War in Ukraine

Gallery • 12 Photos

Hromadske

Abandoned car in the middle of a city

What happened then?

I am Ukrainian. I have friends from Russia. I still talk, play, send jokes, pictures and share memories: everything that you and your friends do. And before the conflict, this is how relationships between Ukraine and Russia used to be.

These two countries were like one: mentality, traditions, languages, people, everything was the same. So similar that in fact, almost nobody would ask for the nation you belong to. Differences between the countries began when Ukraine started the process of joining the European Union.

On the night of November 23, 2013, the people of Ukraine began their way to freedom, protesting against the government, especially president Viktor Yanukovych, because of his betrayal of the interests of the Ukrainian people. This protest is known as Euromaidan and this is when the great separation began.  

This separation created a divide between Russians and Ukrainians. People who yesterday were freely driving over borders to visit family and friends, began to insult, to forget, to hate.

Hatred. The worst possible thing, the catalyst of anger, distaste, molestation, discrimination and murder. Hatred makes people blind, it’s just a reason to be cruel to people. Russia’s government and people who were working for them injected hatred in people’s minds, they knew that it’ll spread like a disease.

But life in Ukraine went on, people tried to adapt to the new reality, they almost forgot about the occupation, until in February of 2022 Russia brought their soldiers to Ukrainian borders and then hysteria started.

“Before the invasion, we already knew that Russia was getting their soldiers to our borders,” said friend and Ukrainian student Dmitry Holovko. “Everybody was afraid, but we believed that Putin would not act like this, like a psychopath. Luckily our army, media and the president are brave enough to defend their homeland.”

Fear, unstoppable fall of currency, empty shelves in shops, refugees, an embargo on all airplanes to fly above Ukraine and the warning that war can start at any hour. 

On February 24, it started. 

I found out about the invasion when my mother walked in my room crying. Honestly, I couldn’t believe what I heard. I couldn’t understand what I felt and after weeks passed I understood, I felt emptiness. The feeling that life will never be the same, that I had lost part of my happy life. I still sometimes think that all of this is just a dream and when I go to sleep everything will be normal again. But it will not. 

Fear is a powerful thing. People experienced fear and uncertainty when they saw on the news that Russia invaded Ukraine. This fear absorbs you and blocks any other thoughts and seeing how people suffer from this, even so far away from all the destruction is terrifying.

In Ukraine, this fear is also what unites our people as never before in our history. My people are defending their homeland, their parents, their children, their future. With few resources, they are doing everything they can to block Russian soldiers from capturing cities.

Those who can’t help sit in the shelters and wait for the war to stop. Every single explosion makes them tremble, fear, lose sanity.

“My shelter is in the basement of my friend’s house, this is the safest place around, but even so I tremble when I feel how the earth is pushing because of the explosion,” Ukrainian student Sofia Zherebets said. ”I have food, I have water and I even can go outside for several minutes. But the fact that I need to hide and the fear that at any minute a rocket can explode near us and destroy my home and my family doesn’t let me sleep and live like I used to.”

What happens now? 

On the other side of the war, people in Russia divide themselves into groups: for and against Putin. The police take protesters to jail. Sanctions make life hard. Some people try to buy as much as possible to be sure that they will survive during this war, while others celebrate the death of Russia’s economy.

The victims of this war can’t live peacefully. They have lost opportunities to follow dreams and now they can just try to survive and return to what is left of their past lives. 

Unlike you and I, we can change any aspect of our life, because we have opportunities and freedom in America to change. However, we don’t use even one-tenth of these opportunities because we have been conditioned to believe that this life will last forever, but it will not. In the end, we will blame ourselves for wasted opportunities to change. 

So, while you scroll through social media, watch the news, just think.

Think about your life, about things you could’ve done, but didn’t.

I’m in this situation right now. I got used to a life without fear that I won’t have anything to eat, drink, wear tomorrow, without fear of losing my life or my family. Now, every day I fear that these things can happen at any minute to my cousins, aunt or grandfather and it is terrifying.

And I refuse, I refuse to live like this anymore, blinded by my own circumstances. I choose to improve, I choose to change my life, not waiting for something to change it. I will change it in a better way by my own will. If not even for myself, for their suffering to not be useless.