Ukrainians know the war is not over, so each day we clean up, document the destruction, and do our best to prepare
Near one of the oldest and most beautiful squares in Kyiv, Sofiivska, I met Andriy Khlyvnyuk – a famous Ukrainian singer who recently joined the police civil defence. I wrote about him during the first days of the war. The video of him singing the century-old march Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow went viral. Pink Floyd collaborated with Khlyvnyuk and issued their version of the track, Hey Hey Rise Up, in support of Ukraine.
At the start of the war, the streets of Ukrainian cities emptied. So when strangers meet now they say hello, and when you come across someone you know, even a distant acquaintance, you hug each other. I told Khlyvnyuk I’d just come from Donbas, and had a feeling of irreversible tragedy lying ahead in anticipation of possibly the biggest battle of the war. “How are you holding yourself together?” Andriy asked me. “I’m not thinking too hard,” I told him. “I just focus on what I should do next.” “The same with me,” he said. This is the case with most of my friends and the people I meet.
Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist specialising in foreign affairs and conflict reporting, and author of Lost Island: Tales from the Occupied Crimea (2020)
