I am a 37-year-old Ukrainian woman, and have recently returned from Odesa, where I was born and grew up, and to which I’ve just had my ninth visit since the war began. I generally go back for two or three weeks each time, to see my parents who still live there. On these trips back home, I try to support my family, to do some nice things with them like going out to a restaurant or cafe, and to bring them, perhaps, a little joy.
Joy is something it’s getting harder and harder in Ukraine to feel
But joy is something it’s getting harder and harder in Ukraine to feel. Whatever you’re doing, even if there’s laughter, there’s always something black and heavy at the back of your mind. On each visit, the people of my country have amazed me. They’re still trying to hold onto the life they once had. They go to the seaside and drink coffee there; they buy flowers for those they love; they put on make-up and often make themselves look attractive. But civilians there realise, in Odesa now as elsewhere, that the good time they’re having might be interrupted any moment by air alarms and missile attacks.
In this new phase of nightly bombing, what you see in people is a kind of exhaustion, both emotional and physical. Practically everyone finds it harder to relax and get to sleep. You’re told by certain Telegram channels that drones and missiles are on their way from Russia but not, until the last moments, which city they’re heading for. As a result, there’s constant anxiety. It doesn’t leave you for a moment and it’s getting increasingly difficult for people to hold themselves together.
On my last two days with my family, Russia bombed the city. It happened close to our home and was unnerving, to say the least. You could hear the new Russian Gerbera drones flying above and our mobile anti-missile systems trying to eliminate them. I thought about the young missile defence soldiers driving around Odesa, shooting down the Russian drones, risking their lives to save ours. The gratitude I felt towards them – like those on the front line – was indescribable.
But my parents (like all the people in Ukraine) have to go through this all the time. Now that I know personally what it’s like, I’m even more worried about them – not only for their lives but for their nervous systems. I keep praying my parents are strong enough to go through all this and enjoy their normal peaceful life when the war is over. That said, you can still, sometimes, hear people’s defiance: ‘Russia won’t achieve anything with their bombings. They can see nothing is working out for them. They expected to take Ukraine in three days. They miscalculated.’
You also see the soldiers coming back from the war. There are young people who look very old because of what they’ve been through, and when you see into their eyes you feel, with sadness, the absolute irreversibility of it all. Cemeteries in my country are now a sea of Ukrainian flags – one for each soldier who has died. It’s more powerful, and pitiful, than any statistic could be.
Amidst the grief and hopelessness, there are also sudden waves of optimism the war will finish soon. It’s a rollercoaster ride, these changing visions of the future, but one that’s sometimes preferable to any certainty about where the country’s heading. In such a state, people get superstitious and have presentiments. One friend is convinced that this August (she doesn’t know why) will mark a crucial moment, that something will change and the war come to an end. ‘From her lips to God’s ears,’ as we say in Ukraine. But such predictions, as I see it, are a sign things are getting increasingly desperate.
Faith in Donald Trump – whom we once hoped would help us – is now gone. According to a survey of Ukrainians from the New Europe Centre, ‘As of mid-April 2025, only 7.4 per cent of respondents said they fully or mostly trust the American leader, compared to 89 per cent who do not trust him.’
I can confirm, from my own conversations, the truth of this. As time passes, there’s less and less belief in the White House. A lot of people are disappointed and consider Trump just a loudmouth and a show-off. We also feel outrage about his gaslighting of president Zelensky and our people, as he tries to make out it’s Ukraine that doesn’t want the war to end, and which is refusing the generous offers of kind Uncle Putin, who so earnestly longs for peace.
Trump’s whole attitude toward this war, as if it were just some business deal, is infuriating too. He says he cares about people dying (‘I love Ukraine’), but then wilfully ignores Putin’s vile atrocities. As I said to a friend at the beginning of the war, ‘If a woman fights off a rapist instead of lying back and taking it, is she guilty of aggression?’ Now I ask myself whether people have a natural tendency to end up blaming the victim. Is this how the human psyche works?
The pain Ukrainians have to endure every day makes it impossible to be tolerant
My own world used to be split, morally, into Russians and Ukrainians but isn’t any more. Now it divides into Putin supporters (i.e. those who support his brand of fascism, wherever they are from) and people against his terrorist regime. I pray one day that Russians in the latter group – I know they exist – are able to change things in their country and to cure those poisoned by Putin’s lies. That is the best one can hope for.
But a lot of Ukrainians feel differently, and I understand why. The pain they have to endure every day makes it impossible to be tolerant. I don’t know how much time will pass after the war ends, and what needs to be done to ease the hostility between our nations. Otherwise, it might stay with us forever.
Because the very fact that the occupied territories will remain under Russia’s control — as well as White House endorsement of what is being ‘offered’ to us (rather than the terms we ourselves are proposing) — seems to nullify every last one of Russia’s crimes. The two countries, this narrative seems to tell us, were initially fighting on equal terms, both having started the war, and now are looking for a compromise to end it.
But black has become white here, white become black – nothing could be further from the truth. As Ukrainians, we sometimes feel at the moment – helped along by Trump and Putin – completely misrepresented before the world, and misunderstood. Ukraine, it should not need repeating, did not start this war. For three years, Russia bombed us with impunity, justifying its crimes with various absurd excuses, twisting everything as if it were provoked by us. Unsurprisingly, we Ukrainians long not just for peace – for people to stop dying – but for Russia to be held publicly accountable for what it has done. This, the proposed peace agreement completely fails to do. Russia – which so richly deserves punishment – has got away with murder.
As I write my final words, I’m checking the news. Earlier today, Russia struck the city of Sumy with ballistic missiles — three people were killed. Just an hour ago, the Kremlin launched 13 strikes on the city of Zaporizhzhia. At this very moment, people remain trapped under the rubble. All we can do is hope that the rescuers will manage to get them out alive. And that sometime soon, though it seems less and less likely, Russia’s war on Ukraine will finally come to a lasting and satisfactory end.
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