From: Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv (995th day)
We are just 5 days away from the count of 1000 days of ruzzian invasion. I think it’s good that back in February 2022 we didn’t know that the war would continue for so long. It was scary and overwhelming enough then without this foreknowledge. Over these hundreds of days, we gradually built courage and resilience and discovered that we were stronger than we had known.
995 days sounds like a lot, but it’s just the days of a big invasion that impacted the whole of Ukraine. The reality is this war is continuing for over 10 years now. It started with the annexation of Crimea and ruzzian troops invading East regions of Ukraine without wearing the insignia of ruzzian army. Ukraine was forced by Western partners to sign cease-fire agreement with ruzzia in Sep 2014. There has never been a complete seize fire, but there was lower intensity of military action until ruzzia got prepared and came full force, hoping to completely wipe Ukraine off the map in Feb 2022.
Now we might be again forced into cease-fire agreement with ruzzia without any guarantees that ruzzia will not return with an even bigger attack, having learned their lessons from this invasion and having recovered from all the losses they have taken in this war.
Today in my FB memories came up this post from one of our humanitarian aid trips to the East of Ukraine during those first months of ruzzian invasion in 2014, reminding again that it’s not just 955 days of the war but really 10+ years.
Voice of Ukraine 