As we celebrated the Fourth of July with hot dogs and fireworks, mourners gathered at Kyiv’s famous St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Cathedral. They were paying last respects to one of Ukraine’s most noted young writers.
Victoria Amelina, 37, was fatally wounded by a Russian missile strike on July 1 on a large, well-known pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk, Ukraine. At the time, it was filled with journalists, humanitarian aid workers, local families, and probably some soldiers taking time out from the front lines. How like the Russians to bomb a pizza place.
I didn’t know Amelina, but have several Ukrainian friends who did, including one who was at her hospital bedside as she lay in an irreversible coma.
