Victoria Amelina

"Amelina put her commitment to her country and its most vulnerable people ahead of her personal safety, training to gather evidence of [alleged] war crimes that could be used in future prosecutions."

"As for me, I dont hate Russians at all; Im so exhausted by the war they have waged on us that I cannot feel anything. I am numb. There’s a beautiful song by the Ukrainian band Kozak System, a wartime song with many profanities but no hatred. It starts like this: "Our national idea— fuck the hell off!"

"Her work included unearthing the diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, a fellow writer who was illegally detained and killed by Russian soldiers in the city of Izium in early 2022. The diary, which was buried in his garden, served as a real-time document of Russian atrocities."

"Terrified that the pages of the diary [of Volodymyr Vakulenko] were wet and might not survive, she gave it to the Kharkiv Literary Museum. That experience led her to focus on what she called "cultural war crimes". On her phone she showed me photos of bullet holes in library walls in Kherson. "Its important to see for yourself and write down the stories," she said. "The way you see it from afar is very different to on the ground."

"Має бути саме внутрішня готовність жити текстами, перетворювати себе на тексти, писати навіть тоді, коли ніхто не читатиме. У цьому не може відмовити жоден видавець. Якщо література – ваш спосіб взаємодії зі світом, то ставатимуться дива."

"Its me in this picture, Im a Ukrainian writer. I have portraits of great Ukrainian poets on my bag. I look like I should be taking pictures of books, art, and my little son. But I document Russias war crimes and listen to the sound of shelling, not poems. Why?"