Iuliia Mendel

On Dec. 31, Russia launched massive missile and drone attacks on Ukraine. I was hiding in the bathroom and my neighbors were sitting in our common corridor when a visitor appeared from the stairwell. It was a delivery man. He had defied the air raid sirens and the sounds of explosions to climb all the way to the 15th floor to bring us the food that we had ordered the day before.

We found ourselves smiling: We could have died from a Russian missile, but this delivery man refused to let us stay hungry on New Year’s Eve.

This example might strike some as trivial.…  Seguir leyendo »

As the anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches, Ukrainians are bracing themselves for the next escalation. This time, the Ukrainian leadership is talking about it openly. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his traditional video address at the beginning of the year that “Russia is now gathering forces for another escalation. Together with our partners, we must make it clear to the ‘owners’ of Russia that no escalation will help them. The defeat of Russian aggression must remain without alternative”.

With its latest massive attack on Jan. 14, Moscow effectively confirmed the widely held view of Ukrainians that a victory for Kyiv is the only option.…  Seguir leyendo »

I couldn’t be more thrilled that Ukraine has finally liberated my hometown of Kherson.

Yet there are still countless problems ahead. The city has no water, gas or electricity. People are hungry and cold.

And then there are the moral and political problems — such as alleged collaborators.

Consider the story of my old high school civics teacher, Tatyana Tomilina, 56. When the Russians occupied Kherson in March, Tomilina — who already had a reputation as a pro-Russian separatist — seemed ready to help. They appointed her rector of Kherson State University, a high-profile cultural and political position that would have only gone to someone they believed willing to work hand-in-hand with the occupation government.…  Seguir leyendo »

Now that the Russians have withdrawn from the western bank of the Dnieper River, Ukrainians have been liberating village after village on the way to Kherson. One of them is Stanislav, about 24 miles from Kherson itself, where my aunt and uncle live. They’ve been under Russian occupation since March.

“We survived, we survived!” Those are the words that my aunt Antonina, 67, a Ukrainian language and literature teacher, kept saying to me, over and over, when I called her. Thursday morning she woke up to find the Russian troops had abandoned her village. The soldiers left many of their belongings behind, as if their departure was completely unplanned.…  Seguir leyendo »

Millions of ordinary Ukrainians are fighting a new war this month, far from the front lines. They’re fighting cold and darkness rather than enemy soldiers and bullets and artillery. But if the first results are any indication, they’ll be up to the task.

To see what this war looks like for many of us, you just have to step into an elevator. Natalia Horban, 36, and her 18-month-old daughter Alina returned to their apartment building after a late morning walk last week. They arrived 10 minutes before noon, when a scheduled blackout was supposed to start. But no sooner had they entered their elevator than the power gave out.…  Seguir leyendo »

It all started around 8 a.m. on Monday. My husband and I were going about our usual morning routine. I was making an omelet and coffee when we heard the first explosions. We rushed to the window, not able to believe this was happening again (even though the air-raid sirens had already been wailing for an hour and a half). When we opened the window, we heard rolling thunder, even though the sky in Kyiv was completely clear. The sound of exploding missiles always reminds me of the sounds of a storm, but it is far more menacing knowing that death is coming, not rain.…  Seguir leyendo »

It was Aug. 24, 1991, a nice warm day in Kherson, in southern Ukraine, and my parents, grandparents and aunt were all glued to the black and white TV. It was the last days of summer in our quaint Soviet village, and we were just 10 days from my 5th birthday — but confusingly for me that was not the topic of conversation.

That day Ukraine became an independent nation. I remember heated discussions. Most Ukrainian families were waiting for independence, but many were afraid. They all knew what they were losing, but they didn’t know what they were gaining. The future was murky.…  Seguir leyendo »

Most schools in Kyiv sit dark and empty these days. Russia’s invasion in February sent children back home for distance learning, and then the summer vacation started. But this school gym is packed — not with students, but with women cutting pieces of cloth, weaving, chatting.

“We do this for you, you should tell us what you need”, a woman tells a man with a military uniform.

The gym equipment has been pushed to the side and fishing nets and colorful rags are stacked on the floor — when the women are done, the nets and rags will become camouflage for equipment and troops in the front.…  Seguir leyendo »

Arranging an interview with Kateryna is difficult. The situation on the front line, where she serves, is complicated and constantly changing. In the Ukrainian army, she is a marksman — a role mostly filled by men, as she proudly notes in a recent video call.

A native of the town of New York in the eastern Donbas region, 44-year-old Kateryna — who requested we use only her first name — has dreamed of joining the army since she was 6 years old. Back then, women had limited functions in the Soviet military, mostly focused on helping male soldiers and not actually fighting.…  Seguir leyendo »

Every day, I make emotionally grueling calls to my family in Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson, currently under Russian occupation. Each time I call, long beeps pierce my agonizing speculation: Are they going to pick up this time; are they going to speak in normal tones, or will there be despair? If there is no communication, is it because of cell tower damage? Are they sitting in a bomb shelter? Or are they just no longer alive?

The occupation has lasted in the city of Kherson, the only provincial capital that has fallen to Russians, since the beginning of March. Moscow has forcefully installed an occupation government there, which recently appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to join Russia.…  Seguir leyendo »

The journey to Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region is still complicated by the lack of bridges, which the Ukrainian military blew up in late February when the Russian army began its advance on Kyiv. The Russians were expelled from the Chernihiv region in early April, but the memories of that terrible offensive can be seen all around, despite the blooming spring and millions of yellow dandelions.

Along the road, there are remnants of burnt tanks and broken trees, the hits of military ammunition visible on the asphalt.

As we drive into the villages, my fiance and I see destroyed buildings. The school in Novyy Bykiv, about 65 miles from Kyiv, has broken windows; on the other side, we see a shelled kindergarten with a torn roof.…  Seguir leyendo »

When we meet, 40-year-old Danylo Voronov holds out his left fist, as has become popular during the pandemic. But it’s not covid-19 that is worrying the Ukrainian soldier.

“I haven’t learned how to shake hands firmly with my left hand yet”, he explains. His jacket’s right sleeve hangs loosely after his arm was torn off during a retreat in Donbas on March 3.

He says he is lucky, as the comrade on his left in the armored personnel carrier and the nurse on his right were both killed. In the moment, he saw blood on his shoulder but did not immediately realize he had lost his arm.…  Seguir leyendo »

The air sirens have not stopped. “There are no safe cities in Ukraine anymore” is the phrase heard on the streets. On Monday morning, Russia fired missiles against targets in this western city, killing seven people and injuring 11, including a 3-year-old child.

Lviv has become a destination for displaced Ukrainians, diplomats, aid workers and journalists. But the war is here, too. The fact that Russia retreated from attacking the capital, Kyiv, appears to have tricked some around the world into believing that Ukrainians were heading to a fast victory.

But fear, trauma and grief are still part of our daily lives.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cuando Pavlo me dijo con una sonrisa críptica que tenía noticias, pensé que me hablaría de un nuevo envío de ayuda humanitaria y los problemas que estaba teniendo para entregarlo. Pero lo que me dijo me dejó paralizada.

“No puedo sentarme junto a la falda de una mujer en plena guerra”, me dijo, tratando de expresar toda la ternura posible. Mi prometido se iba al frente de batalla, y lo único que pude hacer fue preguntarle, entre lágrimas, por qué.

Hace unas semanas, cuando las bombas rusas comenzaron a estremecer a Ucrania, abandonamos nuestras vidas en Kiev y nos mudamos a la ciudad occidental de Leópolis con algunas maletas y nuestros dos gatos.…  Seguir leyendo »

When Pavlo told me with a cryptic smile that he had news, I thought he was talking about a new shipment of humanitarian aid and the challenges to deliver it. But what he told me made me go numb.

“I can’t sit by a woman’s skirt when there’s a war”, he told me, trying to summon as much tenderness as he was capable of. My fiance was going to the front lines, and all I could do was tearfully ask why.

A few weeks ago, as Russian bombs began to pummel Ukraine, we fled our lives in Kyiv and moved to the western city of Lviv with a few suitcases and our two cats.…  Seguir leyendo »

I grew up in Kherson, a city of 320,000 in southern Ukraine. Every day I walked by the regional administration building on my way to school. That’s why when I saw the video of a man waving two Ukrainian flags in front of a row of Russian tanks, I knew exactly where that was.

The Russians are now occupying my hometown — and also, it seems, my memories.

The mall where we shopped is a smoldering ruin. Another video showed corpses in the park where I used to go as a kid with my mother and my class to feed the swans.…  Seguir leyendo »