Book Review: The Memory of the Soul, Ivankiv Region

Ivankiv District is a beautiful region of Kyiv Oblast bordering Belarus. It bore the brunt of the Rashist invasion in 2022, torn by the invaders for 36 days.

The Memory of the Soul, Ivankiv Region documents true stories told by 34 ordinary Ukrainians who endured the horror. It shows their life under Rashist occupation. It provides a realistic picture of the suffering, resilience and patriotism of ordinary Ukrainians and the brutality of Rashists.

Here are a few samples:

A youngster was casually shot in front of his younger brother, who later managed to escape with tied hands. Civilians with kids silenced walked through forests to reach the area protected by their soldiers. "her family and friends decided to leave the Russian-occupied territory. On the way, they came under fire from cluster bombs. 18 people were seriously injured, and some of them died". This is something I usually see only in movies with Jews escaping Nazis.

"My daughter and I have just had Covid. She had a very high fever; we didn’t have enough medicine. We even thought that if a missile hit the house, it would be better not to suffer, but to die right away..." They are not the only Ukrainians who wished to die instead of enduring the suffering.

"Two young men were going from Mуrcha to Borodуanka. They were shot. I saw this terrible picture on March 18...the bodies were mutilated: one was crushed by a tank, the other had no legs. We could see that wild animals have started eating them. The corpses had been lying there for 21 days. We managed to bury the bodies according to Slavic traditions. Russians have nothing sacred. They were surprised that I was doing this. They do not care." This is consistent with many stories of Rashiss abandoning dead bodies of their comrades. 

"There were four children with us – two of the neighbors and two of mine. The youngest was 8 months old. Everyone screamed. Glass shattered. I was turned around 360 degrees. My mom’s ear was bleeding. "

"The Russian was shouting: 'Oksana, your house is burning' I had eight rooms in my house. I built it with my own hands. My children grew up in it, and now I have nowhere to go back to. So, in my old age I was left without a roof over my head" - Oksana Havrylenko, 69

The trauma left Rashists will sadly last for a long time.

"Russians started bringing blankets and beds for children. They were walking around with machine guns. We asked them why they were holding us. They filmed us when they were handing out candy and tea. We realized that they were covering up with us." Valentyna Buha, 52

Rashists are good at propaganda and disinformation. Unfortunately, some people in the free world fall for it. 

"One day I decided to go to the city center. On the way, I met a Russian soldier, and we started a dialog. When I asked him what he was doing here, he was silent. I asked him to go home so that my child could walk the streets in peace. After these words, he put the muzzle of his assault rifle to my stomach, but surprisingly, I was not afraid. The soldier looked me in the eye and lowered his weapon. He told me to go home, but asked me why the street names in Ukraine were changed. I answered that we did it so that the russians would get lost." - Nataliya Kyrylenko. The resilience and bravery of Ukrainian women are incredible. 

"There was a russian Tiger at the corner. At first, I tried to start it, but it didn’t work. Everything in it was based on Toyota. It surprised me. I did everything to make sure that Tiger never moved again." - Yuriy Davydenko, 59

"I was passing by the house of worship and saw Russians looting one of the shops in the village.  At that moment, I turned to Vasyl Myronchuk, who told me that the road could be mined and that the Russians could be at the kennels, sawmill, garden, and cowshed... After receiving important information...My information came to our intelligence, which immediately reacted to it. Russians began to be covered by fire. On March 10, Ukrainian defenders entered already." This shows the difficulty that Rashists has in occupying territories full of Ukrainian patriots.

"We have relatives in Moscow and we told them about these terrible events. In response, they called us 'damned Banderites'. They think they are feeding us; they consider themselves a superior nation". "It is very painful that many of us have relatives from Russia. I personally have a sister in the Stavropol region. And for a whole year she did not ask about our mother’s health. How is this possible? When I told her we were being bombed, she didn’t believe me. She told us to hold on." You hear this type of story about brainwashed cattle on the Russian animal farm all the time. The Russian problem is not racial or genetic. It is the animal farm that turns normal human beings into brain-engineered cattle.   

This book shows you more than the Rashist brutality. It shows the cultural and civic aspects of Ukraine that held Ukrainians together to survive the trying time.

This book is a part of Olga Feshchenko’s project Alive Stories of the War. I was kindly offered the electronic version of this book by Valeria when she happened to share a cabin with me on a train from Kyiv to Chelm in March 2024. She was translating the book into Portuguese at that time.