A HOLY WAR
CONCEDING NOTHING, UKRAINE WILL FIGHT TO THE END
ZAKARPATTIA OBLAST, UKRAINE —
Before the war, Misha, 20, had planned to become a civilian doctor, but war’s obscenities changed his mind. Now, he could be called into action any time.
Members of Maria Ostapenko’s family call her the best cook in Ukraine. I wouldn’t disagree. Last week, in a plain but functional kitchen, she served her husband, Grigory Ostapenko; son, Misha; and me a simple but savory dinner of Ukrainian meatballs, homemade mashed potatoes, buckwheat, fresh garden salad and a sweet jam that was sufficiently fermented to give me the whiff of a hangover the next day.
Exchanging empty plates for full ones, Maria, 52, said little as her husband, a retired warrant officer; and son, who recently enlisted in the Ukrainian Army, talked about Russia and the war. But her stoicism masked a mother’s worry for her son’s safety, and the tears she has already shed.
As a nurse, she knows, painfully and personally, the human toll of this war in the dying and maimed patients under her care. She has seen, I learned later, a Ukrainian soldier, after losing both his legs, beg to return to the frontline. “I hate them,” he screamed. “I want to kill them all.”
War and military service are traditions in the Ostapenko family. Misha’s grandfather fought in World War II. Misha’s father, Grigory, retired from the military in 2007 but remains a soldier at heart. “I’m 65 but give me a gun and I’ll go,” he said.
Before the war, Misha, 20, had planned to become a civilian doctor, but war’s obscenities changed his mind. He enlisted in the army and decided to become a military doctor. Now, he could be called into action any time.
“When the war started, I saw defenseless people — children 12 or 13
years old — die for nothing,” he said. “It was genocide. There can be no forgiveness for that. That’s when I made up my mind. I knew I had to go to war. I’m not afraid to die. It’s an honor to defend my country.”
There are no reliable counts of Ukraine’s military and civilian casualties, but some estimates exceed 20,000 deaths and an even greater number of injuries. Russian forces have suffered even more losses.
Facts about the war are horrific enough, but apocryphal stories about the enemy also grow in Ukraine’s blood-stained soil: It is rumored, for example, Russian soldiers take Viagra to facilitate the rape and mutilation of Ukrainian women. It is said they routinely rape or kill Ukrainian children or send them to Siberia to grow the population there. It is heard that Russians
bury, or burn, the bodies of Ukrainians in mass, unmarked graves to hide their atrocities.
Born 45 years apart, Misha and his father view the world differently. Misha likes American rap. He considered getting tattooed, before his father threatened, only half-humorously, to peel off his skin if he did. Yet, in his tone and demeanor, Misha’s respect for his parents is obvious.
On the war, father and son agreed: Ukraine should concede nothing to Russia, including land Russia annexed in 2014 in Crimea, in exchange for peace. Doing so, Misha said, would dishonor the thousands of civilians, children and soldiers who have already died.
His father was even more emphatic: “No, no, no, no, no,” he said, thumping the table for emphasis. “Should I give up what’s mine because a schoolyard bully takes all the lunch bags?
“If Russia isn’t stopped here, no place in the world will be safe from its treachery.”
The invasion aggravated an already deep-seated animus toward Russia among Ukrainians. Grigory’s father served with Russian soldiers during the Soviet era, and he warned him about their cruelty.
“They did terrible things to German women — just like they’re doing to Ukrainian women now, brutally raping them,” Grigory said. “They believe Ukrainians are not worthy of life.”
For centuries, other nations have dominated and oppressed Ukraine, Grigory said. That history has forged fierce and unyielding fighters.
“That’s in our blood, in our DNA,” he said. “We will not forget. We will not forgive. We will fight forever.”
Call to duty
By all available evidence, nearly all Ukrainian men believe this war is about an almost sacred duty to defend their country.
Few men, aged 60 and younger, fled the country after the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, even among those with large families who could leave legally. An even smaller number of men left
illegally, by bribing border officers or rushing unnoticed through crowded crossings.
With three underage children, Roman Volkov, 37, an auto mechanic from Kharkiv, could have easily left Ukraine. Instead, he sent his wife and children to Germany on March 7; the next day, he enlisted in the Army. Now he serves as a public defense officer at a railway station in western Ukraine, near the Hungarian border.
Like most Ukrainian man I’ve met, Mr. Volkov used a possessive adjective when referring to the nation or land of Ukraine.
“If everyone leaves, who’s going to defend my land?” he asked me.
Another soldier in Transcarpathia, Constantine Baranob, 28, walking out of a military base with his right arm in a sling, has seen no U.S. military equipment in battle, but had no complaints about returning to the frontline.
Mr. Baranob was injured on April 12 in the Donbas, he said, where he and a handful of other soldiers, using grenade launchers, repelled five Russian tanks.
“We backed them out of the city, but the tanks came back at night and fired on us,” he said in halting English. “We were so enthusiastic about defending our country we forgot the danger.”
During my first week in Ukraine, I heard only one complaint about the military. Misha Shkerta, an 18-year-old law student, told me his 47-year-old father was, two weeks ago, sent to the frontline in the Donbas region, untrained and unequipped.
Despite billions of dollars of U.S. and NATO military aid to Ukraine, Mr. Shkerta said his family had to raise money, through social media, to buy basic equipment for his father, such as a helmet, flak jacket, utility belt and boots.
“Soldiers are forced to provide equipment and ammunition for themselves,” Mr. Shkerta said, wearing a black Nike track suit in a crowded cafe. “They must, literally, fight without shoes.”
The Cossack spirit
But dissent is rare in this war-wracked country. More typically, the Russian invasion has resurrected an almost mystical belief in the nation’s indomitable bloodline.
Soldiers like Warrant Officer Valentine Borishkevich, 55, a decorated veteran from Crimea, tout their ancient lineage to the Cossacks, and consider their fight a holy war against an inferior — even subhuman — invader.
I talked to Mr. Borishkevich outside a military hospital in Transcarpathia, where he recuperated from an injury he suffered in Mariupol. He showed me photos of the thick darks scars covering his back.
Mr. Borishkevich weighs about 145 pounds, stands with a slight stoop, and speaks with a soft, soothing voice. He has a disconcerting way of looking down when he talks; his baseball-style military cap and tinted glasses covered much of his face.
Still, a brief talk with Mr. Borishkevich told me a lot about why Ukraine is whipping Russia’s behind. He is eager to return to the frontline — to help his “boys” — despite a punctured lung, six broken ribs and a shattered shoulder blade. Unlike the Russians, Ukrainians are fighting for their country on their own land.
History will remember this war for centuries, Mr. Borishkevich said. He has no doubt about its outcome.
“Ukraine is unbreakable,” he said, lighting his third cigarette in 45 minutes. “The Cossack spirit will always live in every Ukrainian. It’s in our blood.”
In 2014, as a retired military officer, Mr. Borishkevich re-enlisted after watching police in Kyiv kill dozens of anti-Russian protesters.
Not surprisingly, he considers concessions unthinkable. A courageous and uncompromising spirit might be Ukraine’s greatest weapon, but it could also sink negotiations to end the war.
Sadly, I see no end to this bloody fight, no end to the killing, maiming and mutilating, or the sorrow and heartbreak of exile. I see no compromise or ceding of land that would give Russia’s psychopathic leader, Vladimir Putin, a face-saving offramp, while satisfying Ukraine’s righteous thirst for independence, reparations and revenge.
“I will protect our land until my last breath,” Mr. Borishkevich said. “I would rather burn in Red Square than give up one millimeter of my land.”