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Kharkiv city center after a Russian bombardment, March 22. (Rafael Yaghobzadeh/Rafael Yaghobzadeh/Libération) A year after the start of the war in Ukraine, Liberation gives the floor and the pen to the inhabitants and refugees of a bruised country, with Libé des Ukrainians. Find all the articles of this edition here, and the newspaper on newsstands, Monday, February 20. One year already that the Russians commit one of the worst international war crimes: the deportation of children, often torn from their parents. While the Ukrainian authorities search for a way to repatriate the civilians, the desperate parents try to get their children back to Russia on their own. But they face inordinate obstacles. Iryna, mother of Maksym (1), 15, traveled more than 10,000 kilometers to find her son, five months after their separation in October. She crossed three countries by bus, train and plane. Maksym studied at the Maritime College in Kherson, then still occupied by the Russians. One day he called his mother: "Mom, I'm on a boat, they're taking us to Crimea." The children were abruptly taken out of their classroom and taken from the right bank to the left bank of the river, in the region which is still today under Russian occupation. Read the full story in Libération here.

From Ukraine, a veteran war correspondent finds that the deprivations inflicted by Putin and his troops have actually strengthened the resolve of the country’s civilians. The World Health Organization says that, with the cold setting in across Ukraine, the conditions will increase the risk of hypothermia. This will also contribute to cases of pneumonia, heart attacks, strokes. The sick might not be able to reach health care facilities; an estimated 700 of them have been hit by Putin’s weapons—a similar tactic that he used in Syria to crush the resolve of the medical community, the humanitarian volunteers there, and the Syrian population. Ukraine is now Putin’s target, and by using missiles and drones to attack the electricity grids and heating structures, he and the Russian military seek to freeze Ukrainian civilians into submission or surrender. There’s not much chance of that. The Ukrainians have endured shocking deprivation before—Stalin attempted to starve them to death in the 1930s during the Holodomor—but there is a particularly gruesome kind of menace that comes with unending cold in a country where average temperatures in winter can drop well below zero. It is also debilitating for those who, despite war, are trying to live their lives with some kind of normalcy. Meeting a high-level government official in Kyiv earlier this month, my colleagues and I sat, in heavy blankets, in a darkened café lit by candles. We were discussing how to chronicle ongoing war crimes. And the irony did not escape us that as we spoke of atrocities, Putin was trying to freeze people to death by taking away their sources of heating, water, and light. It would have been comical had it not been so sad. Read the full story in Vanity Fair here.

Ukraine Is Where They Must Be Stopped Sheltering from Iranian kamikaze Shahed drones in the Kyiv metro in October, I tried to hide my extreme nervousness while simultaneously scrolling through social media videos of antiregime protests in Iran, where relentlessly courageous crowds of women were ripping off their shawls in defiance of the ayatollahs who sell the Shahed drones to the Kremlin, which then uses them to attack civilians in the city of my birth. It was a reminder of how the war in Ukraine is about fighting not only Russia, but also a whole network of authoritarian regimes. Vladimir Putin claims Russia’s invasion will usher in a new era of what he calls a “multi-polar” world, but which in practice means an era where the Russias, Chinas, and Irans of this world are increasingly free to strip away the last vestiges of human rights and humanitarian rules; where big states are ever more free to suffocate smaller ones in their “spheres of influence”; where the powerful can murder critics with impunity; where fossil-fuel dictatorships can hold the world ransom; where any hope of speaking truth to power is sunk under a deluge of disinformation; and the state can surveil your every digital footprint. But Putin miscalculated. Instead of strengthening his authoritarian network, the invasion of Ukraine can be a rallying point for democratic solidarity. As I sat in the Kyiv metro and sighed with relief at the boom of American and Norwegian air-defense systems taking out the Shahed drones, I found myself rooting on the Iranian protests even harder. Read the full story in Time here.

Smoliyenko Dmytro/Ukrinform/Abac Earlier last month, I was sitting in a bomb shelter in Kyiv with dozens of civilians as we were pounded by missiles. Putin intended his bombs to do more than punish. He wanted them to destroy the power grids and heating facilities that keep Ukraine warm during the nation’s brutal winters. I direct a war crimes unit in Ukraine called The Reckoning Project. Our job is to gather human testimonies during wartime which we then verify, archive and build into cases for future war crimes tribunals. It matters to be on the right side of history — never more so than when it comes to the war in Ukraine. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the choice is exceptionally clear because the situation is exceptionally clear: Vladimir Putin is targeting civilians. He has attacked women and children trapped in train stations; apartment buildings filled with families; shopping malls, hospitals, schools. For once, most countries (and people) around the world have taken a strong and united stance against Putin. But in both politics and pop culture, dissenters abound. Loudest among them is former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, who — along with crafting some of rock’s most brilliant music — has backed not one, but two, murderous dictators: Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Read the full story in the New York Post here.

Троє дітей пережили блокаду Маріуполя, примусове переселення, ув’язнення батька та власне заслання – до Росії. Оригінал матеріалу було опубліковано в американському часописі The Vanity Fair. Українською історію опублікувала "Українська правда. Життя". Кругла жовта медаль за третє місце у змаганнях з греко-римської боротьби – це чи не єдина річ, яку вдалося вивезти з Маріуполя Євгену Межевому. Його 12-річний син Матвій виграв її у попередньому періоді життя, їхнього життя до війни. Після того, як його звільнили з колонії в Оленівці після тривалої фільтрації, 39-річний Євген повністю зосередився на житті та безпеці своїх трьох дітей. Їхня історія – одна з багатьох оповідей про роз'єднання сім’ї, втрату, травму, а в їхньому випадку – переїзд до іншої країни. Читайте повну версію матеріалу за посиланням.

Ukrainians are preparing for the worst Getty/The National News The lights are going out all over Ukraine as the war rages on, targeting civilian infrastructure. A bitter winter is descending on a courageous country, and millions of residents are preparing for the cold and the dark. This weekend, Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, warned that water, electricity and heat may be broken down entirely. “Let's be frank," Mr Klitschko said. “Our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die." The Ukrainians are preparing for the worst even while their enemies are doing everything possible to make this a miserable winter. But they may have underestimated how resilient Ukrainians can be. They held back the Russians from the gates of their capital. They made it through a summer of intense warfare in the south and the east. Their country has been violated but they remain committed to complete territorial integrity. Despite US President Joe Biden’s private requests for negotiations with the Russians – surely a way of propping up his own midterm election battle – Ukrainians are determined to get the total return of their country. But wars in winter, even for Russians who fought in the depths of the winter in Chechnya and the mountains of Afghanistan, are notoriously difficult to fight, and harder for civilians to endure. Those who can flee will, but those who cannot – the disabled, the poor, the elderly – will literally freeze. Read the full story in The National News here.

How this year’s Lviv Book Forum in Ukraine became an act of solidarity. LVIV, Ukraine—One of the most profound images to come from the siege of Sarajevo was the stark image of the cellist Vedran Smailovic playing Tomaso Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor every day at noon, sitting elegantly and defiantly in black tie in the midst of the wreckage of Bosnia’s National and University Library. The library had been bombed by Bosnian Serbs on Aug. 25, 1992, destroying 90 percent of its 1.5 million volumes of precious books, including rare Ottoman editions. A 32-year-old librarian was killed that night as she desperately tried to save books. The scene of book pages burning and ashes rising in the air was an indelible image of the cruelty of war and a symbol of cultural destruction. The beautiful, Moorish-inspired City Hall building, called Vijecnica, which housed the library, was more than a place to find books—it was a potent symbol of multicultural ethnicity. That, above all, is what the Serbs tried to destroy: the cultural ethos of what made up Bosnia. A similar phenomenon is happening now in Ukraine. Russia seeks to destroy Ukrainian identity, and that includes monuments, libraries, theaters, art, and literature. Read the full story in Time here.

As cases of war crimes pile up against Russia, can peddlers of hate be held to account? For years, and especially since the invasion of 24 February, Russian state media has been calling to wipe Ukraine off the map, for killing Ukrainians en masse, and dehumanising its people, smearing them as “Nazis” who need to be “denazified”. As the cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression and genocide pile up against the Russian leadership and military, is there a way to hold members of the propaganda machine accountable as well? Are they protected by freedom of speech or is their role qualitatively different: not mere trumpeters of abhorrent opinion but facilitators of crimes? And what does it mean for other cases across the world: from Donald Trump using Twitter to (allegedly) egg on the rioters at the US Capitol on 6 January, to the Myanmar online peddlers of hate encouraging persecution of the Rohingya? Read the full story in the Guardian here.

During an international symposium, we discussed testimony collection during the war in Ukraine and how it can lay the foundations of transitional justice processes. A DESTROYED SCHOOL IN CHERNIHIV, UKRAINE | PHOTO © SHUTTERSTOCK / DROP OF LIGHT If Syria was the first war where thousands of civilians and others took footage of violence and destruction with their smartphones, Ukraine is probably the first where evidence of war crimes is being gathered even while the war still rages. A number of highly professional, independent, civil society-led initiatives have been launched to collect legally admissible testimony. While an extremely welcome development, this inevitably also gives rise to concerns over duplication and possibly marring evidence for national and international judicial bodies. Improving testimony collection To promote greater mutual understanding and cooperation among those involved, the Berghof Foundation hosted a one-day hybrid symposium on 14 September in collaboration with the recently-established and already applauded The Reckoning Project: Ukraine Testifies to exchange best practices and discuss the role testimony collection plays in broader transitional justice efforts in Ukraine. The symposium started with a closed-door practitioners’ exchange on current efforts and best practices in the field of testimony collection. In the afternoon, the discussion was opened for an international audience to discuss the findings of the practitioners’ exchange as well as broader questions regarding transitional justice in Ukraine. Speakers included Janine di Giovanni and Nataliya Gumenyuk of The Reckoning Project, Ambassador Anton Korynevych of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Beth Van Schaack (Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice at the US State Department), Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad (CEO of the International Peace Institute and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights), Pablo de Greiff of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, Lise Grande (President of the United States Institute for Peace), international legal expert Philippe Sands as well as the head of the Berghof Foundation’s Global Learning Hub for Transitional Justice and Reconciliation, Natascha Zupan. The documentation of war crimes has reached an unprecedented level in Ukraine. The sheer volume of reported and documented cases constitutes a considerable challenge for legal practitioners and activists. It is becoming evident that not all cases can be brought to court in a timely manner. This requires a skillful definition of legal strategies as well as a careful management of expectations. Read the full story at the Berghof Foundation's website here.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Investigators appointed by the U.N. have confirmed that Russian armed forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine. They have documented civilian executions, torture and sexual violence. Another group in a unique position to track atrocities in Ukraine is journalists. The Reckoning Project exists to train journalists to collect not just their stories but also evidence of war crimes that can be used in international court. One of its creators is a longtime war correspondent, Janine di Giovanni, and she joins us now. Jeanine, thank you for being here. JEANINE DI GIOVANNI: Thank you so much for having me. SUMMERS: So, Jeanine, I'm wondering if you could just start by telling us what motivated you to start The Reckoning Project. DI GIOVANNI: Well, it was really motivated out of deep frustration and sorrow. I'd been reporting war for more than 30 years and witnessing three genocides, essentially - Bosnia, Rwanda and the slaughter of the Yazidis. Now, I had done something like The Reckoning Project in Iraq, Yemen and Syria for the United Nations. But The Reckoning Project is far more advanced. And we are working with Ukrainian investigative journalists. We've trained them so that their work will adhere to international legal standards. And then we're building cases. SUMMERS: Can you just walk us through what is different about covering war crimes as a journalist and, say, the types of documentation and evidence that's done by a legal investigator? DI GIOVANNI: There really is a lot that is very different. Some of the really important things - first of all, you cannot interview a witness who's been traumatized. So the number of times I have been a journalist and, say, been in a hospital in Iraq where a child has just suffered grievous injuries following a rocket attack and TV reporters were there with cameras, like, right in the kid's face and - we would never do things like that. We've developed a very careful template for our methodology, which is essentially questions, but they're not leading questions - so no leading questions, no trauma. Journalists have this tremendous skill, which is interviewing, but there was a real gap between the ability that journalists have and their ability to submit their evidence to courts of law. And I know this because I was called to The Hague several times for wars in Sierra Leone, for Bosnia, for Kosovo. And often my notebooks just weren't up to scratch. They were great notebooks for fact-checkers, but they weren't good notebooks for lawyers. SUMMERS: I'd like to ask you, do you believe that war correspondents have a responsibility in the legal prosecution of war criminals compared to, say, someone who is a reporter in the United States on a city or a crime beat? DI GIOVANNI: I do, actually. I absolutely do believe that war reporters who witness these things have a kind of responsibility. It's a moral responsibility. And there's many - and I have many colleagues who said to me, you know, look. I'm not a social worker, and I am just a reporter. And I'm here to bring the facts. That's fine. Also, there are the issues of impartiality and neutrality and objectivity. For me, it was always a very different thing. It was more about bringing a voice to people that didn't have a voice, and it was about bearing witness. SUMMERS: You have discussed how your project aims to meet at the intersection of storytelling and legal accountability. And to some people, that might seem like two distinctly different jobs, one being journalism, the other activism. Do you draw the line between the two, and can one be both? Listen to the full episode or read the full transcript at National Public Radio's website here.

«Со временем замечаешь закономерности в любом массовом убийстве» Журналистка Vanity Fair Джанин ди Джованни 35 лет пишет о войнах. В Буче ей пришлось заново учиться расследовать военные преступления. Вот как это было 01:02, 13 сентября 2022 Источник: Vanity Fair Джанин ди Джованни — журналистка, которая за 35 лет карьеры побывала на многих войнах и наблюдала целый ряд вооруженных конфликтов, от Сьерра-Леоне до Палестины и Ирака. В мае 2022 года ди Джованни отправилась в Бучу — после того, как российские войска отступили из Киевской области. Для ди Джованни это уже третья война, в которой участвует Владимир Путин: до этого она писала репортажи из Чечни и Сирии. Но в этот раз она приехала на войну не только как журналист. Теперь ди Джованни помогает собирать доказательства военных преступлений по строгим методикам, соответствующим стандартам международных уголовных судов. О том, как она пришла к этой работе и что увидела в Буче, Джанин ди Джованни рассказала в большом материале для журнала Vanity Fair. С любезного разрешения автора и редакции «Медуза» публикует его полный перевод. Full translation published in Meduza here.

Janine Di Giovanni, The Reckoning Project's Executive Director and Co-Founder, joined Apple News Today to discuss her mission in merging journalistic and legal expertise to hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts here.