‘We have already buried many of our children. Do we have to raise more children for them to get killed?” This shocking question – from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky – in many ways captures his country’s predicament.

I had asked him what it would take to break the “stalemate” in Ukraine’s war to repel the Russian invaders, the stalemate his top military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, recently described in an interview with The Economist. The general likened Ukraine’s fight to the trench warfare of World War 1; defensive weapons had become superior to offensive ones, so neither side could advance. Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive was stuck.

Zelensky did not like Zaluzhny’s analysis, of course. “We cannot afford a thought like that because a weakness then migrates from our thoughts to our words and to our actions on the battlefield,” he said. “If we are weak on the battlefield, our adversary is strong. That’s what it will lead to.”

Zelensky also didn’t like that Zaluzhny seemed to suggest that, since no one could win the war, Ukraine should sue for peace – which would mean freezing the conflict along current front lines – that is, with Russia occupying 20% of Ukraine.

A frozen conflict is a war, is a sleeping volcano; it’s a matter of time when it explodes.

“And stalemate, if you ask me, is a frozen conflict,” said Zelensky. “A frozen conflict is a war without the possibility to repel the enemy, without hope for the future, without hope of having investment.”

He recalled that, after Russia annexed Crimea and infiltrated the eastern Donbas region in 2014, Ukraine signed the Minsk Accords, accepting a frozen conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky briefs African journalists in Kyiv last week. (Photo: The Office of the President of Ukraine)

“And some pretended that we didn’t have a war. No, we did. A frozen conflict is a war, is a sleeping volcano; it’s a matter of time when it explodes.”

That earlier frozen conflict explosively unfroze on 24 February 2022 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Read more in Daily Maverick: War in Ukraine

Zelensky warned that freezing the conflict again would only create another temporary lull, which would in turn erupt again.

“So, if it’s a stalemate, a frozen conflict, well then we should honestly say, our children, our grandchildren will have to be fighting in the war. We have already buried many of our children. Do we have to raise more children for them to get killed? Unless Russia is disciplined, we have to bring this war to an end.”

It was ironic that Zelensky referred to a faraway, almost forgotten war in the Donbas in 2014. In Kyiv today you could quite easily forget there is a war on.

In the early weeks of the war it was different. Russian tanks were only stopped in the capital’s northern suburbs and many missiles struck the city. Since then, though, the anti-aircraft and anti-missile defences of Kyiv have been greatly strengthened and life seems to have returned almost to normal, with the front lines far off in the east and the south.

Later, we are at a museum, learning from guide Daria Chudinova about the Holodomor, the genocidal famine Stalin inflicted on Ukraine in 1932 and 1933, killing seven million by stealing their grain to feed Russians starving because of his failed collectivisation policies. An air raid siren interrupts us.

The air raid WhatsApp group says a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet has taken off near the border and it could be carrying a Kinzhal hypersonic missile, which can strike anywhere in Ukraine. There is no bomb shelter at the museum, so we bus quickly to Europe’s deepest metro train station, Arsenalna, and descend 105.5m.

Ukraine foreign affairs ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko briefs African journalists at The Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine on Mykhailivska (St Michael’s) Square in Kyiv. (Photo: Olexiy Nazaruk, Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

But there seem to be more people ascending than descending via the escalators. Most Kyivans have become complacent. Down there, we meet Pavlo, a heating engineer who volunteered to fight the Russians even though he was 50. He is back from the front for treatment of an injury.

He was sent to the UK for five weeks of training, mostly on simulators. His scariest moment was being sent into battle in eastern Donbas armed only with an automatic rifle, confronting Russian tanks and artillery. For him there can be no peace talks with Russia, “which is not a country that has common sense. The only solution is fighting.”

But Ukraine needs more arms: Aircraft and tanks and artillery.

Natalya Chernenko (56) feels differently. “In the first days of the war we felt it would end shortly.” But now it seems it will never end. She is spending her second day of several hours down in the shelter.

Ukraine should make peace, even if it means surrendering territory, she says. “We have lost much more people than territory.”

Back above ground we get a distressing glimpse of those war losses at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen at Mykhailivska Square. Nearest the square are formal photographs of soldiers who fell in the earliest fighting against the Russians in Crimea and the Donbas in March 2014. Those photographs were put up by the government. As one moves away from the square, the photographs become less formal, sometimes displayed by individual regiments; then, towards the end, they have been posted by relatives or friends. These people have died since the full-scale invasion started in 2022.

The number of young men and women killed is tragic. But this war is also characterised by the relatively high number of older men, volunteers like Pavlo. One whose picture is on the wall was 57.

The old statue of Princess Olga, a ninth-century regent, now wears a bulletproof vest. So Ukrainians are memorialising the war impromptu even as they continue fighting it.

“We take anyone who passes the medical,” says ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko, adding that the government will formalise the whole gallery “when we have achieved victory”.

Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, briefs African journalists in Kyiv last week. (Photo: The Office of the President of Ukraine)

The square is littered with burnt-out and rusting hulks of Russian tanks and other vehicles destroyed in the first weeks of the conflict and a bullet-ridden train carriage of the Ukrainian railways that evacuated residents of Kyiv’s northern suburbs.

The old statue of Princess Olga, a ninth-century regent, now wears a bulletproof vest. So Ukrainians are memorialising the war impromptu even as they continue fighting it. They are also putting a brave face on it.

The Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine on Mykhailivska (St Michael’s) Square in Kyiv. (Photo: Olexiy Nazaruk, Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Yet, underneath, 90% of Ukrainians are suffering permanent psychological stress, says first lady Olena Zelenska. She is extremely active, heading a foundation that addresses aspects of life affected by war, such as mental health, education and trying to secure the release of the thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by the Russian invaders. The president had told us that, in the eastern city of Kharkiv, which was constantly under shelling, most children were going to school in the underground rail system.

His wife says 30% of Ukrainian children are being taught online. Children are particularly vulnerable to the psychological stress of war and her foundation sends them to camps in the countryside for recovery.

She herself looks strained, but says she does her best to hide her emotions so as not to make others lose hope. She trusts the experience of Russia’s aggression will make her and her compatriots stronger. “And It won’t make us cruel in response; we will preserve our values.” DM

Peter Fabricius visited Ukraine on a fact-finding tour for African journalists sponsored by Ukraine’s foreign ministry, Renaissance Foundation Ukraine and Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.