Ukrainian wartime poetry transcends literary convention. These poems by defenders Eva Tur, Vasek Dukhnovskyi, and Valeriy Puzik embody a culture being forged in the fight for its survival — verse written between battles, resounding with courage born of conscious choice and civic conviction.
Ukrainian warrior poets write from their dugouts or while sheltering in ruined village houses in brief moments of rest between duties. They write on their phones and send their verses to friends and family, or publish them on social media. Nobody knows what tomorrow — or the next hour — will bring. ‘If the missile strikes so be it ⏐ if the bullet hits so be it’ writes Eva Tur in her untitled poem, which opens with the words ‘you play with death’. Tur, an artist and a mother, joined the defence of eastern Ukraine from undeclared Russian invasion in 2014 as a paramedic, and has been serving as a drone pilot since 2022. Her poem is a testament to courage and acceptance developed over years of losing loved ones to Russian assault.
After centuries of Russian and Soviet policies aimed at obliterating Ukrainian culture, today’s poets are resurrecting a fragmented heritage and reviving connections to historic literature. Valeriy Puzik, who also went east to defend his homeland in 2014, imagines Ukraine’s itinerant philosopher, Hryhoriy Skovoroda, as one of his brothers-in-arms. In lilting verse, which channels the spirit of the eccentric eighteenth-century thinker, Puzik references Skovoroda’s famous quotes, like ‘the world chased me but never caught me’, and scenes from the current war. As the Russian armed forces deliberately attack the material artifacts of Ukrainian culture — the Skovoroda museum in the Kharkiv region was destroyed by a high-precision airstrike on 7 May 2022 — Ukrainians are racing to engage with their predecessors through new creative work.
The individual decisions of Ukrainian poets, artists, and citizens of every profession to defend their homeland are at the heart of the Ukrainian culture that is being forged in battle today. Vasek Dukhnovskyi studied mathematics and worked as a librarian in Kyiv before joining the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in 2022. Now his Facebook page, sprinkled with poems and candid discussions, is a chronicle of his life in the infantry in the Donetsk region. His poem in this issue of the London Ukrainian Review offers a sharp, lyrical reflection on the different dimensions of culture (technology, science, nature, art, place) that come to a point as dawn breaks over eastern Ukraine. Addressing his fellow Ukrainians who live further from the front line, he observes: ‘here the sun rises earlier than in the rest of the country ⏐ you’re still in the dark while we get a ray of hope’.
Ukraine’s warrior poets — dozens of whom have been killed defending their homeland during Russia’s full-scale invasion — remind us of the power of individual choice and the shared experience of being human. Public space in today’s globalised world has been transformed by digital social media, which thrives on the speed of simple replication. Ukrainian wartime poetry creates a different kind of space, where poet and listener tune to one another, without abandoning their own experience of the world, war, and cultural history they share. This poetry generates and fortifies relationships — between past and present, between the front line and the home front, between one human being and another.
Special thanks to Hugh Roberts, University of Exeter, for translation consultation and for ongoing efforts to share the poetry of Ukraine’s defenders with audiences abroad.
⸺ Larissa Babij
***
you play with death
as if it were a kitten
what’s this life worth, anyway?
i’ve fallen in/out of love
run away shut my mouth
found and buried
breathe in/breathe out
i wanted a clean slate
instead i’m a blank page
write/draw/crumple —
no meaning
no substance
no life
just an imitation
another word
a burp from a distant civilisation
whose current descendants
by force of habit
or ancient custom
may well support a tyrant
if not for the shame:
what would the world say?
just an imitation.
a parody of something
following suit
a fake
a sham
a proxy
a rerun
life
i’m old enough
to know how to live
utterly alone in complete darkness
even when there’s light
i’m old enough
to be friends with the bogeyman
and not be afraid
to sleep with bare feet
if he gets me, so be it
i’m old enough
to play with death
as if it were a kitten
if the missile strikes so be it
if the bullet hits so be it
if this love ends so be it.
roulette with an adjective
beginning with ‘r’
too vile to speak
but the world needs to know
and to hear
and to hear
and to hear
the killer’s name
every day
every hour
every second
but
there is always a ‘but’
when you’re a blank page
a kitten’s plaything
you don’t want to say the killer’s name
it’s like letting him under your skin again
and reliving
the deaths
of those you loved most
again
and again
and again
but
you draw your own blood
to write words
on your blank self
words beginning with ‘r’:
russia
russian
russians
read these words, world,
written on me
a blank page
the plaything
of a kitten
or death
By Eva Tur
***
[a poem about hearts Donbas culture biology and hope and also about pacifism and mist and stars and sunrise and all that other romantic nature stuff]
as mist conceals the fields of Donbas
a human heart beats on average
seventy times a minute
the heart on my phone screen doesn’t beat at all
it refuses to beat
the heart on the screen is a fucking pacifist
it wasn’t born for beating
as mist conceals the fields of Donbas
the stars behold the steppe in the coal-black night
they’re not the stars that twinkle in your distant cities
the steppe stars are different
you and I have studied biology
we understand that the heart is not as involved in love
as culture might have us think
it has other functions
no less noble but less poetic
learn your biology, naïve Culture!
as the stars behold the steppe in the coal-black night
here the sun rises earlier than in the rest of the country
you’re still in the dark while we get a ray of hope
and the night clawing at my heart
is forced to retreat
and the sun revives the heart on the screen
the heart on the screen revives
the heart that beats seventy times a minute
if you look at it objectively
all these things are related
all hearts are allies
all hearts are born for beating
especially here
especially when the heavenly heart provides a ray of hope
learn your culture, naïve Biology!
learn your culture in Donbas
where the sun rises earlier than in the rest of the country
By Vasek Dukhnovskyi
***
Hryhoriy Savych Skovoroda
was a simple man, as he used to say.
When all-out war arrived in Ukraine
he packed a rucksack and…
Joined the volunteers at first
then the AFU.
2014 was a difficult year
and then came ’22
and this year’s been hard too.
His medical records show two injuries,
a concussion,
rehab and then back to the front.
His duffel bag holds all the essentials.
The rest he wears: helmet, vest,
sapper shovel, tactical backpack,
rifle, rounds, a couple grenades
and rations to last three days.
The daily grind of a common soldier
is no-one’s calling.
Here’s a trench, a dugout.
If you want to live
dig.
And you’ll have to dig a lot
in fields and forests, under fire
in every place a different dawn.
Survive until sunrise. The nights are long.
Hryhoriy Savych Skovoroda, callsign ‘Philosopher’
writes fables and poems
plays the flute and violin.
He sang in the choir
studied at Kyiv Mohyla Academy
gave tutorials in poetics
and also manned a machine gun.
‘Someday I’ll go back to the life I knew’
whispers Hryhoriy.
‘I’ll rebuild the museum in Skovorodynivka
where a Russian missile blew through the roof
destroying everything, in May ’22.
I’ll rebuild it’, he says
with a smile, ‘And then…
I’ll travel the world
visit Vienna
and finish my treatise.
But now, while I dream,
I’ll polish my rifle until it gleams.
A gun that kills enemies gets results.
That’s my philosophy of freedom.
Do I believe in God?
I do!
I’m here after all.
Alive.
A sniper tracked but never got me.
A shell struck my dugout
but never exploded.
Sometimes God passes through
and silently stops in the nourishing dew.
Sometimes I hear angels sing
rustling the grass with their song.
Hryhoriy Savych Skovoroda, callsign ‘Philosopher’:
‘When you follow the course
you’ve set out on without wavering,
this, I believe, is happiness.’
By Valeriy Puzik
Eva Tur is an artist, poet, prose writer, mother, and member of Ukraine’s Defence Forces. Born in the Poltava region, she has firsthand family experience of the Soviet repression of Ukrainian culture and an interest in Ukraine’s history of self-rule, particularly the Cossack period. Tur joined Ukraine’s defence in 2014, serving as a paramedic in the Donetsk region. Afterwards, she began writing stories about her experiences at war: ‘Ambulance’ was included in the US–Ukraine collection The War: Inside and Out. Her poetry has been published in dozens of anthologies in Ukraine and abroad. Since 2022, she has been serving as a drone pilot in intelligence.
Vasek Dukhnovskyi joined the AFU in 2022, initially serving in the 25th Separate Rifle Battalion and now in the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade ‘Edelweiss’. He has a Master’s degree in mathematics from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Technically he is still enrolled in the PhD program, but his academic adviser was killed while serving in the AFU. Dukhnovskyi’s previous jobs include: debt collector, social worker, engineer, and librarian. His prose and poetry have been published in numerous anthologies, including Frontmen (2025), a collection of poetry by Ukrainian servicemembers and veterans.
Valeriy Puzik is a writer, artist, director, and member of the AFU. He is the author of fifteen books, including the poetry collection Try medali v shukhliadi [Three medals in the drawer]; recent stories and reflections from frontline areas, Myslyvtsi za shchastiam [Hunting for Happiness] and Z liubovyu – tato! [With love, dad!]; the short story collections Monolit [Monolith] and Ya bachyv yoho zhyvym, mertvym i znovu zhyvym [I saw him alive, dead and alive again]; and the children’s fantasy book Delfi ta charivnyky [Delfi and the sorcerers]. Puzik has won numerous literary awards. Before joining the military he worked as a screenwriter. He continues to work as an artist in parallel with military service; his paintings on ammunition boxes are in private collections around the world. In 2024, Puzik was named one of Ukraine’s top 100 leaders, in the category of Culture, by the media outlet Ukrainska Pravda.
Image: Sevilâ Nariman-qızı, ölümnen oyun⏐saar tedaviyley⏐başlağan yolıñ (playing with death⏐healed by dawn⏐on the path I set my foot) from the series menim – seniñ (mine – yours), 2025
