LETTER FROM Kyiv
The operation is not over yet and an exhibition has already been dedicated to it in kyiv. It only took one month after the launch of the Ukrainian offensive in the Russian Kursk region, on August 6, for the largest museum in the capital to begin a tour reviewing its first weeks. “We need to follow the dynamics of war day by day”justified with a touch of pride Yuriy Savchuk, director since 2021 of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine during the Second World War, on Wednesday, September 18.
The exhibition, which begins with the history of the border regions of Ukraine and Russia over the past centuries, is made up of photographs taken in the Kursk region and some objects recovered from the soil of the Russian Federation. Visitors can discover a piece of the nose of a statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, blown up by a drone strike during the fighting, a poster for the American film borderlands (borderlands), projected in the cinema of the small Russian town of Soudja, a poster indicating the opposite directions of Russia and Ukraine… Quite a symbol.
Unpublished data, the pieces presented were collected by the museum director himself, who sneaked into the Kursk region on August 15, nine days after the start of the attack, in the company of a young photographer. “I have been in many territories liberated by the armed forces”says the 59-year-old man, with a mocking smile on his lips, “But it was the first time I went to Russia. »
For Yuri Savchuk the challenge was to arrive as quickly as possible. “I was perhaps the second civilian » to get in there, he assures without mentioning the first. “It was very exciting, it was incredible.” says the man who appears in a bulletproof vest and helmet in a short video that is part of the course. “We went to Russia and returned to Sumy in the afternoon. [la région ukrainienne frontalière]lasted four days,” And this despite the risk posed by bombings.
“We don’t make demands”
The objective of the exhibition is to document the consequences of this unprecedented offensive on Russian soil, launched in total secrecy. This operation, although it did not fundamentally change the course of the war, was a serious setback for the reputation of the Kremlin, which for the first time since World War II saw a foreign army occupy part of its territory around the world.
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