Uninvited — book presentation and eyewitness accounts

Ukrainian House Rotterdam presents the English translation of Uninvited: 25 Stories About the Russian Occupation of Ukraine. First published in Ukrainian in 2024, the collection brings together personal accounts from residents of the Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions, covering experiences between 2014 and 2022.

The evening introduces the book through the voices of people involved in recording these experiences. The stories examine civilian life under occupation, including displacement, hunger, threats to identity and the ways people preserve their dignity and resist. It is an opportunity for English-speaking readers to engage with testimony that connects individual lives to Ukraine’s recent history.

Editor Volodymyr Shcherbachenko heads the Eastern Ukrainian Center for Civic Initiatives and has coordinated documentation of serious human-rights violations linked to Russian aggression since 2014. Journalist and author Valentyna Fedorchuk reported for Ukrainian television from occupied Kherson and continues documenting war crimes. Maryna Suprun, a student, activist and EUCCI colleague, will share her perspective as a survivor of captivity in Yahidne, where she was held as a teenager with fellow villagers in a school basement for a month. Her account appears in the separate publication Living against All Odds.

The presentation is in English on Wednesday 18 November, 19:00–20:30, at Ukrainian House, Pleinweg 196A, 3083 EV Rotterdam. Admission is free; reserve your place in advance. The programme addresses occupation and captivity, which may be emotionally difficult for some visitors.

Original event information and free registration. Image: official event poster supplied by Ukrainian House Rotterdam through Eventbrite.