the times | Monday April 4 2022 2GM 9
News
Some ten miles outside the southern
city of Mykolaiv, Russians and Ukrain-
ians are engaged in an artillery duel,
shells flying overhead as rain and hail
sweep across a barren landscape.
Two soldiers with Kalashnikov rifles
slung across their shoulders pause from
the bombardment and lean their
Soviet-designed rocket-propelled gre-
nade launchers against a wall just
beyond a mostly deserted village that
has been battered by shelling.
Here, Ukrainian troops have fortified
their position along an unfinished road
with steel girders and stone blocks
while bunkers and trenches are
scattered in fields on both sides.
“Together my father and I used one
of these last week to take out a Russian
tank — no survivors,” boasts Ivan, 34,
pointing to his weapon.
His father, Pavlo, 57, was a conscript
in the Soviet era before Ukraine
declared independence in 1991. The
younger man was excused national
service because of a lung problem.
Yet both are fighting together against
President Putin’s assault. “After the
Russians attacked, they are letting
things like that pass and I wouldn’t have
allowed them to refuse me,” says Ivan of
how he came to be allowed to fight.
He and his father joined up together
in the territorial reserves in their home
city of Odesa on February 25, the day
after the invasion began. They were
attached to a mechanised infantry unit
that has seen heavy fighting.
“In some places we have been very
close to the enemy and there has been
close-quarter fighting with Russian
troops that follow the tanks,” Ivan tells
The Times on the front line.
The men of the unit expect to be
fighting Russian tanks in the next few
days after the shelling of Mykolaiv
appeared to be paving the way for a
ground assault.
“Mykolaiv lies between them and our
home,” Pavlo says. “Over the last few
days everyone here has heard about the
executions and rapes and robbery the
Russians have committed in the places
they occupied and have now been
driven out of,” he adds.
“Putin calls us fascists but the Rus-
sians are the ones behaving like Nazis.
That’s why we are not going to allow
them to get past us.”
One of the unit’s officers explains
that they are fighting against Russian
tanks and artillery approaching from
occupied Kherson to the southeast, the
only major Ukrainian city that Moscow
has managed to capture.
The officer says that Ukrainian
troops have been using portable anti-
armour missiles supplied by Britain and
America to destroy “dozens of Russian
tanks and armoured personnel carriers
daily”. However, he pauses before add-
ing: “The next day the Russians are able
to send in new vehicles. They have
many more than we do but we are kill-
ing very many of them.”
Few believe that Putin’s assault on
the south of Ukraine, and claimed focus
on the Donbas, will see the capital,The National Gallery has altered the
title of a painting by Edgar Degas from
Russian Dancers to Ukrainian Dancers
after calls by Ukrainians on social
media.
A listing on the gallery’s website
shows the revised title of the work,
which was painted at the end of the
20th century. It has led to calls for other
institutions to rethink “lazy” labelling
of Ukrainian culture, The Guardian
said.
The National Gallery said: “The title
of this painting has been an ongoing
point of discussion for many years and
is covered in scholarly literature; how-
ever there has been increased focus on
it over the past month due to the
current situation so therefore we felt it
was an appropriate moment to update
the painting’s title to better reflect the
subject of the painting.”
The French impressionist’s drawing,
which is not on display at present,
depicts a troupe of dancers that Degas
saw performing in Paris.
It is notable for the yellow and blue,
Ukraine’s national colours, featured on
what appears to be the hair ribbons and
garlands of the dancers.
Mariia Kashchenko, the founder and
director of Art Unit, told The Guardian:
“I understand that the term Russian art
became an easy umbrella term which
was useful but it’s really important now
to get things right. As a Ukrainian
person, in the past I would havenew battleground. Inset, Ukrainian forces have recaptured the Chernobyl nuclear site
News
Attackers won’t
get past us, vow
father and son
Kyiv, spared for long. “The Russian
announcements about pulling out from
around Kyiv and focusing their efforts
on the Donbas are, in my view, and of
many in the Ukrainian forces, bullshit,”
one officer says.
“Why should anyone believe what
Putin or his people say? They’ve been
lying shamelessly for months to every
western leader. Why should he tell the
world about his military plans? Because
it’s not what he’s going to do.
“They’re pulling back perhaps
because they have to. But they are
going to resupply, get some new
cannon fodder in their ranks, and
attack Kyiv again as well as continue
their attack against Mykolaiv and else-
where.”
Then, one of the unit’s officers hur-
ries across and urges us to leave their
area immediately because the Russians
will soon renew an intensive artillery
attack, using large 150mm shells. How
could he be so sure? The officer points
vaguely in the direction of the Russians
and with a smile adds: “Because of that.”
As we are leaving explosions herald the
renewal of hostilities.
Later, inside Mykolaiv’s centre,
Ukrainian army bomb specialists ex-
amine parts of a cluster bomb that had
not fully exploded — its nose buried
deep in a street’s asphalt. A bomb expertsays that cluster bombs are banned
under international treaties but the
Russians have used them in other parts
of Ukraine.
“The Russians will say that we, the
Ukrainians, have shelled ourselves
with this,” he says. “As they try to lie that
the executed people we are finding in
the places they occupied have been
killed by Ukrainian forces. But look
here,” he says pointing to the number
“2003” stamped into the protruding
shell, “that’s the year of manufacture.
Ukraine only has Soviet-era weapons
because we got the last ones in 1991
before the Soviet Union disintegrated.”
Later, Vitaly Kim, the regional gover-
nor, announces that one person died
and 14 were injured in the shelling of
Mykolaiv. “On the shelling of the city:
14 people were taken to hospital,” Kim
says, adding that a 15-year-old was
among the injured. As night falls there
are more explosions in the city centre
and on its outskirts.
“This city and taking the entire
Ukrainian Black Sea coast are key
objectives, along with Kyiv, Kharkiv
and Chernihiv, whatever the Kremlin’s
propagandists say,” officials explain.
“The battle here will get more vicious
every day because Putin is fighting for
his survival.”Pavlo and Ivan, father and son, joined
up together the day after the invasionReports of rapes and
other atrocities fuel the
Ukrainian volunteers’
determination, writes
Askold Krushelnycky
Ukraine reclaims Degas dance troupe
encountered times when I was called
Russian, or where Ukrainian heritage
was described as Russian.”
Olesya Khromeychuk, the director
of the Ukrainian Institute in London,
also wrote last month in the German
magazine Der Spiegel: “Every trip to a
gallery or museum in London with
exhibits on art or cinema from the
USSR reveals deliberate or just lazy
misinterpretation of the region as one
endless Russia; much like the current
president of the Russian Federation
would like to see it.
“The curators have no problem
presenting Jewish, Belarusian or
Ukrainian art and artists as Russian.
On a rare occasion when a Ukrainian is
not presented as Russian, he or she
might be presented as ‘Ukrainian-
born’, as was the case with the film
director Oleksandr Dovzhenko in one
of the major exhibitions on revolution-
ary art in London.”
The National Gallery said that it was
carrying out further research on
paintings in its collection and when
new information came to light it would
be updated.Charlie Moloney
The garlands and ribbons appear to
reflect the national colours of UkrainePHOTOGRAPH: PETROS GIANNAKOURIS/AP