‘A big bang or a grinding assault?” is one of many thoughtless headlines I see every day in the media. I must have missed the memo when we began treating the genocide of a nation as a guessing game on a bad reality show.  It seems that casually remarking on how many Ukrainians have been murdered and about what is to come with Russia’s new genocidal attack has become the new norm.

But no one has to keep guessing. There is no need. There are heaps of documented crimes against humanity that the Russians have brought to our land. We are in the middle of yet another horrifying time. Russians keep pushing forward with hundreds of thousands mobilised and tonnes of weaponry at our borders and on our occupied territories.

We have multiple daily attacks on our cities. New waves of missile and artillery attacks on our civilians and infrastructure are happening every day and night. We are leading up to the first anniversary of Russian terrorists invading our country. We are preparing for the fight of our lives as they line up their planes and helicopters, preparing a massive attack from the sky, as they did in Syria.

I am truly horrified that this is some kind of entertainment for people. When I open up a news article on Facebook or Twitter, I see hundreds of laughing emojis, with comments praising Putin and his hordes, literally cheering them on.

I grew up in Ukraine. I, of course, learnt about fascism from my grandparents, who lived through World War 2. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine witnessing fascists being reborn across the world in my lifetime.

A couple of days ago, I read an article by Svitlana Osaka for Time magazine. It is a detailed recollection of all that the people living in the small village of Yahidne went through at the beginning of Russia’s attack in 2022.

It is a heartbreaking fact that Ukrainians were held inside a basement for a harrowing month until Russians were forced out of that territory.

Unbearable

I had to prepare myself mentally and emotionally to read the article. It is unbearable to think about what people in occupied territories went through and what they are still going through every single day. This is what happened everywhere, not just in Yahidne…

I am going to leave you with some excerpts from the article. I hope that everyone who sees this text puts themselves in that place – if just for a second – and will understand why we are fighting these terrorists, murderers, rapists and paedophiles with every bit of strength we have. 

We know that if we ever stop fighting, there is going to be exactly this story about all of us… Is anyone going to be left to tell it?

We have no other choice but to win, to get Russian terrorists off our land. We must arm ourselves so that even a thought of attacking us never crosses their genocidal minds ever again.

Please read the full Time article here, if you can.

“Seven days after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops entered the village of Yahidne. They forced the residents out of their homes and into the basement of the local school, which they had turned into their headquarters. Until they withdrew on March 30, 2022, the Russians kept almost the entire population of Yahidne — more than 360 people, including children and the elderly—in that basement for nearly a month.

“It was so cramped, people had to sleep sitting up. Instead of a toilet, there were buckets. Food had to be foraged. There was no ventilation, so the oldest went crazy and died. The Russians did not allow the dead to be buried immediately, and when they finally did, they fired on the funeral.

“ ‘People jumped into the pit with the bodies,’ says one six months later, recalling the ordeal, at a feast for those who emerged alive. Many had not. 

“Anatoliy Yaniuk had been shot in the head on March 3. He was 30 years old. The Russians had executed him when he refused to lie down on the ground in front of them. ‘I am on my own land, and I will not lay down in front of you.’ Those were his last words, neighbours who saw the execution told his mother.

“Valeriy, his family, and Svitlana and Lilia were already in the basement, sharing the largest room with 150 other people. Later they calculated there was about half a square metre per person: 170 square metres, 367 people (including more than 70 children). They sat on the bench or on the floor, resting their heads on their neighbours’ shoulders, not knowing if they would live to see the next morning.

“During the day, people sat in the basement on chairs, benches, and the floor. They slept sitting up. They used bulletin boards to make a platform for the children to lie on. The only way to stretch your legs in those cramped conditions was to stand up. Svitlana and Lilia would take turns lying on two chairs, while the other lay on the floor underneath.

“The Russians had claimed that they sent the villagers into the basement for their ‘protection’, but it was clear they were human shields. The Russian military made their headquarters on the two floors above.

“Sometimes the Russians would give them crackers from their rations, and one time they brought a wheelbarrow of sliced bread. Some of the bread was mouldy, the rest was dirty, but the mothers still ran to the wheelbarrow, grabbed the slices of bread, and dusted them off to feed their children. The soldiers filmed the scene on their phones.

“The most humiliating thing was going to the toilet. They were allowed to use the toilet outside only during the day. But you weren’t allowed to leave the basement at night. There were three buckets in the gym for about 150 people. People stopped drinking water in the evening to keep from having to use them.

“The list of the dead is etched on a wall, next to a calendar. Valentyna Danilova maintained both. Before the invasion she worked in the kindergarten, directly above where she was now being held along with her husband and 83-year-old mother.

“Valentyna found an ember near the cooking fire and used it to write the first date. Then it became a daily ritual. ‘Did you remember to write down the day?’ the five-year-old boy next to her would ask every morning. Later, she began writing the names of the dead next to the numbers.

“But the real horror was the lack of oxygen. Valentyna compared it to a sinking ship – they were suffocating. Some of the oldest couldn’t handle it. They didn’t recognise their children. Screamed. Had conversations with dead relatives. Revealed family secrets. Then they died, sitting in a chair.

“By March 12, several corpses had accumulated. The Russian soldiers finally gave permission for them to be buried.

‘Do you know the Russian anthem?’

‘No.’

‘What about the Soviet one?’

‘I don’t know it.’

‘Here’s the anthem. If someone wants to go home to get food, they have to sing the Russian anthem.’

“Nobody sang the Russian anthem. People continued to die, and when they did, their bodies were taken to the boiler room where the living went to wash.

“When Russian terrorists ran, people waited for a long while not knowing what to do and what was going on until they came out.

“Someone found a radio. They had to hear the news, to understand if Yahidne was now under the control of Ukraine or Russia. But there was only music on the radio. Then someone realised the song was in Ukrainian. It meant Ukraine was still free.

“We all said that as soon as we got out, we wouldn’t step foot in that basement,” recalls Olha. But given the state of their homes, on their first night of freedom, most people returned to the place of their imprisonment.

“That night, nobody locked them in. In the morning, the people went outside whenever they wanted. ‘My first morning of freedom,’ Olha wrote in her diary. Out of habit, they boiled water and made breakfast. Then someone saw men in uniform coming out of the forest. The first reaction was to hide. But they looked closer and saw that it wasn’t a Russian uniform. Then someone shouted, ‘It’s our guys!’

“The people ran up to the soldiers, touched them with trembling hands to check that they were real, laughed, and cried.  

“The regional administration wants to preserve the school as a war memorial. The writings on the walls will be important exhibits: children’s drawings, the words of the Ukrainian anthem in a child’s handwriting; the calendar that Valentyna Danilova drew with charcoal.

“‘If we were to die, other people will learn how much we endured,’ Valentyna explains. This is why she kept these records.” DM