Ripples on a Calm Lake

• D.E. Bentley –

– Images from Nataliya Kostiw taken at a weekend Gathering of Rochester’s Ukraine Community

I woke this morning, like so many others, with access to an online image of Russian tanks spanning forty-miles advancing on Kyiv. Last night the reports were of a seventeen-mile convoy. Clearly the threat has grown overnight as we watch this advance via satellite. This image brings to mind a recent reading of the fictional Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr of thirteen-year-old Anna, an orphan, who is living inside the formidable walls of Constantinople—five-hundred-years-ago—as Saracen forces mass along the borders, invade, and destroy, her homeland. There are other parallels between the fiction and our current global catastrophes, but I digress.

As I write this, I see a report on BBC that Russia has warned Kyiv residents that it is preparing to hit targets in the Ukrainian capital. Yesterday, Freedom Square in central Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, was struck—with multiple-launch rocket fire hitting residential neighborhoods. I sense the dread and fear from afar. What I simply cannot grasp is the situation on the ground of those saying goodbye to loved ones or hunkering below ground as sirens blare all around. What if this was our homeland? What if they were here, now? What would we do? How would we respond to an attack on our soil?

The closer one is to a situation, the more definitive the answer becomes. One has no choice but to react when bombs rain down from overhead. Next to those living in this war—whether among the hundreds of thousands who are fleeing the conflict across neighboring borders or those who have stayed behind to fight, to safeguard and salvage what can be salvaged of their homes; of their homeland—members of the Ukrainian Community outside of the war zone, including in the United States, are among those most devastatingly impacted.

We recently received these photographs from Rochester resident Nataliya Kostiw: a volunteer of the RocMaidan Organization (whose stated mission is to“protect the Ukrainian community in the United States & abroad”) and a board member of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, Branch 120 (whose mission is to unite “women of Ukrainian descent and affiliation in service, friendship and dedication in order to promote and develop educational and cultural efforts and humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians worldwide”). These images were taken this past weekend when the Ukrainian Community of Rochester (and supporters) gathered at the Federal Building on State Street and rallied for Ukraine’s freedom and sovereignty given the current situation of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Mayor Malik Evans and representative Joe Morelle spoke a few words followed by the raising of the Ukrainian flag at City Hall.

My biggest challenge this morning, as I write this, is to decide on a few of these images to share with readers. A minor inconvenience. Ultimately, I realize as I look at the faces, which images I choose matters little; everyone in them has been touched by these events which have now become, through media, a devastating part of our shared human experience. As the tanks draw nearer, my thoughts are with these fellow citizens whose lives, along with those of their loved ones in Ukraine and Russia, hang frighteningly in the balance.

I am in awe at the initial internal and international response to this blatantly unprovoked attack. There are reports of resistance and reaction that have been inspiring, that offer small glimpses of hope—including in Nataliya Kostiw’s photo journalism that shows the way wars—all wars—spread outward from the center and impact individuals far beyond their borders and generations unborn — like ripples from pebbles cast into a calm lake.

All images taken the weekend of February 26-27 by Nataliya Kostiw.