“When I buried my father I felt nothing, I only feel hatred and it scares me,” says a Ukrainian fighter

The Ukrainian counter-offensive surprises with its effectiveness, but how do the Ukrainian fighters, tested by more than six months of war, feel? Yuri, 43, a soldier in Mykolaiv, one of the cities most heavily bombed by the Russian army, was a sports teacher in his “life before”.

He managed to scare his family abroad and has been fighting for six months. Exhausted by the war, he agrees to tell his torments, those that most of the fighters here undergo, but that very few of them manage to express.

“I no longer have any emotion when I see corpses, destroyed houses: I only feel hatred, nothing else, explains Yuri. It scares me to feel like this…”

“During the first days of the war, I had to bury my father and I was ashamed because I didn’t feel anything. I was like… anesthetized.”

Yuri, Ukrainian fighter

at franceinfo

In Mykolaiv, several schools, now in ruins, were targeted by the Russian army. Very often, the Ukrainian authorities accuse the Russian army of having “targeted a school building”: it is true, but Yuri agrees to deliver a more complex reality.

“Yes, our guys, the soldiers, were here inside, in the school, because I have to be put somewhere, Yuri says. Unfortunately, there are locals who swing us to the Russians: they gave the GPS coordinates of the school.” Mykolaiv is hell for the military: part of the population feels closer to Moscow than to kyiv. “They have already caused so many deaths like this, and there will be more!Yuri despairs. Because they keep going!”

The passers-by, faces closed, refuse to speak. “They say the city is bombed because we, the military, are there, Yuri continues. When those Russian bastards threatened them directly, they worshiped us…”

“We pushed the Russians back, and now they’re telling us to shoot because they’re bombing because of us. But shit!”

Yuri, Ukrainian fighter

at franceinfo

“Of course, we can understand them, but where should we go?Yuri sighs. We are told to go out of town, but that would be suicide!”

More than six months after the start of the war, despite the success of the current counter-offensive, tensions, exhaustion and fear are present. To this fear is added that of seeing Europe and the United States grow weary, and abandon him, Yuri and his companions, in a frozen conflict.