Exactly one year ago, I was lying in my bed, about to fall asleep, when I started receiving dozens of notifications on my phone. Tweets, news alerts, text messages from friends. We'd all been waiting and wondering what the military buildup on Ukraine's border meant. What would happen now that Russia had claimed to annex Donetsk and Luhansk? We heard that people were being evacuated from the Donbas. What did it mean? Another provocation after years of little green men and proxy warriors erecting borders where they didn't belong?
There are explosions in Kyiv, someone there told me. It was late, but I knew I wouldn't sleep that night.
I thought about the last time I was in Ukraine, how I'd spent a weekend wandering through sunny, crowded streets and bought a clay statue of a black cat as a souvenir. I went to speakeasies, Georgian restaurants, and a coffee shop where Femen activists hung out.
A State Department official warned me that I should enjoy it while I could because Kyiv would soon be the new Prague, and it would be overrun with tourists. Unbearable, they muttered. At least most Americans hadn't figured out how beautiful Kyiv is.
A year later and even President Joe Biden is going to Kyiv. But not for the reasons we previously expected.
This week, to mark the first anniversary of Russia's invasion, I talked to dozens of people in Ukraine about the war still taking place in that country twelve months after the first explosions began. I thought about how to maintain our audience's interest in something that now appears commonplace, even for many Ukrainians.
People are resilient. They've learned to live under the constant threat of missile or drone strikes. They go about their business, and sometimes they die because of it. But time and time again, I've been told that those strikes will not break Ukraine. People believe in a Ukrainian victory, and sometimes Ukraine seems to be winning even though their armed forces are vastly outnumbered.
Still, over 7,000 civilians are dead, including hundreds of children. And those are just the deaths people can confirm. Although no one will publicly say how many Ukrainian soldiers have died, some believe that around 100,000 have been killed. No future victory can make up for those lives lost, for all those utterly avoidable deaths.
You can read two of the stories I wrote this week for free. I linked to them below. And here are a few quotes that didn't make it in the pieces, but that nonetheless stood out:
You can make a perfect warrior out of a waiter, a librarian, a driver. I saw the evolution of so many people who joined the army 9 months ago. They used to be very scared. They didn't know what to do. Now they are completely different people. But the worst thing is losses. That is completely unbearable. - Taras Berezovets, a political analyst fighting on the frontlines.
The question is how effective the Ukrainian counter offensive can be, and that depends mostly on what weaponry we can receive. ATACAMS, long-range missiles, that is most important. - Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament.
What I'm writing:
Life is very mixed. Sometimes it’s very normal. People are in cafes and walking in the streets. But then there will be a missile attack or news from the frontline that someone is killed or wounded.
My comment for @nationaljournal @CrisLeeMaza https://t.co/uYku4dkYBF— Oleksiy Goncharenko (@GoncharenkoUa) February 24, 2023
• I spoke to people in Ukraine about how they survived the last year of war. For all their resilience, people are burnt out, exhausted, and tired of watching their friends die. Many worry Western weapons won’t arrive quickly enough to save more lives. This story is unlocked and free to read.
• The war in Ukraine has shown the world that conventional wars are not a thing of the past. But it also demonstrated that the size of a country’s armed forces doesn't determine who will be victorious on the battlefield. This story is unlocked and free to read.
NEW: At this grim 1-year mark, the war in Ukraine has shown the world that conventional wars are not a thing of the past.
But it also demonstrated that the size of a country’s armed forces doesn't determine who will be victorious on the battlefield. https://t.co/oTBpOp4VKo— Cristina Maza (@CrisLeeMaza) February 23, 2023
What I'm reading:
One of the most iconic images of the last year is when Ukrainians decided to fight and not give up. I still remember when the President of Ukraine posted a video: “The president is here. The national security advisor is here. The minister of defense is here. We are here.” pic.twitter.com/JjWpPZtHRa
— Roman 🇺🇦 Sheremeta (@rshereme) February 23, 2023
• For Resident Advisor, Maria Berezovska writes about the experiences of Ukrainian electronic music DJs during one year of war. "At first, many clubs and parties invited Ukrainian artists to play or donated part of their revenue to humanitarian efforts. But throughout the year, the support has faded, as so often happens when the media interest shifts. But in reality, the tragedy has only grown bigger."
• Read Keith Gessen's piece on Russia one year after the invasion of Ukraine for the New Yorker.
• After the Russian invasion, some 20,000 foreigners flooded into Ukraine to protect the country. A year into the bloody conflict, few remain. VICE has the story.
• The average lifespan on the frontline of the fierce fighting in the city of Bakhmut is "four hours," according to an American fighting side by side with the Ukrainian army against Russian forces in the Donbas. ABC has the story.
• Germany, France, and Britain see stronger ties between NATO and Ukraine as a way to encourage Kyiv to start peace talks with Russia later this year, and are floating the idea of a defense pact with Kyiv, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin generated revenues of more than $250 million from his global natural resources empire in the four years before Russia invaded Ukraine, despite being under Western sanctions, according to an investigation by the Financial Times.
• Stung by a string of defeats in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen to outsource the war to warlords and their mercenary armies. As these warlords gain power, rival groups are emerging to challenge them, according to the Center for European Policy Analysis.
• Belarus said there was a significant grouping of Ukrainian troops massed near its border and warned that this posed a threat to its security, Reuters reports.
• Unknown activists in Belarus raised a large Ukrainian flag on a high-rise building in Minsk on February 24, the anniversary of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Radio Free Europe reports.
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a new volunteer territorial defense force to ensure the country is ready to respond to an act of aggression, Reuters reports. The force will have 100,000-150,000 volunteers or more.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled a 2012 decree that underpins Moldova's sovereignty in resolving the issue of the Russian-backed separatist region of Transdniestria, Reuters reports. The revocation of the decree does not necessarily indicate that Russia rejects Moldov'a independence.
• Russia accused Ukraine and Moldova of plotting a false flag operation in the breakaway region of Transnistria, Al Jazeera reports.
• The Beet (part of Meduza) has a newsletter feature about whether Latvia is actually experiencing a leftward shift politically.
• Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson indicated that talks with Turkey about the country’s NATO membership will resume in mid-March, Reuters reports.
• The site of ancient Antioch — a crossroads of civilizations and a modern tourist and religious pilgrimage destination in southern Turkey — is one of the cities left most devastated by the Feb. 6 earthquake that killed tens of thousands in Turkey and Syria, NPR reports.
• A Spanish reputation management company’s ‘blackhat tactics’ help bad actors around the world erase their past, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reports. "Officially, the man behind Eliminalia is Diego “Didac” Giménez Sánchez, a 30-year-old Spanish entrepreneur now thought to be living in Georgia. Sánchez claims to control a sprawling network of companies, including a Ukrainian surrogacy business under investigation for trafficking in babies."
• The Biden administration announced a new immigration policy barring migrants from applying for asylum in the U.S. if they failed to apply for protection in a safe third country or if they entered the U.S. illegally, Politico reports.
• An immigration court in the United Kingdom upheld a 2019 decision to strip citizenship from Shamima Begum, who traveled to Syria from London with two friends to join the Islamic State terrorist group in 2015.
• Mexican lawmakers passed wide-ranging measures overhauling the nation’s electoral agency, the New York Times reports. The Supreme Court is expected to hear a challenge to the measures in the coming months. If the changes stand, election officials say it will become difficult to carry out free and fair elections.
• Israel launched airstrikes targeting alleged weapons sites operated by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, CNN reports. The strikes follow the Israeli Defense Force's raid in Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Eleven people died, and nearly 500 individuals were injured during the raid.
• The head of the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group is working with rebels in Chad to destabilize the government, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Nigerians head to the polls in what could be a historic presidential election, the Washington Post reports. The race is the most transparent and the most closely contested since democracy returned to Nigeria in 1999, with a third-party candidate running neck-and-neck in the polls with the candidates from Nigeria’s two main political parties.
You can write to me for any reason: c.maza@protonmail.com.