Journey for Truth Project:
The Untold Stories of Russian Crimes
Unmarked graves of the victims of Russian war crimes in Irpin, Ukraine.
Photo credit: Jose Hernandez. March 2022
Journey for Truth Project: The Untold Stories of Russian Crimes
Russia has a historic track record of atrocities perpetrated in Ukraine: the Holodomor state-sponsored famine, the Stalinist repressions and executions of Ukraine’s intelligentsia, repeated waves of mass deportations of civilians to Central Asia and Siberia, including the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people. Years before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainians had already been subjected to the Kremlin’s crimes on Kyiv’s Maidan, and in the torture cellars of occupied eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Despite the rules set out in international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the Geneva Conventions, and other international laws and agreements, many of which Russia is a signatory to, the Putin regime overtly mocks and violates these rules. Indeed, the unprovoked war launched by Russia on February 24, 2022, is the largest attack on a sovereign European country since World War II. The crime of aggression has resulted in genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes: the murder of civilians; the unlawful seizure and deportation of children; widespread torture and rape; strikes on grain depots, distribution hubs, and energy infrastructure; bombings of hospitals and religious and cultural institutions; and a catastrophic environmental “ecocide.”
The Journey for Truth Project: The Untold Stories of Russian Crimes — an initiative of the Peterson Literary Fund — is a designated fund at BCU Foundation. It supports print and online publications, documentary films, scholarly research, international conferences, and other public forums that challenge Russian imperialist narratives and raise public awareness about the crimes committed by Russia.
Tax-deductible donations are accepted online via Stripe at petersonliteraryfund.com. Alternatively, donations by cheque payable to “BCU Foundation - JFT Peterson” should be mailed to:
BCU Foundation - JFT Peterson
2280 Bloor St. West - Suite 202
Toronto, ON M6S 1N9
Howard G. Buffett 2025 Journey for Truth Award Honouree
Chairman and CEO, The Howard G. Buffett Foundation
Howard G. Buffett is a businessman, philanthropist, author, photographer, farmer, and former elected official. He is the Chairman and CEO of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, a private charitable organization that has invested more than $3.8 billion in some of the world’s most fragile regions to improve global food security, reduce conflict, and combat human trafficking.
The Foundation has committed over $1.3 billion in assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, providing millions of families with food, power generators, and replacement windows, and delivering vital support to the country’s agricultural sector—including large-scale humanitarian demining—to help ensure Ukraine can continue to feed itself and the world. Mr. Buffett has also supported investigations into agricultural war crimes, helped deploy rapid DNA testing to document Russian atrocities, and is the largest donor to the Superhumans Center in Lviv, providing the funds to construct the facility and for prosthetics that have enabled thousands of Ukrainians to recover from limb loss sustained during the war.
Mr. Buffett serves on the board of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. and has previously served on the boards of Archer Daniels Midland, The Coca-Cola Company, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Lindsay Manufacturing, and Conagra Foods. His career includes senior executive roles in the corporate sector; election to the Douglas County Board in Nebraska; 20 years of service on the Commission on Presidential Debates; and appointments to multiple U.S. trade committees.
He has been recognized globally for his leadership in agriculture, conservation, philanthropy, and journalism, with honours from the governments of Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Rwanda, and Ukraine. For his sustained and deeply personal commitment to Ukraine, Mr. Buffett has received numerous national honours, including being inducted into the Walk of the Brave in Kyiv, the Presidential National Legend of Ukraine Award, the Golden Heart Presidential Award, and the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (IV and V Class).
Mr. Buffett has travelled to more than 150 countries and has authored 15 books on conservation, wildlife, conflict, and human suffering, including two New York Times bestsellers: 40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World and Our 50-State Border Crisis. He is the executive producer of four award-winning documentary films: Porcelain War, an Academy Award–nominated film about the war in Ukraine; Virunga, an Academy Award–nominated documentary on natural resource exploitation in Africa; Path of the Panther, an Emmy Award–winning film about efforts to protect Florida’s endangered cougars; and The River and The Wall, which explores the human and ecological consequences of constructing barriers along the Texas–Mexico border. As executive producer of Porcelain War and author of the Courage of a Nation photobook, he has brought the resilience of the Ukrainian people to audiences around the world.
The Journey for Truth Project is a designated fund of the Peterson Literary Fund at BCU Foundation created to support print and online publications, documentaries, scholarly research, conferences, and other public forums that challenge Russian imperialist narratives and raise public awareness about the crimes committed by Russia. The project has supported:
bulk procurements and dissemination at various foreign policy and security conferences of the book Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by historian Anne Applebaum. The Peterson Literary Fund was an early supporter of Anne Applebaum’s research for Autocracy Inc., through a writer’s grant.
The December 2023 Ottawa book launch hosted by Pendulum and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute of Ian Garner’s book Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth.
The acquisition and distribution among parliamentarians and diplomats of the book The Torture Camp on Paradise Street by journalist and author Stanislav Aseyev, who survived imprisonment and torture in an FSB-operated Russian camp in the city of Donetsk. The book was personally presented to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Ottawa in July 2024 by the Peterson Literary Fund’s chair. The book received a translation grant and won a Translated Book Award in 2023.
The Centre for East European Democracy (CEED) for printing and distributing a collection of articles titledVictory, Not Surrender in Ukraine: Why it Matters in the US Congress and the UN.
Reprinting and distributing 400 copies of the Italian edition ofUkraina Redux: On Statehood and National Identity among Vatican officials and diplomatic envoys to the Holy See. The essay-booklet is a revised version of an Expert Report submitted to the International Court of Justice at The Hague by Paul Robert Magocsi, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. Ukraina Redux challenges Putin’s imperialist narratives by succinctly demonstrating that Ukraine is not a new construct. The paperback has been translated into ten languages. The French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Turkish editions received translation grants.
Video recordings of recent and forthcoming international conferences in North America featuring scholars focusing on the history of Russia’s policies of genocide vis-à-vis its captive nations.
The forthcoming novel, Stolen, written by Canadian author and investigative journalist Victor Malarek, which deals with Russia’s policy of ethnic cleansing and Ukraine’s abducted children.