Victoria Amelina Forever

The Russian war criminals who murdered the acclaimed Ukrainian writer have neither silenced her courageous voice nor ended her calls for justice.

Victoria Amelina gathering Russian war-crimes testimony for her book War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War (credit: Victoria Amelina).

By Michael Judge 

What I remember most about my TFP conversation with Victoria Amelina is how her voice—strong and determined, even when air-raid sirens sounded—filled with tenderness when she spoke of her son. “My mom and my aunt are taking care of my son and my little niece,” she explained by telephone last August from her Kyiv apartment. “But other women don’t have this opportunity, and have to take their kids to safety themselves.” 

I grieve most for her son, who—like the nation he was born into—will have to channel his fury in a manner that doesn’t destroy his heart.

Victoria kept her son safe. But her “little boy,” who was 11 when we spoke—the same age as my son—is now motherless, orphaned by the cowardice of loathsome men who would fire missiles into a restaurant full of civilians—mothers and fathers whose children will now, like Vi…