For Ukrainian artists, art is a powerful tool of resistance in the face of Russian aggression.
More than 9.1 million refugees have left the country since Vladimir Putin initiated the invasion of Ukraine, while around 8 million people remain displaced internally. One-quarter of the country's total population have abandoned their homes.
In these tragic times, many Ukrainian artists have used their skills to help raise awareness of the devastation. Photographer Vladyslav Krasnoshchok is one such artist.
In Kharkiv and with his camera, Krasnoshchok has captured ruined buildings, mounds of weapons, and refugees camping in the subway station, which he has posted on his Instagram.
Krasnoshchok is far from alone in his endeavors. Anna Sarvira is a graphic artist who was based in Kyiv before she fled Ukraine and does not know when she will be able to return.
Sarvira has created works centered around daily life in Ukraine. These images, available on the Museum of Modern Art website, show the haunting questions Ukrainians ask themselves as they try to survive. In one picture, a woman is preparing a meal with eggs, and the caption shows her wondering, "will I be fast enough to reach the bomb shelter?" Another shows a woman carrying a large backpack with the text "will I have to run?"
Some artists hope that they can defend their country through their art.
Singer Lyana Mytsko is the director of the Lviv Municipal Arts Center; when the war began Mytsko made the center into a shelter for war evacuees in addition as a place to create art. Mytsko views art as a vital way to defend the country.
While Putin argues that Ukraine is not a real country and does not have a culture of its own, Mysko believes it is up to Ukrainian artists to prove him wrong.
In a recent NPR article, Mytsko argued that while many artists feel that they cannot take a gun into their hands, "they must know that every one of them is a gun of Ukrainian culture. Every one of them can make music and make pictures and can take our soul up, up, up."
Some Ukrainians are using their skills to defend Ukraine in a more literal sense. One example is Ukrainian artists such as Volo Bevza and Victoria Pidust who joined the defense groups in Lviv by making tank traps.
The spiky anti-tank structures, commonly known as "Czech hedgehogs," are made by welding metal I-beams and chains. These structures can puncture tires or flip vehicles that attempt to drive over them.
Together with the help of Victoria's brother Mark Pidust, the artists have been able to create about 100 anti-tank structures to help protect cities across Ukraine.
As Ukraine’s artists continue to fight for their country's freedom, organizations such as Artmajeur have worked to help them sell their work online. Artmajeur is a PR distribution network that has worked to clear obstacles to make sure Ukrainian artists can keep working and continue to sell their work.
Artmajeur has found artists, carriers willing to pick up art in war zones, and a payment processor that would pay artists in Ukraine as many banks have stopped doing business there.
Artmajeur now has a collection of more than 3,000 Ukrainian artists whose work you can browse, collect and buy safely. The benefits from these sales go directly to the Ukrainian artists.
Like artists in previous war zones, Ukrainian artists have joined the fight, using their expression to demonstrate and help the world feel the horrors of war that are easy to dismiss.
As the war in Ukraine continues to rage on, it is up to us to support the citizens fighting to protect their homeland. Supporting these artists and the work is one such way to do that.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.