<li><em>Лиминальный перевод: Столкновение культур</em> (2020)</li>
<li><em>Эмоциональная биография Василия Жуковского</em> (2017)</li>
<li><em>Граф Сардинии: Дмитрий Хвостов и русская культура</em> (2015)</li>
<li>На что молчит соловей: Учёные истории о русской культуре с Петра Первого до Коня Будённого</li>
Культурная история русской литературы
Ученые философии (подкасты, интервью)
The Song of Freedom: “United States of Russia” in the Political Imagination of a Russian- American Adventurist, The Journal of Russian American Studies (JRAS) 4.2 (November 2020; 1st publication in NLO #155). In Russian
Pickford tape. Historical script by Viktor Shklovsky, Kinovedcheskie zapiski. 112/113. 2019/2020. Pp. 375-387.
"A Dispersed Man: Alexis Eustaphieve (1779-1857) as a National Project,"(link is external) New Literary Review (2014), #6, pp. 94-111. In Russian
ESSAYS FOR LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS
“Dostoevsky Misprisioned: The House of the Dead and American Prison Literature,” Los Angeles Book Review, December 23, 2019
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: A Dostoyevsky Quote Revisited
ESSAYS FOR ALL THE RUSSIANS (translated by Emily Wang)
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification (PARTS 1 – 3)
War and Pestilence: The Epidemiological Motif in L. N. Tolstoy’s Historical Epic
Bitter Taste: How Gorky Saved Pushkin’s Honor by Closing His Café
How Pushkin Became a Cat
ESSAYS FOR GORKY MEDIA
«Ах, как люблю я птицу эту!»: непристойная поэзия в романе «Пушкин»": О чем молчит соловей Юрия Тынянова
«Почему Мандельштам, чтобы оскорбить Сталина, назвал его осетином: Грузинские источники образа вождя из стихотворения “Мы живем, под собою не чуя страны”»
«Что означает таинственная надпись на могиле Паниковского — “человек без паспорта”?»
«Епиходов кий сломал»: Антон Чехов и русская непристойная традиция: Илья Виницкий — об одном из истоков комизма в пьесе “Вишневый сад”»
"And Then Madame Blavatsky Received A Poem From Pushkin From The Hell!: Professor Ilya Vinitsky Interviewed by Gorky Media"
"’Breakfast at Dawn’: Alexander Veselovsky and the Poetics of Psychological Biography," Historical Poetics: Past, Present, and Future, Verbal Art: Studies in Poetics Fordham UP, 2016, 314-339
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An employee walks past a part of Gazprom’s Power of Siberia gas pipeline at the Atamanskaya compressor station outside the far eastern town of Svobodny, in Amur region, Russia, November 29, 2019
Thus far, our discussion has focused on the impact of the war on the belligerents—Russia, Ukraine—and their immediate neighbors. It has looked at the specific military consequences, potential escalation scenarios, and consequences for Russia, NATO, Turkey, and the Balkans. But the war will inevitably have broader consequences for the global economy, too.
Slower Economic Recovery from the Pandemic
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, projections estimated global economic growth in 2022 would be around 5 percent. The war in Ukraine was a “massive and historic energy shock” to the markets, according to a November 2022 report by the OECD. The “shock” of the war was one of the main factors that had slowed economic growth in 2022 to just 3.1 percent, and why the OECD projected it to slow to 2.2 percent in 2023. The war, the report found, has had the greatest impact on Europe’s economy, where growth in 2023 is projected to be just 0.3 percent.
A Massive Investment in Ukraine
In September 2022, the World Bank estimated that the cost of rebuilding Ukraine would be about $349 billion, a number that is larger than Ukraine’s pre-invasion GDP and three-times greater than all the military, humanitarian, and financial assistance commitments to Ukraine since the start of the war, and is certainly much higher now.
Ukraine demands reparations, which seem unlikely to occur; instead, Russia appears to be preparing for a longer and larger-scale conflict. As of June 2022, the allies had seized $30 billion in assets owned by the Russian elite and frozen $300 billion owned by the Russian central bank. (More recent reports put the amount in the tens of billions.) It may be possible to transfer some of this to Ukraine, but the law on doing so needs to be explored, and the amounts involved would remain short of what is or will be necessary. Whether Ukraine and its Western allies will ever be able to compel Russia to pay reparations will depend on the outcome of the war.
How postwar reconstruction proceeds will depend on the war as well. Specifically, how it ends. Until the fighting ceases, any measures will simply be stopgaps—repairs to restore power supplies or guarantee water, humanitarian aid to provide temporary housing or continue medical care. If the fighting stops, but a still-dangerous frozen war is the result, private investors will remain reluctant, unless provided guarantees of security, or compensation against losses.
The United States has so far given the most—$47.9 billion—to Ukraine, but nearly all of it has been given in military and humanitarian aid, while EU countries have provided the largest amount of financial assistance. As a percentage of a giving nation’s GDP, between January and November 2022, the United States devoted 0.23 percent; Estonia and Latvia each devoted roughly one percent; Poland provided 0.5 percent.
Ukraine has already suffered levels of damage not seen in Europe since World War II, and it took 20 to 30 years for Germany and the United Kingdom to rebuild after the war.
In some ways, rebuilding Ukraine may be more financially difficult than conducting the war itself. The country has already suffered levels of damage not seen in Europe since World War II, and it took 20 to 30 years for Germany and the United Kingdom to rebuild after the war.
Europe’s Reliance on Russian Energy Is Over
For decades, from the Soviet Union right up until the moment Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia and much of Europe were bound together in a hydrocarbon marriage of convenience. Russia needed stable energy markets for its oil and gas exports; Europe wanted energy supplies delivered directly by pipeline, which would reduce its dependence on supplies from the Middle East—a market that was not stable, with supplies that were carried by ship. The European market became Russia’s biggest customer: in 2022, before the invasion, 60 percent of its oil exports went to Europe, and 74 percent of its dry natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Europeans believed that their energy purchases from Russia would assist Russia’s development, while also giving Europe leverage—such a large, important customer could discourage Russia’s worst impulses, was the thinking. In fact, the export of Russian energy—gas, in particular—enabled Russia to expand its influence. Countries like Germany, Finland, Latvia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Austria all became dependent upon Russia for at least half of their gas supply.
The transition away from Russian gas in Europe will not be easy. Some of the immediate alternatives will come at the expense of greenhouse gas emission goals, as a number of European countries have increased coal-fired power generation. Still, last year Europe saw a decline in natural gas consumption by more than 20 percent, as businesses and households were pushed to save more amid the skyrocketing price increases caused by the shortfall in supply.
But liquified natural gas (LNG) is swiftly filling that shortfall. The United States is poised to become the biggest LNG exporter in the world in 2023, but it does not have enough excess supply to fully meet Europe’s demand, even after it has shifted some of its exports from Asia to feed the European market. Sixty-eight percent of U.S. LNG exports are now going to EU countries. That will likely grow: After the invasion, Germany decided to build LNG terminals to facilitate gas imports, the country opened the second plant in January 2023, and several more are scheduled to open in the coming months.
Still, due to the expense involved in transforming gas to a liquid form and transportation, LNG cannot compete in price with dry gas shipped through pipelines. In an October 2022 interview, energy expert Daniel Yergin pointed out that the price of natural gas in Europe was running at the equivalent of about $400 per barrel of oil. Increased LNG facilities and imports will bring that price down—indeed, as of January 2023, natural gas prices are lower than before Russia’s invasion, although that is due in part to reduced demand from China, which is still struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic—but, at the same time, other options are on the table.
Nuclear power, for one, has been getting renewed attention as a long-term, reliable source of zero-emission energy. At the time of the invasion, Germany had already closed 16 of its 19 nuclear power plants, but it has now delayed the planned closure of the remaining three. France and the United Kingdom continue to build nuclear plants. Bulgaria, the third-largest exporter of electricity in Europe, produces its power out of two Soviet-era nuclear reactors and a fleet of coal-fired plants. In December 2022, Bulgaria signed deals with Westinghouse Electric Sweden and France’s Framatome to replace Russia as the supplier of nuclear fuel for its reactors, beginning in 2024 and 2025. New small modular reactors are cheaper to build and safer to operate, although problems of nuclear waste remain.
In the long run, a combination of demand reduction, increased efficiencies, renewables, LNG, and other pipelines will greatly reduce Europe’s need for Russian gas. Europe also appears to have determined never again to be put in a position where it relies on cheap Russian hydrocarbons. Its days as Russia’s most important customer are over. While Russia will continue to be an energy exporter, some observers believe that over the next few years, its status as an energy superpower will diminish. Russia will continue to shift its exports from Europe to markets in China and India, but at lower prices. In the end, Europe will be proven right. As Putin seemed to have forgotten, the customer always is.
With Its Gas, Russia’s Political Influence in Europe Wanes
Faced with the ever-looming threat that Russia might cut off or reduce the flow of gas, which could have dire economic consequences and domestic political costs, a number of European countries adopted ambiguous, or in some cases outright pro-Russian, policy positions. This is the sort of coercive diplomacy that comes with any monopoly. But Russian influence operates in less-visible ways, too. In Bulgaria, Russia operations wove “an opaque web of economic and political patronage” that the Kremlin used “to influence (if not control) critical state institutions, according to the Center for the Study of Democracy.
The favored local oligarchs used their profits and access to additional capital from Russian-controlled banks, along with Russian political backing, to suborn government officials, infiltrate state-owned companies and state agencies, acquire media and telecommunication companies, and finance political parties. The local Gazprom director is, in countries throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans, often more powerful than the Russian ambassador.
A significant decline in the export of Russian gas to Europe reduces Russian state revenue, which also disrupts the cash flow that supports Russian political leverage.
A significant decline in the export of Russian gas to Europe reduces Russian state revenue, which also disrupts the cash flow that supports Russian political leverage. Russia’s local allies are not dedicated supporters of a glorious Russia—they are in it for the money. Without Gazprom, Russian influence will decline. And similar arrangements may be more difficult to replicate in India or China. For this reason, those who have for years witnessed and examined Russia’s pernicious and corrupting influence on domestic politics in their countries argue for a concerted European policy, aimed at phasing out Russian gas and complete energy decoupling from Russia, which will dismantle (PDF) the Russian oligarchic networks across the continent.
A Re-Creation of the Cold War Economy
Exports of oil and gas were Russia’s primary economic interaction with the West. These exports are unlikely to be restored to pre-invasion levels. Still, Russia remains the world’s largest exporter of wheat and forestry products, and a source of strategic resources such as nickel, cobalt, and platinum. Regardless of the outcome of the war, Western companies will remain reluctant to return to Russia, or invest in it in the future. The risks are simply too high.
The current situation virtually re-creates the Cold War division of the global economy in certain sectors, only now, Russia is at a greater disadvantage, since it no longer operates in the larger space of the Soviet bloc (the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance—COMECON) whose one-time members are now members of the EU and NATO.
There is little on the horizon that could alter this path. A settlement to the Ukraine War, especially one that leaves Russia in possession of some part of Ukrainian territory, will not allay Western fears that Putin might launch yet another “special military operation” to occupy the rest of Ukraine, or all of Moldova. An end to the war will also not bring Western companies rushing back into Russia; and while Russians can survive without Gucci or McDonalds, the denial of Western technology impacts high-tech manufacturing. It could also affect Russia’s ability to exploit existing oil and gas fields and develop new ones. Russia will also be hurt by not having access to Western financial markets and institutions, including the worldwide payment messaging system SWIFT.
De-Globalization Pressures Continue
While the pandemic highlighted the vulnerabilities of just-in-time supply chains, the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine has underlined the additional risks in such a system. Globalization is not dead, and world manufacturing and commerce will continue. But the new geo-political environment will affect future corporate decisionmaking. Cost savings will be more closely scrutinized against risk. De-globalization means increased prices, at least in the short run, adding to inflationary pressures.
Global Defense Spending Surges
The current risk level takes us back to the period of uncertainty immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, perhaps even to the height of the Cold War, or the situation in Europe in the late 1930s.
The series will conclude in the next installment.
Brian Michael Jenkins is a senior adviser to the president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and author of numerous books, reports, and articles on terrorism-related topics.
Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
The kids had spent their vacation at a resort in the port city, as usual. But this time war with Russia had broken out, and her little ones — always terrified of the dark — were abandoned in a besieged city with no light and no hope. All they had now was her oldest son, Timofey, who was still himself just 17.
The questions looped endlessly in her head: Should she try to rescue the children herself — and risk being killed, making them orphans yet again? Or should she campaign to get them out from afar — and risk them being killed or falling into the hands of the Russians?
She had no idea her dilemma would lead her straight into a battle against Russia, with the highest stakes of her life.
FILE – Seen through a broken window, a fire burns at an apartment building after the shelling of a residential district in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 11, 2022. An Associated Press investigation has found that Russia’s strategy to take Ukrainian orphans and bring them up as Russian is well underway. Thousands of children have been found in the basements of war-torn cities like Mariupol and at orphanages in the Russian-backed separatist territories of Donbas. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
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Russia’s open effort to adopt Ukrainian children and bring them up as Russian is already well underway, in one of the most explosive issues of the war, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Thousands of children have been found in the basements of war-torn cities like Mariupol and at orphanages in the Russian-backed separatist territories of Donbas. They include those whose parents were killed by Russian shelling as well as others in institutions or with foster families, known as “children of the state.”
Russia claims that these children don’t have parents or guardians to look after them, or that they can’t be reached. But the AP found that officials have deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent, lied to them that they weren’t wanted by their parents, used them for propaganda, and given them Russian families and citizenship.
Ukrainian orphans board buses in the Donetsk region, left, and another group disembarks in Moscow, before meeting their new guardians. (AP Video, left, and RTR)
Whether or not they have parents, raising the children of war in another country or culture can be a marker of genocide, an attempt to erase the very identity of an enemy nation. Prosecutors say it also can be tied directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has explicitly supported the adoptions.
“It’s not something that happens spur of the moment on the battlefield,” said Stephen Rapp, a former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues who is advising Ukraine on prosecutions. “And so your ability to attribute responsibility to the highest level is much greater here.”
Even where parents are dead, Rapp said, their children must be sheltered, fostered or adopted in Ukraine rather than deported to Russia.
Russian law prohibits the adoption of foreign children without consent of the home country, which Ukraine has not given. But in May, Putin signed a decree making it easier for Russia to adopt and give citizenship to Ukrainian children without parental care — and harder for Ukraine and surviving relatives to win them back.
Russia also has prepared a register of suitable Russian families for Ukrainian children, and pays them for each child who gets citizenship — up to $1,000 for those with disabilities. It holds summer camps for Ukrainian orphans, offers “patriotic education” classes and even runs a hotline to pair Russian families with children from Donbas.
“It is absolutely a terrible story,” said Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Mariupol mayor, who claims hundreds of children were taken from that city alone. “We don’t know if our children have an official parent or (stepparents) or something else because they are forcibly disappeared by Russian troops.”
Children from an orphanage in the Donetsk region, eat a meal at a camp in Zolotaya Kosa, the settlement on the Sea of Azov, Rostov region, southwestern Russia, Friday, July 8, 2022. Russia’s open effort to adopt Ukrainian children and bring them up as Russian is emerging as one of the most explosive issues of the war. (AP Photo)
Children from different orphanages from the Donetsk region, eat a meal at a camp in Zolotaya Kosa, the settlement on the Sea of Azov, Rostov region, southwestern Russia, Friday, July 8, 2022. Russia’s open effort to adopt Ukrainian children and bring them up as Russian is emerging as one of the most explosive issues of the war. (AP Photo)
Diana, left, Lena and Sonya, right, from the Donetsk region craft in the playroom at a camp in Zolotaya Kosa, the settlement on the Sea of Azov, Rostov region, southwestern Russia, Friday, July 8, 2022. Russia portrays its adoption of Ukrainian children as an act of generosity that gives new homes and medical resources to helpless minors. (AP Photo)
Boys from an orphanage in the Donetsk region sit in beds at a camp in Zolotaya Kosa, the settlement on the Sea of Azov, Rostov region, southwestern Russia, Friday, July 8, 2022. Russia portrays its adoption of Ukrainian children as an act of generosity that gives new homes and medical resources to helpless minors. (AP Photo)
The picture is complicated by the fact that many children in Ukraine’s so-called orphanages are not orphans at all. Ukraine’s government acknowledged to the U.N. before the war that most children of the state “are not orphans, have no serious illness or disease and are in an institution because their families are in difficult circumstances.”
Nevertheless, Russia portrays its adoption of Ukrainian children as an act of generosity that gives new homes and medical resources to helpless minors. Russian state media shows local officials hugging and kissing them and handing them Russian passports.
It’s very hard to pin down the exact number of Ukrainian children deported to Russia — Ukrainian officials claim nearly 8,000. Russia hasn’t given an overall number, but officials regularly announce the arrival of Ukrainian orphans in Russian military planes.
Governor of the Moscow region Andrey Vorobyov greets Ukrainian children as they receive Russian citizenship on July 5, 2022. (Governor of Moscow region via AP)
In March, Russian children’s rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova said more than 1,000 children from Ukraine were in Russia. Over the summer, she said 120 Russian families had applied for guardianship, and more than 130 Ukrainian children had received Russian citizenship. Many more have come since, including a batch of 234 in early October.
Lvova-Belova has said these children need Russia’s help to overcome trauma that has left them sleeping badly, crying at night and drawing basements and bomb shelters. She acknowledged that at first, a group of 30 children brought to Russia from the basements of Mariupol defiantly sang the Ukrainian national anthem and shouted, “Glory to Ukraine!” But now, she said, their criticism has been “transformed into a love for Russia,” and she herself has taken one in, a teenager.
Lvova-Belova has been sanctioned by the United States, Europe, the U.K., Canada and Australia. Her office referred the AP to her reply in a state-owned news agency that Russia was “helping children to preserve their right to live under a peaceful sky and be happy.”
Timofey, right, touches Sasha’s head in Loue, western France, Saturday, July 2, 2022. At 17, Timofey was suddenly the father to all his siblings when they were separated from their parents during the war. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
Maksim, left, Eduardo, Timofey, front center, and Varvara, right, play in a park in Loue, western France, Saturday, July 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
As Lopatkina agonized over what to do, her teenage son’s childhood came to an abrupt end in Mariupol.
Suddenly, Timofey had become the father to all his siblings. Three had chronic illnesses or disabilities, and the youngest was just 7.
As intense shelling broke the glass around them, they cowered in a basement. When the younger ones were scared, Timofey carried them in his arms. After one airstrike, they moved their beds closer together next to the thickest wall.
But no wall could keep out the war. Every day, Timofey awoke at 6 a.m. in the bitter cold and chopped wood for a bonfire to cook food. All he wanted to do was to finish his work and sleep — only to have to wake up and do it again.
Calluses built up on his hands. His skin grew thicker in other ways. When airplanes rumbled overhead, he no longer ran for shelter.
“When you walk and see brains of people on the road, right on the pavement, nothing matters,” he recalled.
He promised his mother he would look after the younger children. But then the power went out, and he lost touch with her completely.
A friend who had joined the fighting offered to take him out of Mariupol. He refused. He knew he would never forgive himself if he left his siblings behind.
Finally, a local doctor from Mariupol arranged an evacuation to elsewhere in Ukraine. But pro-Russia forces at a checkpoint refused to recognize the children’s documents, photocopies of official papers identifying them and their parents. Timofey’s pleas went nowhere.
Instead, the children ended up in a hospital in the Donetsk People’s Republic, or DPR, a separatist Russian-controlled area in Ukraine. Timofey was only months away from turning 18 — the age when he would be drafted into the DPR army against his homeland.
“For the DPR, I would never go to fight in my life,” he said. “I understood that I had to get out of there one way or another.”
At least, Timofey thought, he could tell his mother he had kept the children safe. He was close to his mother, and they were alike, he and she — both tough survivors who would stick it out to the end no matter what.
Or so he thought, until he reached her.
“It’s great that they are alive,” she replied. “But we are already abroad.”
Timofey was utterly devastated. His parents had fled Ukraine without him. He felt they had thrown him away like garbage, along with five children he hadn’t asked for and couldn’t know how to protect.
“Thanks for leaving me,” he wrote back, furious.
Timofey, left, and Denys Lopatkin watch TikTok videos from Ukraine in Loue, western France, Saturday, July 2, 2022. It took Timofey a couple of days before he could believe he was really back with his parents after being evacuated from Mariupol. After two months of negotiation and an initial objection from a senior Russian official, DPR authorities finally agreed to allow a volunteer with power of attorney from his mother to collect her children. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
The children of Mariupol aren’t the first Russia has been accused of stealing from Ukraine.
In 2014, after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, more than 80 children from Luhansk were stopped at checkpoints and abducted. Ukraine sued, and the European Court of Human Rights found the children were taken into Russia “without medical support or the necessary paperwork.” The children were returned to Ukraine before a final decision.
Kateryna Rashevska, a human rights defender, said she knows of about 30 Ukrainian children from Crimea adopted by Russians under a program known as Train of Hope. Now, she said, some of those children might well be Russian soldiers. Since 2015, the Young Army Cadets national movement has trained youth in Crimea and Russia for potential recruitment into the military.
“We cannot ask the Russian Federation to return the children because we don’t know who they should return,” said Rashevska, with the Ukrainian organization Regional Central for Human Rights.
Kira, a 12-year-old girl who saw her father shot and killed, was evacuated from Mariupol to Donetsk with shrapnel wounds on her ear, leg, neck and arm. Kira was reunited with her grandparents only after the office of the Ukraine deputy prime minister got involved.
Her grandmother, Svitlana Obedynska, said Kira had become withdrawn and lost interest in everything, and negotiations were “very difficult.”
“It was not decided at our level,” she said. “She wants to be with her family. After all, she has no one else.”
In response to the AP investigation, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price called the story of stolen children “absolutely horrifying, but unfortunately not surprising.”
Russia justifies the deportation of children by saying it has annexed four territories in Ukraine, but the U.N. and the rest of the world called the move in late September a sham. The governor of one of those territories, Serhiy Haidai of Luhansk, has accused Russian officials of drawing up documents that deprive Ukrainian parents of their rights. He too fears that Ukrainian children will be enlisted in the Russian military.
Other officials in occupied territories loyal to Moscow have a more benign view of what Russia is doing. Olga Volkova, who heads an institution for children in Donetsk, had 225 kids evacuated to an area near the Russian seaside city of Taganrog, and 10 were taken in by Russian families in April. After DPR and Russian officials make a list of suitable candidates, her boarding school secures citizenship for them and sends them to new families in Russia.
If there are Ukrainian relatives, they can stay in touch, call and perhaps eventually meet, Volkova said. In the meantime, while the war is ongoing, she noted, the children now still have families of a sort.
“Everyone wants to have a mother, you see?” Volkova said.
Olga Lopatkina, center, serves her family a snack, in Loue, western France, Saturday, July 2, 2022. After two months of negotiation and an initial objection from a senior Russian official, DPR authorities finally agreed to allow a volunteer with power of attorney from Lopatkina to collect the children who were evacuated from Mariupol. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
Olga Lopatkina and her family walk in a park in Loue, western France, Saturday, July 2, 2022. After two months of negotiation and an initial objection from a senior Russian official, DPR authorities finally agreed to allow a volunteer with power of attorney from Lopatkina to collect her children who were evacuated from Mariupol. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
Olga Lopatkina was a teacher of music and the arts who had lived a hard life. Now a middle-aged woman with red and pink streaks in her hair fading to white, she lost her own mother as a teenager. In 2014, when fighting with Russian-backed forces broke out in Donetsk, she also lost a home.
But this nightmare with her children, she thought, was the hardest thing yet. Although Mariupol was less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from her home in Vuhledar, it was impossible to reach safely because of bombardment. In the meantime, her 18-year-old biological daughter, Rada, was at a boxing competition near Kharkiv, another front-line city.
She told herself every day that the war would end fast. It was the 21st century, after all. Instead, it edged closer.
Lopatkina took in two refugee families from a city near Mariupol, who confirmed her worst fears. One woman said her husband was killed in front of her, and she had to step over his corpse.
Lopatkina hounded Ukrainian officials, the local governor, social services, anybody who could evacuate her children. In calls, Timofey told his mother he was looking after his younger siblings. She was proud and slightly reassured.
Olga Lopatkina’s adopted children pose for a photo in Mariupol, Ukraine in February 2022. (Lopatkin Family via AP)
Olga Lopatkina speaks to The Associated press during an interview in a park in Loue, western France, Saturday, July 2, 2022. She told herself every day that the war would end fast. It was the 21st century, after all. Instead, it edged closer. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
Then, on March 1, their connection was lost. She thought her kids were going to be evacuated to Zaporizhzhia, so she and her husband went there, with books of fairy tales and other treats. But two days after they arrived, the state ordered Zaporizhzhia itself to be evacuated instead.
Lopatkina had to make yet another painful decision. Should she wait for an evacuation from Mariupol that might never happen? Or should she go to collect her oldest daughter before losing contact with her too?
“Let’s go,” she told her husband, Denys.
Lopatkina escaped with Rada to France. In one final plea, she wrote to the governor of Donetsk: “Don’t forget my orphans.”
When she received the message from Timofey accusing her of deserting them, she was stung but not surprised.
“I can’t even imagine,” she said, her voice breaking as she started to cry. “If I were him, I would have reacted the same way, and maybe even worse.”
Lopatkina continued to push Russian and Ukrainian officials incessantly. She sent them photocopies of Ukrainian documents proving her guardianship. She told them some of the children were sick, and worried that nobody had even asked about their medication.
The children were paraded on Russian television and told she didn’t love them. It broke her heart.
She got a job in a garment factory in France and bought furniture, clothes and toys for children who might or might not return. She chose their bedrooms in her small duplex in the northwest, in Loue. She planned celebrations for missed birthdays.
Then, much to her dismay, she found out that other Ukrainian orphans who were with her children had been issued new identity documents for the DPR. The Donetsk authorities dropped a bombshell. She could have her children back — if she came through Russia to Donetsk to get them in person.
Lopatkina feared a trap. If she went to Russia, she might never be allowed to leave.
“I will sue you,” she threatened Donetsk officials in an email on May 18th. “You took my kids. That is a crime.”