By: C. William Hanson Jr.

As promised for our June 1st issue, we shall this month tell you of another young Ukrainian hero, Dima, from Bucha, a city of 38,000 about 24 km (15 miles) from Kyiv. In Ukraine every soldier engaged in the war is termed a “герой,” in English “hero.”   In my experience Ukraine has produced an untold number of awe inspiring heroes defending their country against Putin’s barbaric invasion.  It was on a peacetime visit to Ukraine in 2001 that I first met Dima.  

As a relative stranger in a not altogether familiar country, when going to a café or a bar, I sometimes strike up a conversation with some individuals who seem approachable, intelligent, and can communicate in English. Even before the war, Kyiv had not attracted many visitors from the USA, and so Americans were of interest especially to curious young people.

Dima was a twenty three year old from Bucha when we first met, a meek and humble, lean and small framed Slav, very bright and emanating a warmth of personality, seeking to eke out a living by developing and maintaining a sociocommercial blog.  As at that time The Hanson Gazette was just a dream, I loved hearing of his experience, which had already attained some degree of success.

He was still a civilian when I returned in 2022 and had managed to survive the Bucha massacre.  

Just barely (a bad pun is certainly not intended) did he survive.  He has a tattoo on one of his arms, and the Russian soldiers had made him strip naked.  He told me that if his body had been tattooed with any anti-Russian or even Ukrainian patriotic symbol he believes that he would have been killed.  It was December of 2022, and I had taken the local train from Kyiv, a distance of 24 km (fifteen miles).  Ukraine is not a wealthy country and the train is quite rudimentary.  Upon my arrival in Bucha, Dima was waiting for me at the station and the city was almost entirely without light.  The Russians had been bombing and shelling Ukraine’s power generating facilities, but some individual power generators resulted in light from occasional windows. Dima said that he could take us to a heated café to escape the bitter cold.  The walk seemed interminable in the deep freezing temperature, and Dima, who himself appeared to feel immune to the cold though he had already been exposed for an hour walking from his home and waiting before my train arrived, kept telling me while my teeth chattered,  that the café was just a little bit further. Along the way Dima pointed out ruined buildings as well as an elementary school which the Russians had taken over and had utilized as their local headquarters.  As it turned out, the café stood in a brightly lighted and comfortably warm supermarket, clearly one with its own powerful generator, a supermarket which would not have looked out of place in a prosperous small city in Germany or the USA, a supermarket which I suppose testifies to the power of a market economy.  I noticed, however, in keeping with my experiences in Ukraine, that the food there mostly cost only pennies on the dollar, costs which reflect what for me is a very favorable exchange rate (and unfortunately equally unfavorable for Ukrainians seeking to purchase anything from outside their country).  Once settled into the café Dima and I chatted until he said he needed to leave in order to help his mother and family.  As the temperature had grown even colder, I ordered an Uber for my return to Kyiv.  The Uber turned out to cost substantially less than one might cost in NYC from Grand Central to Penn Station, a distance of two miles.

In July of 2023 I learned to my surprise that Dima was no longer in Ukraine.  It turns out that he had become a Ukrainian soldier and was undergoing military training in Great Britain.  

Then in 2024 I learned that he had been deployed to the front in the East.  The good news is that the Ukrainian army has not assigned him to the infantry.  His MOS (military occupational specialty) is that of an army journalist.  His work requires him to make frequent visits to the front lines, and he sleeps in the barracks in Kramatorsk.

With a population of 147,000, Kramatorsk is so close to the Russian artillery that defensive weapons cannot provide much protection, a city where I plan to visit him later this month. I look forward to sharing with you this summer some fresh reports.

Kramatorsk

In previous issues we have devoted some passing attention to ongoing genocide in Gaza, a war crime in which many consider the USA to be complicit, but in which the deeply appalling toll in lives still dwarfs the carnage in Ukraine. This month instead of attempting to provide an update here, we provide a link to a brief report which is by far the most succinct and insightful that  I have yet seen.

READER COMMENTS

Poem of the Month:

Cautionary Tale

I left a stain 

on Misery

Cuz im pretty sure 

 It’s Meant for Me

/

But since 

Cut’s been 

Cold where bent 

or flake

I’m not so sure

/

Is sold the center piece

Is heart the rinsing sound

Each little hour

A softer pound

A sudden trace

/

You hear it right?

Lunar wounds,

Winding grinding.

/

So sweet.

/

So now there’s no mistake

I’m wrapped with foil

And the usual Curtains 

Of cindered crowns

And shapeless hate

/

I’m that guy out on the stairs

With screen and strings

Rolling cards 

For soiled hints

For all the jasmine’s fate

-Matthew Steele