‘It’s a golden age’: poetry flourishes in Ukraine – but at a terrible price

Conflict has changed Ukrainian poetry and boosted interest at home and abroad, but several poets have died or disappeared

A year ago, the poet Borys Humenyuk sent a final message. For 24 hours, he and two fellow Ukrainian soldiers had been under relentless Russian fire. Shells rained down on their trench outside the eastern city of Bakhmut. “We’re running out of ammo. Down to the last bullet,” Humenyuk said over a crackling radio. Those were his last words.

Humenyuk had volunteered to relieve a group of exhausted service personnel at “zero”, the hottest part of the frontline. Now, he explained, he was wounded in the shoulder and unable to drag his injured comrade to safety. “We are stuck,” he reported. By the time an evacuation team reached the trench in the village of Klishchiivka, Humenyuk had disappeared.