The war goes on. A bloody, difficult war
Ukrainian military (Photo:REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak)
I find it a little strange to hear from every corner that the war will end in 2023. No, this is not pessimism. On the contrary, this is positive thinking, dreams of concluding my service, and and returning to a peaceful life. But no one knows the truth.
Since the beginning of the war, I have been communicating a lot with foreign journalists and people from various cultural institutions. Well, it is clear that Ukraine is currently in the focus of attention, and therefore those who love and know how to talk about it are valued in the information field. I don't know why foreign journalists decided that I am the person to do this, but so be it. This is also part of my job, so I will do it.
So, I noticed a significant change in the rhetoric of the vis-a-vis. From the cries of sympathetic horror and words of support that were in their essence close to epitaphs in February and March, to the current vicarious delight and bravado-filled exhortation, saying, let us defeat that terrorist hydra as soon as possible, lest "never again" come again. Almost no one talks about the surrender of Ukraine's interests or the forced acceptance of capitulation for the sake of establishing European peace, and vice versa — the progressive world community encourages and even pushes us to more aggressive resistance. They have discovered faith in us, and their doubts have disappeared.
But in reality, while Russia’s is an unmotivated army, it is numerous, with well-trained units that know how to kill and, worst of all, love to kill
The resilience of Ukrainians is amazing. Their victory is certain. As a person who serves in the Ukrainian army and who is face-to-face with military life, I see only that closeness — that is, my focus is on the direct fulfillment of my own duties and the tasks of my unit. The information that concerns me directly is more than enough, but in order to see the broader picture of the unfolding of events across all the fronts, neither operational nor physical memory is enough. Undoubtedly, military personnel stationed at different parts of the front share all kinds of information. It is not always verified or up-to-date, thus piecing together this trench puzzle is not an easy task.
What does it say? Only that we have begun to abuse the word "victory," and although its unconditionality is obvious, it is almost impossible to see it through the fog of war. The war continues. A bloody, difficult war. In this war, obvious good is fighting unconditional evil. Enemy missiles, drones, artillery, equipment. Russian mobiks, contract soldiers, convicts, and mercenaries of various extractions. All of them look like pathetic clowns only in the videos of our PSYOPs.
But in reality, while Russia’s is an unmotivated army, it is numerous, with well-trained units that know how to kill and, worst of all, love to kill. They are on someone else's land, and they don't care about the suffering of the civilian population. Truly, they are indifferent to the suffering of their people, so they often use the saying "beat your own so that others will be afraid."
But the fact is that we have not been afraid for a long time. And despite the difficult months of shelling, blackouts, and mass graves, we are stoically enduring this war, and even more so, we are rehabilitating ourselves step by step after the confusion of the weeks of the first invasion, and we are clearly moving towards victory. And no, this is not mere emotional rhetoric, but simply a statement of the obvious.
The world is seeing this, including even neutral people, such as, for example, the gentleman who recently told me in a German town after my speech: "I don't want your or Russian soldiers to die, but I can't help but admit that that Russia will lose. We want the war to end. If peace agreements are impossible, then let the strongest win soon. Congratulations, you are the strongest."
I must admit, it's a little strange to me to hear from every corner that the war will end in 2023. No, this is not pessimism. On the contrary, it positive thinking, dreams of concluding my service, and returning to a peaceful life. But no one knows the truth, and any analysis nowadays looks somewhat unbalanced, if not one-sided. In general, in any war, analytics is a thankless matter. Long-term predictions are nothing more than the inability to see anything close to the truth in the short term. And this is important.
And here I think that the main task now is to survive the winter with its blackouts, razed and emptied cities, and regions without electricity. A winter in dugouts and trenches, in pharmacy queues and queues at water tankers, with empty power banks and magazines for AK-74s.
The winter of 2023 is the key to victory, and if at the beginning of the war we talked about the preservation of Kyiv and Kharkiv as symbols of invincibility, then as we approach the first anniversary of this full-scale war, the main efforts should be directed to survival of an energy apocalypse unprecedented in the modern world .
And here my forecast has a bright, optimistic color: Ukraine will get out of this winter alive. With our generators and power banks, our boilers and stove heating, our water carriers and Starlinks. We will get out of it. And then we can confidently talk about victory in the short term. Or even as a fait accompli. Who knows? Nobody knows.
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