Daily Archives: June 7, 2022

Ukraine must win. Russia must lose. It's really that simple.

So, Let's first stipulate that you agree with that end goal, as has everyone from U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

To embrace anything less would be immoral, set a historical precedent with catastrophic costs, and unravel what remains of our fraying international order of rules and institutions.

President Biden laid out the argument clearly in his New York Times op-ed this week. His words should be read closely by all members of his administration and NATO allies who are still acting too tentatively in providing Ukraine the weaponry, and the freedom of action in using it, to ensure Ukraine's victory.

"Standing by Ukraine in its hour of need is not just the right thing to do," wrote President Biden. "It is in our vital national interests to ensure a peaceful and stable Europe and to make clear that might does not make right. If Russia does not pay a heavy price for its actions, it will send a message to other would-be aggressors that they too can seize territory and subjugate countries And it would mark the end of the rules-based international order and open the door to aggression elsewhere, with catastrophic consequences the world over."

In short, we must stop Russian President Vladimir Putin now to ensure the rule-of-the-jungle doesn't replace the rule-of-law.

Why write all this now, as Putin's war in Ukraine passes its hundredth day?Most simply, it's because Putin is showing grinding gains after shifting tactics in response to Ukraine's unexpected victories and resilience, and Russian troops' heavy losses and abysmal performance in the war's early stages.

Putin's brutal new approach is to pulverize Ukrainian population centers in eastern and southern Ukraine with stand-off weapons, thus emptying them of their people through death or flight, with less risk to his own troops, replicating the brutal tactics he deployed in Syria. Once these cities and towns are drained of their humanity, his troops can then "liberate" the rubble, seize the territory, and position Russia for the most advantageous peace deal possible, or a further offensive.

At the same time, Putin has been striking at Ukraine economically by blockading its grain exports and either destroying or stealing its available supplies. Though Putin continues to choke on tough sanctions against him, he is willing to risk starvation elsewhere while wagering that he can outlast Western support for Kyiv through upcoming election cycles and other democratic distractions, such as the recent U.S. school gun shootings and Supreme Court battles.

There is a way, however, to counter Putin's new tactics. It will require the newly united West and its Asian partners to grow even more determined, creative, and proactive through a combined military, economic and public relations offensive that would again put Putin on his back feet.

The aim should not be to ensure a stalemate, which has allowed Putin to take 20% of Ukrainian territory, nor pressure Ukraine into a self-defeating peace agreement, but rather to give Ukraine the means to retake territory through a counteroffensive perhaps most importantly at the strategic southern Ukrainian city of Kherson which would ensure access to Odessa and to the Black Sea now and in any eventual peace agreement.

Most important is for Ukraine's potentially fatigued supporters, and even for those countries still sitting on the fence, not to lose sight of the barbarity of Putin's atrocities and thus the moral responsibility to oppose them.

"It's extremely important that we don't forget the brutality," Jens Stoltenberg, NATO's secretary general, told the Atlantic's Tom McTague in the most emotional of terms. "Of course, it is emotional. This is about people being killed; it's about atrocities; it's about children, women being raped, children being killed."

With that in mind, it's flat wrong for the U.S. or any arms supplier to limit Ukrainian fire to hitting only Russian targets on Ukrainian soil. In his otherwise excellent op-ed, Biden wrote, "We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia."

Think about that for a moment.If someone is killing your family members by shooting across a fence from your neighbor's yard, what good is a weapon that can only shoot as far as your side of the fence? If you don't take out the shooter, the killing continues. It's this kind of self-defeating restraint that makes Putin so confident he can win through attrition.

At the same time, the collective West, working closely with Turkey, needs to open Ukraine's Black Sea ports, particularly at Odessa, to address a Putin-generated global food crisis and enable Ukraine to sell the 28 million tons of grain it has in storage.

For justification, one can call upon the Montreux Convention of 1936 which regulates traffic through the Black Sea and guarantees "complete freedom" of passage for civilian vessels.

Said David Beasley, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, "Failure to open those ports in Odessa region will be a declaration of war on global food security."

Historians point to the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939-1940 to demonstrate that a smaller but more determined country with less military strength can outlast Moscow and retain its sovereignty.

What's true is that Moscow then, despite overwhelming strength in tanks and aircraft, suffered severe losses and made few gains initially following their invasion in November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II.

Finland held off Soviet forces for more than two months, inflicting substantial losses before the Soviet Union adopted different tactics, and overcame Finnish defenses in February. Finland reached a peace deal in March 1940 that ceded 9% of its territory to the Soviet Union. Though Moscow's reputation suffered, and it was removed from the League of Nations, it came away with more territory than it had initially demanded.

On the negative side, Putin is every bit as determined as Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and shares Stalin's utter indifference to casualties and human suffering.

On the positive side, Ukraine is receiving dramatically more outside support than Finland did at the time.

Yet without even more Western resolve, Putin can still win, and Ukraine can still lose. Ukraine and the West need to show Putin a dead end and not an off-ramp.

Frederick Kempeis the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlantic Council.

The rest is here:

Op-ed: We must stop Putin in Ukraine before the rule-of-law is replaced by the rule-of-the-jungle - CNBC

Smoke hangs low over Europes skies. Most rises from pulverised Ukrainian cities, ruined by Russian artillery. Some, however, emanates from the ceaseless swirl of rumours about Vladimir Putins health. If there is smoke, does fire necessarily follow? What is gained by speculating about the dictators health? What might his wellbeing say about his decision to invade Ukraine and subsequent conduct of war? And what might it reveal about our own beliefs?

Todays whispers have two sources. The first is Putins dramatically changed appearance. As recently as five years ago, his face was lean and ruddy: past its best, but still passable for the staging of photos that depicted his impeccable machismo. Photos from this year tell a different story: Putins face is now grotesquely bloated. The second is a meeting between the Russian leader and his Defence Minister, Sergey Shoigu, on 21 April. The footage, which has been analysed as though it were a lost Zapruder tape, appears to show Putin gripping the table in an apparent attempt to remain upright.

Some believe Putins physical transformation is the result of an overzealous commitment to fillers or botox, perhaps inspired by his friend Silvio Berlusconi. Others contend that it is simply the normal ageing process of a man now nudging 70. But undoubtedly the loudest voices belong to those who believe Putin is seriously ill.

According to an exclusive report in Newsweek, American intelligence has concluded that Putin was treated for advanced cancer in April. His health is apparently the subject of active discussion inside the Biden administration. Students of the Shoigu meeting are convinced Putin has Parkinsons Disease. An anonymous FSB officer has claimed that Putin has been diagnosed with an aggressive liver cancer and has just three years to live. Ukraines Defence Intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, meanwhile, has trumped them all, asserting that Putin in fact has several serious illnesses. So loud have the whispers become that Shoigu himself recently denied them.

Many claim that Putins decision to invade was itself a sign of illness. Barely 100 days old, the war has come at such a catastrophic price in blood, treasure and prestige that surely it could only have been the product of an ailing mind, or one which no longer cares about the future? Perhaps. But the Kremlins strategic blunders are much better explained by the fact that Putin has built a regime where frank and fearless advice is a career-limiting move, and toadies get ahead.

To put it plainly, lots of people want Vladimir Putin dead.

In truth, it is impossible to make a firm judgement about Putins health because reliableintelligence about the Kremlin is in short supply. Remember that the vast majority of credentialled analysts greatly overestimated Russias military strength prior to its invasion of Ukraine. Earlier than that, key details about Putins private life and regime were kept under tight wraps. Journalists and dissidents who attempt to shed light on the regimes inner workings are murdered with impunity. Whatever credible intelligence remained has largely evaporated as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russias diplomatic isolation since 24 February invasion.

But serious analysts, regardless of their proximity to power, should still be preparing for a scenario where Putin is ill. Why? Because even if illness is a poor explanation for the errors Putin has committed to date, it may inform the future.

In the near term, Kyiv and its allies cannot dismiss the possibility that an ailing Putin will continue to make irrational decisions. Perhaps he will become even more indifferent to the loss of Russian and Ukrainian life. Or, knowing he will not be alive in the world that follows, he may ignore the usual principles governing the use of nuclear weapons. It is difficult to deal with a madman or a sick man with nothing to lose.

Looking further ahead, provisionally accepting the hypothesis that Putin is indeed ill will help the West prepare for the political reverberations his death will cause in Russia. Whether Putin dies in six months, three years, or clings to life and power for another decade will have major implications for the sort of country Russia will be in a generation. The sooner he dies, the higher the variance of military outcomes in Ukraine and political outcomes at home. The longer he remains, the more likely the consolidation of his despotic political order, Russias continued isolation from the west, and its search for insalubrious allies.

To put it plainly, lots of people want Vladimir Putin dead. Partly, this stems from an understandable desire for revenge. But such a wish reflects our lack of understanding or influence over how the war he started will end.

Putins health is an important factor in how the war plays out. Whether it is delivered by an assassins pistol or by his Maker, his death will cause rejoicing and chaos in near-equal measure. In the meantime, just as we must guard against misinformation regardless of its source, we should also be alert to wishful thinking and motivated reasoning. Beware of anyone who has pivoted smoothly from amateur epidemiology, to geopolitics, to faraway oncology.

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Is Vladimir Putin sick? | The Interpreter - The Interpreter

Destroyed Russian tanks and military vehicles are seen dumped in Bucha amid Russia's invasion in Ukraine, May 16, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

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LONDON, June 6 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday ordering the payment of 5 million roubles ($81,500) to the families of members of Russia's National Guard who died in Ukraine and Syria.

The decree amounted to official recognition that members of the guard, known as Rosgvardia, are among the casualties of the war in Ukraine that Russia describes as a special military operation.

The force, which answers directly to Putin, was created in 2016 to fight terrorism and organised crime, and has been used domestically to crack down on peaceful anti-government protests.

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Western analysts have interpreted its deployment from the early stages of the war in Ukraine as a sign of misplaced confidence that Russia would quickly seize major cities, including the capital Kyiv, where Rosgvardia could then be used to maintain order.

In fact, Russian forces were beaten back from both Kyiv and Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, and are now focused on heavy fighting in the eastern Donbas region.

Putin had already announced compensation schemes for the families of dead and wounded soldiers. Russia has not updated its casualty figures since March 25, when it said 1,351 servicemen had been killed and 3,825 wounded. Ukraine and Western governments say its toll by now is many times higher.($1 = 61.35 roubles)

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Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Putin orders $81500 payment to families of National Guards who die in Ukraine - Reuters.com

A staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened that Ukraine will soon see "a real special operation."

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has backed Putin since Russia launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine in late February.

Kadyrov has regularly posted videos calling on Ukrainian forces to surrender and claimed to be in Ukraine in some of them.

"One of these days, you will see a real special operation," he said in a video message posted online on Sunday, using Moscow's terminology to describe the assault on Ukraine.

He went on to describe Ukrainians as "shaitans," a term meaning devils or evil spirits in Islamic theology.

"It will be seen how these devils flee not only from these cities, but also from Ukraine," he said. "So we are preparing, and we will please the real patriots of Russia."

Russian forces will use "new tactics" in Ukraine in the coming days, Kadyrov added in a caption to the video, according to a Google translation of the Russian.

"More effective and faster results will be achieved in conducting a special operation," he added.

"As confirmation of my statements, I will upload video evidence of the destruction of the Nazis, devils and Ukrainian occupation equipment."

Kadyrov, who has faced multiple allegations of human rights abuses during his time as leader of the Chechen Republic, also issued a warning to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"I warn Zelensky for the last time!" he wrote. "Raise your hands and go out to the square with the words 'Don't shoot, folks, I surrender!' Otherwise, you are DEAD!"

Last week, Kadyrov said he was ready to attack Poland, saying the country "better take back" the weapons it had supplied to Ukraine to help fend off Russian forces.

"After Ukraine, if we're given the command, in six seconds we'll show you what we're capable of," he said.

Kadyrov's latest comments come after a report indicated that the power of Russian forces is in decline a hundred days into the invasion.

Meanwhile, British intelligence said Putin had achieved none of his strategic objectives after three months of war and its successes had been achieved at "significant" cost.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. will send Ukraine more advanced rocket systems and munitions to "defend their territory from Russian advances."

Biden added: "We will continue to lead the world in providing historic assistance to support Ukraine's fight for freedom."

In an interview on Sunday, Putin said his military will attack new targets if Ukraine is sent the long-range missiles.

"If it now comes to rockets and they are supplied, we will draw conclusions from that, and employ our weapons that we have in sufficient quantities to strike those facilities that we are not attacking so far," he said in an interview with Rossiya-1.

More:

Putin's Chechen Ally Threatens 'Special Operation' In Ukraine Within Days - Newsweek

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Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and retired Four Star General Barry McCaffrey join Andrea Mitchell to break down the latest in Ukraine, amid calls for Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy to meet for diplomatic negotiations to end the war. There's just one problem was saying there should be negotiations: Vladimir Putin doesn't agree, says McFaul. He will end the war when his forces on the battlefield can no longer advance.June 6, 2022

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Amb. Michael McFaul: Putin will end the war when his forces on the battlefield can no longer advance - MSNBC

Arshak Makichyan made a name for himself as Russias lone climate activist, protesting for change in a country where oil and gas exports have propped up the countrys economy for decades.

Every Friday, for nearly two years, Makichyan protested alone in Moscows Pushkin Square, hoping to draw Russian attention to the danger posed by climate change. Born in Armenia, but given Russian citizenship when he was 10, Makichyan graduated from a prestigious music conservatory and turned to activism after reading about climate change and Greta Thunbergs weekly strikes. I was representing Russia as a violinist on competitions, and I was organising Friday for Futures, so I had a feeling that I am a future of Russia, he said.

Now the Russian government wants to punish him by taking away his passport.

In a court hearing this week, Russia will seek to revoke Makichyans citizenship, in a move that he and his lawyers call unprecedented, and a threat to millions of foreign-born Russians willing to speak out against the war.

Even though I was born in Armenia, I am part of Russian culture, I love Russia, I was fighting for Russia for years, I was risking my freedom for years, said the activist in an interview over the phone on his 28th birthday last week. And now I dont know what to do.

In his first interview about the case, Makichyan, who left Russia with his wife, Polina, in late March, and is currently living in Germany, told the Guardian he felt that the Russian claim was revenge for his anti-war and climate activism. Most recently, he has lobbied European politicians for a fossil fuel ban that could deprive Vladimir Putins regime of its key source of revenues.

Russia has regularly expelled foreign activists from the country. But stripping a Russian citizen of his nationality would be a rare move as the country sinks deeper into isolation and totalitarianism since launching its war in Ukraine. If Russia succeeds, Makichyan told the Guardian he would be left stateless.

I was inspired by [Alexei] Navalny because he returned to Russia although it was very dangerous, said Makichyan. I was planning to go back to Russia with my wife to continue to fight against this war. But now most likely we cannot go back to Russia any more.

The impact of climate change is being felt more and more strongly in Russia, which has been hit by growing forest fires in Siberia and melting permafrost and growing desertification in Russias south. But it remains a niche concern for most of the country.

Before the war, Russias tiny handful of eco-activists used to believe they could lobby the government for real policy change, even as the Kremlin failed to meet its obligations under the Paris agreement on greenhouse gas emissions and continued to profit from exports of fossil fuels.

But the war has changed everything. According to Makichyan it has shown that it is impossible to negotiate with Putin. He adds that he could not pretend like its normal and continue talking about 2050 when millions of people are suffering now.

I was connecting the dots between the human rights crisis and climate crisis, he said. Of course this war was a red line for a lot of people. Thats why I am calling Putin a war criminal and a killer. Because before the war I was thinking that maybe its better not to be that harsh on him. But now I think its a moral obligation to tell things as they are.

The climate activist was arrested in Moscow in late February for speaking out against the war, and his wife had been arrested several times for staging protests. I didnt want to leave the country but my wife was saying that she wants to breathe free air and it was actually unbearable for us, he said. Because we were expecting searches almost every day. Likely we would have been arrested if we had stayed in Russia one or two more days.

At one point, he and his wife even swapped clothing for a Pussy Riot-style escape from a police stakeout at her parents flat. Polina dressed up as Makichyan, a floppy-haired, rail-thin activist who would still fit in on most college campuses. She walked straight past police before a friend drove her out of the neighbourhood.

They decided to marry this winter so that if they were arrested, they would have the right to see each other in prison. Their wedding day, 24 February, turned out to be the same day that Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. Makichyan wore a white shirt bearing the words Fuck the war in blood-red lettering.

For years, he said, Russia has been using the topic of climate change to promote its own interests, like its nuclear energy programme, while marginalising and ignoring activists in Russia like Makichyan who were calling for significant cuts in emissions.

It was different for us to be climate activists because we were trying to fight for everything, he said. Climate is everything and there is no climate education in Russia so we were trying to build it up from the ground.

Now outside Russia, he said they were shocked by the indifference that many Europeans were showing toward the war.

I think the west can do much better than they are doing now, he said, saying that he had been in Germany for two months and politicians had declined to meet him.

They dont understand how it is crucial now to act, he said. We need something real. Of course if we have embargo on Russian fossil fuels it will influence life in Europe, there will be some economical consequences.

But this war is something bigger, its not about economy, its about survival. If we wont change Putins regime then I dont know how we can have new climate negotiations.

Excerpt from:

We need something real: the Russian climate activist taking on Putins war - The Guardian

The Russian President has taken drastic measures to control access to information, including banning several social media platforms from operating in the country. The Russian government has blocked Facebook, Twitter and Instagram since its army invaded Ukraine on February 24. Additionally, lawmakers passed a bill that makes it a criminal offence to spread "fake" news about the Russian military.

Offenders can face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of the crime, or face substantial fines.

The latest media crackdown has forced ordinary Russians to think up of new and creative ways to gain access to uncensored news.

Digital rights experts say Putin may have inadvertently sparked a massive, permanent shift in digital literacy in Russia that will work against the regime for years.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russians have been flocking to virtual private networks (VPNs) and encrypted messaging apps - tools that can be used to access blocked websites such as Facebook.

Now new data compiled for The Times shows that 24 million (or one in six) Russians used a VPN in May.

This represents an increase of 1.6 million users on April, a clear sign that Russians are becoming more competent in evading their government's draconian informational controls.

Gregory Asmolov, an expert at King's College London, believes the Kremlin is not interested in strictly enforcing its own censorship.

He said: The state is not entirely interested in a complete block.

They understand that lots of Russians use pages like Instagram and Facebook not as a means of finding out whats really going on but to connect with friends and for entertainment.

"They dont want to cause too much frustration.

However, there are signs that Russian officials are trying to close down the VPN loopholes.

READ MORE:Putin warns of hitting new targets if Ukraine supplied with missiles

Russias censorship agency confirmed recently that it is working to block VPN services that allegedly violate Russian law", according to the independent Russian media outlet Meduza.

Technology experts say that ways still exist to get around these new restrictions.

Oliver Linow, who describes himself as an internet freedom specialist for the German media site Deutsche Welle, tweeted: "Russia started to block VPNs. But there are still ways to get around the Russian firewall.

"Despite Tor is blocked - With bridges or snowflakes you can still connect to the network and get access to media that is not controlled by the Russian government."

The Russian government has blocked over 1,500 websites as part of its crackdown, including BBC News.

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It comes as fierce fighting continues in Ukraine's eastern territories, particularly around the city of Severodonetsk.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that the city's defenders were still holding out despite being heavily outnumbered by Russian troops.

He claimed that Ukrainian forces had "every chance" of fighting back and were currently engaged in street-by-street battles with their enemy.

Mr Zelensky said that the intensity of the fighting in Severodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk had made them both "dead cities".

If both cities are captured, then Russia would control the entire Luhansk province - one half of the Donbas region.

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Putin humiliated as MILLIONS of Russians make a mockery of internet crackdown measures - Express

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In 2014, photojournalist Serhii Korovayny watched Russian forces take his home town, Khartsyzsk in Donetsk region. Eight years later, with the next invasion by Russia, he and his family fled their home in Kyiv. The situation prompted Korovayny to track down others from Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine who also had to flee for a second time.

Is it harder to lose their home again? Or do they already have these survival skills? he asked. Did they have the full tank of gas and luggage ready? And where are those homes now?

I think its easier for me than for those that experience it for the first time. I know that life doesnt end there. It will go on. War is a test that shows what youre capable of and how much faith and willingness to fight you have in you, says journalist Daria Kurinna. She jokes she can now pack the entire house in 30 minutes. I immediately realised that I was going to leave Kyiv, she said. I didnt want to put myself in harms way again.

In 2014, Andriy Shchekun, an activist from Crimea, organised a resistance movement on the peninsula. He was soon captured and held for 11 days before he and other prisoners were exchanged for a high-ranking Russian official. He had been living in Kyiv and calling himself a forcibly deported Crimean citizen. This February, when the invasion began, he and his family immediately went to Lviv. Shchekun had to use multiple trains and buses to get there. However, he had every aspect of the route planned beforehand.

Serhii Kolesnikov compares abandoning your life during war to a parachute jump. When I first jumped, I was told that it was scary only for the first-timers. This is not true at all, says the 32-year-old, who runs a media company. At the time of the occupation of Luhansk, Kolesnikov was 24. He had nothing to lose. Everything that happened was seen as an adventure and a challenge. Sleeping on the floor seemed sort of romantic then. Now, in Lviv with his family, it feels like a month of nights on a train. We are renting an apartment here, but my house is in Kyiv. Kolesnikov expected war for eight years. I advised all my acquaintances not to buy any real estate. They looked at me like I was an idiot. It would be better, of course, if they were right, not me. I recently read a book about Holocaust survivors who advised their kids to only have the property that fits in a small bag. I understand them very well now.

Diana Berg, an artist, moved to Mariupol from occupied Donetsk in 2014. She wanted to turn Mariupol into the cultural capital of Donbas and created an art platform called TIU. Now she helps people in Mariupol to escape the occupied and destroyed city. Just like other migrants, we put a lot of love into rebuilding our life in a new place. Our entire lives were left back at home, including close ones who did not have phone service. We were grateful for the Donetsk that we used to have. Thats why we put all our love into the new home in Mariupol. We had to furnish it from scratch, so we got cats and we bought string lights to put in our apartment overlooking the theatre. Now my loss of home hurts even deeper. Back then, we were still able to go to Donetsk on occasion, but as for Mariupol, theres nowhere to return to.

Sisters Ksenia and Tetiana Ivanov work for a charity in Ivano-Frankivsk whose work revolves around those affected by war shelters for victims of domestic violence are being repurposed for the needs of internally displaced people. In Donetsk in 2014, they didnt even consider waiting the fighting out. Their pro-Ukrainian parents quickly realised they didnt want to live there any more and moved to Kyiv. But this time their parents refused to flee on principle. Tetiana says it is as painful to experience war now as it was the first time around, eight years ago. You cant ever be ready for such a tragedy even if youve experienced it before. You have dreams, make plans, build your life from scratch and all this makes it even worse. Russians are once again taking these most precious things from us.

Danylo Pavlov, a documentary photographer and photo editor at Reporters magazine, did not expect war in 2014. A month before it started, he spent all his savings on building materials. He dreamed of creating the ideal family space in his home in Donetsk. When the war began, he left the city with his wife and two young children, little to no luggage and no plan B. Like most acquaintances, they left for for two weeks, tops. At first, they went to relatives in Uzhhorod, and later to Kyiv after an invitation from a magazine. It took years to settle in a new place and buy things to do up a new apartment in Kyiv. As soon as he partly completed the repairs, war returned. When we discussed the possible invasion at home, it piqued the childrens interest. I went too far with my stories and realised it when my son cried. What hasnt changed since 2014, Pavlov says, is the painful issue of the relationship between those fleeing the war to peaceful regions and those living there. I did not expect Kyivites to face the same thing that the easterners faced previously. There are issues with regard to renting apartments, gossip about rude migrants and language issues all of this had already happened to Donetsk residents when they came to Kyiv eight years ago. It hurts that people are not ready to accept each other. But I still feel like we are more united now than ever.

Lyubov Zavhorodnya, 71, says that it is easy to tell whether a person is a refugee. I came to the market, and a woman stall owner offered me shoes at a discount. She saw that I wore clothes the same size as her. The next day she brought me two trunks of clothes. She said that if I didnt need them, I could give them to others. I was so grateful. This time Zavhorodnya fled the war from Dnipro. Eight years ago, she fled Debaltseve. One day, she was waiting for the shelling to end in the basement of her home. Our yard has always been green and bushy. There were so many tall trees. And when they came out of the basement after the shelling, it was so light that my eyes hurt. They fired so hard that not a single leaf on a tree was left. Now Zavhorodnya does not know where her house is located geographically. She only knows that home is where her son, daughter-in-law and four-year-old granddaughter are.

My daughter Natasha was 18 months old when we had to flee from the shelling in Luhansk. We went to relatives in Severodonetsk to wait until it was over, says Anastasiia. Eight years later, war has found them there. They spent the first nine days in a bomb shelter. Anastasiia has achieved a lot in this time. She worked at a local university, completed higher education, got a job as an editor at a radio station and bought an apartment where she lived with her daughter and mother. But the feeling of anxious anticipation has never left. In 2018, my father died; he couldnt take all this. He was such a patriot. He was even buried with a flag. He has always told me to be alert. The Russian world, he said, will expand sooner or later. And I was always afraid of that. Anastasiia is now in Drohobych, western Ukraine, thinking about what to do next.

Ive moved to so many places. This time it was devastating emotionally. I only reached the point in my life when anxiety went away and I felt happy for a week or two. Then Putin did this. I lost my home in Makiivka in 2014, when I was 18. It took me years to rebuild my life, to get into the prewar state I was in before 2014. Its like one little building block after the other. First, you look for a new dwelling. Then you need to find a place to finish your BA, then MA. Ive only been able to find friends and properly socialise after five years in Kyiv. Recently I became financially independent, rented a flat on my own. This time I didnt even want to leave. How old will I be when I get my life back again 35? 40? I have been waiting for eight years for Putin to go farther into the country. I kept thinking tomorrow, tomorrow, hell do it. I wont be able to finish my studies he will come. I wont have time to find a job he will come. I did what I planned. So did he.

It was easier for 29-year-old Artem Bakanov to leave Donetsk in 2014 than Kyiv now. Back then, he didnt have much. It was difficult to find a place to stay in Odesa, where he moved with his girlfriend people from Donbas often faced prejudice. The couple worked as waiters and tempered their spirits. They participated in pro-Ukrainian rallies. Then they moved to Kyiv, found work and made their first attempts to open a business. Finally, they felt the sky was the limit. Bakanov has managed to enter the restaurant business, develop his own company and taxi services as well as start a project to ship vehicles from the US. The possibility of an attack on Kyiv sounded ridiculous. I tried to calm my wife down. I was telling her that everything was going to be OK. Everyone kept withdrawing cash from their accounts, and I kept reloading mine as normal. It took one morning to lose everything youve been working on for the last eight years. After the next move to Lviv they asked themselves what was next. Bakanovs partner decided to start a self-defence school; every day, volunteers from Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv and Lviv teach 120-150 people. Medical and military instructors offer their knowledge and help. They are building a shooting range so that any visitor can learn how to fire guns safely.

Public official Artur Stadnik is 26 now. When there were battles for Donetsk, he was a student going through the work and travel programme in the US. He hasnt returned to his parents home. As soon as he finished his studies in Kharkiv, he moved to the capital with his parents. I could always sense their sadness in the background, but I was holding up well. Yes, the house was taken away from my family, but that couldnt be repeated, not again. And then the Russians expanded their military presence, and I wasnt so sure any more. I arranged my documents, had a medical screening at a draft board and, since December, have been packing and unpacking my things. When asked where his home is, Stadnik answers: Ukraine.

Marina Shulzhenko, with her parents and daughter Masha, moved from the town of Khartsyzsk in the Donetsk region to Bila Tserkva near Kyiv in 2014. In 2022, they were once again forced to move. This time to the village of Bohorodchany in western Ukraine. Shulzhenko says that both times it was hard to leave her house. It feels like the war is following us. Theres nowhere to hide from it. Nowhere is safe. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It would reach us even across the border. Fear and grief. Thats probably what all of us refugees feel. We became very attached to Bila Tserkva throughout these eight years. I want to return there as soon as possible, once its safe to go.

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'Tomorrow, tomorrow, Putin will come': the 2014 Ukraine refugees forced to flee for a second time - The Guardian