Franceinfo sets up its microphones in kyiv all day long to report on this conflict of which the Ukrainians cannot see the end.
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It’s an awakening like any other in kyiv. An awakening in a country still at war. The television is on daily discussing the situation on the front, while Ukraine will enter its third year of war against Russia on Saturday February 24. This is the biggest conflict in Europe since 1945.
This two-year war is a human catastrophe. And what is striking today is the attrition, particularly of the soldiers. It is a front at the end of its strength which is fighting at the moment. “I’m physically and mentally tired. War is tiring, it’s not cinema. There’s nothing romantic about it, it’s horror”, explains Rouslan, a Ukrainian soldier. One question becomes obsessive for these soldiers: how to hold on? How to keep up by counting the shells to be fired and rationing ammunition stocks? All this while the Russians, aware of the current weakness of the Ukrainian army, are attempting to push forward on certain areas of the front. The Ukrainian army, and behind it an entire society, is therefore exhausted, with men who are sure of leading a fair fight, but who are no longer certain of having the means to achieve it. The country has also initiated a conscription reform to increase its troops.
All day Friday, franceinfo will return to the war in Ukraine and the situation on the front. A special day to also remember what these two years of conflict have cost in human lives. The families of Ukrainian soldiers who died at the front are fighting for a national cemetery, while at the rear, far from the front, an almost normal life continues. We work, we have fun, we make plans. Guests will also come to testify, in particular a member of parliament who will discuss the democratic vitality in kyiv, but also the corruption scandals which have shaken the country.