Different Ukraine
Certainly, Podolyak says, time is not on Ukraine's side. Just the opposite.
“A protracted war is the slow death of Ukraine,” he says. But the invasion's first anniversary, he insists, “means that we are on the right track.”
“It means that we have a different Ukraine,” he says. “It looks completely different.”
So different that pre-invasion life is an ever-hazier memory. Back then, statues in the capital, Kyiv, hadn't disappeared behind walls of protective sandbags. People didn't need to fill bathtubs when air raid sirens sounded so they have water if Russian strikes knock out supplies. They didn't download phone apps that issue shrill alarms when Russian missiles and killer drones are en route.
And those same apps didn't have “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill announcing when the danger has passed, reassuringly saying in his Luke Skywalker voice: “The air alert is over. May the force be with you.” Surreal.
Sotnyk, the former legislator, recalls the panic that gripped her when Russia's missiles first started striking Kyiv a year ago. She called up her mother and ordered her to pack. Now Sotnyk knows better than to dash across town in an air raid.
“It's not like we became braver,” she says. “We (just) became more aware of what does it mean — `war.'”
Before the invasion, Feb. 24 hadn't been much of a mover and shaker as a date in world history. Then Prince Charles and Lady Diana announced their engagement on that day in 1981. Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple, was born Feb. 24, 1955. In 1938, it was the launch day of the first nylon-bristle toothbrush, “Dr. West's Miracle Toothbrush.”
But in 1920, in Germany, it was also the day that Adolf Hitler presented a 25-point platform for the new Nazi Party. Back then, Hitler's audience couldn't have known that his speech in a Munich beer hall would prove to be a step toward World War II. Had they guessed, would they have turned back?
Feb. 24, 2022, hasn't led to World War III — not “yet,” pessimists might add. But the past year was, as Zelenskyy forewarned, full of pain, filth, blood and death.
And ahead: a grim abundance of more to come.