“I’m sorry, things are pretty dramatic here and all I can focus on right now is saving my family. I’ll write you next week.” That was how Anna Stavychenko, artistic director of the Open Music City Festival and executive director of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, replied to me when I contacted her for an interview on February 12. The situation has deteriorated further since Putin’s speech on Monday, February 21, in which he recognized the so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and announced that he would deploy Russian forces to the region of Donbas. “It’s a permanent state of emergency and stress,” Stavychenko told me when I reached her in Kyiv via Zoom.
Less than 24 hours after we spoke about being on high alert and the importance of culture in a crisis, Russian troops launched attacks by air, land, and sea in ten of Ukraine’s 27 regions. Vladimir Putin called it “a special military option.” Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba called it “a full-scale invasion.”
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