I arrive at Lviv station just before 9 a.m. As the clock strikes, the conductor announces a minute’s silence: a daily commemoration for those who have fallen in the war. But it’s observed only by the railway staff, who stand up to bow their heads. The passengers just carry on. After all, isn’t part of the resistance to carry on life as normal, despite the war? This was the idea at first, but soldiers at the front line have come to resent the chasm between those who are fighting and those who don’t want to have any part in the war. It’s just one of many ways in which, returning to Ukraine, I can see the Russian invasion reshaping my country.
Coming home to my village in the west of Ukraine, I see how the war is draining the life out of it. Although it has never come under Russian occupation, the streets are all but deserted. There’s only a handful of children and pensioners around. Men of fighting age are conspicuous by their absence. It’s a reminder that conscription hits villages harder than cities, where men can more easily avoid the draft because they are more valuable to the wartime economy. The cemetery has expanded. The soldiers’ graves are easy to identify: they have flags next to them, and so many flowers that you can’t see the ground. In the village centre, the faces of the fallen are depicted on 6ft-high banners. I recognise at least half of them. Some say that the cost of such memorials would be better spent on drones, but I disagree.
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