I will not make a detailed analysis today. I will rather evoke the lives lost in this immense mess that is the warlike adventure of Vladimir Putin and his band, still frozen in a logic of the Second World War where Ukraine replaces Nazi Germany and NATO becomes with she, the invader.
Lives lost, I was telling you… On my computer screen, I see Oleksandra Borisvska, 18, magnificent in her evening dress, a student of international relations, killed in Vinnytsia. There is Danylo Bolsharov, 22 years old, thin, heavy glasses à la Robert Bourassa, an economics student, who died trying to save his grandmother and father under the rubble of Mariupol. Danyyil Yevtushenko, 19, philosophy student, musician, polyglot, killed in action in Kharkiv. He had never touched the war before February 2022. And then there is Andriy, 23 years old. Anne, 17 years old. Lea, 20 years old. It continues like this for 36 clicks; thin slices of life.
Every day, the victims add up on the website put online by a 19-year-old Ukrainian girl and her friends, in memory of students who will never receive their diplomas. “Unissued diplomas”, title the site in English1a way to put faces to this unspeakable tragedy that has been stretching since February 24, 2022.
How many dead, wounded, amputated, traumatized since the beginning of this failed invasion which continues?
I remember the members of this family from Irpin, in the suburbs of Kyiv, in the small kitchen of a rented house one evening in December, telling me how they were evacuated from their native town under the bombs, cording the grandmother of 92 years old, the 3-year-old child, the dog, the four cats, the daughter, the mother and the father in a small van. And I see the 33-year-old son who had stayed behind, strong as an ox, crying while telling me how the home family disappeared under the flames following an explosion. The family had a travel agency. They lost everything.
Forgive me, I am simply haunted, while writing these lines, by all these turned upside down lives, all these senseless deaths, all these young people who looked towards the future, who dreamed, who went to school, who were in love, but which no longer exist. I am haunted by all those parents who went to drive their child to daycare, who went to work, who did their grocery shopping like me and who, overnight, saw their lives transformed. On February 24, these tens of millions of everyday people like ours had their peaceful lives snuffed out by a band of neo-Soviets fueled by imperial and anachronistic ambition. Like what life or peace sometimes hangs by a thread even if everything seems beautiful, even if we say to ourselves that “it will never happen”. In any case, in Ukraine today. In Georgia, in Moldova, in Latvia, maybe tomorrow.
And all of a sudden, the philosophy student becomes a fighter, the plastic surgeon does war medicine, the business law lawyer becomes the leader of his hometown’s territorial guard, the seamstress makes camouflage nets and the grandmother makes borscht for the soldiers.
“When your classroom becomes a battlefield, your degree becomes one of bravery,” the website reads.
In Ukraine, it’s not just the army that’s fighting, it’s a whole people. The resistance is total.
Before writing these lines, I spoke with Madga Dymyd, 23, whose brother Artium, 27, was pulverized by a shell with his two companions. The discourse of this young art history student is restrained. There are no more tears. Her brother’s death made her stronger. “How do you want us to stop? After so much blood, so many deaths, we have to go all the way, we have no choice but for them. »
Since the death of Artium, she has been unable to speak Russian, although she was fluent in the language of the invader. “The words just don’t come out anymore,” she says. His girlfriend Vlada, on the line, nods. Every time she hears a Russian song or melody, she covers her ears. The break with the Russian neighbour, once a Soviet brother, is irremediable.
By this war that he launched, Vladimir Putin will simply have accelerated what he said he wanted to prevent: the entry of Ukraine into Europe through the front door and into NATO in full view of all, without compromise. All this, in addition to opening the country to all gun dealers on the planet who are transforming Ukrainian territory into a vast testing ground. And the war continues, war of titans, frozen war. And we are waiting for the offensives from one side and the other to break what appears to be a draw.
At this point, with the faces of all those dead striking Ukrainian consciousness, with the accumulation of atrocities, a negotiated peace seems more distant than ever. Whatever happens, Putin’s men will not succeed in pacifying this country. All these mown destinies that accumulate, must find a meaning. The Ukrainians are doomed to victory.