As I find myself back in my homeland of Ukraine, my friends and colleagues in Washington, D.C., have worriedly been asking me, “How is life in Ukraine these days?”
I would say it’s brutally normal. I’ve seen this movie before. I vividly recall being in Kyiv when Russia invaded Ukraine eight years ago.
One day that stands out is when a new bomb shelter was opened in my apartment building and men in military uniform were walking the streets. All this while the Gucci and Louis Vuitton boutiques remained open and young hipsters were hanging out at the coffee shops.
I was not prepared for war eight years ago. My generation was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Still, Ukraine’s relations with Russia have never been smooth. Other miserable recollections from that time include rolling blackouts with electricity supplied on an hourly basis and homework completed under candlelight. Everyday freedoms and expressions of human dignity in Ukraine were punished by our Russian neighbors through gas or electricity supply suspensions. Then everything got worse. Two revolutions, the annexation of Crimea, the Russian invasion in 2014, over 1.5 million people internally displaced, and now, more than 100,000 Russian troops along our border.
Russia often manipulates and tries to impose its will on Ukraine. We have tried to fight back. For us Ukrainians, it’s not a question of pride but of survival. Three of my grandparents fought for Ukraine and its freedom. All of them were tortured to death by the Soviet regime or sentenced to the labor camps for 25 years. We grew up traumatized by this experience and don’t have any favorable opinions about the Soviet era or today’s Russia, which is led by a former KGB officer.
Yet there is no fear anymore.
There is more a feeling of terror that makes you feel unnaturally calm. I think this is what all of Ukrainian society is experiencing right now. People go to work, women get their nails done, and barbershops are fully packed. Ukrainians are planning summer vacations while embassies are evacuating their people. That said, polls suggest that over 50% of Ukrainians don’t believe that President Volodymyr Zelensky can be an effective leader under further Russian invasion.
Regardless, the threat is real.
Unfortunately, we have too many fresh graves. They amount to 15,000 lives lost in the last eight years due to Russian aggression. We are not imagining it. This is reality, even if Russia never recognizes its own aggression — to name a few cases: Abkhazia, Transnistria, and Donbas.
I have always believed that there is no normal future for Ukraine with this imperialistic Russia at its doorstep. Russian President Vladimir Putin dreams of restoring the Soviet Union. If the world does not stop Putin, a normal, stable, and secure world will not be possible for anyone. The stakes are high.
A secure world order cannot be reached by sacrificing democracies to appease authoritarian leaders. It can be reached only by fighting back against the aggressor.
Veronika Velch, Ph.D., is a senior fellow for national security, innovation, and technology at the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy and a senior advocacy director at Ridgely Walsh LLC.
