Extract from ABC News
Analysis
By global affairs editor John Lyons
Historians will study for decades this extraordinary war between Russia and Ukraine. But it's unlikely any of them will tell the story of a 25-year-old Ukrainian woman whose entire life has been upended by this conflict. After all, millions of lives have been upended. How can you possibly capture them all?
Sometimes to tell the big stories you need to tell the small stories. The big stories are undoubtedly fascinating, and we must tell them: Russia versus Ukraine, Putin versus Zelensky, the Wagner group — mercenaries fighting for Russia in Ukraine — versus Ukrainian special forces, old Soviet-era tanks versus new German-made tanks.
But let's never forget the untold human misery that Vladimir Putin's armies unleash every day, misery that will ache through millions of families for generations to come.
The most striking sentiment I came across during a recent trip to Ukraine was the absolute determination to fight to the end, whatever that end might be.
Many Ukrainians have a burning rage against both the Russian leadership and Russians generally.
They repeatedly expressed the reason for that rage: Their lives were proceeding relatively calmly, with all the normal pressures of life — paying for somewhere to live, trying to get or hold down a job, getting the children to school on time, trying to keep a cohesive life with family, friends and work colleagues — and then Vladimir Putin unleashed what had until then been regarded as one of the most formidable armies in the world.
The story I'd hear over and over
One person highlighted for me the human tragedy of it all before I even arrived in Ukraine. To get to Ukraine I'd flown to Poland. I stayed a night at a hotel in Warsaw from where I would drive to Kyiv. Upon check-in, I had a conversation with a woman at reception.
Her story — or a version of it — would be one I'd come to hear all too frequently.
The woman at reception was Ukrainian and she worked alongside a Russian woman. In the many months they'd stood next to each other, neither had mentioned the war.
The Ukrainian woman, aged 25, had lived in Kyiv and was pregnant when the war broke out.
She lost her baby in the first weeks of the war and believed it was due to the trauma of conflict around her. Within days of the Russian invasion, her father headed to the front line, where he remains. The woman's family thought they should get her to the safety of Warsaw.
The war was to become even more difficult. The Ukrainian woman's husband, who stayed in Kyiv when she left for Warsaw, is now waiting to go to the front line.
So determined are Ukrainians to defend their country that there are waiting lists to join the army. Foreigners visiting Kyiv have been astounded to see queues around the block of people wanting to sign up.
When air raid sirens go off, most of the people remain standing in the street rather than run to a bunker — none want to lose their spot in the queue.
'We have only one home'
Stories like that of the woman in the hotel are everywhere but you don't very often hear them.
Her entire life has been changed and may change even more. I asked her how she felt about her husband going to the front line. She looked around, I presume to make sure that her Russian colleague was not nearby. "He must go," she said. "We must fight for our home. We have only one home and it is Ukraine."
I found this sort of determination everywhere I went. I also found a foreboding sense that the worst is still to come.
Since the invasion in February last year, the Russian army and its mercenary colleagues in the Wagner group have advanced across as many parts of Ukraine as they can. War crimes came to many of Ukraine's villages and neighbourhoods.
This is the reason for much of the rage. While I was in Ukraine, one attack was launched which explained the white-hot anger Ukrainians feel towards Russia.
In Dnipro, a large city that hosts many of the country's small and medium businesses, hundreds of people in an apartment block were going about their lives on a Saturday afternoon. Suddenly their lives changed.
Russia fired a missile into the building — a missile with a 950-kilogram warhead. These missiles were designed in the Soviet era to attack ships. They were designed to slice a warship in two. A warhead of that size is a weapon of mass destruction. Yet Russia fired one into a residential building, leaving many residents buried alive, or dead.
Each time Russia attacks, rage grows
Attacks by Russia on civilian targets are happening frequently. Each time they occur, the rage of Ukrainians grows.
I visited Bucha, the location of some of the worst alleged war crimes. I came across an elderly man unloading shopping bags from his car. He didn't speak much English but knew enough to say that he was bringing supplies to his son, who is a soldier in the area.
The man pointed to the buildings around us, which had been destroyed in battle. "Russia," he said in a thick accent. Pointing to himself, he said: "Hate Russia."
Many Ukrainians expressed a similar sentiment.
I'd lived in the Middle East for six years and became used to people telling me that they didn't hate the people of another country but rather the government.
But so deep is the fury against Russia in Ukraine that people don't bother with niceties. Many said openly they hated Russia, and Russians.
I asked if it was fair to blame Russian citizens. It was Vladimir Putin who ordered the war and there was probably very little the average Russian could do.
"Not good enough," one 21-year-old Ukrainian woman retorted. "There must be creative ways they can do things. They need to stand up for what is right. History will judge them badly."
The hatreds and hostilities being brought to the surface because of this war are likely to last a long time.
The emotional scenes at train stations that featured in the early days of the war were all the more powerful because not only were families being separated — and no-one knew for how long — but there was a real chance this could be the last time these children would see their fathers who were staying behind.
What a human tragedy
Winter has slowed Russia's attacks. It has not been able to use its tanks or many of its ground troops. Instead, World War I-style trench warfare has taken place around Bakhmut and Soledar.
No-one knows the exact numbers of casualties. Even the two sides cannot be sure how many people are being killed. Reliable military sources suggested to me that Russia is currently losing around 750 people a day, on average, and Ukraine between 200 and 300 per day.
What a waste of young lives, what a human tragedy. As many as 1,000 mainly young men and women are dying every day for the sake of 50 or 100 metres of mud and dirt around villages that have little strategic value but have become a prize Russia's mercenary group Wagner has set for itself.
Reports from Europe suggest Russia is running out of graves to bury its Wagner mercenaries.
Those for whom enough dirt in a cemetery in Russia can be found are often buried with no ceremony or family present. Many were alone in Russia from central Africa, or prisoners in Russia, who obtained freedom on the condition they went to fight on the front line in Ukraine.
Given the scale of the death toll, the supply of prisoners is drying up. Wagner is now looking to sporting clubs — where there is reportedly little enthusiasm to join the war — and psychiatric institutions.
The absolute determination of Ukrainians to try to carry on with their lives is striking.
Bigger battles are coming
One Saturday morning I heard incoming fire in the distance. The explosions were close enough for those of us together to seek out a bomb shelter.
Yet 24 hours later, life in Kyiv was back to normal. At one church near the city centre I came across, hundreds of people were attending a Sunday religious observance. At the Kyiv Food Market nearby, hundreds of people were out shopping and spending time with their families.
The day before, many of these people would have been in bomb shelters but they were absolutely determined to show the world — and particularly Vladimir Putin — that the war has not stopped them going on with their lives.
Another powerful understanding one gets after spending time in Ukraine is people believe bigger battles are coming. These are the so-called "spring offensives".
The current weather has made tank movement almost impossible and the Russians are not making any significant troop movements. But Ukrainians expect this to change and are making their own plans to try to counter it.
The sad reality is that this war is likely to get worse before we see any possibility of an end.
Some people say all wars are wrong. But Ukrainians believe they have no choice but to fight. To lay down arms would mean Russian soldiers would be in Kyiv almost immediately. It would represent an end to Ukraine — the so-called "existential" threat.
An end to the fighting is in Russia's control. One thing historians will undoubtedly examine in years to come is how global diplomatic architecture — such as the UN Security Council — was unable to prevent or bring to an end this war.
While all of that is important, historians should also attempt to convey the scale of the misery being experienced by millions.
I saw war in the face of that young woman at the reception in Warsaw and her fear of getting a phone call with news of her father or husband.
Stories like hers show us this war isn't just a distant geo-political battle to remake the map of Europe.
No comments:
Post a Comment