WHEN:

30 November 2017, 19:00

WHERE:

Ukrainian Institute London, 79 Holland Park, London, W11 3SW

Admission:

Free, but registration is required. Please register here.

This event will be held in English.

The Embassy of Ukraine in the UK jointly with the Ukrainian Institute in London organizes the event «Russia’s propaganda against Ukraine: how a story of one Ukrainian family turned out to be a tragedy». A presentation of the book “War Artist” by Maksym Butchenko and discussion with the author.

Maksym Butchenko, Ukrainian writer and journalist, born in Donbas (Rovenki city, Luhansk region) in 1977 and lived there until 2012. He worked at the mine, started to work as a miner and finished as assistant chief of the site. After receiving the second higher education, he moved to Kyiv.
Worked in the socio-political weekly “Correspondent” and resigned from it after the magazine was bought by oligarch Sergei Kurchenko. During Euromaidan Butchenko worked in the magazine “Focus”, and then became part of the team of the new weekly “Novoye Vremya”, which became the most influential magazine of the country.

The publishing house “Folio” published Butchenko’s two novels about war in Donbas. The third novel (currently under preparation for publication) is about women who fought and the fate of soldiers who became disabled. Butchenko’s books were presented in different countries: Lithuania, Poland, France, and Georgia. Publications in the media about the books came out in Poland, Lithuania and the Netherlands.

The plot

Anton Nedelkov is a miner who dreams of becoming a painter. When masked Russian special forces begin seizing control of government buildings in the Donbas in 2014 he does not support them. But as his life collapses around him he joins a motley crew of ex miners and Russian mercenaries to fight against his own country. He comes under fire at Donetsk airport and sees Ukraine’s heroic Cyborg troops lay down their lives for freedom. Meanwhile his brother Sergei who fled the pit to become a successful programmer in Germany returns to Ukraine to save Anton …Can the brothers mend a family torn apart by war before one of them is killed?

Maksym Butchenko is a successful journalist and writer who was born in Luhansk city (Donbas) and worked in the mines. His book “War Artist” is based on the stories of real people who have seen at first hand the war in eastern Ukraine.

“This book shows the war in Ukraine in the most realistic way as it actually is, – Maksym says. I have had the only wish – to show the causes and consequences of that tragic situation which happens now in the East of my country.”