Tim MakGood morning to readers, Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands, and its population, though sleep-deprived and bleary, is eagerly awaiting the start of an expected counteroffensive.
This video, posted on Telegram, is the latest clue:
The head of Ukraine's armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, released a video on Telegram that many inside and outside of the country have interpreted to mean the operation is imminent.
“[The] time has come to take back what is ours,” reads the post.
Here is my Ukrainian reporting partner Ross’ translation of the chants in the video:
Meanwhile, Ukrainian security official Oleksiy Danilov told the BBC that a counteroffensive could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in a week."
Danilov also acknowledged the political reality is that "we cannot lose."
My friend, the Ukrainian director Lubomir Levitski, shared this cartoon that illustrates perfectly how it is going to bed in Kyiv nowadays:
The strikes were one of the largest since the full-scale invasion began, and show that the Russian military is testing Ukrainian air defense by using both unconventional routes for its drones – launching them from unexpected directions and dispersing them in new ways.
Fires broke out in three Kyiv-area districts, with at least one person killed and three injured. Ukrainian Air Force Command indicates that 52 of 54 Iranian-made Shahed drones were downed by air defense.
Today's issue of The Counteroffensive is about Yevgenia Butkevych, whose son is a human rights lawyer detained by Russia-aligned forces in Donbas.
Zelenskyy announced a POW exchange this week, & she found out that her son wasn't among them
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The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak | Substack
A war correspondent's open notebook, reporting live from Kyiv. Compelling human stories that illustrate what’s happening during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Click to read The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
For much of the last year, Yevgenia and Oleksandr Butkevych have been going through both kinds of hell. First, their son went missing in war, then he was identified as one of the many POWs held by Russian forces.
“Our life is waiting, expecting a call,” Yevgenia told me.
Not knowing, and knowing: both options are terribly painful. The parents are now aware of the injustice surrounding their son’s imprisonment – and they spend their time wondering how he’s doing under harsh conditions.
“As parents, it's obviously good to know that your child is alive,” said Oleksandr, a soft-spoken professor of science. “The English have a saying, ‘Of two evils, choose neither!' … Both are tormenting. Both are bad in their own way.”
Photo: Oleksandr accepts award for Maksym
The love the pair have for each other after decades of marriage is evident – and the support they give each other through this ordeal is obvious. Oleksandr softly caresses Yevgenia’s hand as she speaks for the two of them.
Unlike many other couples I’ve interviewed in Ukraine, in which men frequently interrupt women during answers, Oleksandr makes a point of asking his wife whether she has something to say before answering any interview questions.
Their son, the prominent human rights activist Maksym Butkevych, went missing while fighting for the Ukrainian armed forces in the eastern part of the country last summer.
Even as a child, Maksym had been “obsessed with human freedom,” his mother remembers, recalling his first demonstration on Kyiv's Independence Square at 12 years old – where he even delivered a speech.
Before the war, the 45 year old Maksym had been working for the No Borders Project, advocating for refugees and internally displaced peoples.
But after the full-scale invasion, he was mobilized to push back against the Russian threat, and assigned as the commander of a small unit. He was given weeks to get his troops trained, and they were fighting in the Kyiv region by April 2022.
In June, he told his parents that he had been sent to Donetsk, a region in the east of Ukraine. And that’s when he went dark.
Photo: Supporters of Maksym Butkevych’s release demonstrate in Paris, France.
Then a friend called in June to say that a Russian state-owned news agency had broadcast an interrogation video of Ukrainian prisoners that featured Maksym.
In Russian media, they saw their son referred to as a Nazi — the exact opposite of the kind of person he was. And because he was known as a prominent Ukrainian activist, they think he has been given a much more difficult time in detention.
Maksym received 13 years of imprisonment in a totally falsified case run by illegitimate authorities in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Maksym’s friend and colleague Pechonchyk said.
She added: the human rights lawyer was falsely accused of shooting at civilians in a “mock trial” that has since been condemned by Amnesty International, OpenDemocracy, and the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Photo: Supporters of Maksym demonstrated in Bern, Germany.
She had seen a video with Maksym reading a prepared statement, "his so-called confession," in which Maksym appeared exhausted and thin. His parents say the process is a complete absurdity: he wasn't even in Severodonetsk at the time the alleged crime occurred.
On Thursday President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that a prisoner swap had been initiated, resulting in 106 Ukrainian soldiers being freed from Russian captivity.
Maksym was not among them.
So for his parents and friends, the waiting – and the not knowing – continues.
John Breen@timkmak
"Let my week be steel"
Should that be :
"Let my will be steel"
?
@jab01701mid yes thanks for catching!