The news at the moment is dominated by Russia's war in Ukraine. It's heartbreaking. I've never been to (or even particularly near) Ukraine, but I've had a special feeling for the country all my adult life. This is because of two powerful fictions. My high school library, which I have extremely fond memories of, had a number of novels by Frederick Forsyth which I read with great avidity in my mid-teens. My favourite by some way was The Devil's Alternative (1979), which involves Ukrainian freedom fighters and their struggle to free their country from the Soviet Union. I've never read it since, but it's so powerful that certain elements of the plot linger in my mind to this day. It put me firmly on the side of Ukraine.
A few years later, as an undergraduate student, I obtained a recording of Mussorgsky's brilliant comic opera, the name of which has appeared in various English forms, but Wikipedia has The Fair at Sorochyntsi, so let's go with that. It's based on one of the stories in Gogol's Ukrainian collection, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. The opera is full of wonderfully memorable Ukrainian folk melodies, and can be enjoyed as a sort of love letter to the country and its people. It's a powerful reminder of how intertwined the histories and cultures of Russia and Ukraine are.
May peace come soon.