We are fighting to avoid becoming a Ukrainian shell of a Russian entity

About the author: Yuliia Boklah is a PR specialist and board member of the Helping to Leave charitable project, which has evacuated more than 21,000 Ukrainians from occupied territories or deportation since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

It’s Friday evening. I am wrapping up urgent work matters and glancing at the news.

In Ternopil, the rubble of a residential building destroyed by a Russian missile is still being cleared, and society is being rocked by new painful updates and heartbreaking stories.

That same evening, I learned that my colleague lived in that building — she survived by a miracle.

A week ago, a Shahed drone hit my apartment building in Kyiv. This morning, the Russian military shelled Zaporizhzhia. Some of my colleagues and a close friend of mine live there. My text messages to her are punctuated by the question “How are you?” with frightening regularity.

I see President Volodymyr Zelensky’s 10-minute address spreading across the internet, and my heart sinks. The most terrifying thoughts come to mind. I put my work aside and fearfully turn on the video. I listen for a bit and realize: despite the enormous amount of pressure and adversity, we continue to fight.

And it made me ask what has become the most essential of questions: what are Ukrainians fighting for?

For no one to dig their own graves at Russian gunpoint.

For no one to be shot dead for carrying a Ukrainian passport.

For parents not to be separated from their own children, whom Russia refuses to return.

For no children to be killed by Russian drones, aerial bombs, and missiles at playgrounds, hospitals, and at home in their cots.

For no child to be indoctrinated and forced to fight against their own people.

For no one to endure Russian torture chambers.

For no one to be killed for being Ukrainian.

For no people to be forced to choose between home and safety, between life and dignity, between losing their identity and the freedom to be themselves.

Such is the reality of life for Ukrainians in the occupation. These are actual stories of people we have rescued, and often those who are already beyond saving.

About 3 million people remain in the temporarily occupied territories.

Hundreds of thousands have ended up in Russia.

In global conversations about “peace,” the world hears of them mostly as statistics — people who supposedly “speak Russian” or who “voted” in a sham referendum, and are therefore presumed to belong to Russia.

If the words and actions of subjugated people held at gunpoint are an argument, if centuries of forced imposition of the Russian language in Ukraine are a reason to support Russia's criminal intentions, then we are living in a dark time of history.

What kind of world is this to make concessions to criminals who have doomed millions of Ukrainians to suffering? To a regime that pours billions not into the welfare of its own people, but into conquering a neighboring country and destabilizing others? To leaders who want to get away scot-free after starting the largest war in Europe since World War 2?

And yet, even in this reality, my people are not just fighting back; they are becoming better versions of themselves in the most challenging times.

They live, create, joke, criticize, and grow. They are destroying the colossus with feet of clay.

We are fighting to avoid becoming a Ukrainian shell of a Russian entity. Over the centuries, we've lost so many compatriots — physically and mentally — because of this very enemy.  And every day, we uncover new layers of the tragedy caused by Russia’s aggression, a tragedy we finally have the chance to end. By winning not just for the sake of it. But for our very existence.

Winter is coming. Will we get to live through it together?

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

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