As a child growing up in Ukraine, every time I blew out the candles on my birthday cake I made a wish that there would be no war in the world. Now the war is at my door.
For almost eight years we have been hearing about the dead at the war front in Donbas, seeing the tears of people who lost their families and homes, and who had to start again from scratch. In January, I was visiting friends in the UK, and reading the latest news stories about Russian troops building up on the border.
I always try to be sceptical about these stories, because I believe this is Vladimir Putin’s way of destabilising the situation in our country, rather than any real attempt to start a war. But this time, my mother told me that Ukrainians were getting scared, and she asked me not to come back for a while. It felt like a turning point. As a freelancer I can live wherever I want and usually I spend a lot of time abroad. But due to the growing tension, I returned to Kyiv so I could be with my family.
Even in the month since, the tension has increased significantly. Two weeks ago I had a meeting with foreign colleagues and I told them that I was 90% sure that Russia would not attack. Would I say that today? No – now for me it’s 50/50.
However, there isn’t panic on the streets and you won’t see empty supermarket shelves. Even now, we have full shelves with all the essential products. A week ago, I jokingly sent photos of camembert to friends in Britain, which we couldn’t find when I visited them in January. Restaurants and malls are full of people living their lives seemingly as normal. But anxiety haunts us all the time.
My small family decided that if there was an emergency we would meet at my house without calling. I think a lot of people have similar plans in place. Like many others, I have bought about a month’s supply of food – cans, cereals, pasta, water and other nonperishables. At the beginning of the month, I bought a woodburning stove in case of power or gas cuts, so we could stay warm and continue to eat hot meals, and 20 litres of fuel for my generator so that we would be able to charge our phones. For my pets, I ordered food two months in advance, as well as extra in case neighbours start leaving and abandoning their animals. To distract me from bad thoughts, I bought a few jigsaw puzzles too.
I do believe that foreign leaders beyond President Putin deserve some of the blame for what is happening. President Biden started a game of ping-pong with Putin – they are like two barking dogs trying to show each other who is better, and we are stuck in the middle. The support of foreign partners is very important to Ukraine, but at the moment it is also important to choose your words carefully. Every Ukrainian is affected by statements by foreign politicians about an “inevitable” Russian attack. No matter how much we tell ourselves that everything is fine, you can’t remain calm when 10 times a day you see statements about an imminent attack or intelligence about potential invasion dates that change daily. People joke that it’s time to publish a schedule of attacks for the whole of 2022 so that we can plan our lives around them.
It’s great that instructors from the UK, Canada and the US have come to train our military. In this I see our salvation. We must develop our own independent, strong army in order to reclaim our territory, and leave talk of joining Nato to one side from now.
Of course, what worries us most is Putin himself and his behaviour at meetings with leaders of other countries. It seems to me that he is enjoying all the headlines, and the pleas for him to stop. If I was to dedicate a song from the Ukrainian people to Putin, it would be Lily Allen’s Fuck You: “We’re so uninspired / So sick and tired / Of all the hatred you harbour.”
We are used to disruption and a certain level of tension. When in 2018 one of my work events was moved from Kharkiv to Kyiv due to the introduction of martial law, we were barely concerned. After the military shot at protesters during the Maidan revolution in 2014, there was an endless feeling of pain for every person who died there and their families. But there was no fear.
But now when I wake up at night, I check the news to see if we have been attacked. I shrink from the thought that in the 21st century a full-scale attack, the bombing of Kyiv, is possible.
We would like Russia to leave us alone. We want the choice of whether to be in Nato or not, and we want foreign politicians to stop making unnecessary statements that only provoke an escalation of the conflict.
We are a large, independent European nation. Over the past five years, our country has changed hugely. We have almost no Russian goods left in the shops; most people speak Ukrainian; and the question of whether we will join the EU is no longer a question, but our course for the future. I travel a lot for work, and we have far more in common with other countries – Moldova, Kazakhstan, Poland, Belarus – than we do with Russia. However, we are now hostages of a situation that was created over decades by the government of the USSR and then Russia.
Have I thought about leaving the country? No. Has this situation affected my life? Definitely. Even as I try to be sceptical and keep a level head, the stress and fear persists. Every Ukrainian is facing a lot right now. But we are more united than ever.
Alexandra Matzota is an event planner based in Ukraine
