A Visit to the Front Lines in Ukraine s War – WSJ

Kharkiv, Ukraine

We are in the basement of the Kharkiv Opera House. It s a good shelter, designed in the Soviet era to withstand a nuclear attack. It s here that inhabitants of the country s second-largest city come when the bombardments are incessant or when a French writer arrives to screen his film on the Ukrainian resistance.

The attendees include civilians and combatants, amputees on crutches, members of the legendary Kraken commandos led by a young Englishwoman who just stepped out of a novel by Graham Greene, widows of soldiers and mothers of deported children, an Orthodox priest and a rabbi. The film is titled Glory to the Heroes in Ukrainian, Heroyam Slava, the standard response to the call Slava Ukraini. Ukraine s heroes have come to watch on a makeshift screen a celebration of their courage.

It is July 13, the eve of Bastille Day. France is the capital of liberty, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, a host of the event, observes. Kharkiv, I add in my presentation, is the front line of the battle against tyranny. France and Ukraine. André Malraux s observation that France is never greater than when it is great for all people has haunted me since I embarked on my first overseas reporting trips a half-century ago. It resonates here.

via www.wsj.com

Bernard-Henri Lévy.