Invasion Day + 42
'We are the Foot Soldiers of Freedom'
Yes, dear friends and fellow correspondents from around the world, we too, along with every Ukrainian and all those seeking peace everywhere, are fighting for freedom. Freedom of expression, freedom to live without fear, the freedom of Europe and of the world, the freedom to live full stop. We are the legions of foot soldiers who write and we are fighting now. Please continue this brave struggle for humanity. Please continue to write.
As we shall here.
Freedom to speak our story like today's brave and wonderful video diarist from Kharkiv, Ava, please hear this part of her story. It is moving, a tale of many, a tale of fear and courage, a story of struggle and resilience beyond our ability to imagine.
Ava, please know our thoughts and our efforts are with you, your family, and all in Ukraine who you represent in your words here. You are an inspiring stand for Ukraine, for freedom and for truth. We stand with you.
As we mentioned in yesterday's post we are seeking to expand the blog and seek alliances wherever we can. Today, putting those words into action, Hoggy has joined PEN, the international writers' movement for free expression and support to those imprisoned for their writing. We attach letters in support of that action and ask our correspondents to consider similar alliances for their own freedom of expression, a freedom we may all have taken so much for granted here, not living under the yoke of oppression.
Meanwhile, we were sadly confirmed in our estimates in the blog earlier in the week about Russian military losses. We reported from our sources that 40,000 Russian troops had been beaten out of battle and now, today, Western military analysts indeed confirm that they believe one quarter of the Russian military personnel who started the war have now been lost. Over 40,000 more grieving and distraught Russian families who need to blame Putin, and no-one else. The false rhetoric of Russia must be countered with the truth; calmly, firmly, persistently and with authenticity stated. We will continue to do so as long as we are able.
It is that truth that we highlight tomorrow in the latest 'Hogswards' which go jointly to brave Russian peace campaigners, Yulia Galamina and Alexai Navalny. In the words of Galyamina:
'The price of inaction puts the survival of planet earth at stake.'
It does, and the inability to adequately cut off Russian oil and gas imports to the west is starkly manifested in yesterday's news at the UN. The equation of 39 to 1. Europe has given one billion Euros to Ukraine and thirty-nine billion Euros to Russia. Over one billion Euros a day. Money that is killing Ukrainians, devasting cities, feeding a totalitarian dictator bent on destroying democracy and ruling the world by imperial force. This is Blood Money. It has to be stopped whatever the pain. There is a solution on the table: put the money into a third party account until Russian troops have left Ukrainian soil. It is a noble plan. We support every effort to implement it.
We will say more about the bravery of the peace campaigners in Russia tomorrow: they are one hope that with support the war may be stopped from within.
Today's Letters.
From Ava, Kharkiv. (Not her real name but we have it safely here, her address is no longer.)
Dear Hoggy,
'Letter from Kharkiv'
This is Ava from Kharkiv.
This is part of my dairy of the start of the horror. They are trying to demoralise us. They are trying to destroy our country completely. We are frightened but we will never be demoralised. They will not destroy our country. We are Ukrainians.
Thank you for everything you are doing for us.
I hope we will meet one day,
Dear Ava,
We are very humbled here in receiving your diary and we will be looking to preserve it as part of your own and Ukraine's oral history. Thank you for sharing it with us in this way.
In the complete diary, three hours in length, you recount the first hours of the attack on Kharkiv, the nightmare of a missile hitting the house opposite your own and blowing out all of your window frames, scattering glass and debris throughout the apartment. Then later the flight with your family to the railway station, the panic and chaos and then the journey away from the worst of the atrocity.
Your fears, your angst, but most of all your courage is in every minute of the video and we will be looking to have it typed up in due course as a permanent record of these terrible moments, of so many terrible moments happening all over Ukraine right now. Thank you Ava.
We send you every wish for you and your family's safety and yes let us look to the day when we can meet in person, in peace, and start to rebuild the shattered lives of Ukraine.
We will not stop fighting for you and all those oppressed by deranged dictators bent on destroying everything freedom and democracy means. The world cannot, and must not, be held in the brutal grip of just a few men bent on its total destruction. Ukraine will rise again.
Please know we are thinking of you all and doing what we can.
Good fortune and all wishes Ava.
Hoggy
(We are looking to obtain a work visa for one of correspondents from Kyiv, Rhea, now in Poland awaiting clearance, and we hope if she is successful in the application that she might agree to come and work with us in the Hoggy office on developing this blog for peace in Ukraine. If anyone feels able, or knows of potential funding streams that might be able to help with this please could they let us know? Thank you all very much indeed. Hoggy)
To PEN, the international writer support organisation by email.
Dear PEN,
'Hoggy the Yimp Adds a Voice'.
Today, we, writers, having found a compelling need to add a new small voice to the many, join with you as a supporting member.
Soon after the start of the war in Ukraine Hoggy, supported by the wishes and correspondence of many writing friends, launched an online blog, 'The War Letters of Hoggy the Yimp' (www.hoggytheyimp.com).
To date we have had over 650 site visits and have reached many in the basements and streets of Kyiv and Kharkiv, as well as in Poland and Romania where we have correspondents.
The blog is in a letter writing format, partisan in support of Ukraine, aimed at bringing hope and encouragement to their people with a strong arts thread emerging spontaneously within it. It is essentially a blog for peace, truth and justice. It is unashamedly and deliberately belligerent in its condemnation of Putin and his war, believing as we do, that all writers who feel able, should fight for peace and 'oppose the falsehoods and distortion of facts' a part of the founding ethos of the PEN Charter.
I am not yet sure how we can best support the work of PEN but we will today be posting this letter to you in the blog with a view to asking our readers to support the cause of freedom of expression and the support of imprisoned writers from Ukraine and around the world. We are suggesting they consider joining or donating to PEN.
On the 14th April we are also publishing a sponsored book, 'Sunflowers for Ukraine' containing poems and prose from our correspondents aimed at bringing hope and an amount of money for 'Hoggy's Fund' that we can use to help support writers, artists and musicians in Ukraine.
We will continue to look for PEN messages that we can support through the newsletter and will seek to learn how we can support the work more generally.
Thank you for your existence and the inspiration you are providing to us and to our correspondents. We all need friends when our freedoms are under threat.
With very best wishes,
Hoggy the Yimp
April 2022
From PEN to the Guardian newspaper, used under agreed common access.
Photo by AFP/Getty used under common access with thanks.
We, writers around the world, are appalled by the violence unleashed by Russian forces against Ukraine and urgently call for an end to the bloodshed. We stand united in condemnation of a senseless war, waged by President Putin’s refusal to accept the rights of Ukraine’s people to debate their future allegiance and history without Moscow’s interference. We stand united in support of writers, journalists, artists and all the people of Ukraine, who are living through their darkest hours. We stand by you and feel your pain.
All individuals have a right to peace, free expression, and free assembly. Putin’s war is an attack on democracy and freedom not just in Ukraine, but around the world. We stand united in calling for peace and for an end to the propaganda that is fuelling the violence. There can be no free and safe Europe without a free and independent Ukraine. Peace must prevail.
Svetlana Alexievich, Orhan Pamuk, Maria Ressa, Olga Tokarczuk, Burhan Sönmez, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie and listed other members. PEN International
Hello writers all, please keep the amazing commitment you and we are all showing together in support of freedom and democracy: it is proving vital for Ava, for Anna, for Rhea, for Oxsana, and for all those in Ukraine we are now supporting. We have more requests coming in and we will continue to help as much as we can. Tomorrow Hoggy will ask if anyone can help sponsor some specific family and friends of our correspondents and hope we can rise to meet this need. (Or Hoggy is very quickly going to be bankrupt!!) Thank you all. Please keep writing, hoping, and for those who do, praying. Hoggy.
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