You may be getting tired of the news from Ukraine. I am too. Our friends and family in Ukraine are beyond fatigued. They’re anxious, fearful, depressed.
Only a few weeks ago, there was normality in their world. Families were gathering. People were working. Young people were aspiring to do great things with their lives.
Our friends’ nineteen-year-old daughter from Kyiv was expecting to complete her computer arts degree in two months. Her little brother was attending his first year of school. One day before the invasion, they were vacationing in the mountains of western Ukraine. Now they live in the home of strangers in that same region, far away from their home.
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| Our friends' children from Kyiv |
Their boy celebrated his sixth birthday one week ago, but the happiness was short-lived. A few days later he said goodbye to his dad who made the perilous journey back to Kyiv to deliver humanitarian supplies and take care of their parents.
The lives of forty-four million people have been irrevocably altered or ruined. There is no Plan B for those who have lost homes and family. Some leave the country with no idea where they’re going. Many are left destitute.
If there’s one glimmer of hope, it’s the resilience of the Ukrainian people. Ordinary citizens are donating goods and money to impacted areas. A pastor and his wife near Kherson, now controlled by Russian soldiers, continue to bring food and supplies to families at great risk to their own lives. You can read about his first-hand account at the end of this post.
Desperation on both sides has led to increased brutality. A new generation of Ukrainians will harbour hatred toward their Russian friends and family. Recently we heard of a friend of my sister-in-law in Ukraine who had a heated phone call with his brother in Russia. He was trying to explain the situation, but his brother refused to believe it. In frustration, he hung up, then made plans to join the Ukrainian military. I don’t know how these rifts will ever be mended.
The Russian people, for their part, are deluded by Russian propaganda. It’s difficult to reason with those who are under the impression that they are under attack. But they will suffer too. Economic sanctions have been cranked up to a level where their economy will contract more than the 1998 and 2008 economic crises combined.
We can only hope it awakens them to reality. But more than likely, it will simply mean more repression. Vladimir Putin, a hardened, myopic dictator, is undeterred by Russian soldiers dying or his economy tanking. So long as he retains control of his well-compensated inner circle, it will be difficult to rid him of his imperialist goals.
A Russian journalist familiar with those closest to the president has said Putin has lost touch with reality. He is no longer concerned with the economy, social issues or the coronavirus pandemic. He is concerned only with history, namely the humiliating dissolution of the Soviet Union. To restore the “Russian Nation” is his lifelong goal, and he now appears intent on fulfilling it.
When you surround yourself with yes-men, you succumb to critical errors. Militarily and economically, Russia is now in a quagmire that could last years.
Millions will suffer and possibly die because of one man’s megalomaniacal ambitions.
As always, the innocent will pay the highest price.
To end, I’m including excerpts from an email received recently from a pastor who works in a small church near Kherson, a southern city now occupied by Russian troops. I’ll warn you that it’s graphic and may be difficult to read. I've highlighted a paragraph I thought was particularly poignant.
Today our day began with preparing of food kits for people who attend our church. In the morning I delivered food at these people's homes.
Near noon, I had to convoy a car that was transporting murdered civilians. They were eight people who had been killed on February 26th near the Chernobaivka-Mykolaiv detour road fork. They were mostly men. Some of them had their hands tied. All of them were shot by Russian occupants. Some were shot in the cars and then dragged to the ditch, some were covered with ground. In all eleven people were found. Horrible, scary, inhuman view.
We had to load those murdered civilians into a truck and take them to the Kherson morgue. There were people waiting outside the morgue. They have lost their friends or relatives and don't know where to look for them. One of those people recognized his brother among the murdered. The other men were undocumented. We assume that some of them are from the village 30 km from Kherson. They were on their way to Kherson that day, but never reached it. They were killed and thrown into a ditch. One of the women in that village recognized her husband. However, she cannot come here and take her husband's body, because it is still too dangerous to go out on the roads. She asks for help.
This is the day when I realize what exactly war looks like. What an occupant who kills innocent civilians looks like. What the "the Russian peace" looks like.
We drive through Kherson, taking these people to the morgue, and I saw people in Kherson living a more or less normal life. Most of them hear explosions and shots, but once you get outside of Kherson, the picture is completely different.
Tonight there was artillery shelling. One of the missiles hit the kitchen of the Stepanivka mental care hospital, but didn't explode! It is a miracle! Every day we pray rockets do not explode! Thank God people can still cook food for patients. Shrapnel flew on the homes of our church members. We constantly hear explosions and shots from all the sides of our town.
Many soldiers of the Russian army understand that they are occupants and they do not want to kill anybody. But they are ordered to shoot both soldiers and civilians.
I want to thank all of people who help to look for the murdered, and search for their relatives. They are real heroes!
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