Ukraine in Focus

By Svitlana Morenets

Feb 24, 2023

Growing up as a Ukrainian means being acquainted with death when you are too young to know much about life. When I was a teenager, I saw dozens of coffins being brought to my hometown from Vladimir Putin’s war in the Donbas. Now, I am seeing my friends go to war – and, like so many thousands of Ukrainians, die. One was buried last month: Maksym Burda, a 25-year-old wedding photographer. Another friend went to war this week.

This friend, an artist, had just five weeks of accelerated training: now he’s an infantry soldier in one of the hottest spots on the Dobas front. He has been provided with a weapon, bulletproof vest, a helmet and a second-hand first-aid kit – far more than soldiers were given after the 2014 invasion. I doubt that the first owner of that kit is still alive. My friends and I will send him a new one, and we hope that the tourniquets we have chosen will work, if needed. Those meeting the Nato standard are expensive and vanishingly rare. Most Ukrainian families end up buying domestic tourniquets or those made in China. But low-quality ones not only do not help – they kill.

Ukrainians can now tell the difference as we have unwillingly become war experts. Our kids can distinguish the sound of Russian Iskander and Kinzhal missiles or Ukraine air defence rockets shooting down the target. Our volunteers know where and how to buy drones, thermal imaging optics and even helicopters. Our engineers can repair missile-hit power stations under Russian shelling. Our doctors can perform surgery in complete darkness. Our soldiers, our brave heroes, spend months in fierce battles without rotation, resisting Russian attacks along a 600-mile frontline.

Kyiv begs for weapons, and while they arrive, Ukrainian blood is flowing, flowing, flowing. The war must be fought today, but Leopard tanks will not get to the frontline for weeks or even months, Abrams will take, at best, a year to arrive – and fighter jets may not be approved at all. Ukraine is receiving enough weapons to hold Russian forces where they are, but not to cast them out. When Russian tanks advanced north of the Kyiv region one year ago, civilians tried to stop these war machines with their bare hands. Sometimes I fear our soldiers in some frontline areas have no choice but to do the same.

I am often asked about Ukrainian morale. A year on, it stays steadfast. The polls speak for themselves: in January last year, 58 per cent of Ukrainians believed the country had the strength to repel the Russian army. In the first three days of full-scale war, this increased to 88 per cent, and now stands at 95 per cent. The world thought Kyiv would fall during the first week of the invasion, but still it stands. All winter, Putin shelled Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, hoping to break the Ukrainians’ spirit – or freeze us to death. We survived.

In my country, we talk about victory rather than peace because, in the past, ‘peace’ with Russia has meant deferred war: nothing other than death and destruction, guaranteed for the future. And why does Europe help us? There’s a cartoon in this week’s Spectator that sums it up beautifully. It shows Ukraine as a domino about to fall, with other small democracies bordering Russia being next in line. So Europe has rushed to help Ukraine keep its domino standing.

We have a saying in Ukraine: ‘When a nation chooses bread out of bread and freedom, they ultimately lose everything – and bread, and freedom.’ This precisely describes why Ukrainians won’t settle for a ceasefire: they will keep on until the last Russian soldier leaves our land. Only then will we have peace and freedom – and bread. When the day of victory comes, only then will Ukrainians properly mourn.

The war memorials I see all over London in churches and public squares, naming all of those who died defending freedom in Europe, rightly immortalise these defenders. ‘Their name liveth for evermore,’ the memorials proclaim. That’s precisely how we feel. And I will come to your grave, Maksym, hoping God is looking after you somewhere up there. Because here, when you voluntarily stood up against Russian hell, He did not protect you.

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The analysis

One year on

Growing up as a Ukrainian means being acquainted with death when you are too young to know much about life. When I was a teenager, I saw dozens of coffins being brought to my hometown from Vladimir Putin’s war in the Donbas. Now, I am seeing my friends go to war – and, like so many thousands of Ukrainians, die. One was buried last month: Maksym Burda, a 25-year-old wedding photographer. Another friend went to war this week.

This friend, an artist, had just five weeks of accelerated training: now he’s an infantry soldier in one of the hottest spots on the Dobas front. He has been provided with a weapon, bulletproof vest, a helmet and a second-hand first-aid kit – far more than soldiers were given after the 2014 invasion. I doubt that the first owner of that kit is still alive. My friends and I will send him a new one, and we hope that the tourniquets we have chosen will work, if needed. Those meeting the Nato standard are expensive and vanishingly rare. Most Ukrainian families end up buying domestic tourniquets or those made in China. But low-quality ones not only do not help – they kill.

Ukrainians can now tell the difference as we have unwillingly become war experts. Our kids can distinguish the sound of Russian Iskander and Kinzhal missiles or Ukraine air defence rockets shooting down the target. Our volunteers know where and how to buy drones, thermal imaging optics and even helicopters. Our engineers can repair missile-hit power stations under Russian shelling. Our doctors can perform surgery in complete darkness. Our soldiers, our brave heroes, spend months in fierce battles without rotation, resisting Russian attacks along a 600-mile frontline.

Kyiv begs for weapons, and while they arrive, Ukrainian blood is flowing, flowing, flowing. The war must be fought today, but Leopard tanks will not get to the frontline for weeks or even months, Abrams will take, at best, a year to arrive – and fighter jets may not be approved at all. Ukraine is receiving enough weapons to hold Russian forces where they are, but not to cast them out. When Russian tanks advanced north of the Kyiv region one year ago, civilians tried to stop these war machines with their bare hands. Sometimes I fear our soldiers in some frontline areas have no choice but to do the same.

I am often asked about Ukrainian morale. A year on, it stays steadfast. The polls speak for themselves: in January last year, 58 per cent of Ukrainians believed the country had the strength to repel the Russian army. In the first three days of full-scale war, this increased to 88 per cent, and now stands at 95 per cent. The world thought Kyiv would fall during the first week of the invasion, but still it stands. All winter, Putin shelled Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, hoping to break the Ukrainians’ spirit – or freeze us to death. We survived.

In my country, we talk about victory rather than peace because, in the past, ‘peace’ with Russia has meant deferred war: nothing other than death and destruction, guaranteed for the future. And why does Europe help us? There’s a cartoon in this week’s Spectator that sums it up beautifully. It shows Ukraine as a domino about to fall, with other small democracies bordering Russia being next in line. So Europe has rushed to help Ukraine keep its domino standing.

We have a saying in Ukraine: ‘When a nation chooses bread out of bread and freedom, they ultimately lose everything – and bread, and freedom.’ This precisely describes why Ukrainians won’t settle for a ceasefire: they will keep on until the last Russian soldier leaves our land. Only then will we have peace and freedom – and bread. When the day of victory comes, only then will Ukrainians properly mourn.

The war memorials I see all over London in churches and public squares, naming all of those who died defending freedom in Europe, rightly immortalise these defenders. ‘Their name liveth for evermore,’ the memorials proclaim. That’s precisely how we feel. And I will come to your grave, Maksym, hoping God is looking after you somewhere up there. Because here, when you voluntarily stood up against Russian hell, He did not protect you.

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Read The Spectator’s top three most-read articles on Russia’s war in Ukraine from the past year. Henry Kissinger sets out his strategy for avoiding another world war; Seth J. Frantzman unpacks the new era of drone warfare; and Sergey Radchenko on why Russia needs to be humiliated in Ukraine.

In pictures

Lviv, Ukraine: In memory of Ukrainians who died defending their homeland, light rays were launched into the sky over the graves of soldiers at the Lychakiv cemetery. Hundreds of relatives came to the graves of their sons, husbands, daughters and wives. (Credit: Andriy Sadovyi, Mayor of Lviv)

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Quote of the week

‘It was a year of invincibility. The furious year of invincibility. Its main result is that we endured. We were not defeated. And we will do everything to gain victory this year!’

– Volodymyr Zelensky in his address to the nation, one year since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine

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Wider reading on the war

The need for speed in Ukraine: the West must be bold –Timothy Garton Ash (The Spectator)

Putin’s fatal miscalculation over Ukraine – Robert Service (The Spectator)

How Putin blundered into Ukraine – then doubled down –Max Seddon, Christopher Miller and Felicia Schwartz (Financial Times)

The West is avoiding the big question about Ukraine – Matthew Kaminski (Politico)

Photographers in Ukraine on the images they can’t forget – (New York Times)

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The war in numbers

Polish tanks to be given to Ukraine within days

14 Leopard 2A4’s

Poland can quickly deliver older versions of the Leopard 2 tank

Total US aid to Ukraine in the past year

$25bn

After the US announced another $2bn of support yesterday

Time spent on trains by Joe Biden in Ukraine

20 hours

This amounts to the US President spending 80% of his trip travelling by train

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Svitlana Morenets was a journalist in Kyiv. She hitchhiked in Crimea to learn more about life under the Russian occupation and wrote a story about her experience in 2019. She is now in London working at The Spectator. If you enjoy the Ukraine in Focus newsletter, please forward it to someone you know: you can sign up here. Svitlana’s writing for The Spectatorcan be found here. This email is a work in progress: all feedback welcome: svitlana@spectator.co.uk

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Portrait of the week in Ukraine

• Poland delivered its first Leopard tanks to Ukraine today, according to the country’s President, Andrzej Duda.
• Russian troops have carried out almost 5,000 missile strikes and 3,500 air strikes against Ukraine over the first year of the full-scale invasion, according to the Ukrainian military.
• The UN general assembly has adopted a resolution calling on Russian troops to leave Ukraine.
• Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday amid US concerns that Xi Jinping may send lethal military aid to Russia. Freddy Gray has more.
• China’s government has called for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia after publishing a 12-point paper detailing its political position on the conflict.
• Russia is reportedly negotiating with a Chinese manufacturer about buying 100 drones for delivery by April.
• Kyiv claimed that the occupied city of Mariupol is ‘no longer completely unreachable’ for the Ukrainian military after several explosions were reported.
• Ukraine lost more than 30% of its GDP during the past year, while the budget deficit hit $38 billion. Meanwhile, the G7 increasedits economic support to Ukraine to $39 billion this year.
• Some 65% of Europeans support the funding and supply of military aid to Ukraine, according to a Eurobarometer poll.
• Russia claimed that Ukraine is planning an invasion of the unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria, Moldova. This came after a US allegation about a Russian plot to overthrow power in Moldova.

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Ukrainian-language media selection

This is intended for readers who use tools such as Chrome Translate to translate foreign web pages into English. More about those tools here.

How the battle for Ukraine unfolded at the desk of General Zaluzhnyi – Olga Omelyanchuk (Reporters)

Leaked document reveals alleged Kremlin plan to take over Belarus by 2030 – Anna Myroniuk (Kyiv Independent)

Why Ukraine missed the Russian army advancing from Crimea last year –Abdujalil Abdurasulov (BBC)

How Ukrainian soldiers defended Mariupol and survived captivity in Olenivka – Evhenia Mazur (Liga.net)

Timeline of Russia’s all-out war in Ukraine – Thaisa Semenova (The Kyiv Independent)