Learning Ukraine

Abstract

What you didn’t know: Find out more about Ukraine, about the origins of Europe and about Russian lies

Worth knowing about Ukraine

The Kyiv Independent is Ukraine’s fastest-growing English-language media outlet, created in November 2021, just three months before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv Independent has two sections dedicated to Ukraine:

  • Dare to Ukraine features a series of videos on Ukrainian towns and regions
  • Explaining Ukraine features a series of articles that explain Ukrainian historical and cultural events and figures in order to help the world understand Ukraine better

The website Ukraїner provides lots of movies, fotos and stories about Ukraine.

The website Being Ukraine provides stories and artworks from a nation under fire, made of hope, pride, and resilience.

The free online-book Being Ukraine edited by Lanoux (2024) of the Conneticut College introduces into history and culture of Ukraine.

The Katapult publishing house distributes a very descriptive book with facts in 100 Maps of Ukraine, here is a reading sample and here a free Russian version.

The Q&A website uaqa.com allows to ask questions about Ukraine related topics and provides collected answers.

PEN Ukraine has compiled a list of 100 Books to Help Understand Ukraine

Lies from russia

The newspaper Kyiv Post has published 25 myths and facts about Ukraine and Ukrainians. This is a nice list, unfortunately it follows the naive debunking approach of using 25 lies as highlighted section headers (=summaries) of the paragraphs that follow. Very likely readers recall these summaries (=lies).

Better debunking does Suspilne Kultura, a Ukrainian public TV channel showcasing culture in Ukraine. It has created a video series on big russian lies. At the time of writing, the following episodes were available:

If you want proof for the most evil russian propaganda, see the articles of Julia Davies and her Russian Media Monitor on youtube.