Voice of Ukraine

From: Maia Mikhaluk (728th day):

In three days, it will be two whole years since the beginning of the big ruzzian invasion of Ukraine. Lately, I almost look daily at the Memories section on FB to remind myself what we were thinking and feeling when the imminence of war had already saturated our lives, our minds, and our hearts.

On Feb 21, 2022 I was referring to an article from The New Statesman with these few quotes from the article:

“Supermarkets are full, nothing sold out although some people have stocked water and firewood for their homes in the village…. Patriotism is a serious duty in Ukraine. The most important preparation is to fight, not to run away. In the northeast city of Kharkiv, near the Russian border, so many weapons were bought that they ran out of stores. “
“Ukrainians feel pressure, but for centuries of difficulties and foreign occupation, they learned to react with dignity.”

I found this article today (I will include the link in the first comment). I reread it through tears now. We now know the answers to a lot of questions asked in that article. In the first few lines the author is wondering how the war will start. Now, every Ukrainian has his/her own very personal account of how they understood the war started. I can’t describe how painful it is to read the lines that put me back into “not knowing” how the war would begin.

On Feb 21, 2022 The New Stateman’s journalist wrote: “We talk a lot about beginnings, but they are usually projects, plans, love affairs, or summer holidays. How does a war begin? How does an announced war actually begin, especially one that intelligence sources are already predicting will be a horrific campaign, with tens of thousands of deaths and days of carpet bombing from the air? I kept asking that. Will there be sirens the moment the Russian planes cross the border? Will the church bells ring? We agree it is much more likely we will be awakened by the sound of bombs raining on Kyiv, including the government buildings surrounding my hotel. “Remember there are 400 missiles pointed at Kyiv, including Kalibr cruise missiles,” one security officer reminded me. “One missile, one building.”

I think up until 5am on Feb 24, 2022, we still held to the hope expressed in that question on the title page of The New Statesman, “Can the West stand up to putin and avert catastrophe?” We now know the answer to that, too.

Interestingly, that question is still kind of relevant. The catastrophe of war has not been averted but the catastrophe of Ukraine disappearing from the world map and ruzzia getting emboldened to take over more neighboring countries can be averted. Over the past two years of war, Ukrainians have proven our determination to not let putin destroy Ukraine. After the first few weeks of believing in putin’s imminent victory, the West realized that ruzzia was not as strong as they had thought and Ukraine was not as weak as they had believed. Very gradually, we started getting the needed help and assurances that we would not be abandoned in this fight against ruzzia. No doubt putin and his agents all this time continue working hard to undermine help to Ukraine, and their success is there for all to see without me having to bring up the names of pseudo-journalists, a notorious owner of a failing social network and some politicians who all do their part to help putin in his sick ambitions.