Between Fear and Hope: Four Years of War

February 24.

For most people, it is just an ordinary day. But for Ukrainians, even the mention

of this date sends a chill down the spine.

On this day in 2022, the dreams, plans, and lives of millions were destroyed -

by the Russian so-called “liberators.” On the first day of the full-scale invasion, I

started keeping a diary. Now, rereading those entries, I feel my heart racing, as

if I am reliving every minute of that morning once again.

At fifteen, I described it like this:

“6 a.m., February 24, 2022. I woke up to a flood of messages. War. The

Russian Federation has invaded Ukraine. Everyone is afraid. Every 5-10

minutes I read new updates. Outside, it is gloomy, and the tension is almost

tangible. We packed an emergency bag, got dressed, and waited for the air raid

siren. My mother’s phone shattered the perfect silence - she was urgently called

to school to distribute draft notices. We arrived quickly and then stayed

overnight at my grandmother’s place. It was terrifying to sleep because the area

was not safe...

February 25. I decided to go for a walk with someone very important to me

because I didn’t know when we would see each other again. Then we waited for

my father and went home to pack our things. I realized I didn’t have much, so I

took only what mattered most. When we were almost ready, people started

saying that Novograd-Volynskyi might be bombed within minutes. I was terrified.

We got into the car and drove away...”

That was when I understood that home is not walls. It is the smell of my

mother’s cooking, the creak of the floor, a favorite cup. And when you leave

without knowing if you will ever return, you are not saying goodbye to an

apartment - you are saying goodbye to a part of yourself.

The day before, we had rehearsed a patriotic flash mob until late in the evening,

never imagining that by the next morning everything would change. We tried to

find something positive in every moment, no matter how hard it was. We even

felt a slight sense of relief that the performance was canceled, because the

routine was far from perfect. This is the essence of the Ukrainian spirit - finding

a reason to smile where life itself seems to have ended.

The war did not only steal homes - it stole childhood. Fifteen-year-olds should

be thinking about exams, first loves, and the future, not about where it is safer

to sleep or whether they can reach a shelter in time. That morning, I grew up

without permission and without a choice.

But the most frightening thing is not the sound of missiles - it is the silence after

them. When you freeze and listen: is there electricity, will the phone ring, is

everyone alive? In those moments, time stops existing, and your heart beats so

loudly it feels like it could give away your location.

There were threats that Kyiv would fall in three days. But Ukrainians never

surrender so easily - we stand until the end. Still, there have been countless

victims. Almost every day, residential buildings, schools, and kindergartens are

shelled. It hurts to read the news: “20 bodies found under the rubble, 40

injured...”

Today, there are new trials. Temperatures drop to -20°C, and people are left

without heating, water, or electricity because the energy infrastructure has been

deliberately destroyed. Workers restore what has been ruined, pushing

themselves beyond human limits. Recently, two of them died from exhaustion.

Even this has become part of wartime reality.

The greatest crime of war is that it makes the abnormal feel normal. We get

used to sirens, to casualty reports, to the phrase “no power today.” But getting

used to it does not mean we stop feeling pain. It means we learn how to

survive. People joke that they planned to wash their hair in the morning but then

remembered that tomorrow there might be no water, no electricity, no home - or

even no head left to wash.

The world is growing tired of the war. Headlines change, news cycles move on,

and the war slowly becomes background noise - just another tragic story among

many others. For some, it is numbers, charts, and analysis. For us, it is

mornings that begin with checking the news and sleepless nights. The war does

not end when cameras turn off. It lives on in every minute of silence, in every

phone call you are afraid to answer, in the short message “text me when you

get there,” which really means: tell me you are alive. While the world allows

itself to get used to the war, we have no such right - because for us, it is still

here, in the air, in the fear, and in the fragile hope of waking up tomorrow in the

same country.

Four years of war have taught us to live between sirens and silence, between

fear and hope. We have learned to pack quickly, to save warmth, to count not

days, but the nights we managed to survive. We have become stronger - but

not because we wanted to.

We are not asking the world to get used to our pain. We are asking it not to look

away. Because while the world has the luxury of fatigue, we have only the duty

to remember and to survive.

This war is not only about Ukraine. It is about the choice between memory and

indifference, between truth and convenient silence. And while every day at 9:00

a.m. Ukraine stops in a minute of silence, we know: every name, every life,

matters.

I am writing this not as a witness to the past, but as someone who still lives

inside the war. And if these words are read by someone far away - in safe

silence - then our story has not disappeared along with the headlines.

And that means we did not endure all of this in vain.