This is part of a Globe and Mail series marking the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, in which authors from Ukraine, Canada and beyond imagine what could come next.
Keri-Lynn Wilson is the founding conductor and music director of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra.
I’m in Lviv, rehearsing a concert to commemorate the first anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion. The headline of our concert poster reads “In Memory of the Invincibles,” dedicated to those who have died and to the indomitable will of the Ukrainian people. And that resolve is how and why Ukraine will win this war: by refusing to accept anything other than victory.
Ukraine will never give up the fight for its freedom and, by extension, for a democratic world. Although I’m Canadian by birth, my maternal great-grandparents immigrated to Winnipeg from the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi, near the Romanian border, in the early 1900s. They were part of a wave of immigrants that settled in the plains of Canada in search of a better life. As a little girl, I was exposed to my cultural heritage, each winter dressed in Ukrainian folkloric costumes on holiday feast days.
When I became a conductor, I remained interested in my Slavic roots. I learned Russian, briefly conducted in Kyiv two decades ago, and then became a frequent guest conductor of the historic Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. But with the start of the invasion, I turned my back on Russian government-backed institutions like the Bolshoi. Instead, I sought out long-lost relatives in Ukraine and was reunited – initially through the internet – with my distant cousin Nadia, a high-school teacher in Chernivtsi.
Like so many Ukrainians, Nadia volunteered to join the war effort. She drove supplies to the front lines and sewed camouflage clothes for the troops while continuing to teach through blackouts and bombings.
Nadia’s brother, Andriy, was a painter and professor of journalism in Chernivtsi before the war began. In 2014, when Russia began the conflict in Donbas, and with the illegal annexation of Crimea, Andriy traded his paintbrush for a rifle. He is now a high-ranking officer, commanding troops on the eastern front.
According to Nadia, harrowing experiences on the front lines have visibly aged her 45-year-old brother. But he has never wavered. Nadia and Andriy are two of the reasons why Ukraine will win the war. Like their millions of comrades, they are the invincible resistance to Vladimir Putin’s monstrous attacks. They are the heart and soul of Ukraine.
The fight for Ukraine’s freedom inspired me to join the battle on the cultural front. Less than a month after the invasion, I began plans to form the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, an ensemble of 74 leading Ukrainian musicians from different orchestras and opera companies inside Ukraine and abroad. We are Ukraine’s soldiers of music, defending Ukraine’s cultural legacy through our performances in the capital cities of the world, while Mr. Putin’s cultural propaganda machine sputters. Many of Russia’s leading artists have fled, repulsed by Mr. Putin’s soulless oppression.
When the Soviet Union was invaded by Hitler during the Second World War, it was forced to defend its territory. During the siege of Leningrad, faced with a blockade and starvation, the Russian people rose up and defeated Hitler against all odds. That was a noble fight for their freedom, and that’s why they eventually prevailed. In this war, Russians don’t know what they are fighting for, while Ukrainians are defending the very existence of their country.
The Russian forces are no match for the heroic forces of the Ukrainian people. Whether it is this spring or the next, Ukraine will win. And I look forward to some day conducting a “Concert of the Invincibles” at the Kremlin in celebration of Ukraine’s ultimate triumph and the regime change in Russia that most surely will follow Mr. Putin’s defeat. Slava Ukraini!