Artist Veronika Kozhushko, 18, killed in Russian attack on Kharkiv
Artist Veronika Kozhushko, 18, was killed in a Russian guided bomb attack on Kharkiv on 30 August.
Source: Ukrainian writer, musician and serviceman Serhii Zhadan on Facebook
Quote from Zhadan: "Nika Kozhushko – very young, sincere, and gifted – was killed today during the attack on Kharkiv. An hour before her death, she sent me her latest drawing. That is, her last drawing.
The Russians continue to destroy our future. There is no explanation for this. And no forgiveness either."
The young woman’s death was also reported by her girlfriend, artist Arina Nikolenko. She posted a video of Veronika jumping on a trampoline at the opening of an exhibition at the YermilovCentre a day earlier.
Quote from Arina: "She was an artist, a poet, passionate about Ukrainian culture, and much more... and, among other things, she was my girlfriend. About an hour ago, I saw her lying dead in the hospital. She was killed during the attack. The Russians killed her."
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Veronika Kozhushko was actively involved in the creative life of Kharkiv. She painted tote bags featuring portraits of Ukrainian writers and illustrated quotations from poems by Serhii Zhadan and Mykhailo Semenko [a leading Ukrainian futurist poet in the 1920s and key member of the Executed Renaissance – ed.].
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Veronika regularly organised fundraisers on Instagram to support Ukrainian soldiers.
Literary scholar Yaryna Tsymbal described meeting the young Kharkiv artist when she came to film a talk that she was giving in an apartment in the Slovo building [built in the late 1920s, it housed Ukrainian writers and poets, many of whom were later executed by the Communist authorities as part of the Executed Renaissance].
Quote from Tsymbal: "They arrived a little early: three young women and one equally young man. They were having a photo session featuring Nika's tote bags and postcards. These depicted Derzhprom [an office building in Kharkiv’s Freedom Square, the first modern skyscraper in the Soviet Union], the Slovo building, Mykhailo Semenko, Mykola Khvylovyi [a Ukrainian writer and political activist, a key figure in the Ukrainian Renaissance of the 1920s-30s], and Les Kurbas [a leading Ukrainian theatre director and avant-garde artist who was executed during Stalin's Great Terror].
Nika was so delicate, so young, like a child. And very talented. We talked at the Slovo building and at the Literary Museum; she was so pleased that I liked her work, as if it was something unusual. I was delighted with my new acquaintance in Kharkiv, her youth, and her talent."
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Olena Rybka, Deputy Chief Editor at Vivat Publishing, also recalled her acquaintance with Veronika Kozhushko.
Quote from Rybka on Facebook: "She is 18. She is delicate and totally beautiful. Every time we crossed paths in the city, I was captivated by her. Such a ray of light, yet a very strong one. She is 18. She paints. She feels things very deeply. And it seems she doesn’t fully realise how much she has within her.
She looks at the world with love-struck eyes. She has an irony that only someone like her can have. When she and her friend run to hug each other, I hug them very gently, as if they might float away like dandelions – so much lightness they have. Maybe it was to avoid floating away that Nika wore all those metal pins and rings... I can't accept this loss."
Background: The Russians attacked Kharkiv with guided bombs on 30 August. One of the strikes hit a 12-storey residential building in central Kharkiv. As of the morning of 31 August, there are reports that 97 people were injured, including 22 under 18.
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