Ukraine’s soil, among the most fertile in the world, is known as black earth. For centuries, its farming and agriculture have supported empires, serfs, nationalists, and communists. But these past three years, its black earth has run red with the blood of the fallen in the Russia-Ukraine war.
The Jerusalem Post recently spent time in Kyiv, where temperatures dropped to -14°C in the days leading up to the third anniversary of the Russian invasion. We spoke with government officials, leading businessmen, soldiers, and ordinary Ukrainians.
There is still much damage in Kyiv, and on Saturday night, it came under the heaviest drone attack of the war. Ukrainian officials said 267 drones had been launched. Sirens blared as the flowing comets of the Ukrainian defenses lit up the night sky.
When Ukraine co-hosted the UEFA European Championship in 2012 with Poland, arguably the second-most prestigious international soccer tournament, it seemed the country was on the cusp of something. Looking westward, Ukraine was embracing the 21st century with optimism. However, Russia was still by far its largest trade partner.
The ties that bound the two countries were shattered when Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a “special military operation” to ensure the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. On February 24, 2022, the Russian army crossed the border, and the Russia-Ukraine war began.
The war had really started eight years earlier, of course, when Russian forces occupied Crimea without firing a shot. But this was a full-scale invasion of a sovereign nation in 21st-century Europe.
Ukraine has since been taken back to a World War II-style battlefield – trenches, frontlines, and body bags.
There remains immense pride in how Ukraine repelled the initial invasion, when Russian forces advanced to within kilometers of Kyiv. A counteroffensive has since pushed the war largely to the eastern front lines in the heavily industrialized Donbas region. President Volodymyr Zelensky has done his best to keep the country from falling apart.
Exhaustion of war
The Ukrainians we spoke with do not speak kindly of the Russians. They remember cruelty and are exhausted by war.
At least 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers are estimated to have been killed, along with 12,000 civilians. Russia’s losses are estimated by the United States at about 700,000 soldiers.
At the unofficial memorial to fallen soldiers in Kyiv’s Independence Square, the beating heart of the city that has seen more than one revolution, a sea of blue-and-yellow flags and military portraits stretches before the towering monument to Ukraine’s 1991 independence.
Two elderly women stood there in the morning cold, speaking quietly as they faced the thousands of young men who once went ice fishing on frozen rivers in February – men who wanted to be scientists or dreamed of following in the footsteps of Ukraine’s three great heavyweight champions: Vitali Klitschko (now Kyiv’s mayor), his younger brother Wladimir, or the current champion Oleksandr Usyk.
In the rural villages of Ukraine, where populations sometimes number in the hundreds, cemeteries are filled with fresh graves of the fallen men of this war.
And the women, too. Thousands have volunteered to defend their homeland, playing a crucial role in Ukraine’s ability to hold out – and hold on. The Post spent time with the Bucha Volunteers Battalion, known as the Witches of Bucha, a group of women from across the country who are guarding the skies over the Kyiv suburb that Russian forces occupied in the early weeks of the war. Some of their weapons date back to WWII.
After Ukrainian forces regained Bucha, reports emerged of war crimes committed by the Russian military. Estimates range from scores to several hundred victims, most of them young men.
“The Russians lived in my apartment,” one female soldier told the Post. “They destroyed so much. I’m just glad they didn’t kill my cat.”
Kyiv is a beautiful city with warm, resilient people. Ukrainians do their best to help whenever they can. But there is an undercurrent of something they can never replace – the lost years of war.
If US President Donald Trump and Putin have their way, the conflict could soon be over. Talks took place last week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, between US and Russian officials. The Ukrainians were not invited.
Ukraine may lose more than 20% of its territory, but Putin will have lost face, both internationally and within Russia, where there is major discontent but no way to show it.
If the war were to stop tomorrow, which side would claim victory?