For many Ukrainians this week feels like a betrayal, with Donald Trump’s peace plan proposal pushing aside all the things they hold dear and have been fighting for – the right to determine their future at the top of that list.
We waited last night, on the anniversary of the Holodomor, in the warmth of the small Thai takeaway in the old centre of Lviv. The western Ukrainian city is known for its cobbled streets, and party atmosphere, crowds of young men and women talking, laughing and shouting in the soft evening rain, the snow only expected later.
I know the restaurant well from my dozen earlier trips to Ukraine. It fits my bill perfectly as cheap and cheerful. During my first visit to Lviv, shortly after the war started in February 2022, I ate at the same place sat next to two bearded Americans who had flown to help train the Ukrainian Army. Both Afghan veterans, it was easy to find points of intersection and swap stories. I sometimes wonder what happened to them, whether they joined the International Legion, well known for its brave men and women, and high casualty rates, or whether they are today home safe in Ohio.
The takeout has three tables, situated cheek-by-jowl. Tonight, we chose to stay put and eat our Pad Thai in the snug atmosphere.
Shortly after we sat down, a very tall young man stepped into the restaurant. He was obviously shy, looking down as I looked up. His face was peppered with the dark grey marks of shrapnel, one eye missing, and with stumps where there were once hands. He ordered his food in a quiet voice, paid with his phone pincered between his stumps, and sat down next to us. When his bowl of soup arrived, he somehow produced a spoon from his manbag and, using his teeth and the other stump, velcro-ed it around his right stump. And then he silently tucked in.
After finishing, he politely thanked the waitress, and left.
Before leaving, I asked Snizhana (meaning “snow”) how many wounded came into the restaurant. “About three or four a day,” she replied, a tear in her eye. “I don’t know what it is like on the battlefield,” she said, “but seeing them gives me some idea. It makes me so sad, but it also makes me realise what it means to be Ukrainian.”
Ukraine’s biggest challenge today is not weapons or money, not even Donald Trump. It’s manpower. When the war started, the government decided not to call up people under the age of 27, the idea being to preserve future generations. But with the number of wounded and dead perhaps now more than half a million, the call-up age was lowered to 25 in April 2024. Additionally, a separate law was passed in July 2025 allowing individuals over 60 to enlist if they are deemed fit and request to do so. Now there is talk of reducing it further, to perhaps 22, and reassigning some of the other security services into the armed forces.
“Our” young wounded warrior in Lviv would have, given his age, had to have been a volunteer.
Read more: War in Ukraine
Today Ukraine’s army is about 800,000 strong. Even with the extensive use of drones and sensors, with an active frontline of about 1,000km, and 3,000km in total, the troops are thinly spread and constantly stretched.
The Russians are having an even tougher time, with perhaps 1.5 million casualties, dead and wounded. Then again, they are the invaders.
We ate in silence after the young man left. My sadness at his plight quickly turned to anger. “Fuck the Russians, fuck Putin and fuck all those who support him,” said my colleague.
When I was growing up, I used to attend a Scout camp every December. It was a great adventure, with the senior members of camp trying their damndest to instil a sense of duty and a modicum of safety while curbing the wayward bursts of teenage enthusiasm in a bedlam of boys. One of these older men, today my age, was a wounded veteran of World War 2, his face stained green by shrapnel, we were told in hushed tones, from an exploding mine, one eye also missing but replaced by a glass edition and not, as with the young man in Lviv, sewn shut.
I thought then, as I do now, that we would never see another war like the one I had studied so assiduously and Mr Du Toit had lived. But I was sadly wrong. Russia’s war in Ukraine is a grim hi-tech repeat of the grinding struggles of World War 1 and 2, each supposedly the war to end all wars.
Deep wounds
Oleksandra Matviichuk, the Ukrainian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Laureate, and a friend, wrote on the anniversary of the Holodomor, the famine engineered by Stalin which starved to death about five million Ukrainians: “On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holodomor, I will say only one thing. Ukrainians with weapons in 2025, are no longer Ukrainians without weapons who were starving to death in 1932-33. We had a good history lesson.”
The wounds and anger run deep. It is very difficult, for all of the whimsy of billionaires and convenience of an American president, to wish and wash away this history and stories of blood and sacrifice. There has to be justice for those who continue to perpetrate these crimes, starting with the Russian leadership.
I challenge anyone who thinks that Vladimir Putin’s colonial war on Ukraine was justified, to tour the battlefields of Kharkiv, Izyum and Kherson, as I have done, to take time to visit the wounded in the hospitals and rehabilitation centres, and visit the countless fresh graves in every single town and village through which you pass.
And if you don’t want to do that, then hold your tongue. DM
Dr Mills is in Ukraine to launch the local edition of The Art of War and Peace, co-authored with David Kilcullen.