Section: Global Voices (The Netherlands)
Kazakhstani Textbooks Send Local Patriots and Ukraine into a Tantrum (Clue: It’s about Crimea)
Whose bit of land is this anyway? Map of Crimea. Wikipedia image. Kazakhstan is in a spot of hot water over its approval of geography textbooks slated for secondary schools in the Central Asian country that show Crimea as part of Russia rather than Ukraine. Not surprisingly, the textbooks, which were printed by the local publishing house Mektep,...
Twitter Users from Around the World Show Off Ukrainian Foods in Their Local Grocery Stores
Condensed milk “Made in Ukraine” sold at a grocery store in California. Photo by @a_demchenko on Twitter. Mixed by Anna Poludenko-Young. Ukraine is more than a country currently at war with Russia or a former Soviet republic. It also happens to be a promising exporter of agricultural products. To promote this side of the country’s image...
Truth Is Not a Crime: Ukraine Honors Fallen Journalist Gongadze
An activist holds a candle at a rally in memory of murdered journalist Georgiy Gongadze on September 16, 2015 in Kyiv. Photo by Christopher Miller on Twitter. On the evening of September 16, 2000, Georgiy Gongadze, a prominent Ukrainian independent journalist and founder of the website Ukrainska Pravda (Ukrainian Truth) disappeared after he left...
Grand Theft Auto and More: The Grim Reality of Life in ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’
Reports leaked by Anonymous International make DNR seem like a scene straight out of the Grand Theft Auto video game. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. In recent months, the Russian data-leaking group Anonymous International has published a series of communications detailing the grim reality of daily life in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk...
You’re in the Army Now: How Drafted Ukrainian Journalists Cover the War in Their Online Diaries
Conscripted journalists have turned their social media accounts into personal military diaries. Images mixed by Anna Poludenko-Young Ukrainian journalists drafted into the military to serve in eastern Ukraine have turned their Facebook and Twitter accounts into personal field diaries. In their posts they discuss the state of the armed forces,...
This Ukrainian Artist Is Drawing Comics About His Imprisonment By Pro-Russian Militants in Donetsk
One of the draft images from the comic book detailing Zakharov’s kidnapping and imprisonment by “DNR” militants. Image from the artist on Facebook. A Ukrainian artist who was captured by the militants of the pro-Russian “Donetsk People’s Republic” for putting up irreverent guerrilla art is now working on a comic book to tell the story...
This Is What Happened When a Ukrainian Film Director Was Sentenced to 20 Years in a Russian Prison
Protesters outside the Russian embassy in Kiev demand the release of Oleg Sentsov and Aleksander Kolchenko on August 25, 2015. Photo by Inna Sokolovska from Demotix. A military court in Russia’s Rostov-on-the-Don has sentenced Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov to 20 years of hard labor in a high-security prison on charges of planning a...
The Bold and the Uniformed: How New Ukrainian Police Are Taking Over Social Media
Relatives and friends came to Sofievskaya square to greet the new patrol police officers taking the oath of allegiance. Photo by Stanislav Yandulsky from Demotix. The new Ukrainian authorities are fighting corruption in the country’s police service by hiring new young police officers. The Ukrainian capital Kyiv is the first city to run the...
Pro-Russian Web Network Digs Up the Dirt on Kremlin Critics
Some of the sites in the network dig up “compromising information” on “enemies of the Russian state.” Image by Paul Reynolds on Flickr. CC BY 2.0. In mid-July, RuNet Echo reported on a sprawling network of pro-Kremlin websites, discovered through the use of open-source information such as Google Analytics IDs, domain registration records, and...
Why Are Japanese Airsoft Fans Cosplaying the Ukrainian Military?
Ukrainian military insignia, a flack jacket, and a airsoft rifle, accompanied by an anime drawing—a Japanese otaku’s arsenal. Image from http://kumanori0108.militaryblog.jp/. Japan and Ukraine are miles apart, but as it turns out, Japanese airsoft players are big fans of the Ukrainian military—so much so that they are now dressing as...
