Kyiv as a refuge, Kryvyi Rih in mourning: August 2021
A look back at two reports from mid-August 2021 that touched Ukraine, one from Afghanistan and one from Kryvyi Rih.
What did Ukraine's news look like on 20 August 2021? Two reports from the preceding days framed it, one arriving from abroad and one from within the country.
On 17 August 2021, it was reported that Sahraa Karimi, a well-known Afghan film director and general director of the state film company Afghan Film, had been evacuated from Afghanistan to Kyiv. Her departure came after the Taliban took Kabul. The Ukrainian capital thus became a place of safety for a prominent figure in Afghan cinema.
A few days earlier, on 15 August 2021, the mayor of Kryvyi Rih, Kostiantyn Pavlov, was found dead in his home. The report set the city's leadership in an abrupt and sombre light, and it was among the events that shaped public attention in the days leading up to 20 August.
The two stories were unrelated, but together they marked a week in which Ukraine appeared in the news both as a refuge for people fleeing events abroad and as a country coping with a sudden loss in local government.
