Despite the horrible toll—houses destroyed, families uprooted, and loved ones lost—Ukrainians are optimistic. LiudmAndrii was sent to the eastern front without delay. Less than three months later, on June 6, in the city of Lysychansk, he was gravely wounded. He was in an artillery position when a Russian shell hit it. He was brought to the hospital, where he passed away on the operating table from blood loss. Eight of his company's members died in the same deadly attack.
Natalia, Andrii's widow, erected a blue and yellow flag with her late husband's name in a central Kyiv memorial garden in September. "Eternal memory," it declared. On a grassy slope of the Maidan, the city's independence square sits the unofficial plot. Thursday saw Bikus' visit. She brought her child, Andrii's sister Alyona. Lyla Bikus remembered how she had attempted to talk her son Andrii out of enlisting. That happened in March, one year ago today, just weeks after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Andrii reportedly said to me, "Mum, if I don't go, who will?" stated Bikus. He was a golden boy, she said. The ideal brother, father, spouse, and son. He desired to protect both his family and his nation.
Natalia, the widow of Andrii, and her late husband planted a blue and yellow flag in September.
The flag was nowhere to be found. It had mysteriously disappeared within the hundreds of fresh ones that bereaved relatives had left. Soldiers, citizens, and volunteers were all identified as casualties of Russia's conflict. There were names, locations, and birth and death dates. One person only stated, "Anya from Mariupol." Roman Stetsiura, 54th Brigade, Bakhmut, is another. Pigeons pecked in the snowy February landscape close by, beneath a tree.
"A whole generation of young people is being wiped away. At 19 and 20, men are passing away. They won't ever have kids or grandkids, Bikus thought. Andrii, 34, was. He was laid to rest in Berkovetske Cemetery in Kyiv. Misha, his seven-year-old son, observed as his father's casket was gently lowered into the earth. According to Bikus, there are three to four funerals similar to ours every day.
One year has passed since the first explosions, which shook Ukraine shortly after 4 a.m. on Thursday, February 24, 2022, under a gloomy and rainy sky, occurred. Despite the odds, Kyiv maintains its independence and rises tall. At the time, many leaders in the west and Moscow anticipated that Putin's army would occupy the capital of Ukraine in three days. Additionally, most likely, conquer the entire nation.
Since then, Ukraine has mounted an astonishing and motivational fightback, led by Andrii and other brave volunteers. Putin's war strategy failed. The Kyiv region saw the chaotic withdrawal of Russian forces last spring, but not before they went on a murderous rampage in Bucha and other garden neighbourhoods. Currently, the town is associated with some of the worst crimes in Russia has dug in. It has sent new reserves to the front. The war rages. Putin is determined to capture – or “liberate”, as he puts it – the entirety of the eastern Donbas region twenty-first century.
By late October, Ukrainian forces had recaptured half of the area they had first lost, including the majority of the north-eastern province of Kharkiv and the administrative centre of Kherson in the south. After that.
The future remains grimly uncertain. What can be said is that the human tragedy from Europe’s biggest war since 1945 is vast. According to Ukraine’s prosecutor, 9,655 civilians have died over the last year, including 461 children. Russia’s full-scale assault – featuring tank columns, aeroplanes and ships – provoked 8 million people to flee. Houses have been destroyed, lives uprooted, and loved ones lost.
Despite this terrible toll, Ukrainians remain upbeat. Almost the entire nation believes in victory: 95%, according to a poll this week. Trust in the army is at 97%. “That we will win is certain,” Alla Schastna said on Thursday, as she bought a coffee from a downtown kiosk. “We know why we are fighting. The Russian soldiers don’t even understand where they are.”
The atmosphere in Kyiv was one of dread and anxiety a year ago. Since that time, some kind of normalcy has returned. Many people have left the capital, but others have arrived from the Russian-bombed cities of Mariupol and Kharkiv. Even with repeated strikes, the electricity functions. The train network also does. It brought in a significant guest this week in the form of US president Joe Biden.
Still, the fight seems imminent. When Biden and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy left St. Michael's gold-domed cathedral on Monday, air raid sirens occasionally sounded. The curfew is 11 p.m. The cobblestone lanes of Kyiv, which are home to art nouveau houses and magnificent baroque cathedrals, are already abandoned by 9.30 p.m., with the exception of a few dog walkers.
No one can predict when the war will finish. Ukraine has triumphed, according to Serhiy Leshchenko, a former journalist and parliamentary deputy who currently counsels Andriy Yermack, Zelenskiy's chief of staff. He stated, over breakfast in a Kyiv Cafe, "From a historical standpoint, Ukraine has triumphed. He clarified, "We've managed to remain a sovereign state with a democratic system.
Leshchenko acknowledged that this victory's shape was questionable. Inquiries loom. Does success entail returning Ukraine's borders to how they appeared on February 23, 2017, before Putin started his territorial grab? Or does it include forcing Russia to leave the land it grabbed in 2014, including Crimea and the eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been effectively ruled by proxies for nine years?
If this is accurate, it remains to be seen. Battle tanks and other modern American and European weapons are on their way to Kyiv. The Ukrainian military command will probably begin a springtime counteroffensive once they arrive. The Kremlin's notion that it will outlive the US and its allies, according to Biden, is "simply wrong," he said on Monday. Putin also believed that Ukrainians would welcome Russian forces invading their country a year ago, which turned out to be a hallucination.
Philosopher Volodymyr Yarmolenko of the Kyiv-Mohyla college claimed that the conflict in Ukraine affected the entire world. He concluded by saying that it "reversed the cynicism about democracy" that has previously dominated the western discourse. Democracies are more powerful than autocracies. If Russia lost, this might accelerate the “democratic process” in Belarus, Moldova, Armenia and other states, including in the Middle East, he predicted.
Yarmolenko flagged the decisive role played by Zelenskiy, a former comedian turned president, whose ratings a year ago were sinking. Putin expected him to flee. He didn’t. Instead, Zelenskiy personified Ukraine’s underdog struggle. He became one of the world’s pre-eminent leaders, an amplifier of the mood at home. “He removed the barrier between politics and people,” Yarmolenko observed.
Putin’s ideological goal, it appears, is to eliminate Ukraine, a country he thinks does not exist. Ironically his invasion has had the opposite effect. Support for NATO membership and the EU has grown. 94% identify themselves as Ukrainian citizens, up from 76% in 2021. Half see themselves as Europeans, twice as many as the year before. Ukraine’s westward integration looks irreversible.
But it has come at a very high price. After half an hour and a search in sub-zero temperatures, Bikes still hadn’t been able to locate her son’s blue and yellow memorial flag. She showed off a photo of him saved on her mobile phone, and taken last June just before he was killed. It showed a young man and father, dressed in military uniform, happy, and full of life and promise. The sun was shining.
“He was a wonderful person. We loved him very much,” Bikes said. She added: “We got news of his death from the military enlistment office. He and his wife, Nataliya, have been married for 13 years. Her first words were: ‘How can I live without him?’”
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