Yesterday was my birthday. My girlfriend who has remained in Donetsk all these years always says, “I’m here because someone has to greet the Ukrainian army with flowers and embrace every defender.” This beautiful, unbreakable friend wrote to me yesterday, “I’d like to give you Putin’s balls on a skewer. But they’re not done cooking.”
Later we exchanged some messages (as of 7:57 p.m., February 26, Kyiv still had power, gas, communication lines, and water) and eventually agreed that I should have more realistic gifts: the removal of Russia from SWIFT (my autocorrect changes swift to world — not half bad: “the removal of Russia from the world”) and a no-fly zone.
Today, February 26, I got my first gift. Next up is the airspace and Putin’s balls.
Right now I’m in Kyiv, doing exactly what I said I would do if the Russians really invaded. I’m not going to run, not anymore. I can’t. I’m from Donetsk. I’m experienced. I’ve seen how the Russians “fight”: In Donetsk, they pummeled apartment buildings, hospitals, gas pipelines. They raped women and men and stole everything they laid eyes on.
This time, in the Sumy Oblast region, in the northeast, Russia cluster-bombed a daycare, and in Melitopol, in the southeast, a Russian missile hit a cancer treatment center. Halfway between Izium and Kharkiv, the “liberators” shelled a passenger bus — that is, they purposefully murdered people. Because the Russians have come here to hunt. This morning, they shot a rocket into an apartment building in Kyiv. I can’t even write about the Eastern Plan, in which Russian bombardment wipes entire villages off the face of the earth. I don’t have the words for it. Sorry.
But I am not — not — going to apologize for using the language of hatred.
Just four days ago, the digital signs above the Boryspil highway, which takes you to the airport in Kyiv, shared information about the weather, time, and speed limit. Today, they said, “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”
I’m not going to run anymore. I, a Ukrainian who spoke Russian until 2014, am not going to run. This is my land. My home. What a simple reason for standing my ground and winning.
My friend, a refugee from Donetsk, the wonderful photographer Serhii, lives in Mariupol now. He put it best: “I’m going to stay here so that Brits never have to wonder how deep and safe their Underground is.”
The lines at the military recruitment centers are longer than those at grocery stores. People want weapons more than food. They say the air-raid sirens that tell you to run for cover haven’t affected the length of these lines. Queuing for weapons is more important than taking shelter from bombs.
The instinct for self-preservation is at work. But also, if there is no army, there is no us. It’s really that simple.
“If there is a God, he wears a Ukrainian military uniform.” This message from an armed services poster is flying around the Internet, getting tens of thousands of reposts.
In the bomb shelter, I hear an older man calming people down. “Don’t worry, that’s ours. Those are outgoing, not incoming.” I ask him quietly, “Are you from Donetsk?” He smiles and nods.
Learn to identify the sounds of Giatsints, Pions, Grads, and Gvozdikas in flight. Cover your head with your arms at anything that sounds like an explosion (I hate fireworks) and fall to the ground. Know that the safest place in an apartment is the bathroom — more specifically, the bathtub. You can sit in it with your kids if you don’t make it to the shelter.
This is the experience I gained in 2014. Now I share it widely, but I’d like to forget it forever. Actually, since living in Kyiv these last few years, I’m a little out of practice: I still cover my head, but I’ve stopped falling anytime I hear a loud noise. But don’t worry — it’s like riding a bike.
We hear that the residents of practically every village along the Vinnytsia highway are digging up the road, digging trenches, and obstructing the highway with tractors. They’re working fast and are lively and cheerful. They laugh.
Students in the chemistry department at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute are making their own cocktails according to the Finnish recipe: oil, gasoline, a rag, and a cork in a glass bottle. This “drink” proved itself on the Maidan. Now it’s important to aim them at the Russian military convoys that are attacking us from all sides. Social media has videos of civilians taking aim at enemy fuel trucks.
When I am an ancient old lady, my main consolation will be all these videos of Ukrainians stopping tanks with their bare hands, bringing columns to a halt with their own cars. Of Grandma Nadia putting up her sign at the bus stop near Myhalky, telling those sons of bitches to get the fuck out of Ukraine and our village.
I’ll watch them and my heart will forever be calm.
I also have cocktails ready and waiting at home.
The future could be different. “What does he want?” people ask each other. “To take Kyiv by siege? To starve us to death? Hold us all hostage?”
“And to shoot a dozen people on the Maidan in his quest to return Moscow to its glory — and especially its wealth,” my husband says.
It’s not a joke.
A wonderful poet writes in an email: “We’re alive. But just in case anything happens, come get our dog. Here’s our address.”
Our war is not about the dead. Heroes don’t die. And whoever can’t be a hero and leaves is not a traitor. Quite the opposite: people are taking their own and others’ families; offering shelter from the bombing that never ceases for long; housing refugees on the move. People must stay alive. In order to win.
We write to our friends and loved ones after every air alarm: “As of now, we’re alive.”
Many thanks to Kate Tsurkan and Apofenie magazine for tireless efforts to get work from Ukrainian writers translated and published quickly, including this piece.
