Gus Carlson is a New York-based columnist for The Globe and Mail
Valentyn Labunsky apologizes for choking up when he talks about the spirit and courage of Ukrainian civilians in the face of Russian aggression.
“These people, with their bare hands, were stopping columns of tanks, marching in the streets of our cities shouting, ‘Invaders go home,’” he said through tears, his voice cracking.
Cracking or not, Mr. Labunsky’s voice – and, by extension, the voice of his Ukrainian-language weekly newspaper, Nova Gazeta – is an influential one in the United States’ Ukrainian community, which numbers more than a million people. New York has the largest concentration – about 160,000 people – and there are big communities in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Sacramento, Calif., Miami and other cities.
From the Rego Park neighbourhood of Queens, N.Y., Mr. Labunsky has been using Nova Gazeta as a conduit through which information about the impact of the war flows out to thousands of Ukrainian readers across the U.S. and Canada. Meanwhile, inquiries about donations of money, food, clothing and medical supplies flow in to aid relief efforts for the humanitarian crisis spawned by the conflict.
For Mr. Labunsky, the community service aspect of his business is very personal. A former journalist in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, he moved to New York in 1996 and founded the newspaper in 2008 as a way to connect the growing Ukrainian population in North America.
Expanding from print to a website and now to social media, Nova Gazeta’s reach and profile have made it a crucial lifeline during this crisis. Mr. Labunsky, who is the publisher and editor-in-chief, said he has increased the paper’s small press run by 50 per cent – to 15,000 copies a week – to meet the demand for information locally, and he is actively managing the spike in online traffic from readers across the U.S. and in Canada.
“This is a personal tragedy of personal suffering and personal agony,” he said through his son, Maxim, who translated from his father’s native tongue.
The agony has struck close to home for many of Nova Gazeta’s readers, including Mr. Labunsky himself. Early in the conflict, his daughter, Olga, 46, escaped by train and bus from Kyiv to Poland, staying overnight in a makeshift shelter at a college in the northwestern city of Kovel while awaiting clearance at the border. She is safe for now, her father said, but like many refugees from the conflict, she left behind everything she had known all her life – except for her miniature Schnauzer puppy, Sammy, which she took with her when she evacuated.
While Mr. Labunsky said he and his readers are grateful to the U.S. and NATO countries for putting pressure on Russia through embargoes and sanctions, and to businesses that have cut commercial ties with Russia, there is widespread disappointment that actions to isolate and deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking weren’t taken months ago when Russian forces began to amass along the Ukraine border.
“This was really an epic failure,” he said of the lack of pre-emptive action by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration and the rest of the global community. “It could have been avoided prior to the invasion. Western intelligence had the details. The forces were visible before.”
The reason for the lag, he said, is complacency. “The West has grown comfortable with Putin’s Russia. There is a lack of perception of danger to the world as a whole.”
Among the few rays of hope during these dark days, Mr. Labunsky said, has been the emergence of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as an “intelligent, bold leader” – a surprise to many considering widespread criticism of the competence of his government before the crisis.
“Now, all is forgotten,” Mr. Labunsky said.
Another positive, he said, has been the remarkable courage and efficiency of Ukraine’s military against much stronger Russian forces.
“We have all been surprised by the sheer will of our army,” he said. “How well they have done, how skilled they are against all odds.”
What can be done now? With Russian forces advancing on major cities, the overriding objectives must be minimizing further loss of life, addressing the growing humanitarian crisis, continuing to isolate Russia economically and bringing Mr. Putin to justice, Mr. Labunsky said.
He pleads for a no-fly zone over Ukraine to stop the humanitarian disaster from escalating. He believes Europe must move quickly toward energy independence, further choking the Russian economy. And he looks forward to the day when the Russian military complex collapses and Mr. Putin is prosecuted as a war criminal.
Further, he said, he hopes the conflict will help to shed light on Ukraine not being “an appendix of Russia,” as many outsiders believe. Rather it is a wholly independent sovereign nation with rich and deep culture, history and heritage, and the current conflict is the latest in a series of aggressions against Ukraine dating back centuries.
Fighting back tears, Mr. Labunsky longs to join the resistance. But he is realistic that, at his age, his journalist’s pen is mightier than any sword he might wield.
“I would go and fight myself, but I am 70,” he said. “It is everything or nothing now.”
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