Voices of Ukraine
In support of the people of Ukraine, we give this space to Ira Lupu, Sana Shahmuradova, and Ksenia Bilyk, to convey some of the diversity of Ukrainian experience at this time.
1. Sana Shahmuradova
High up, and down. High up, and down. A few days before the war started, I had a dream. I was riding the bungee rope at a high speed, very high off the ground. I have a fear of heights and speed but there I was, swinging over the Ukrainian villages like a crazy pendulum. Then, I landed on some unknown terrain. I was naked, my skin bleeding from the ropes. Some foreigners surrounded me, offering help and clothes. I refused to wear the clothes: I was proud of my nudity.
The explosions started at 5 AM. Friends from all over the country started writing that they heard the explosions in their cities too. All shaking, I closed my eyes. I saw a bright blue horse, contoured with gold, shining above the Dnipro river. This horse was a spirit. Large spirit. Great spirit. It was moving, hitting the water with its hooves. I saw a spirit of Kyiv, of our Ukraine. This spirit is immortal!
I left all the artworks I made throughout the last two years in my apartment in Kyiv. I locked the door and left not knowing when I’ll get back.
What is war? Curfew. Fear. Hallucinations. Sleeplessness. Shaking hands. But also: faith. Pure faith. Pure love. Trust. Teamwork. Collective conscience. Courage.
2. Ksenia Bilyk
I didn’t change my clothes for 9 days. I don’t want to leave Ukraine. I don’t want to leave Ukraine. How can you leave your wife (your motherland), when she got hit by a war? We’re just heading to Lviv because it’s a little safer there, for now. The train is full of people from Irpin and Bucha, their houses demolished, their kids shaking. The railway station was a nightmare: people shouting, crying, howling, separating from their loved ones.
We are riding for 14 hours now. We slept standing in the hall so packed the train was. In the night, we had to stop a couple of times, hearing the rockets and planes above us. We weren’t able to take the phone out, otherwise they would see us and shoot us.
Such obvious things come to the surface now when the times are not peaceful. I got disillusioned, and I got enchanted with so many people.
I got enchanted with my dad. He is 69 years old. From day one, he was secretly (not in order to show off) trying to find how he can help in the village. He attempted to enter the territorial defense group. He looked for guns. He had no success because he is too old, so he made donations.
Yesterday, when we started thinking of leaving for Lviv, he decided to stay in Kyiv and defend it. Once again — secretly from us! On the train platform, he was letting all the women and kids in first. And then he told us: bye, I’m staying! My mom had a public nervous breakdown, and that’s the only reason he changed his mind. But he stood all night when many younger men were sitting. He didn’t eat so we have more food to eat.
He has no medal of honor on his chest but he protects us, silently, with his love and care.
3. Ira Lupu
I barely recall the first days of it all. The only thing I remember well is laying down in bed and shaking like an earthquake. And this real, physical feeling of slowly dying.
The news, with numerous instant air raid alerts, becomes your only lifeline — and your very personal sort of hell. Trying to help others comes as a natural bodily reaction, not some calculated act of grace. A friend came over to support me: he cut mango, split it open, and drizzled it with blood orange juice, Guatemalan style. A flash of white, I’m blinking my eyes: it is a water mine spilled with real human blood.
A lot of people who experience this war from a distance say that they have this insanely intense feeling of “a survivor’s” blame. I something else: confusion.
Why is my 83-old grandma, who lived the most dignified and honest life, in a warzone for the second time in her life, unable to leave it because she is so weak — and I’m not? Why did my close friend Yulia have to spend so many nights in a bomb shelter, with her parents sick with COVID at the time? A model and a retoucher, she can now tell the sound of anti-aircraft warfare from a Smerch rocket strike. Why was I so “lucky” to change my plane tickets, and not be in Ukraine during all of this? Buying these stupid mousse cakes instead of first aid kits and ammo and hearing New York City’s buzz instead of missiles flying overhead. How fair is that, and how is that possible at all?
It feels almost atrocious saying this amidst the news from the occupied Mariupol, where even children are shot and pregnant women buried under the grey concrete crumble. And maybe it’s my privilege saying this. And maybe it’s a sort of survival coping mechanism. But it’s day 14 of war, and I’m feeling optimistic. I’ve never seen the forces of evil and good distributing themselves so evenly. I’ve never seen Ukrainians, as well as the kindest of the people around the world, so unified. It has never been so obvious to me that the big global heart of humanity will prevail, even if bathed in tears of the innocent and the injured buried under the burnt debris of their houses.
However, we still have work to do to achieve that. These are simple things, but they can reboot and save humanity — not just the Ukrainians. They really can. Please donate to the verified charities that support Ukraine. Please demand action from your governments and call out their hypocrisy. Please bring humanitarian aid to your local centres. The Ukrainians are not only fighting for their lives, they fight to revive the whole essence of democracy, freedom, and love.