It’s 9am on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and in Ternopil, all of the site visitors has stopped. Folks step out of their automobiles, heads bowed, and stand on the street, remembering the lifeless.
Among the many lifeless is the brother of the mechanic who mounted our truck in Lviv. His brother was wounded in Pokrovsk and introduced residence to Lviv the place he died in hospital. After 12 years of battle, and 4 years of the full-scale invasion, there may be barely a household who has not misplaced somebody.
That is my fourth time in Ukraine for the reason that begin of the large battle, and my second time touring as a part of an assist delegation organized by the UK’s Ukraine Solidarity Marketing campaign. Beforehand I’ve visited Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Izium, in addition to temporary stopovers in Lviv. This time, I’m going to 2 new cities: Pavlohrad and Kryvyi Rih. I instructed a good friend earlier than I left—I’m extra nervous than earlier than. He mentioned – it’s as a result of Kharkiv is a hazard you understand.
Pavlohrad
In Pavlohrad, males are ice fishing on the frozen river. We take the vehicles to the drop-off level, the place we meet Anatoly. He exhibits me a photograph on his cellphone of his home in Pokrovsk, or, what was his home. I’ve spoken to so many individuals who’ve misplaced their houses, and stood outdoors the wreckage left by Russian drones, rockets, and missiles. The girl in Saltivka who sheltered within the basement when her condominium was destroyed. The girl within the village who refused to talk to me, after which relented, and confirmed off her backyard, telling us that she is glad her husband died so he didn’t should see how the Russians had destroyed their residence.
I bear in mind how at a destroyed condominium block outdoors of Izium, I had appeared on the books that had been nonetheless on the shelf, the TV that was nonetheless on the stand, and turned to my good friend to say ‘you make your home your property, you make it the way you need it, after which they destroy it for nothing.’ I needed to maintain again the tears. In Pavlohrad, with the help delivered, we acquired to the stabilization middle for internally displaced folks. Nothing had ready me for the scene that greeted us, in an old style hall filled with the horror and grief of human struggling. It’s scorching and humid; damp with the breath and sweat of a whole bunch of determined folks, the air thick with the odor of human our bodies and despair.
A whole lot of individuals line the partitions, holding tight to small baggage carrying the scant belongings they may seize earlier than they had been huddled into automobiles and buses by volunteers, and brought from their houses. A kind of ready within the hall is an outdated man with a grey moustache. He sits, staring all the way down to his folded palms, in a posture of defeat. His gaze is mounted on his fingers. He’s fully nonetheless, silent, and alone.
Adjoining to the hall is a classroom now designated as a ‘front room’ with rows of slim campbeds and a few donated toys. A household is inside: a younger man whose face is so skinny and gaunt that each one you possibly can discover are the cheekbones that jut out from below his grey pores and skin. A blonde boy, his son, additionally too skinny, totters across the room, trying to his mom, his grandmother, a toy… for one thing he acknowledges as residence.
Then there may be the babushka, in her 80s or 90s, with frizzy gray hair protruding from below her scarf. Her brown eyes are blinking, frightened and confused, as if attempting to work out the place she is, and the way, and why, as she works her lips towards her gums. Her determine is hunched in her blue garments that grasp free off her frail physique. She by no means noticed a life for herself outdoors her village. She thought she would spend the remainder of her days in her residence. Inside days, her residence could not exist.
I wrote in my pocket book:
I noticed her face for perhaps 10 seconds. I’ll bear in mind it for the remainder of my life. The entire place felt like despair, like defeat, as a result of they didn’t need to go away.
Our translator, Katya, tells me that in the future when the shelling was actually dangerous, her neighbour got here and mentioned: we now have to go. She packed her issues, however when the morning got here, she couldn’t get within the automobile. This metropolis is her residence. She didn’t need to go away her residence. So she stays. She’s a instructor, she is a mom, she is set her kids will be taught English. When she tells me this, she begins to cry. She says how because the battle drags on, they haven’t any pleasure, they don’t need to sing and dance. They work, and reside.
We go away Pavlohrad to a different location within the Dnipro area, to see the positioning the place 12 folks, principally miners however one feminine storage employee, had been killed when leaving work in a bus. The wall is shattered, peppered with shrapnel holes, a hunk of brick torn out of it. A dozen folks murdered by Russian drones, memorialized by roses laid on the bottom. We hold driving. For the primary time in all my journeys, I’m sporting a helmet and a kevlar vest. I’m so nervous placing it on, that my palms are shaking. The minibus takes us to the drone tunnel, 100 km put in in three weeks.
Later, in Kyiv, my good friend asks me how I felt in regards to the drone tunnel. I defined that it was a combined feeling: on the one hand, admiration for the innovation and the way speedily it was constructed. On the opposite, a complete horror as a result of it exhibits how the frontline is shifting, the killzone is rising, and the way way more susceptible civilians are to assaults.
Helmets and vests handed again, we go to a faculty and see the basement the place kids can examine for the entire faculty day, underground, in the dead of night. The rooms are painted with cheerful photos: emojis, flowers, bees, nevertheless it’s unattainable to disregard how troublesome it have to be for a number of courses to take a seat within the basement, attempting to pay attention and be taught, throughout an air raid. There have been 100 rocket assaults on Pavlohrad for the reason that begin of the full-scale invasion. As for drone assaults, there are such a lot of that individuals have misplaced depend.
A bunch of teenage college students greet us with a poem, dressed of their finest vyshyvankas. They stand, so proud and decided. They chat in English to us, laughing and nervous, as are we! The youngsters are so courageous, remaining on this frontline metropolis, finding out English and IT and science and math, underground. They provide me a standard Ukrainian doll as a gift. I’ll at all times bear in mind their delight in reciting the poem.
Kryvyi Rih
A couple of hours earlier than we arrive in Kryvyi Rih, Russian drones attacked the commercial metropolis. However it’s quiet after we are there. Quiet, and chilly, no less than -4°C. We go to the courthouse and see the harm from a missile assault. Sharp, mangled fragments of shrapnel litter the bottom. I decide one up, it’s heavy, and drop it once more, clattering alongside the pavement. We drive to the river the place persons are strolling on the ice, and the pink trams cross the bridge.
The ability goes out round 5pm, and there’s no generator within the lodge. We’ve got to prise open the automated doorways, and discover our rooms utilizing cellphone flashlights. In my room, I put a glass over the flashlight to create a lantern impact. The ability comes again on at 11pm, however disappears once more within the night time, and at 5am I get up colder than I believe I’ve ever been in my life. I’m so chilly that I do know I have to get away from bed to seek out extra garments, however I’m too chilly to think about getting out from below the skinny cover. How have folks achieved this, all winter, in temperatures a lot, a lot decrease? I’m so fortunate, and I’m so chilly.
The solar is out in Kryvyi Rih, melting the snow. The blue skies increase over the inexperienced leaves within the park, and there are flowers on the World Struggle Two memorial. That afternoon, we go to an English faculty – a small classroom the place pupils of all ages can take further English courses. On the wall is a poster the place the kids have shared what they dream: for peace, for peaceable skies, the prospect to go to highschool day-after-day, not having to review within the shelter. The youngsters don’t discuss to us in regards to the battle however the poster provides an perception into the way it has affected their lives, their hopes, their desires.
Youngsters aged 7-14 have made lists of inquiries to ask us and so they whiz round, questioning us on our hobbies, age, pets, siblings… The youngest is a little bit woman known as Mila, who desires to be an artist, can do karate, has pets, a child sister – and a dad on the entrance. Her grandmother tells us how at any time when he leaves, Mila cries and cries.
Over borscht and Moldovan wine, we discuss to a soldier about how he fought within the battle for Kherson alongside his son. He tells us how he and his fellow villagers defended their houses towards the Russians utilizing no matter weapons and instruments they may lay their palms on. He goes to make a toast, then breaks down in tears.
Kyiv
Kyiv at 6.30am, and the town is waking up. Spring is nearly right here: the sky is a brilliant blue and the snow is melting into large puddles. I see a girl on the site visitors lights, sporting sun shades, her gaze blissfully lifted to the solar.
We stroll over to see St Sofia’s, after which to St Michael’s. A bugler is enjoying the final publish, accompanied by drums. A coffin, carried by males in military camouflage, makes its sluggish journey by way of the arch and to the ready automobile. A younger girl following the coffin is sobbing; an older girl in a black veil appears blank-faced with despair. We stand again, silent with respect, and with the horror that this funeral is one in every of perhaps 55,000 troopers in 4 years. A lot of these troopers are memorialized within the Maidan Sq.. Each time I’m going to pay my respects, the variety of flags and images has grown, and it’s nearly unattainable to absorb the dimensions and horror of loss.
Russia is utilizing the peace negotiations to demand that Ukraine palms over the remaining 20% of the Donbas area, having failed in twelve years to take it by bombs and shelling and weapons. The area is spoken of as ‘territory’, however it’s a territory crammed with folks, individuals who have houses, communities, lives and desires. Handing over the ‘territory’ means the compelled displacement of 100s of 1000s extra folks, whereas those that stay behind are condemned to reside below a brutal occupation decided to wipe out Ukrainian language and identification, with murderous pressure.
Because of this, Ukraine has to win. And it has to win for these sitting within the security and luxury of the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland… as a result of, because the Kharkiv chief of police instructed me in September 2023, ‘if Ukraine doesn’t win, all of Europe will burn.’
This text was first printed by Ukrainian associate journal Krytyka. French associate journal Esprit selected the piece for translation and publication in its July/August 2026 subject under the Translation Relay mission, an provoke to additional change between Eurozine companions.
