Review by Frank Plowright

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 Nora Krug contacted a friend in each nation, people she only knew via digital contact, and presented their experiences as a weekly online strip, some of which were excerpted and run by newspapers across the world. She refers to the correspondents only as D and K, and while her introduction provides their background complexities, the strips themselves are translations of their own feelings and views. Both are Russian by birth, although D identifies with his city of St Petersburg rather than his nation, and K chose to take Ukranian citizenship in 2015.

Quite apart from anything else, this is a valuable resource, as Western news media tends to present a very black and white world with a clear definition of good and bad. Although the views of individuals, those views contradict the so frequent message of overwhelming support for Putin in Russia. D knows enough people who don’t support the war, but also knows open defiance is a sure ticket to a jail cell. Although free within Ukraine, K continues her reporting career, and hears about one atrocity after another, and it’s her testimony that proves more moving than D’s constant attempts to escape Russia. It’s the Ukranian gradually losing hope for the future while the Russian is perpetually optimistic that another country will accept him and his family as refugees.

Krug takes simplicity as her watchword for the illustration, faithful to the text she receives, yet providing contrasts and parallels via what she selects to draw. Two different experiences of Nintendo games early on is a clever representation, and she can often supply moments of hope and symbolism, such as the pigeon standing in for K’s frequent journeys.

However, for all the harrowing content, because these are personal comments, trivialities occur and generalisations can seep in. To be fair to D, his comments are being sifted from weekly e-mails, and some of what he says is what any of us might toss off in an e-mail when annoyed, such as a comment about the world being surprised when Russia invaded Ukraine, which certainly wasn’t the case. One also wonders how much of the text is prompted by Krug’s questioning.

52 weeks of juxtaposed strips are supplied when Krug ends the project. Neither correspondent is happy with events, and their conclusions aren’t optimistic. K notes whatever the outcome, a year of war will result in decades of animosity on the part of Ukranians, and D draws the fatalistic conclusion that ordinary citizens can’t affect their government.

There’s hardly been a glut of graphic novel commentary on Russia invading Ukraine, and indeed more detailed reportage is time consuming and unlikely to emerge for a while. It leaves Diaries of War as sometimes insightful, often disturbing and very readable.