PEN International: Kurkov on Ukraine's 'Tragic Anniversary'

The Ukrainian author and journalist Andrey Kurkov at PEN International marks ‘the anniversary of an ongoing war.’

Image – Getty: Mariia Kokorina

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Urging ‘Full Justice and Accountability’

European leaders have been in Kyiv today to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron is at the White House in Washington to meet with Donald Trump, who has not joined the European chiefs in the Ukrainian capital, something that Reuters’ report calls “a clear illustration of Trump’s lurch toward Moscow.”

At Reuters, Tom Balmforth, Max Hunder and Yuliia Dysa point out that “Kyiv said it was in the final stages of agreeing a deal with Washington to provide access to its mineral wealth,” an agreement the Ukrainian deputy prime minister Olha Stefanishyna has said is meant “to showcase our commitment for decades to come.”

Today (February 24), the United States has said that unless the Security Council resolution for a “swift end” to the war includes a mention of territorial integrity, Washington will veto the resolution.

Amid muted anniversary observances as well as these political negotiations and pronouncements and news reports, it’s easy to feel that the agonies suffered by Ukraine and its people are being overlooked.

Indeed, on Saturday night into Sunday (February 22 into 23), the Kremlin launched what the Associated Press and CBS News report was “a record 267 drones” into Ukraine, “destroying infrastructure and killing at least three people, one day before the world marks the third year of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.”

In reflection on the anniversary, PEN International today reports:

“According to PEN Ukraine and partners, at least 186 cultural figures have been killed by Russian forces as of February 2025.

“Those killed included writers, translators, artists, musicians, photographers, and historians who played a key role in enriching and celebrating Ukraine’s culture and identity.

“PEN International utterly condemns the violence unleashed by Russian forces against Ukraine and urges full justice and accountability.”

‘Nothing More Tragic’

In addition, PEN International’s editors have published an essay from the author, journalist, and former PEN Ukraine president Andrey Kurkov, who was longlisted by the International Booker Prize in 2023 for his Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv, originally written in Russian (Kurkov writes in that and Ukrainian) and translated to English by Rueben Woolley (Hachette UK / MacLehose Press).

Kurkov also has won Germany’s Geschwister-Scholl-Preis; the National Book Critics Circle Award; and, in January, the French Transfuge Prize for Our Daily War, published in July 2024 by London’s Orenda Books, as the second volume of his “Diary of an Invasion.”

This excerpt from Kurkov’s essay, refers to Victoria Amelina (2024) and Volodymyr Vakulenko (2023), two Ukrainian winners of special posthumous awards from the International Publishers Association (IPA) Prix Voltaire, which on Sunday (February 23), finished its nomination period under its director, James Taylor, for the 2025 award cycle.

Kurkov: Excerpt From ‘A Void To Fill’

“‘My worst fears are coming true—I am inside a new Executed Renaissance,’ wrote Victoria Amelina in the preface to the book by the murdered Ukrainian poet Volodymyr Vakulenko. The book would not have appeared without Amelina. She was determined that Vakulenko’s voice would not be silenced.

Andrey Kurkov

“After men in Russian military uniform took Vakulenko from his home in early March 2022 Victoria spent several months trying to discover his fate.

“Eventually, his body was found in an unmarked grave in the forest near the town of Izyum. By that time, Amelina had dug up Vakulenko’s hand-written diary which he had buried under a cherry tree in his parents’ garden.

Victoria Amelina

“She deciphered the text and prepared it for publication. This diary formed the basis of the book and from it we learn about Vakulenko’s thoughts and feelings—what he worried about—while he and his son who has special needs lived under occupation. This was the last thing Vakulenko wrote in his life, his very last work.

“Victoria Amelina’s book Looking at Women Who Look at War: A War and Justice Diary was recently published simultaneously in the UK and France.

[Editor’s note: Amelina’s Looking at Women Who Look at War was published simultaneously in English and French—by William Collins (UK) and St. Martin’s Press (US), with a foreword by Margaret Atwood; and by Flammarion, in Leslie Talaga’s translation with Philippe Sands’ postface. Emma Shercliff, the agent for the estate of Victoria Amelina at Laxfield Literary Associates, tells Publishing Perspectives that the book was also simultaneously published in Sweden (Ersatz); and is forthcoming in Italy, Germany, Korea, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Slovakia and Denmark.]
Volodymyr Vakulenko

“This was Victoria’s last work. She did not even have time to finish it. She wrote it while searching for the body of Volodymyr Vakulenko.

“She was still writing it when she was mortally wounded by a Russian missile in Kramatorsk.

“If not for the war—the Russian aggression—Vakulenko and Amelina could have written many more books.”

“There is nothing more tragic than marking the anniversary of an ongoing war.

“An anniversary should be an occasion to sum up and reflect on results, but what are the results of this war? They can be calculated in the hundreds of thousands of lost lives, in the endless destruction of people’s homes, gardens, vineyards, villages, cities, and the ruination of our forests, fields, factories and power plants.

“The results of the war can also be calculated in the number of destroyed libraries, theatres, universities, schools, printing houses, film studios and museums.”

You can read Andrey Kurkov’s full essay at PEN International here.

As an addendum to this article, we’d like to note that today that Pauline Maufrais—the Ukraine regional officer for the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF)— has reported, “Since February 24, 2022, RSF has recorded nearly 150 journalists who have fallen victim to Russian abuses while doing their work, based on information collected with the support of RSF’s Ukrainian partner, the Institute of Mass Information (IMI). In 2024, two more reporters were killed while 18 remain arbitrarily detained by Russia and one is still missing. RSF salutes the courage of the Ukrainian and foreign journalists who continue reporting despite these dangers.”

More from Publishing Perspectives on Ukraine and the three year war inflicted on it by Russia is here; more about PEN International is here; and more on the world book publishing and Europe is here.

Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.