The Russo-Ukrainian War and My Memories
Remembering the most historic events during 2022, so lest we not forget.
February 24, 2022, became a dark day. After much speculation, what was feared actually happened. The State of Russian Federation suddenly invaded the State of Ukraine under the pretext of a special military operation. Since then, the tension on the European Continent has been heating up.
Cause of Chaos
Launching from The Conversation, in February 2022, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin claimed that Ukraine and Russia are one unified nation. According to Putin, Russia, as the older brother of Ukraine, must take responsibility, in which Putin sees Ukraine as a younger brother country.
Most Ukrainians disagree, as they are inspired by their president, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy told Putin that Ukrainians wanted peace, but they would defend Ukraine’s independence if necessary.
Putin then invaded Ukraine with the aim of taking over the whole country. The Conversation explained that, “Ukraine is now fighting the Russian army, trying to defeat what they see as an occupation.”
My Memories
It all started on Thursday, February 24, 2022. At that time, I, as the founder of Written by IRIZU, was in an online learning class for Social Sciences. Midway through the class, I received sudden news from Instagram that Russia was launching missiles at key points in Ukraine, including airports, signaling that the invasion had begun.
Several days earlier, through international news, I received information that there were several groups of Russian troops moving on the Ukrainian border with the letters “Z” and “V” affixed to the bodies of their combat equipment. Many people have speculated about these letters, and today we understand that these two letters are letters that denote Russian war equipment in Ukraine.
According to The Guardian, the most popular theory is that the letters signify the region where Russian hardware is distributed. However, the Russian Ministry of Defense considers that Z means “for victory”, while V means “the power of truth”.
After understanding that I was one of the witnesses of the war, I immediately left my online class and turned to the television to watch some global news shows. Everyone immediately talked about one thing, and that was the invasion that had just happened. While watching, I chatted with my friends via WhatsApp messages.
When the chat ended, sometime after my online class had also finished, I then flipped from Instagram to Twitter looking for the latest and more information. From there, I started following one news account, then followed more accounts of local Ukrainians, until finally I ‘acquainted’ with Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) accounts, with the first I followed being Oryx and OSINTtechnical. OSINT itself is a form of collecting and correlating information that is open source.
The ongoing of each of these activities did not make me leave the television. While monitoring, I still watch the news on television. What was originally just news, often from CNN, then turned to live broadcasts on YouTube showing the results of surveillance camera monitoring in several regions of Ukraine, including the City of Kyiv which looks tense. Not to forget, I also watched the live broadcast of the United Nations (UN) organization, which was holding an emergency meeting. Thousands of people also do what I do.
Our Next Thoughts
This art is a precursor to the next, “Today A Year Ago, Russia Invaded Ukraine”, which will be released on February 24, 2023, and we already know what happened on that date in 2022. That art deals with the records of events during the war that we traced from our vantage point.
