Polina Bashkina: Six months in, Ukrainians count the toll of war
A soldier helps an elderly man escape shelling in Irpin on March 6. Ten Russian shells are fired for every one Ukrainian artillery shot. Photo: Diego Herrera/Europa Press via Getty Images
On a cross, as if on a notice board, it is written: 'Here rests the number 451. Eternal memory.'
"The special military operation is going according to plan" for six months, according to Vladimir Putin. Every day, for six months, without waiting for our official Independence Day, Ukrainians have been fighting for the right to exist as a nation.
During this time, Ukraine has lost more than 40% of its GDP; inflation has reached 30%. More than 600 healthcare buildings and 1,500 educational structures have been damaged. But we can only think that on the cross, as if on a notice board, it is written: 'Here rests the number 451. Eternal memory'.
We want to count the days until the New Year, to count stars or sheep falling asleep. But - 'Number 176 rests here. Eternal memory;' 'Number 201 rests here. Eternal memory.' 'Number 163 rests here. Eternal memory.'
During these six months of the war, the occupiers have forcibly resettled to the Russian Federation more than 500,000 Ukrainians, including more than 120,000 children. They have been issued documents forbidding them from leaving Russian regions for two years.
During these six months, the Russian army has used more than 210 types of weapons and ammunition prohibited by international treaties. More than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured in Donbas, according to People’s Deputy of Ukraine David Arakhamia.
Ten Russian shells are fired for every one Ukrainian artillery shot. So far, our partners have transferred only 10% of the weapons requested by Kyiv, a spokesperson of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanni Malyar has said. Ukraine uses about 6,000 artillery shells daily on the battlefield, while Russia uses 10 times more.
The only reason for this war is that the empire is alive while it expands. As soon as it stops, it begins to crumble. There is no free space for expansion, so the only way is to capture independent neighbours, as the Nazi Reich did. Empires have no friends - they have spoils. Empires consider everything around them a resource, and Ukraine is the most valuable resource nearby.
But there are many evolutionary years between Ukrainians and Russians when it comes to this war. A Russian man carries a stolen baby blanket 5,000 km away, while a 12-year-old Ukrainian girl raises funds for the Armed Forces of Ukraine by playing chess on the street.
Ukraine's victory is not about expelling Russian soldiers from its territory, providing the empire a comfortable rest before the next wave of aggression. The victory is that the empire never again poses a threat to the existence of the Ukrainian nation. The empire must stop existing. Ukrainians cannot fight in every generation.
The Ukrainians believe that all talks about "first victory, and then everything else" is a dangerous mistake. There will be no victory without the fight against corruption, without judicial reform, without economic freedom, and without the promotion of Ukrainian culture. After all, victory requires partners, money, and the image of the future Ukraine, where you want to return and live.
But if Ukraine is not admitted to Nato at the end of hostilities, the war will continue. And it will be repeated as many times as Ukraine will be refused to join Nato.
Who will be better off if they finish off Ukraine and reach its western border? This is a question of European security because there will be no more "buffer zones". So if the world wants to accept millions of Ukrainian refugees, if it wants to continue to give weapons, spend vast amounts of money on energy sources, enter into confrontation with Russia again and again, then it can continue to veto Ukraine's accession to Nato.
The world may enter a decade of wars between democracy and authoritarianism. These will be big wars with the newest types of weapons being tested. As a result, tens of millions of people will become refugees worldwide.
Much more destruction could await the world. Where will Ukraine be at this time? On the side of the civilized world under the nuclear umbrella, or in the grey zone, which will always be a battlefield? This is what every Ukrainian is thinking about now.
But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz assured Vladimir Putin even before the start of the war that Ukraine would not join Nato in the next 30 years. He also spoke out against the ban on issuing visas to Russians.
But Scholz, who says that "this is Putin's war" - not ordinary Russians', knows sociology very well. For example, he knows how popular the idea in post-war (West) Germany was that the Germans in the Second World War were not the aggressors but the most prominent victims.
Tony Judt, in the book 'Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945', notes that "the prevailing image in Adenauer's Germany was the image of a triple victim: first at Hitler's hands; then at the hands of their enemies, and finally, thanks to the malicious 'twisting' of post-war propaganda, which - many believed - deliberately exaggerated Germany's 'crimes' and downplayed its losses."
The success of the films 'The Last Bridge' (1954) and 'Canaris' (1955) helped to popularize the idea that most good Germans during the war resisted Hitler.
There is a common opinion that the German nation was "re-educated" by the Americans after the Second World War. But, in fact, this "re-education" was perceived at that time with dull irritation, and it affected en masse only those who had either not been born or had not committed any personal crimes during the war.
On the contrary, those who took part in the war or actively supported it fled from the feeling of their own responsibility - to work enthusiasm and belief in their own status as a victim nation, not as a criminal nation.
It is no coincidence that not the first, not the second, not the third, but only the fourth chancellor of Germany knelt in Warsaw, and even then not until 1970.
So Scholz perfectly understands the moods of German voters (as well as some 'Russian friends') he can play on. And Ukrainians understand what reaction to the current war can realistically be expected from tomorrow's Russians.
And while the so-called "liberal Russians" are outraged, not by the murders of children in Ukraine but by the initiative to ban the issue of visas to Russians, Ukrainians count.
It's not the stars that they count. Not daisy petals. And not freckles on a beloved woman’s face.
- Polina Bashkina is a Ukrainian journalist now living in Ireland.
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