I was not ready for war in my home country. I was not prepared to hear about death every day… Europe had not seen war in nearly 70 years, already three generations had been born without seeing war; it was a thing of the past, an abstract situation that was horrible yet would not repeat itself in our lifetimes, or, at the very least, something from a different world, a different country far, far away, something I personally would never be touched by.
So when the first three people died in January 2014 during the Revolution of Dignity, it was a complete shock. Then, more people were killed, the death toll reached dozens, then hundreds. Our corrupt, delinquent, pitiful president Janukovich fled to Russia, where he is among his own, hiding till this day. Then, for four blessed joyous days I lived with the belief that the killing was over, that we had won and had reached the light at the end of the tunnel, unsuspecting that it was actually the headlights of the oncoming train…
Russia invaded and annexed Crimea within two weeks, Russian “tourists” started coursing South-Eastern cities of Ukraine, causing chaos and staging violent protests, killing more people in the process. Then with the new influx of Russian terrorists, an anti-terrorist operation grew into a war in Donbas. Hundreds of victims became thousands, and unofficial death tolls now reach into tens of thousands of people…
At this time I was geographically far away from the war, yet still caught in this whirlwind of activity and emotions, caught off-guard, unaware of what was going on around me. It was like Pandora’s box had opened and I was staring into the abyss of it, and darker and scarier monsters kept coming out of it… Just when I thought no more things would come out, new horrors came one after the other, each one bigger and mightier than the previous one.
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