Recollection of an emotional moment in the sunflower country

(Mosaic, Ternopil, august 2024)

That morning, I woke up in the right state of mind, for once. Out of bed early, with a nice drip coffee and a few podcasts ready to be played in my earbuds, I was set for a morning stroll before I went on a humanitarian mission. I had recently arrived in Ternopil, a city of over two hundred thousand inhabitants, with Soviet architecture frozen in time, like many of these mid-sized Ukrainian cities. The day before, I had spotted a beautiful mosaic on a communist-era block near the city center. I intended to find it. Little did I know I would never reach it.  

In all candor, I am not known to be an overly emotional being. Expressing and showing my feelings was never my strong suit. Even when faced with the victims of this atrocious conflict, in military hospitals or in internally displaced shelters, I always remained unfazed. I have seen other volunteers cry at the sight of memorials to the fallen or at pictures of alumni from a primary school who died in the first year of the war. As the seemingly emotionless person in our NGO, the others often turned to me for reassurance in tough situations. Unbeknownst to me, I was absorbing a share of their sorrows each time, building up in me like cancerous cells. That day on Ternopil’s main street came the final straw.

(Government building, Ternopil, August 2024)

Out of the hotel, I went straight onto the main street. Walking up along a park, I passed by an old soviet memorial, or what was left of it since it was dismantled by the authorities when the war broke out. Insulated from my surroundings due to the podcast playing in my ears, I did not hear the ambulance’s sirens coming from behind. My first hint that something was off was the traffic slowing down, then suddenly stopping. When all the cars parked on each side of the road, the drivers and passengers got out, quickly removing their hats and sunglasses whilst joining their arms behind their backs, heads slightly tilted down. This was when I knew that, driving up behind me, a funeral procession was coming. After nearly two months of volunteering in Ukraine, I was unfortunately accustomed to such macabre convoys. I swiftly turned around, removed my earbuds, linked my arms in front, and waited for the ambulance to drive by. This must have been one in a dozen processions I had witnessed, but it hit differently for the first time. Overwhelmed by the emotions, I couldn’t hold back my tears. Once over, and the cortège disappeared over the hilly street, the drivers and passengers entered their cars and returned to their morning commutes. The traffic slowly thawed from its gloomy frozen state, an unfortunate routine in Ukraine. I put back my podcast, but instead of heading towards that communist-era block, shaken by the emotions, I turned right and sat in the garden to reflect on the experience.

(Mosaic, Ternopil, August 2024)

The impact of the conflict can be felt immediately when entering this country. Every city, town, and village has its own memorial to the fallen, reminiscent of the First World War memorials I am so familiar with in my home country, France. Daily, in each Ukrainian town, there are processions for the fallen “heroes.” This is the true cost of this war, the extent of which Westerners fail to comprehend.

Ukrainians’ bravery and determination in the face of this brutal and unjust invasion is admirable. They are paying with their blood the price for our democratic values while we are merely allowing them to keep fighting through heavily restricted military support. Escalation fears have proven overblown: let’s untie Ukrainians’ hands and allow them to punch back, with the full support of Western intelligence, to reduce the risk of civilian casualties on Russian territory.

In advocating for unlimited support, I do not wish to see both Ukraine and Russia set ablaze, nor do I wish that by provoking its leaders, Russia would be foolish enough to go after a NATO member in a sign of desperation, bringing us closer to a global conflict. On the contrary, I want this bloodbath to end for these nations’ sake, and hope that peace through Ukraine’s victory will give Russians a taste of the thing we cherish the most, but often fail to see its merits: freedom.