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1 week ago | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
Eugene Kuz in his first weeks of fatherhood, holding his daughter, Annette, on a beach in Florida in 1962. A native of Ukraine who escaped the Soviet Union, he had arrived in America seven years earlierThe education my father gave me about the need to resist autocracy began during his lifetime. He told stories about joining the struggle to free his native Ukraine from Russia’s shackles in the years that Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union and killed millions of Ukrainians.
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3 weeks ago | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
A poster of Pope John Paul II hangs along a street in Lviv, where he held a Mass before some 1 million people during his pilgrimage to Ukraine in 2001. He remains the only pope to visit the country. (c. Martin Kuz)Pope John Paul II arrived in Ukraine in 2001 for the country’s first-ever papal visit with deep empathy for its suffering under Russian rule in the 20th century.
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1 month ago | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
Julia Virich stands outside an emergency shelter for evacuees in the city of Kharkiv. She and her mother and brother fled their village of Yurchenkove after Russian forces launched a renewed offensive in northeastern Ukraine last spring. (c. Martin Kuz)The Russians entered Julia Virich’s village only hours after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on a cold February morning three years ago.
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1 month ago | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
A section of a memorial wall honoring fallen Ukrainian soldiers outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv. (c. Martin Kuz)Donald Trump sounded like the last to know. Flying back to the United States from Rome after attending the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, the president mused on social media that perhaps his Russian counterpart has never intended to end his slaughter of Ukrainians.
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2 months ago | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
Yaroslav Trofimov reporting in Ruska Lozova, a village in eastern Ukraine, in May 2022, three months into Russia’s full-scale invasion. (c. Manu Brabo)The reappearance of Russian soldiers on Ukrainian soil in 2014 after a more than 20-year absence pulled Yaroslav Trofimov into his grandmother’s past.
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Mar 26, 2025 | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
A memorial wall and a tomb of the unknown soldier honor members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine. (c. Martin Kuz)Lychakiv Cemetery in the western city of Lviv offers silent testament to centuries of Ukrainian resistance to Russian tyranny. The 400,000 civilians and soldiers buried across its 100 rolling acres include thousands of war dead who perished fighting Moscow, spanning from tsarist times to the Soviet Union to Vladimir Putin’s malign reign.
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Mar 13, 2025 | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
The view from a Ukrainian trench looking toward Russian fighting positions in the eastern Donetsk region. (c. Martin Kuz)“I think he’ll keep his word. I’ve known him for a long time now, and I think he will. I don’t believe he’s going to violate his word.” — Donald Trump at the White House on Feb. 27, predicting Vladimir Putin would adhere to a potential ceasefireSerhiy Bachinsky watched Vladimir Putin violate his word every day for eight years.
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Feb 28, 2025 | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
A painting on a sidewalk in the eastern city of Kharkiv commemorates the defiance of Ukrainian soldiers stationed on Skull Island in the Black Sea. On the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, an enemy warship ordered them to surrender. Their commander’s retort soon became a national rallying cry: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” (c. Martin Kuz)So they expected him to kneel?
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Feb 24, 2025 | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
A painting that hangs outside a World War II museum in Kyiv depicts Ukraine as a buffer that protects the rest of Europe from Russian aggression. (c. Martin Kuz)Fragments of sound crackled over a weak cellphone connection for several tense seconds before Nataliya Lipska made out her brother’s familiar voice. “Hello, sister,” Olexsiy Tarasyev said, his tone calm and relaxed. “I’m good.” Then he was gone, the call dropping before she could answer.
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Feb 18, 2025 | 
martinkuz.substack.com | Martin Kuz
Andrii “Juice” Pilshchykov, a Ukrainian fighter pilot, lobbied U.S. officials in Washington to supply F-16s to Ukraine early in the war. His efforts helped persuade the Biden administration to eventually send the jets. He died in August 2023 at age 30 during a training mission and lies buried in Kyiv. (c. Martin Kuz)This newsletter debuted a year ago today.