Irina Gritsay ist eine unserer ukrainischen Partnerinnen im Projekt “Gemeinsam für Demokratie”. Aus Dnipro teilt sie mit uns ihre Erlebnisse, Gedanken und vor allem Gefühle nach zwei Monaten Krieg.
April 23, 59th day of full-scale war. Two months of war, is it a lot or a little? This is a whole life and this is one moment, a moment of horror, bitterness, despair, panic, rage, hatred of the enemy, love of neighbor, pride, courage, faith in our Army, faith in our Victory.
During this time, we have gone from peaceful people planning their future, raising children, working, traveling to participants in some kind of horror movie in which death and incessant rocket and bomb attacks are nearby. All this contradicts the essence of man and life itself. For two months, each of us, waking up in the morning, hopes that it was a nightmare, but this is reality and reality is worse than the worst nightmare. The Russian occupiers shock with their cruelty, quantity and sophistication of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bomb and rocket attacks on peaceful cities, hospitals, schools, mass executions of civilians, sexual violence against women, teenagers and even children, forced mass deportation of residents of the occupied territories to Russia, ban on humanitarian corridors for civilians who die from wounds, hunger, cold and dehydration. This sounds crazy, but it sounds even wilder that this is being done with the permission of the authorities from Moscow. Recently, the State Duma of Russia adopted a law on the decriminalization of war crimes. Is this the 21st century? No, this is a complete immersion of the aggressor country into the gray, grave-cold Middle Ages.
I will not describe to you the operational situation on the fronts - this can be learned from the media, but I want to convey to you the feeling of a modern European person who has fallen into some kind of diabolical surrealismDevilish even from the point of view of religion - church ministers in Russia "bless" their army for murders and crimes, and today, on the days of Holy Easter, brutal invaders write words of Easter greetings and congratulations on rockets and shells. This is beyond common sense. The cruelty and atrocities of the occupiers, regular nighttime rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities are designed to suppress the morale of Ukrainians, but, in fact, they act the other way around. This bestows on us even more fury in the struggle and irrepressible thirst for Victory, unites us even more into a single family called Ukraine, regardless of who you are by passport or religion. Today in our family there are Catholics and Orthodox, Muslims and Jews, people of all nationalities for whom Ukraine has become their home, people of different material wealth and education, people who in peacetime were members of different political parties and non-party. We are a family!
Believe in us as we believe in ourselves! At the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of our land, the military intelligence of the leading countries calculated that the Ukrainians would lose the war in 3-4 days. Probably, these calculations were based on cold mathematical and military-strategic data without realizing the spirit of freedom inherent in Ukrainians, without understanding our love for life and the desire to live in a democratic, prosperous Europe with its inherent human values. We are at war with a huge militaristic country with a totalitarian rule, which has large human and military resources, so we really need military and humanitarian assistance from all civilized countries. We are very grateful to all our friends and partners abroad.
What you are doing is invaluable. We thank the EAF very much for organizing and providing humanitarian aid to the university where the refugees live. We urgently need even simple human support, because we are now at the sharpest point in the struggle between light and darkness, the future and the Middle Ages.
We believe in Our Victory!
Glory to all Light Humanity!
Glory to Ukraine!
P.S. During the time that I was writing this text, Russia launched a rocket attack on the residential areas of the city of Odessa. Rescue work is underway. At the moment, there is information about 5 dead and 18 injured. Among the dead is a 3-month-old child, for whom this Easter did not become the first in his life.
