Ukraine is at the forefront of envisioning justice in a changing world. While acknowledging the immense individual toll of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, Oleksandra Matviichuk sees possibilities for bringing war criminals to justice before the war ends, renewing the rule of law, and creating a future where justice can exist — if individuals do their part.

How does a pacifist find himself fighting Russian troops on the front line—together with other Ukrainians who had dedicated their lives to preserving human rights, lives, and culture? Yevhen Shybalov searches his personal history—from the lawless 1990s to the Revolution of Dignity to spring 2022—for the source of Ukrainians’ will to fight against injustice.

In the aftermath of the ground-breaking exhibition of modernism from Ukraine ‘In the Eye of the Storm’, its co-curator Katia Denysova reflects on justice in the realm of art history. Erased by Russian colonialism for centuries, the place of Ukraine’s artists and heritage in global cultural history must be restored.

Vasyl Stus was an extraordinary Ukrainian poet and dissident who died in a labour camp in Russia three years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. As Bohdan Tokarskyi notes in his introduction to the poetry translations, Stus was ‘uncompromising in his pursuit of justice and the truth’ in his life and art.

Ukrainian state and civil society have responded to Russia’s war-related atrocities in ways that can galvanise transformations in the legal sphere both inside Ukraine and globally. Kateryna Busol uncovers the patterns of unwavering resilience and draws attention to the avenues for change it has opened up for the international community.

For the eightieth anniversary of the Soviet deportation of Crimean Tatars, the London Ukrainian Review dedicates its second issue of 2024 to the Russia-occupied Crimean peninsula and its Indigenous people’s ongoing fight for justice.

The mass deportation of Crimean Tatars in May 1944 is rooted in Russian settler colonialism which Martin-Oleksandr Kisly traces to the subjugation of Crimea by Catherine II. Eighty years after the grievous crime against the Indigenous people of Crimea, Crimean Tatars are under Russia’s occupation and banned from marking this historic date.

The stories of three Crimean Tatar women, Emine Ziyatdinova’s paternal grandmother, mother, and the author herself, revolve around their relationship with Crimea and its history. The essay is based on multiple interviews with her family Ziyatdinova recorded between 2008 and 2022   as well as her personal memories.

Exploring the legacy of Crimean Tatar autonomy in the aftermath of World War I and its progressive governing body, the Qurultay, Rory Finnin releases the history of the Black Sea peninsula from the grip of Kremlin obfuscations, and envisions a future, free Crimea within Ukraine.

The histories of anti-colonial resistance of Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian peoples provide a common ground for them to construct a non-competitive and hopeful story of Crimea’s future. Mariia Shynkarenko argues that a key component of this future is Ukraine’s recognition of Crimean Tatars’ Indigeneity as a political rather than just cultural category.

Alim Aliev surveys topics which have been in the spotlight since Russia occupied Crimea in 2014: the violation of human rights by the occupational regime, the Indigeneity of Crimean Tatars, the militarisation of the peninsula, and various solutions proposed by political leaders for the ‘Crimean issue’ over the decade.