Most of us have never lived in a location under attack by artillery and missiles. We have not experienced the terror of sometimes daily attacks, with air raid speakers screaming out warnings to seek shelter, preferably underground. It is hard for the media reports on the war in Ukraine to make much of an impression on us – the war feels so distant, and so foreign to what we experience every day in the States.
Using open sources, I am going to share descriptions of what it is like to live in Ukraine, a country under relentless daily attack by Russia – an attack aimed at vulnerable civilians, especially the elderly and children. The names and affiliations of these Ukrainians will not be identified. May these testimonies and honest expressions of pain and suffering motivate us to do what we can to help them.
Educators Discussing Ukraine’s Future: “It’s difficult for us Ukrainians to stay calm when we talk about what is happening in Ukraine. Most of us men have never cried so much during the last three weeks.”
Ukraine Is Becoming a Wilderness: “We died with the pregnant woman and her child when the maternity hospital was bombed. We fled with those running from Russian shooting. All we were used to is wiped out - now just a wilderness.”
Amazing Bravery: “It’s okay if the missiles are falling on us because it means they’re not killing our soldiers on the front lines.”
Everyone Is Involved: “Everyone seems to be doing something: sending food, clothes, or equipment, helping internally displaced people, or – like [one] young volunteer . . . traveling repeatedly to the east to bring back the old and sick from villages in the line of fire.”
Total Disorientation: “Russia claimed that it had come to ‘liberate,’ but people ran away from those ‘liberators,’ no one greeted them with music and flowers . . . [When the bombing started,] the railway station was always a place where many people gathered . . . Mothers were standing with pale faces, and next to them, right on the asphalt, were sitting frozen, hungry, thirsty children. People were at a loss – they lost their lives, lost their peace, lost their property . . . but they did not know what to do next, where to go.”
This Could Be the Last Day of My Life: “In times of trials like this, we see how God multiplies his grace. It’s difficult. We cry a lot. But we see God at work . . . Everyone is scared . . . War is a new reality. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. But we all have to die some day. If it’s 2023, so be it.”
Our Biggest Difficulty: “Dealing with the senseless destruction we see all around us each day is our biggest difficulty. When we wake up in the morning, it is a struggle to stay positive with all the air raid sirens and the explosion of bombs around us. It is very depressing.”
Students Invest in Ukraine: “Our students are a powerful energy. Since the first days of the full-scale war, they try to be where they need to be: some volunteer, some help displaced persons, and others work on the medical front. There are many challenges, but our [students’] response is effective.”
If you want to deepen your understanding of what the Ukrainians face each day, I encourage you to find an organization that is active in supporting Ukrainian orphans, supplying medical supplies, providing food and shelter, or other pressing needs. Getting periodic reports from sources that have “boots on the ground” in Ukraine will give you insights rarely shared in the popular media.
Timothy Garton Ash noted that the Ukrainian word volya, which means both “will,” as in willpower, and “freedom,” captures the essence of what is happening there. The courage to live and die for freedom is “obviously apparent in the men and women of the Ukrainian armed forces” – and I would add that incredible courage is also apparent in the many civilians who have joined together to repel Putin’s effort to make their country a part of his dying empire. We have much to learn from them.
For further reading:
Sophia Lee, “Ministry in Ukraine Where Every Day Might be the Last,” Christianity Today (March 2023).
Timothy Garton Ash, “Ukraine in Our Future,” The New York Review of Books (February 23, 2023).