One year since my trip to Ukraine - what's changed?
Plus, how settler violence threatens the West Bank's olive harvest
One year ago I travelled to a bitterly cold Ukraine to investigate how the war is exacerbating domestic violence. The report was then published in Time Magazine and The Fuller Project. I found that it was driving up levels of domestic violence, as stress levels rise and traumatised men return home from the frontlines. The abuse usually goes unreported - with soldiers seen as heroes defending the country, survivors are reluctant to criticise those who are also abusers. One of the women I spoke to told me how her “perfect husband” of 16 years became abusive after he returned from the frontline. “This current war made him a monster,” she said, while perched on her bed at a women’s shelter on the outskirts of Lviv.
Many of the experts I spoke to said the problem would only get worse as the war entered its second year. So last month I went back to the sources I’d interviewed to ask whether that had happened. My findings were published in last week’s Fuller Project newsletter - here is a slightly extended version.
Since my first reporting trip to Lviv in western Ukraine, there have been some positive changes, such as more focus on psychological support for soldiers, they said. But they warned much more needs to be done to address attitudes towards domestic violence committed by military personnel.
Vilena Kit, a psychologist treating traumatised soldiers, said there has been a big push to introduce rehabilitation programs including psychological treatment. Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has been advocating for more awareness around mental health. She initiated the launch of a government mental health support program that aims to provide affordable and high-quality services to those in need, including veterans returning from the front.
Kit described it as “a very strong and good quality program,” but said much more was needed, particularly in terms of psychological support for the families of soldiers.
She has seen an increase in soldiers experiencing post-traumatic stress and a wider range of symptoms, most commonly flashbacks, which she believes may be linked to the Ukrainian counteroffensive as forces try to wrestle back territory taken by Russia.
“They are afraid for the future, but they cannot imagine what the future will look like. They keep coming back to the past. It’s not possible to work out because the trauma is still there in reality - there are still very many risks for them,” she said.
As the war drags on morale is also waning. “They don’t believe in Ukraine’s victory anymore,” adds Kit.
Marta Vasylkevych, head of Lviv police’s domestic violence prevention unit, said that while cases of domestic violence committed by military personnel are common, “they are not systemic in nature.”
Others disagreed, including Halyna Fedkovych, a lawyer and co-founder of the Centre for Women’s Perspectives in Lviv, which helps survivors.
She pointed to data from the court decisions registry showing that in the first eight months of 2023 cases of domestic violence cases by a soldier or military personnel doubled compared to the same period in 2022.
There is still a stigma around domestic violence perpetrated by soldiers, making it difficult for women to report such abuse, said Fedkovych. Now that cases are starting to be prosecuted, it’s becoming apparent that extends through the justice system.
During the first 10 months of 2023, there were 11,223 reports of domestic violence in the Lviv region, but only 294 criminal proceedings were opened.
“Now we can see in the majority of cases [of domestic violence by soldiers], the court just closes the case and doesn’t do any punishment for the perpetrator, with excuses that he is in war and a soldier and there wasn’t much damage done to survivors,” said Fedkovych.
“It is really getting more serious every day,” she says, adding that a proper response is needed from “police, society and judges”, because once the war ends it will be “really critical”.
Fedkovych is also concerned about a backlash against women’s reproductive rights once the war is over. Abortion is legal and accessible in Ukraine - in contrast to neighbouring Poland, where many Ukrainian women fled after the outbreak of the war - but there are signs some want to change that to drive up the birth rate once the war is over.
“We know for sure that the majority of our parliament will be people from the military because we had this after the war in 2014,” she said. “[There will be] a lot of masculinity on all levels in society, so we expect it to not be good for women’s rights.”
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Freelancing can sometimes feel like you’re constantly churning out stories and moving on very quickly to the next piece that’ll pay your bills. It feels good - a refreshing change - to revisit a story, speak to your sources again, follow any developments, and really get a chance to sink your teeth into a story. This is a subject I’ll be following for a while - a lot more action needs to happen. And it’s not just in Ukraine. The issue of how war impacts women and girls is a global one, from Palestine to Sudan, and it needs much more awareness.
Reading
Anger across Italy as killing of student highlights country’s femicide rate - “For Giulia don’t hold a moment of silence, for Giulia burn everything.” I've been thinking a lot about the words of Elena Cecchettin, whose 22 year-old sister, Giulia, was killed last month in Italy, allegedly by her ex-boyfriend. Since then she has bravely been using her voice to highlight the normalisation of toxic male behaviour which she believes contributed to her sister’s death, and called for widespread sexual and emotional education and the financing of anti-violence centres. She described femicide as a “state murder, because the state does not protect us.”
First Hamas fighters raped her. Then they shot her in the head - Important reporting from Christina Lamb who looked at the allegations of sexual violence committed by the Hamas militant group. Her powerful book ‘Our Bodies, Their Battlefield’ is essential reading for understanding how rape has been used as a weapon of war for centuries, from World War II to Bosnia, the Rwandan genocide and against the Yazidis during the ISIS invasion of Iraq and Syria.
A painter, a poet, a novelist: the artists being killed in Gaza - “People outside have no idea of how creative people in Gaza are. But this war is destroying all of this.” An insightful yet heartbreaking piece on the artistic community of Gaza which is being devastated by Israel’s bombardment. So many of Gaza’s bright lights are being extinguished.
Open letter for our colleagues in Gaza - I’ve joined over 1,000 journalists and media workers around the world who are demanding an end to the killing of journalists in Gaza and around the wider region. The past 8 weeks have been the deadliest for our colleagues since The Committee to Protect Journalists began gathering data 30 years ago. As of 8 December, at least 63 journalists have been killed: 56 in Gaza, 4 in Israel, and 3 in Lebanon. We call for the protection of all our colleagues by all parties.
The British - A beautiful poem by Benjamin Zephaniah, who recently passed away, which celebrates the diversity of Britain.
Listening
Mona Chalabi on the Longform Podcast - The brilliant writer and illustrator speaks honestly and astutely on journalistic censorship around Palestine, her feelings as an Arab journalist, turning down work she doesn’t believe in, and wanting her work to have a real impact on the world. Follow her on Instagram to see her impactful visual journalism.
Eight Years’ Hard Labour - Tortoise do excellent podcasts and this one is no exception (and I’m not just saying that because my friend worked on this series). This is the inside story of the Labour Party’s last eight turbulent years, from the election of radical outsider Jeremy Corbyn as leader to now, with Keir Starmer at the helm.
Writing
‘My baby is crying constantly’: Gaza runs out of milk formula as infants starve - Breastfeeding mothers in Gaza are struggling to produce milk for their children and formula milk is running out, while Israel continues to bomb the besieged Palestinian enclave. I spoke to one mother for The i Paper who has been displaced four times and is now not producing enough milk to feed her baby. “I am scared for my children’s future. My hope is that my children live in a safe place and the war stops. I wish to live like other people in the world, in peace," she told me.
'We feel like thieves on our own land': The Palestinian farmers determined to harvest their olives despite Israeli settler violence - For The New Arab I interviewed Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank determined to harvest their olives despite a surge in Israeli settler violence since the Hamas attacks on 7 October and the start of the war in Gaza. Many have had trees burnt or damaged and been chased off their land.
The olive harvesting season in October and November is a special time in the Palestinian year, both economically and culturally. But this year many have been unable to harvest. One farmer said he fears for his life every time he goes out to pick his olives, he estimates he will lose around £10,700 from the fields he's had to leave.
Despite this their determination to survive is unwavering, just like the trees. “For us, olive trees are a symbol of steadfastness and Palestine. You can see many scars on the olive trees because they’ve been burnt many times by the settlers, but they come back to life again," said Doha Asous, a farmer from Burin. She started picking olives with her mother when she was only six after her father was killed during the six-day war in 1967.
She’s now 62 and has over 700 olive trees around Burin. For her, the olive tree is part of the family. “I feel like it is my child,” she says.
