shows in the region. It opened its first office in Russia in 1973 and today has 180 locations in the larger Eurasia region, according to its website.

A representative for Caterpillar did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

"The Russia/Ukraine crisis has fundamentally altered global commodity markets and is likely to drive a decade of reinvestment, similar to what the world experienced in the 1970s," Jefferies analyst Steven Volkmann wrote in a note.

15. John Deere

While John Deere recently suspended shipments of machines to Russia and Belarus, it continues to operate its manufacturing and parts distribution facility in Domodedovo, a city south of Moscow.

According to a John Deere spokesperson, the company has been "working directly with a number of organizations, including multiple UN agencies, to mobilize resources to support Ukrainians impacted by the crisis."

"John Deere is deeply saddened by the significant escalation of events in Ukraine," the spokesperson told Insider. "The safety, welfare, and well-being of our employees in the region remain our top priority, and we continue to support and maintain close communication with our affected teams, providing necessary resources when possible."

16. Cargill

Cargill - an international producer of food, agricultural, and industrial products - has maintained operations in Russia, where it employs 2,500 employees. According to its website, Cargill is "one of the biggest foreign investors in agro-processing segment of Russian economy with the amount overrunning $1100 million USD."

A representative for Cargill did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

17. Cummins

Cummins - which designs and manufactures engines, filtration, and power generation products - has continued business with Russia, where it has 700 employees.

The company announced on March 8 that it has halted some of its operations in the country, and has denied reports that it was providing engines Russian military vehicles.

"We have halted some of our operations, but we are continuing to conduct business with Russia that supports the health and safety of citizens on the ground where Cummins equipment powers parts of the agricultural sector, hospitals and many other elements of daily life and not for the defense or military," Cummins spokesperson Jon Mills told The Republic. "Our intent is to limit the impact on citizens who are not participants in this invasion."

18. Greif

Greif, a global industrial packaging products and services companies, has continued business in Russia where it operates several facilities. The company most recently expanded its operations in the region in 2019 with its second intermediate bulk container production plant.

A Greif spokesperson told Insider that ts "first consideration is always the health and well-being of our people, regardless of nationality."

"While we condemn the actions taken by the Russian government, we still remain in full support of our 540 Russian colleagues, many of whom are long tenured, appalled and saddened by the events underway," the spokesperson said. "Their livelihood is important to us, and we continue to operate in Russia as a means of safeguarding their well-being."

19. Bunge

The agribusiness and food production company Bunge is still operating in Russia, where Sonnenfeld reported the company generates 2.6% of its total revenue, or $1.5 billion. The company previously said that the conflict and sanctions could have an "adverse effect" on its grain business in the region, Reuters reported.

A representative for Bunge did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

20. Mohawk Industries

Mohawk Industries, which produces floor coverings for commercial and residential properties, is still operating in Russia, where it makes an estimated 4.3% of its revenue, or $400 million, according to Sonnenfield.

The company began producing laminate in Russia in 2011 "to maximize market share" and began sheet vinyl production at a new plant in the country in 2019, according to its website.

A representative for Mohawk did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

21. Otis Worldwide

Otis Worldwide, which manufactures elevators, escalators, and moving walkways, has yet to pull out of Russia, where it has several joint ventures and partnerships.

"We are monitoring developments carefully and will continue to adjust our operations and procedures in compliance with applicable laws and in order to continue to best serve all of our stakeholders in this challenging context," an Otis spokesperson told Insider.

22. Timken

Timken, a global manufacturer of bearings and transmission products, is still operating in Russia, where it holds joint ventures with the United Wagon Company of Russia and Russia's European Bearing Corp.

A representative for Timken did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

25. Whirlpool

Whirlpool has retained operations in Russia, where it has upwards of 250 employees, according to Crunchbase.

A spokesperson for Whirlpool told Insider that while the company for safety purposes has stopped business in Ukraine - where it has a sales organization with 40 employees and 100 contractors - it is currently "limiting production" in Russia.

"In Russia, we are limiting production to provide essential goods for families who need our appliances to clean, cook and provide proper food and medicine storage in their homes," the spokesperson said.

26. Abbott Labs

Abbott Labs has continued business with the country, where it generates nearly 2% of its sales, according to Med Tech Dive.

A spokesperson for Abbott directed Insider to a statement made on March 4 announcing that the company has donated $2 million to humanitarian organizations that support Ukraine including International Medical Corps, Americares, and Project HOPE.

28. AmerisourceBergen

AmerisourceBergen, a US-based wholesale drug company, told The Philadelphia Inquirer in a statement on Tuesday that it would continue its operations in Russia to support its "purpose of creating healthier futures for people worldwide."

A spokesperson for AmerisourceBergen directed Insider to a March 9 statement from Robert Mauch - executive vice president and group president - that the company plans to continue support of its existing clinical trials and distribution of oncology therapies while "ceasing any new business initiatives in Russia."

"There are also larger social ramifications to consider," Mauch said in the statement. "Making the decision to effectively end the clinical trials our teams are supporting is a strike against medical innovations that may help patients across the globe."

Keep reading

More: Features Russia Ukraine Retail

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Here are the major companies that have not pulled out of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine

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1. Mondelez Mondelez International is still doing business with Russia, despite growing pressure and calls for boycotts among its consumers. The food and beverage conglomerate owns a wide variety of popular brands including Oreo, Ritz, Cadbury, and Trident. According to Sonnenfeld, Mondelez generates 3.5% of its total revenue from Russia, an estimated total of $1 billion.

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After Russia's invasion, Meest-America, which specializes in shipping goods to Eastern Europe, shifted to a singular focus.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Meest-America, a freight company that specializes in shipping to Eastern Europe, quickly changed its mission. Credit... Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

PORT READING, N.J. - A blue dot on a box means nonperishable food, ready for shipping. A red dot means first-aid items for hospitals still standing. A green dot means supplies for Ukrainians taking up arms: boots and kneepads, socks and gloves, thermal underwear and camouflage-patterned clothing.

And in this cavernous warehouse, at the back end of an industrial park in central New Jersey, green dots are everywhere - emerald signals that Ukrainian Americans stand behind Ukrainian civilians who are defending their homeland with their lives.

Just three weeks ago, the warehouse hummed with the business of Meest-America Inc., a freight-delivery service that specializes in shipping goods to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, including Russia. "Meest" is Ukrainian for bridge.

But on Feb. 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, the native country for most of Meest-America's 108 workers, and business all but stopped. The company was unable to ship to Ukraine, and it could not in good conscience continue shipping to Russia and Belarus.

"Once we saw the images of bombing, it was an easy decision," said Natalia Brandafi, the company's chief operating officer.

Overnight, the New Jersey warehouse became a Ukrainian outpost. The lobby was decorated with a blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag, and the phone system modified to play the Ukrainian national anthem for callers on hold. The entire business model was changed to a single purpose:

Help Ukraine.

As raw images and reports of war's life-shattering toll spread online, Ukrainian American organizations pleaded for donations to help the wounded and displaced. But they also sought aid for those who were setting aside pens and shovels to pick up guns. The response, organizers said, has been overwhelming.

A glimpse could be found in the modest basement of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Holy Ascension in Maplewood, where the wintry backdrop of the Christmas pageant still adorns the small stage. Boxes of donated items covered the tiled floor, and handwritten signs of organization - "diapers + baby care" - were taped to the wood-paneled walls.

But the desired "priority items" listed on a church leaflet more directly reflected the carnage of war. Abdominal bandages. Water-gel burn dressing. IV starter kits. Emergency compression dressings that stem the bleeding from hemorrhagic wounds.

On Wednesday afternoon, Dan and Lynne Gulak, married retirees and church members who had been volunteering since the outbreak of war, were taping and labeling boxes in the basement when the telephone rang. It was the Maplewood Fire Department.

Mr. Gulak listened to the caller, said that words could not express his thanks, hung up - and briefly lost his composure. Removing his glasses to wipe his eyes with a handkerchief, he explained in a quavering voice that the department would be dropping off several dozen boxes of medical supplies. It had also collected $5,000 in donations, and more money was coming.

As he spoke, the red of Engine 32 and the white of a pickup truck, both packed with boxes, flashed past the high basement window. A fire official called to say that the delivery was here.

"Be right up," Mr. Gulak said, voice breaking once again.

Many donations like the one delivered to the church in Maplewood are being trucked to Meest-America's massive warehouse, where evidence of the company's interrupted business could be seen in one corner of the 92,000-square-foot space. There, on row after row, sat thousands of packages whose delivery to Eastern Europe had been halted by war: books, clothes and household items, many in Amazon and Target and Walmart boxes.

Among them was a box containing a hedge trimmer, evoking dashed hopes of peaceful gardening in the Ukrainian spring.

Deeper into the building, Meest-America workers, dwarfed by towers of boxed donations, had stayed hours after their day shifts to join the volunteers who were unpacking, examining, sorting and repacking the material coming in.

Lesya Tenderyak, who works in accounts payable, paused to explain why she had been sorting and packing seven days a week. She said she comes from Chervonohrad, in western Ukraine. She said she has family there. She said she would take up arms if she could.

"I'm fighting this way," Ms. Tenderyak said.

No music as people work; no chitchat. Just the chirp of forklifts, the rattle of pallet lifts, the thump of box upon box.

Some of the donations coming in, items often requiring special paperwork for shipment, help to explain the serious mood: civilian drones, satellite phones, walkie-talkies.

Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments

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The somberness deepened a few days ago when a volunteer received a cellphone call. News from the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine: Her nephew, who had joined a civilian defense unit, had been killed.

"She collapsed in her chair, crying," Ms. Brandafi said of the volunteer, whom she has known for years. "And she kept crying."

Such scenes have unfolded while some Russian customers have been calling to berate and complain, leading to raised voices at the reception desk. "They yell at our employees and blame the war on Ukrainians," she said.

Ms. Brandafi, 51, exuded exhaustion as she sat in her warehouse office late Wednesday afternoon. On a table, her lunch of tomato soup was growing cold in its unopened bag. On the wall, a painting of a moonlit street evoked small-town calm.

It often seemed that the days of routine telephone calls were over. One moment, a Boston tech investor was calling to donate $70,000 for shipping costs; the next, a longtime customer in eastern Ukraine was weeping in panic.

"Heartbreaking," Ms. Brandafi said.

She does not cry until after she has left the office at 10, driven the half-hour home and sat down to watch the latest news from her homeland. Then she may cry. But not at work; there's no time.

Last week, she said, 120 tons of supplies in the warehouse were flown to western Europe and driven into Ukraine by company-owned trucks. And with more donations pouring in every day, the company is working with several nonprofit organizations - including Razom, NovaUkraine and Revived Soldiers Ukraine - to ship as much as possible as soon as possible.

"It can be overwhelming," Ms. Brandafi acknowledged, as her phone rang and her cold soup sat untouched.

But that street-scene painting on her wall is of Rohatyn, her hometown in western Ukraine, which helps to explain why, on the other side of that wall, another truck was pulling into a bay, and more dots - blue, red and green - were being applied to wrapped bundles.

"These are the streets we used to walk on," she said.

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Ukraine War Gives Freight Firm a New Purpose: 'I'm Fighting This Way'

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After Russia's invasion, Meest-America, which specializes in shipping goods to Eastern Europe, shifted to a singular focus. PORT READING, N.J. - A blue dot on a box means nonperishable food, ready for shipping. A red dot means first-aid items for hospitals still standing.

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National Bank of Ukraine Opens Fundraising Account for Humanitarian Assistance to Ukrainians 

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National Bank of Ukraine Opens Fundraising Account for Humanitarian Assistance to Ukrainians 

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Національний банк України

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Національний банк відкрив Міністерству соціальної політики України поточний рахунок для гуманітарних цілей.

Рахунок використовуватиметься для зарахування благодійної допомоги з України та з-за кордону. Міністерство соціальної політики використовуватиме зібрані кошти для забезпечення підтримки громадян України, які найбільше страждають від війни.

"Російська агресія залишила тисячі українців без житла, грошей, одягу, їжі та інших елементарних речей. Проте Україна та світ не залишають їх наодинці зі своїм горем - фінансова підтримка активно надходить як від громадян нашої держави, так і з-за кордону. Щоб упорядкувати надходження коштів від донорів на гуманітарну допомогу постраждалим від війни українцям, Національний банк відкрив Мінсоцполітики рахунок, який акумулюватиме благодійні внески на соціальні потреби у військовий час. На відміну від спецрахунку, відкритого для фінансування потреб Збройних Сил України, кошти з цього рахунку витрачатимуться для допомоги громадянам, які найбільше страждають від війни з Росією", - зазначив Голова Національного банку України Кирило Шевченко.

Отримані на цей рахунок кошти спрямовуватимуться Міністерством соціальної політики на:

задоволення продовольчих потреб та облаштування місць розміщення біженців та громадян, які у зв'язку з бойовими діями залишили місце свого проживання;

забезпечення їх одягом та взуттям, надання ліків та медичних препаратів;

забезпечення населення товарами першої необхідності,

надання одноразової грошової допомоги, задоволення інших першочергових потреб життєдіяльності людини.

Реквізити рахунку Міністерства соціальної політики: UA823000010000032302338301027

Рахунок - мультивалютний, створений та відкритий як для переказу коштів від міжнародних партнерів та донорів - у іноземній валюті (доларах США, євро, британських фунтах), так і від українського бізнесу та громадян - у національній валюті.

Національний банк за потреби оновлюватиме перелік реквізитів для надання благодійної допомоги, спрямованої на гуманітарні цілі.

Підтримуйте Україну, допомагайте українцям!
Для зарахування коштів у національній валюті:
Банк: Національний банк України
МФО 300001
Рахунок № UA823000010000032302338301027
код ЄДРПОУ 37567866
Отримувач: Міністерство соціальної політики України
Для зарахування коштів у EUR:
BENEFICIARY: Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine
IBAN DE85500000000050002137
PURPOSE OF PAYMENT: for ac 32302338301027
BENEFICIARY BANK NAME: DEUTSCHE BUNDESBANK, Frankfurt
BENEFICIARY BANK BIC: MARKDEFF
BENEFICIARY BANK ADDRESS: Wilhelm-Epstein-Strasse 14, 60431 Frankfurt Am Main, Germany
Для зарахування коштів у USD:
BENEFICIARY: Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine
BENEFICIARY BIC: NBUA UA UX
BENEFICIARY ADDRESS: 9 Instytutska St, Kyiv, 01601, Ukraine
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 400807238
BENEFICIARY BANK NAME: JP MORGAN CHASE BANK, New York
BENEFICIARY BANK BIC: CHASUS33
ABA 0210 0002 1
BENEFICIARY BANK ADDRESS: 383 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
PURPOSE OF PAYMENT: for ac 32302338301027
Для зарахування коштів у GBP:
BENEFICIARY/RECIPIENT NAME: Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 80033041
IBAN GB52CHAS60924280033041
BENEFICIARY ADDRESS: 9 Instytutska St, Kyiv, 01601, Ukraine
BENEFICIARY BANK NAME: JP MORGAN CHASE BANK NA, London
BENEFICIARY BANK BIC: CHASGB2L
SORT CODE: 60-92-42
BENEFICIARY BANK ADDRESS: 125 London Wall, London EC2Y 5AJ, UK
REFERENCE FOR CREDITING ACCOUNT: 32302338301027
Для зарахування коштів у JPY:
BENEFICIARY: Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine
BENEFICIARY BIC: NBUA UA UX
BENEFICIARY ADDRESS: 9 Instytutska St, Kyiv, 01601, Ukraine
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 653-0430048
BENEFICIARY BANK NAME: MUFG BANK LTD, Tokyo
BENEFICIARY BANK BIC: BOTK JP JT
BENEFICIARY BANK ADDRESS: 1-2-3, Nihombashi HONGOKU-CHO, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 1003 -0021 Japan
PURPOSE OF PAYMENT: for ac 32302338301027
Підтримати Українську Армію можна тут.

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Національний банк відкрив рахунок для гуманітарної допомоги українцям, постраждалим від російської агресії

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Національний банк відкрив Міністерству соціальної політики України поточний рахунок для гуманітарних цілей. Рахунок використовуватиметься для зарахування благодійної допомоги з України та з-за кордону. Міністерство соціальної політики використовуватиме зібрані кошти для забезпечення підтримки громадян України, які найбільше страждають від війни. "Російська агресія залишила тисячі українців без житла, грошей, одягу, їжі та інших елементарних речей.

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Ukrainian LGBTQ+ and feminist NGO ‘Insight’ is collecting donations to provide support for LGBTQ+ people in Ukraine by covering basic needs in protection, safety and health during the war.

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Ukrainian LGBTQ+ and feminist NGO ‘Insight’ is collecting donations to provide support for LGBTQ+ people in Ukraine by covering basic needs in protection, safety and health during the war.

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Ukrainian LGBTQ+ and feminist NGO ' Insight ' is collecting donations to provide support LGBTQ+ people in Ukraine with covering basic needs in protection, safety and health during the war.

'Insight' public organization is working in 11 regions of Ukraine and was founded in 2008.

Due to the Russian military invasion in Ukraine, a lot of LGBTQI+people have left their homes. Another cannot leave their houses and don't have any access to food, medicines or information.

What we do now during the war:

launched help-bot for legal and psychological support for LGBTQI+ communities and for women;

opened 2 shelters in Lviv and Chernivtsi, which can host 15-20 people at the time

setup hormone deliveries for T*people to different cities in Ukraine;

setup medicine deliveries for LGBTQI+ people;

setup evacuation logistic LGBTQ+ people to safer locations (EU, Western Ukraine)

connect LGBTQI+ people with host organizations in EU and other countries

Each of us can change the country for the better!

We have been working for the LGBT+ community and women since 2008. Without the support of volunteers, friendly specialists, philanthropists, our activities all these years would be impossible.

Everyone can contribute to the activities of our organization, for the common goal - to make the world safer and more comfortable for all without exception and prejudice.
You can choose the form of public organization support that suits you:

allocate several hours per month for volunteering;

join the professional community.

Join us! Changes can only be made when we are all together! Be with us

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Join and donate - Insight Public Organization

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Ukrainian LGBTQ+ and feminist NGO ' Insight ' is collecting donations to provide support LGBTQ+ people in Ukraine with covering basic needs in protection, safety and health during the war. 'Insight' public organization is working in 11 regions of Ukraine and was founded in 2008.

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Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the morning of the 24th February 2022, large numbers of Ukrainian Roma have been internally displaced or fled to neighbouring countries. The Roma are Ukraine's largest and most marginalised ethnic minority group.

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Голоси дітей

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Голоси дітей

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Charitable Foundation Voices of Children helps children affected by the war in eastern Ukraine. Thanks to you, we provide psychological and psychosocial support to children. It helps them overcome the consequences of armed conflict and develop.

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Razom means “together” in Ukrainian. They are currently purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medical items. They have a large procurement team of volunteers that tracks down and purchases supplies and a logistics team that then gets them to Ukraine.

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Razom means “together” in Ukrainian. They are currently purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medical items. They have a large procurement team of volunteers that tracks down and purchases supplies and a logistics team that then gets them to Ukraine.

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The best way to train surgeons is by providing hands-on mentorship and assistance in the operating room. One of the primary goals of the Co-Pilot Project is the continued recruitment of high quality surgeons from United States and Canada to spend time with Ukrainian counterparts, consulting on patients and performing procedures.
Surgical Mentors traveling to Ukraine

Jefferson Miley, MD - neurointerventionalist

Jonathan Forbes, MD - skull base neurosurgeon

Matthew Geck, MD - orthopedic spine surgeon

Not all of the healthcare volunteers will be able to travel to Ukraine but they still will play an important role from home. Utilizing contemporary technology, including live streaming of surgeries and communication via social media the medical support staff will advice and mentor Ukrainian neurosurgeons as they confront difficult cases.
Medical Support Staff

Bido Patel, MD - neuroradiologist

Chandra Krishnan, MD - neuropathologist

Ginger Harrod, MD - neuro-oncologist

Advisory Staff

Tim George, MD - pediatric neurosurgeon

Jim Rose, MD - vascular neurosurgeon

Ryan Murdoch, MD - orthopedic spine surgeon

Patrick Combs, MD - craniofacial surgeon

Nestor Tomycz, MD - functional neurosurgeon

Aaron Stayman, MD - vascular neurologist

Jim Rutka - pediatric neurosurgeon

Ben Warf - pediatric neurosurgeon

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The best way to train surgeons is by providing hands-on mentorship and assistance in the operating room. One of the primary goals of the Co-Pilot Project is the continued recruitment of high quality surgeons from United States and Canada to spend time with Ukrainian counterparts, consulting on patients and performing procedures.

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A free and confidential service from UC Davis that enables displaced people to virtually store and share personal records essential to protecting them and reestablishing their lives.

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A free and confidential service from UC Davis that enables displaced people to virtually store and share personal records essential to protecting them and reestablishing their lives.

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Ukrainian Students, Professionals and Human Rights Defenders: Use UC Davis Backpack

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UC Davis Global Affairs and UC Davis Human Rights Studies is encouraging Ukrainian students, professionals, and human rights advocates to use the UC Davis Backpack to s

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Direct Relief has deployed more than 164 tons of medical aid to Ukraine since the war broke out.

"Direct Relief was created out of the ashes of WWII by Europeans who fled. It's stunning and sad that humanitarian assistance is needed again in the same neighborhood, but it's definitely consistent with our organization's roots, initial focus, and longstanding mission."
Thomas Tighe, President & CEO, Direct Relief

DIRECT RELIEF FOR UKRAINE

Direct Relief is working directly with Ukraine's Ministry of Health and other on-the-ground partners to provide urgently needed medical aid, including emergency response packs intended for first responders, oxygen concentrators, critical care medicines, and much more.

Direct Relief has firmly established relationships both with Ukraine's Ministry of Health and other organizations responding in the region. Medical aid is intended both for people still in Ukraine and for those who have fled the conflict to neighboring countries.

At the request of the Ministry of Health, Direct Relief has provided multiple shipments of medical aid since the conflict broke out, including 164 tons of medical aid, including insulin supplies, critical care medications, oxygen concentrators, and other essential resources.

Direct Relief has also supplied the Ministry of Health with hundreds of emergency medical backpacks, intended for first responders working in the field and dealing with injuries and trauma, infections, and other acute medical needs.
(Specific aid distribution locations within Ukraine are being withheld for security reasons)
Medical Needs in Ukraine

Health concerns during this time include medical needs for thousands of people that have been internally displaced within Ukraine and many others that have fled into refugee camps that have been established in the neighboring countries of Moldova, Poland, and others.

Humanitarian crises invariably lead to a wide range of health problems:

Infectious diseases - in Ukraine, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, polio, and Covid-19 are particular concerns, especially since oxygen shortage is a serious problem in the country.

Loss of chronic care medications frequently leads to acute, life-threatening health crises.

Maternal health care and vital services are disrupted.

The trauma of conflict has significant consequences for people's mental health.

Drawing on its extensive history of humanitarian response, Direct Relief is preparing to support overwhelmed health systems working to care for these impacts, as more information becomes available.

Direct Relief is also working with the manufacturers of essential medical products to facilitate donations to assist Ukrainians affected by conflict, whether they are still in the country or have fled to one of the neighboring nations receiving refugees.

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Direct Relief has deployed more than 164 tons of medical aid to Ukraine since the war broke out. DIRECT RELIEF FOR UKRAINE Direct Relief is working directly with Ukraine's Ministry of Health and other on-the-ground partners to provide urgently needed medical aid, including emergency response packs intended for first responders, oxygen concentrators, critical care medicines, and much more.

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HOW TO HELP:
At this time, Operation USA is focusing Phase I relief efforts on making emergency cash grants to partners aiding refugees on the ground in Poland and other nearby countries. The best way to support these efforts is with a cash donation at give.opusa.org.

Operation USA is also working with corporate partners who can provide appropriate material aid in bulk, to be shipped to on the ground partners in Phase II. We advise against collection efforts as they are not an efficient way to provide aid at this time, especially given lack of coordinated infrastructure on the ground and logistical challenges getting shipments into Eastern Europe. Operation USA has to pre-vet donated items and ensure there is a receiving partner who can put them to use where needed, so we are unfortunately unable to accept assorted items from collections. If you are interested in a bulk, corporate donation, please email info@opusa.org.

Operation USA does not deploy volunteers. If you are interested in volunteer opportunities, we recommend reaching out to International Medical Corps (if you have relevant medical expertise/experience), International Rescue Committee or the International Red Cross.

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STRATEGIC RESPONSE PHASES:
The situation on the ground in Eastern Europe continues to develop rapidly. OpUSA staff are in touch with partners both in the U.S. and overseas and are following news from the area closely. We will continue to adapt as the situation changes. Your donations help us remain agile.

PHASE I (Urgent Response; Critical Needs): OpUSA has committed 40% of total funds raised (approx $280,000 as of March 25th) to the urgent response phase. These funds will be quickly disbursed to community-based partners directly supporting refugees at this time. Emergency grants will allow these partners to increase capacity, meet additional needs and provide necessary support to displaced Ukrainians.

PHASE II (3-6 Months+; Immediate Recovery): OpUSA has committed an additional 40% of total funds raised to the immediate recovery phase. These funds will enable OpUSA to send shipments of vital material aid and recovery supplies to partners on the ground helping refugees. This process is made possible by corporate partners who can donate relevant supplies new and in-bulk, as well as cash donations from the public which cover transportation costs. This process is also dependent on clearing several logistical roadblocks and confirming needs as well as identifying receiving and/or distributing partners in the impacted areas. As such, "immediate" recovery will likely take 3-6 months to ramp up.

PHASE III (Long-Term; Ongoing Recovery): Operation USA will allocate the remaining 20% of funds raised to long term recovery support in the countries surrounding Ukraine. We sadly anticipate this crisis to last several years. By strategically allocating funds to this phase, we are ensuring that OpUSA maintains the capacity to provide support to the most overlooked and under-served partners on the ground with grants, supplies and additional long-term initiatives such as health and education programs.

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UPDATES:

March 29, 2022- This week, Operation USA sent a $50,000 grant to Brook of Hope to aid ongoing Ukrainian relief efforts. Brook of Hope has been working in Ukraine since 2017, and at this time is focused on supplying partners within Ukraine with vital equipment while also helping to evacuate vulnerable Ukrainians. This grant, made possible by our generous supporters, will enable Brook of Hope to supply and fund humanitarian convoys-delivering food and medical supplies, equipping under-supplied hospitals and shuttling refugees out of attacked cities. We're so proud to support such a worthy group.

March 27, 2022- Operation USA thanks partners at White Pony Express, a Northern California-based relief group, for their commitment to aiding Ukrainian relief efforts. The organization gathered medical supplies, assembled medical kits and delivered those items to our warehouse in the Port of LA to be forwarded to partners heading to Eastern Europe. This week, we will hand off some of the medical supplies provided by WPE to a team of doctors in Los Angeles who will hand carry the items into Poland in order to provide health care support at the border. We're so grateful for our partners who have made this relief effort possible.

March 16, 2022-Operation USA is grateful to media workers like Tom Remp who are dedicated to shining a spotlight on the refugee crisis at Poland's borders in real time and helping small organizations like OpUSA inform the public by making images freely available for use. See some of Tom's recent photos from the border here.

March 7, 2022-This week, Operation USA delivered a $10,000 emergency grant to Razom in support of ongoing relief activities. The organization is called "Razom" because it means "together" in Ukrainian, and serves as a constant reminder of the community that it takes to create, build and do, to stay the path towards a more prosperous and democratic Ukraine. We are so pleased to support this worthy group during this time of great need. Your donations make this work possible. Thank you.

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March 2, 2022-The situation in Ukraine and its neighboring countries continues to develop rapidly. At this time, Operation USA is working diligently to identify all opportunities to provide aid. We are communicating with corporate and transportation partners located in the U.S. to assess the feasibility of international material aid shipments-which, if confirmed, will target priority supplies to partners on the ground in Poland helping Ukrainian refugees who have entered the country. OpUSA is also assessing opportunities to facilitate shipments of in-kind aid from corporate partners in Europe directly to frontline partners. Additionally, OpUSA is also working diligently to distribute emergency cash grants to community-based organizations supporting displaced Ukrainian families. Our ability to make cash grants (the most effective type of aid at this time!) is directly dependent on the generosity of our donors. We thank you for your continued support. Please donate now at give.opusa.org.

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February 26, 2022-Operation USA is in touch with the Association of Community Foundations in Poland, and is assessing any/all opportunities to provide aid to Ukrainian refugees entering and/or passing through the country. In addition to bulk shipments of material aid, we also hope-as funds allow-to make cash grants and provide additional support to small but effective community-based partners aiding vulnerable families. Donations from supporters are critical at this time. Please visit give.opusa.org to get involved now.

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February 24, 2022- Yesterday, Russian military forces invaded Ukraine, launching attacks on cities across the nation. Though many Ukrainians were sheltering in place, warfare and resulting damage to cities will likely drive many to flee. An estimated 100,000 Ukrainians have already been internally displaced in the country, and experts predict an immediate refugee crisis with anywhere from one to five million Ukrainian refugees likely to flood into nearby countries.

As a wide variety of aid organizations across Eastern Europe prepare to receive and aid refugees arriving from Ukraine, the need for material support is critical in order to provide those displaced by war with basic necessities, clothing, food and water, shelter materials and other vital supplies. Operation USA is currently mobilizing alongside American aid groups and calling on partners in Poland-where a massive influx of refugees are expected to arrive-to facilitate the delivery of much-needed material aid to refugee camps. Our ability to do this work and help vulnerable Ukrainians is dependent on the generosity of our donors. Please consider a gift to this effort today at give.opusa.org.

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February 23, 2022- Operation USA is monitoring the developing situation in Ukraine and is preparing aid to partners in Poland in anticipation of a potential refugee crisis.

Should military tensions/actions escalate, we expect Polish cities such as Lublin to receive an influx of Ukrainian refugees who are fleeing the violence. Having previously worked in Poland during the early 1980s, and with close ties to partners across sectors, OpUSA is poised to help facilitate the delivery of material aid to partners supporting refugees there. As such, we are prudently preparing for all possibilities and planning to deploy aid quickly and efficiently should it become necessary.

Your donations at this time make our work possible. Please consider a gift today at give.opusa.org.

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HOW TO HELP: At this time, Operation USA is focusing Phase I relief efforts on making emergency cash grants to partners aiding refugees on the ground in Poland and other nearby countries. The best way to support these efforts is with a cash donation at give.opusa.org.

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International Medical Corps is helping people in Ukraine affected by the Russian invasion by increasing access to medical and mental health relief services.

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A history of the tensions between Ukraine and Russia. (Published 2022)

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Here is a look at some key events in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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or three months everyone argued about whether there would be a war, whether Vladimir Putin was bluffing or serious. Some of the Russia experts who had long told people to take it easy were now telling people to get worried. Others, who had long criticised Putin, said that he was just trying to draw attention to himself, that it was all for show. Among the analysts, there was a debate between the troop watchers and the TV watchers. The troop watchers saw the massive concentration of Russian forces at the border and in Crimea and warned of invasion. The TV watchers said that Russian TV was not ramping up war hysteria, as it usually does before a Russian invasion, and that this meant there would be no war.

The question was settled, for ever, on the night of 24 February, when Russian missiles hit military installations and civilian targets inside Ukraine, and Russian armoured convoys crossed the border. Then everyone began arguing about why. Was Putin crazy? Was he genuinely concerned about Nato expansion? Was he thinking in amoral categories - as longtime Putin scholar Fiona Hill suggested - that were fundamentally historical, along timescales that made no sense to ordinary mortals? Was he trying, bit by bit, to reconstruct the Russian Empire? Was Estonia next?

I had travelled to Moscow in January to see what I could learn. The city looked beautiful. Snow lay on the ground and everyone was very calm. Yes, repressions were ramping up, the space for political expression was narrowing, and many more people had died of Covid-19 than was officially acknowledged. And yes, speaking of Covid, Putin was paranoid about it, forcing anyone who wanted to see him in person to quarantine for one week in advance in a hotel the Kremlin had for that purpose. No one thought things were going in anything like the right direction, but none of the people I spoke to, some of them fairly well connected, thought an invasion was actually going to happen.

They thought Putin was engaged in coercive diplomacy. They thought the American intelligence community had lost its mind. I visited friends, listened to their reflections, gamed out the various scenarios. Even if an invasion did happen - a big if - it would be over quickly, we all agreed. It would be like Crimea: a precision operation, the use of overwhelming technological superiority. Putin had always been so cautious - the sort of person who never started a fight he wasn't sure to win. It would be terrible, but relatively painless. That was wrong. We were all wrong.

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That everyone was wrong did not prevent everyone from immediately claiming that, in fact, they'd been right. Russia experts who had been arguing for years that Putin was a bloody tyrant rushed forth to claim vindication, for he had undoubtedly become what they had claimed he was all along. Russia experts who had been arguing for years that we needed to heed Putin's warnings could also claim vindication (though more quietly) because Putin had finally acted on those warnings. As usual, officials from US presidential administrations of yore were trotted out on TV as talking heads, dispensing their wisdom and accepting no responsibility, as if they had not allcontributed, in one way or another, to the catastrophe.

This war was not inevitable, but we have been moving toward it for years: the west, and Russia, and Ukraine. The war itself is not new - it began, as Ukrainians have frequently reminded us in the past two weeks, with the Russian incursion in 2014. But the roots go back even further. We are still experiencing the death throes of the Soviet empire. We are reaping, too, in the west, the fruits of our failed policies in the region after the Soviet collapse.

This war was the decision of one person and one person only - Vladimir Putin. He made the call in his Covid isolation, failed to mount any sort of campaign to garner public support, and barely spoke to anyone outside the tiniest inner circle about it, which is why just a few weeks before the invasion no one in Moscow thought it was going to happen. Furthermore, he clearly misunderstood the nature of the political situation in Ukraine, and the vehemence of the resistance he would encounter. Nonetheless, to understand the tragedy of the war, and what it means for Ukraine and Russia and the rest of us, it is worth going back beyond the last few weeks and months, and even beyond Vladimir Putin. Things did not have to turn out this way, though where exactly we went wrong is much harder to determine.

1. The breakup: Russia and Ukraine after the fall of the USSR

hirty years ago, as the countries of the former Soviet Union declared their independence, everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the empire disappeared so gently. Aside from a nasty irredentist conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the ethnic Armenian exclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, there was very little violence. But gradually, almost imperceptibly, conflict began appearing at the edges of the former USSR.

In Moldova, Russian troops supported a small separatist movement of Russian-speakers that eventually formed the tiny breakaway republic of Transnistria. In Georgia, the autonomous region of Abkhazia, also supported by Russian arms, fought a short war with the central government in Tbilisi, as did South Ossetia. Chechnya, a Russian republic that had fiercely resisted the encroachment of the empire throughout the 19th century, and which suffered terribly under Soviet rule, declared its own wish for independence, and was ground down in not one but two brutal wars. Tajikistan endured a civil war, in part a fallout from the civil war raging in Afghanistan, with which it shared a border. And on and on. In 2007, Russia launched a cyber-attack against Estonia, and in 2008, it responded to an attempt by Georgia to retake South Ossetia with a massive counter-offensive. Despite all this, it was still common for people to say that the dissolution of the Soviet Union had been miraculously peaceful. And then came Ukraine.

In the laboratory of nation-building that was the former empire, Ukraine stood out. Some of the Soviet former republics had longstanding political traditions and distinct linguistic, religious and cultural practices; others less so. The Baltic states had each been independent for two decades between the world wars. Most of the other republics had had, at best, a brief experiment with independence in the immediate wake of the collapse of tsarism in 1917. To complicate matters, many of the newfound nations had significant Russian-speaking populations who were either uninterested in or actively hostile toward their new national projects.

Ukraine was unique on all these fronts. Though it, too, had only existed as an independent state in modern times for a few short years, it had a powerful nationalist movement, a vibrant literary canon, and a strong memory of its independent place in the history of Europe before Peter the Great. It was very large - the second-largest country in Europe after Russia. It was industrialised, being a major producer of coal, steel and helicopter engines, as well as grain and sunflower seeds. It had a highly educated populace. And that populace at the time it became independent in 1991 numbered 52 million - second only to Russia among post-Soviet states. It was strategically located on the Black Sea and on the border with numerous eastern European states and future Nato members. It possessed what had once been the most beautiful beaches in the USSR, on the Crimean peninsula, where the Russian tsars had spent their summers, as well as the USSR's largest warm water naval port, in Sevastopol. It had suffered greatly during the German advance into the Soviet Union in 1941 - of the 13 "hero cities" of the USSR, so called because they saw the heaviest fighting and raised the stoutest resistance, four were in Ukraine (Kyiv, Odesa, Kerch and Sevastopol). The economies of Russia and Ukraine were deeply intertwined. Ukrainian factories in Dnipropetrovsk were a vital part of the military-industrial capacity of the USSR, and Russia's largest export gas pipelines ran through Ukraine. Strategically, in the words of historian Dominic Lieven, describing the situation circa the first world war, Ukraine could not have been more vital. "Without Ukraine's population, industry and agriculture, early-20th-century Russia would have ceased to be a great power." The same was true, or seemed to be true, in 1991.

Ukraine was not just geopolitically significant to Russia. It was culturally and historically, too. The Russian and Ukrainian languages had diverged sometime in the 13th century, and Ukraine had a distinct and notable literature, but the two remained close - about as close as Spanish and Portuguese. While most of the country was ethnically Ukrainian, there was, particularly in the east, a large ethnic Russian minority. Perhaps more important, while the official language was Ukrainian, the lingua franca in most of the large cities was Russian. And perhaps even more important than that, most people knew both languages. It was common on television to see a journalist, for example, ask a question in Russian and receive an answer in Ukrainian, or to have a panel of experts for a talent show with two Russian-language judges and two Ukrainian-language judges. It was a genuinely bilingual nation - a rare thing.

From a Russian nationalist perspective, that was a problem. Why speak two languages when you could just speak one? Crimea was a particularly sore spot: the vast majority of the population identified as Russian. And once you started thinking about Crimea, you then started thinking about eastern Ukraine. There were many Russians there. To be sure, there were also Russians in other places - in northern Kazakhstan, for example, and eastern Estonia. There were irredentist claims on these areas as well, and occasionally they flared up. The writer turned political provocateur Eduard Limonov, for example, was arrested in Moscow in 2001 for allegedly plotting to invade northern Kazakhstan and declare it an independent ethnic Russian republic. But no place held such a central part in the Russian historical imagination as Ukraine.

For the first 20 years of independence, Russia kept a very close eye on developments in Ukraine, and interfered in various ways, but that was as far as it went. That was as far as it needed to go. Ukraine's large Russian-language population guaranteed, or seemed to guarantee, that the country would not stray too far from the Russian sphere of influence.

2. 'Where does the motherland begin?' The view from Ukraine

n Ukraine itself, even aside from the Russian presence, there were the birth agonies of a nation. Many of the new post-Soviet countries had their share of problems - corrupt elites, restive ethnic minorities, a border with Russia. Ukraine had all this, and more. Because it was large and industrialised, there was plenty of it to steal. Because it had a major Black Sea port in the city of Odesa, there was an easily accessible seaway through which to steal it. As became clear in 2014, when it became time to use it, much of the equipment of the old Ukrainian army was smuggled out of the country through that port.

On top of this, Ukraine was, if not divided, then certainly not immediately recognisable as a unified whole. Because it had so many times been conquered and partitioned, the country's historical memory itself was fractured. In the words of one historian, "Its different parts had different pasts." To make things worse, one of the most treasured aspects of the political culture of Ukraine, historically - the legacy of the Cossack hetmanate of the 17th century - was anarchism. The original Cossacks were warriors who had escaped serfdom. Their political system was a radical democracy. There was something beautiful about this. But in terms of the construction of a modern state, it had its drawbacks. In a now-infamous CIA analysis written shortly after the creation of independent Ukraine, it was predicted that there was a good chance the country would fall apart.

And yet, for two decades, it didn't. For better and worse, democracy was rooted deep in Ukrainian political culture, and so while in Russia power was never transferred to an opposition, in Ukraine it happened again and again. In 1994, the first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, was voted out of office in favour of Leonid Kuchma, who promised better relations with Russia and to give the Russian language equal status in Ukraine. In 2004, his hand-picked successor, Viktor Yanukovych, was, after massive protests against a falsified election, voted out in favour of a more nationalist and pro-European candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. In 2010, Yushchenko proceeded to lose to a resurgent Yanukovych. But Yanukovych was thrown out of office by the Maidan revolution in 2014. A nationalist candidate and chocolate billionaire, Petro Poroshenko, became the next president, but he was replaced by Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a Russian-speaking pro-peace candidate, in 2019.

Ukrainian politics were full of conflict. Fist-fights in the Rada were common and protests were a fact of ordinary life. There were massive protests against Kuchma, for example, in 2000, when a recording surfaced of him apparently ordering the murder of the journalist Georgiy Gongadze, whose headless body had been found in the woods outside Kyiv. (Kuchma insisted the tapes were doctored. He was charged in 2011, but the prosecution was dropped after a court ruled the tapes inadmissible.) Yushchenko, the opposition candidate in 2004, barely survived a dioxin poisoning, which had all the markings of a Russian special operation. The initial round of voting in 2004 was marked by severe irregularities and clear voter fraud such as had not yet appeared in Russia. It took mass protests, known as the Orange Revolution, to win another round of voting, in which Yushchenko won. Yushchenko himself subsequently presided over a fair election in 2010, which he lost. And on and on.

These changes of power were alternately tumultuous and pedestrian, but they reflected genuine differences of opinion among the populace about what Ukraine should be. Some thought Ukraine should integrate further with Europe, others that it should remain friendly and closely connected with Russia. The cultural and historical differences between the different parts of Ukraine would surface in times of crisis.

For Russian speakers and Ukraine's remaining Jewish population, the memory of the second world war, of resistance to Nazi invasion and occupation, remained an important touchstone. Ukrainian nationalists had a different perspective on these events. For some, the occupation of their country began in 1921 (when the Bolsheviks consolidated control of Ukraine) or 1939 (when Stalin took the last part of western Ukraine as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Germany and the USSR to carve up Poland), if not 1654, when the Cossack Hetmanate sought the protection of the Russian tsar. The famous wartime resistance fighters known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, who had opposed both Soviet and German occupation in western Ukraine, and who were seen as fascist villains by the Soviets, were, in the nationalist narrative, the George Washingtons of Ukrainian history. For nationalists, the signal tragedy of the 20th century was not the Nazi invasion, but instead the great famine of 1932-33, in which millions of Ukrainians died. It was known as the Holodomor - "murder by hunger" - and was consistently referred to as a deliberate act by Stalin (and by extension Russia) to destroy the Ukrainian nation.

All these arguments took place against a backdrop of economic stagnation. Ukraine's economy was consistently one of the weakest in the former Soviet bloc. Corruption was endemic and living standards were low. Ukraine was dependent on cheap gas from Russia as well as the "transit fees" it charged for Russian gas going to Europe.

To Ukrainians living under these see-sawing politics, going from hope to disappointment and back again, with what seemed like a permanent elite merely trading the presidency back and forth between themselves, it felt like their lives were passing them by. A journalist I met in Kyiv in 2010, who had taken part in the protests that were part of the Orange Revolution and was then let down by Yuschenko's presidency, lamented the missed opportunities. "All this while time is passing," he said. He couldn't believe how little had been done since 2005, and since 1991.

But there was another aspect to time passing. The more time passed, the more Ukraine's fragile nationhood could coalesce. Because what did it mean to belong to a nation? Where, in the words of the famous Soviet song, does the motherland begin? It begins with the pictures in the first book your mother reads you, according to the song. And to your good and true friends from the courtyard next door. The more people who were born in Ukraine, rather than the USSR, the more people grew up thinking of Kyiv as their capital instead of Moscow, and the more they learned the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian history, the stronger Ukraine would become. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in the TV show that made him famous in Ukraine and eventually catapulted him to the presidency, played a Russian-speaking high school history teacher who suddenly becomes president. In the brief scenes in which we see Zelenskiy's character actually teaching, he is quizzing his students about the great Ukrainian national historian and politician Mykhailo Hrushevsky.

3. For Russia, Nato is a four-letter word

t was violent Russian opposition to EU membership for Ukraine that in late 2013 precipitated the Maidan revolution, which in turn precipitated the Russian annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine. But after the end of the cold war, it was Nato expansion that had been the greatest irritant to the relationship between Russia and the west, a relationship that found Ukraine trapped in between.

Nato expansion proceeded very slowly, then seemingly all at once. In the immediate wake of the Soviet collapse, it was not a foregone conclusion that Nato would get bigger. In fact, most US policymakers, and the US military, opposed expanding the alliance. There was even talk, for a while, of disbanding Nato. It had served its purpose - to contain the Soviet Union - and now everyone could go their separate ways.

This changed in the early years of the Clinton administration. The motor for the change came from two directions. One was a group of idealistic foreign policy hands inside the Clinton national security council, and the other was the eastern European states.

After 1991, the post-communist countries of eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, found themselves in an uncertain security environment. Nearby Yugoslavia was falling apart, and they had their own potential border disputes. Most of all, though, they had a vivid memory of Russian imperialism. They did not believe Russia would remain weak for ever, and they wanted to align with Nato while they still could. "If you don't let us into Nato, we're getting nuclear weapons," Polish officials told a team of thinktank researchers in 1993. "We don't trust the Russians."

In presenting their case, it did not hurt that the leaders of the eastern European countries had a great deal of moral credibility. It was after a meeting with, among others, Václav Havel and Lech Wałęsa in Prague in January 1994 that Bill Clinton announced that "the question is no longer whether Nato will take on new members but when." This formulation - not whether, but when - became official US policy. Five years later, the Czech Republic (having peacefully divorced Slovakia), Hungary and Poland were inducted into Nato. In the years to come, 11 more countries would join, bringing the total number of countries in the alliance to 30.

During the recent crisis, some American pundits and policymakers have claimed that Russia did not object to Nato until quite recently, when it was searching for a pretext to invade Ukraine. The claim is genuinely ludicrous. Russia has been protesting Nato expansion since the very beginning. The Russian deputy foreign minister told Clinton's top Russia hand Strobe Talbott in 1993 that "Nato is a four-letter word". At a joint press conference with Clinton in 1994, Boris Yeltsin, to whom Clinton had been such a loyal ally, reacted with fury when he realised that Nato was actually moving ahead with its plans to include the eastern European states. He predicted that a "cold peace" in Europe would be the result.

Russia was too weak, and still too dependent on western loans, to do anything except complain and watch warily as Nato increased in power. The alliance's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 was particularly disturbing to the Russian leadership. It was, first of all, an intervention in a situation that Russia viewed as an internal conflict. Kosovo was, at the time, part of Serbia. After the Nato intervention, it was, in effect, no longer part of Serbia. Meanwhile the Russians had their own Kosovo-like situation in Chechnya, and it suddenly seemed to them that it was not impossible that Nato could intervene in that situation as well. As one American analyst who studied the Russian military told me: "They got scared because they knew what the state of Russian conventional forces was. They saw what the actual state of US conventional forces was. And they saw that while they had a lot of problems in Chechnya with their own Muslim minority, the United States just intervened to basically break Kosovo off of Serbia."

The next year, Russia officially changed its military doctrine to say that it could, if threatened, resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. One of the authors of the doctrine told the Russian military paper Krasnaya Zvezda that Nato's eastward expansion was a threat to Russia and that this was the reason for the lowered threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. That was 22 years ago.

The second post-Soviet round of Nato expansion was the largest. Agreed to in 2002 and made official in 2004, it brought Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia into the alliance. Almost all these states were part of the Soviet bloc, and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - the "Baltics" - were once part of the Soviet Union. Now they had joined the west.

As this was happening, a series of events shook up the Russian periphery. The "colour revolutions" - coming in quick succession in Georgia in 2003 (Rose), Ukraine in 2004 (Orange) and Kyrgyzstan in 2005 (Tulip) - all used mass protests to eject corrupt pro-Russian incumbents. These events were greeted with great enthusiasm in the west as a reawakening of democracy, and with scepticism and trepidation in the Kremlin as an encroachment on Russian space. In the US, policymakers celebrated that freedom was on the march. In Moscow, there was a slightly paranoid concern that the colour revolutions were the work of the western secret services, and that Russia was next.

The Kremlin might not have been right about a long-range western plot, but they weren't wrong to think that the west never saw it as an equal, as a peer. The fact is that at every turn, at every sticking point, in every situation, the west, and the US in particular, did what it wanted to do. It was, at times, exquisitely sensitive to Russian perceptions; at other times, cavalier. But in all cases the US just pressed ahead. Eventually this just became the way things were. Relations between the two sides soured, and positions hardened. In 2006, Dick Cheney gave an aggressive speech in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in which he celebrated the achievements of the Baltic nations. "The system that has brought such great hope to the shores of the Baltic can bring the same hope to the far shores of the Black Sea, and beyond," he said. "What is true in Vilnius is also true in Tbilisi and Kyiv, and true in Minsk, and true in Moscow." As Samuel Charap and Timothy Colton note in their excellent short history of the 2014 Ukraine conflict, Everyone Loses, "One can only conjecture the reaction to such statements in the Kremlin."

A year later, at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, in what is widely considered a key turning point in relations between Russia and the west, Putin delivered his response, assailing the US and its unipolar system for its arrogance, its flouting of international law, and its hypocrisy. "We are constantly being taught about democracy," he said of Russia. "But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves."

The warning was heard, but not heeded. In April 2008, in Bucharest, Nato countries met and delivered a promise that Georgia and Ukraine "will become members of Nato". It was, as many have since noted, the worst of both worlds: a promise of membership without any of the actual benefits, in the form of security guarantees, that membership would bring. A few months later, in what, up to that point, was by far the most significant military action outside its borders, Russia defeated Georgia in a decisive five-day war.

In retrospect, one could argue that if Nato had moved faster and accepted Ukraine and Georgia much earlier, none of what followed would have happened. This argument has the virtue of examples to bolster it: the Baltics entered Nato, and despite being former Soviet republics, have experienced relatively little Russian harassment since. But one could also argue that, in the face of mounting Russian alarm and repeated warnings about "red lines" over Nato, the US States and its allies should have been extra careful. They should have taken into account the specificity of the places they were dealing with, in particular Ukraine. Ukraine was not Russia, in Leonid Kuchma's famous phrase, but it was also not Poland. One of the problems with Ukraine's Nato bid in 2008, for example, pushed forth by the western-friendly Yushchenko administration, was that it was unpopular inside Ukraine - in large part because Ukrainians knew how Russia felt about it, and were rightly worried.

But as Nato and the EU both expanded farther east, their representatives considered it a matter of principle not to make compromises with a regime they viewed as trying to bully them and Ukraine. Again, they may have been right in principle. In practice, Putin has been warning of this invasion, in one form or another, for 15 years. A great many voices are now saying that we should have been much tougher on Putin much earlier - that the sanctions we are now seeing should have been deployed after the war in Georgia in 2008, or after the polonium poisoning in London of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. But there is also a case to be made that we should have thought more deeply about how to create a security arrangement, and an economic one, in which Ukraine would never have been faced with such a fateful choice.

4. What Putin thinks

till, at the centre of this tragedy lies one man: Vladimir Putin. He has embarked on a murderous and criminal war that also appears almost certain to be judged a colossal strategic blunder - uniting Europe, galvanising Nato, destroying his economy and isolating his country. What happened?

There have always been multiple competing views of Putin, falling along different axes as to his competence, his intelligence, his morality. That is, some people who thought he was evil also thought he was smart, and some people who thought he was merely defending Russian interests also thought he was incompetent.

Five years ago in this paper, during the boom in Putinology that followed Donald Trump's election, I made the case that Putin was basically a "normal" politician in the Russian context. That didn't mean he was in any way admirable - the way prosecuted the war in Chechnya, which launched his presidential candidacy, was evidence enough of his bad intentions. Nor did I think he should be hacking Hillary Clinton's emails. Nonetheless I thought that, given Russia's history, its traumatic experience of the post-Soviet transition, the internal dynamics of the Yeltsin regime, and the wider geopolitical context, the person who took over from Yeltsin was almost certain to have been a nationalist authoritarian, whether or not he was named Vladimir Putin. The question seemed to be: would this other nationalist authoritarian, not named Putin, have behaved very differently? Here there was some limited historical evidence, in the persons of Boris Yeltsin (author of the first war in Chechnya) and Dmitry Medvedev (author of the war in Georgia), that he would not.

The moment, at least in my mind, where Putin rendered these questions irrelevant, was the attempted poisoning with a nerve agent of the oppositionist Alexei Navalny, an attempted murder that would almost certainly have had to have Putin's approval. Other political murders in Russia had seemed to me less clearcut. There was good reason to believe that the journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the politician Boris Nemtsov, for example, had been killed on the order of the Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov. And while Kadyrov was Putin's loyal ally, they were not one and the same. Possibly this was a distinction without a difference, and yet it seemed that talk of a dictatorship in Russia obscured the fact that the country still had some room, albeit narrowing by the year, for political life and freedom of thought. We are now seeing what an actual Russian dictatorship looks like: all remnants of an opposition media shuttered, journalists threatened with 15 years of prison, unbridled and unanswerable police aggression. With the invasion of Ukraine, there is no one left who thinks Putin is merely acting like a standard post-Soviet Russian politician.

Is there any explaining Putin's thought process? Here, there were objective and subjective factors. Objectively, he was not wrong to think that Ukraine was integrating further and further into the west. The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement that he had so fiercely opposed in 2013 had been signed in 2014 and gone into effect in 2017. Nato, too, was on its way. There were now Nato weapons and Nato personnel in Ukraine. Putin's attempt to exert control over Ukrainian politics by creating the breakaway republics in Donetsk and Luhansk had failed. In fact, it had not only failed, it had backfired. Ukrainians who had been lukewarm toward Nato now supported joining and many who had entertained pro-Russian sentiments had seen what Russian puppets had done in the breakaway republics. Ukraine, an imperfect democracy, scored a 61 on the Freedom House scale in 2021; the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (competing under the umbrella term "Eastern Donbas") scored a 4. No one wanted that for themselves. Putin had won Crimea and some territory in the east, but he had lost Ukraine. In the wake of Joe Biden's election, which signalled a renewed American commitment to Europe and Nato and, inter alia, Ukraine, things were going less and less in Putin's favour.

But he was not entirely out of options. In 2015 he had extracted, through force of arms, the Minsk-2 agreement - an onerous peace deal, never actually implemented by either side, that had obliged Ukraine to reintegrate the Donetsk and Luhansk republics into a federated Ukraine, where they would essentially have veto power over the country's foreign policy; perhaps, in 2022, he could get Minsk-3 as well. And if he had previously left the implementation of the Minsk agreement to a democratically elected Ukrainian government, he could decide not to make that mistake again. He could install a leader in Kyiv whom he could trust. A month before the invasion, the British government declared that it possessed intelligence indicating that Putin planned to do exactly that.

And yet here we get into the subjective factors: why, in retrospect, did Putin think he could pull this manoeuvre on a country the size of Ukraine? Partly, to be sure, he was buoyed up by his string of military victories - in Chechnya, in Georgia, in Crimea, in Syria. He had found great success, often at relatively little cost, by being a kind of international spoiler to the west's designs in various parts of the world.

He must also have been emboldened by what had happened in Ukraine in 2014. Crimea had surrendered to Russia without a shot. A few weeks later, a small group of middle-aged mercenaries had been able to march 100 miles into Ukraine and capture a small city called Slovyansk, igniting the active phase of the war in eastern Ukraine. If a ragtag outfit could do something like that, imagine what an actual army could do.

There was also the important factor that Putin did not believe Ukraine was a real country. This was not specific to Putin - many Russians, unfortunately, don't see why Ukraine should be independent. But with Putin this has become a real obsession, impermeable to contradictory evidence. One type of leader would see that Ukraine refuses to submit to his will and conclude that it was an independent entity. But for Putin this could only mean that it was controlled by someone else. After all, this was already the case in the parts of Ukraine that Putin had conquered - he had installed puppets to run the self-proclaimed people's republics in eastern Ukraine. So perhaps it stood to reason that the west had also installed a puppet - Zelenskiy - who would run at the first sign of trouble.

5. Where does this end?

ust about everyone has been surprised by the ferocity of the Ukrainian resistance: Putin, obviously, but also western military analysts who had accurately predicted the invasion but inaccurately thought the war would be over very quickly, and possibly even the Ukrainians themselves. Before the war, sociologists who studied Ukraine pointed to a fairly high willingness on the part of Ukrainians to fight for their country, but it was one thing to tell a sociologist, and it was another thing to go and fight. But, clearly, the Ukrainians have decided to fight.

Putin clearly did not expect Volodymyr Zelenskiy to turn into Winston Churchill. Zelenskiy had been elected as a peace candidate in 2019. A political novice from the country's industrial south-east, he won an impressive 73% of the vote in a runoff against Petro Poroshenko. The latter's campaign slogan had been "Army! Language! Faith!" Zelenskiy, by contrast, was elected as a breath of fresh air, someone who was going to do things differently, and also someone who indicated a willingness to try to negotiate with Putin to end the war. Poroshenko's campaign warned that Zelenskiy was a Kremlin stooge who would sell out the country. People voted for him anyway.

By the time war rolled around, Zelenskiy was no longer popular in Ukraine. His approval rating was in the 20s. He had failed to find a peaceful solution to the festering conflict in the Donbas region, and he had started persecuting his opponents. Viktor Medvedchuk, a close ally of Putin who was considered his point man in Ukraine, was placed under house arrest, and Poroshenko, still Zelenskiy's main political rival, was charged with treason for some business dealings he had with Medvedchuk and the separatist regions in 2014. And then, when the clouds of war started gathering, Zelenskiy insisted the threat was not real. He criticised the Biden administration for its alarmist rhetoric. The night before the invasion, he told Ukrainians they could sleep soundly that night. But the first Russian missiles hit their targets before dawn.

The day before, in his anguished, last-minute appeal to the Russian people, Zelenskiy had made clear that he did not want war. But it was also the case that he did not have much room for compromise. The only clear path to peace - implementation of the Minsk accords - had become, with the passage of time, even more intolerable to Ukrainiansthan it had been at their signing. At the end of the day, people don't like to feel as if they have been bullied into compromise by their larger and angrier neighbour. And most observers noted that, as terrifying as a Russian invasion was, a compromise by Zelenskiy that ceded too much would probably lead to the overthrow of his government.

If the only way to avoid war was through a craven surrender, then it would have to be war. Ukraine would fight. And fight they have.

Now, as the Russian army regroups and starts bombing and shelling Ukrainian cities, Nato governments are faced with an excruciating choice: either they watch in horror as innocent Ukrainians are killed, or they get further involved and risk an even wider conflict. Where this stops it's impossible to say. As of this writing, with the Russian leadership continuing to put forth maximalist demands, a settlement looks far away. And whether, if the Russian demands moderate, Zelenskiy will be able to accept a Russian Crimea and eastern Ukraine after all the blood his people have spilled - and, indeed, whether the people will accept it - is an open question.

Someday, the war will end, and someday after that, though probably not as soon as one might hope, the regime in Russia will have to change. There will be another opportunity to welcome Russia again into the concert of nations. Our job then will be to do it differently than we did it this time, in the post-Soviet period. But that is work for the future. For now, in agony and sympathy, we watch and wait.

Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.

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Was it inevitable? A short history of Russia's war on Ukraine | Keith Gessen

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or three months everyone argued about whether there would be a war, whether Vladimir Putin was bluffing or serious. Some of the Russia experts who had long told people to take it easy were now telling people to get worried.

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The 20th-Century History Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

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During WWII, Ukrainian nationalists saw the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression. Now, Russia is using that chapter to paint Ukraine as a Nazi nation

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Why the West’s Diplomacy With Russia Keeps Failing

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Hromada (“community” in Ukrainian) is a non-profit organization based in Corte Madera, Marin county, California. Hromada is actively collecting funds and sending them overnight each day to Ukraine to areas most affected by the war. 

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Hromada (“community” in Ukrainian) is a non-profit organization based in Corte Madera, Marin county, California. Hromada is actively collecting funds and sending them overnight each day to Ukraine to areas most affected by the war. 

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Інформаційний портал ГО "Громада" "

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Головна " Інформаційний портал ГО "Громада"

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Provide Assistance to Ukraine at Time of War Hromada (means "community" in Ukrainian) is a non-profit organization based in Corte Madera, Marin county, California. All donations are tax-deductible. Hromada is actively collecting funds and sending them overnight each day to Ukraine to areas most affected by war - Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv.

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Maria Sonevytsky, "Understanding the War on Ukraine through Its Musical Culture"