A voice from Ukraine – a mother reflects on her motherland

We asked a Ukrainian woman to describe her perspective as a mother and citizen of Russia’s neighbor from a personal point of view. A gripping and touching essay that looks at the consequences of geopolitics through the eyes of an individual.

Peter Hanseler

An introduction by Peter Hanseler

There are many Ukrainians among our friends. At most dinners in Moscow with friends and acquaintances, the wife or husband is from Ukraine. There are millions – up to 12 million – Ukrainians living in Russia. Since 2022, millions have joined them. They live peacefully with their large neighbor. In Russia they are perceived as brothers and sisters, not as foreigners. They live their culture and everything that goes with it.

The author of the following essay is a close interlocutor and friend. For reasons revealed in the essay, she no longer lives in Ukraine. Her profession has nothing to do with journalism or publishing, she is well educated and the mother of sons who still live in Ukraine. It is therefore necessary to protect her identity. Her testimony is presented in unedited form. A story that is touching and moving in its authenticity and openness. A first-hand account that would not be given space in the mainstream media. The text was written in Russian and translated by us.

Notes from a Ukrainian mother

I was born and raised in Ukraine, in the very beautiful and centuries-old city of Kiev. My adult sons were also born and raised in Kiev and are still in Ukraine. They have not been able to leave Ukraine for more than two years.

Peter Hanseler invited me to share my thoughts about everything I feel as a mother whose children have been held captive by their own government since February 2022, without the possibility and even the right to a normal life and freedom. I gratefully accepted this offer.

I’ll start this story by saying that we looked forward to Zelensky coming to power in 2019 with great expectations. My sons voted for him. At that time Zelensky spoke Russian and his election program was focused on peace and an end to the war in Donbass. We gradually learned that this was just a campaign promise to become president. Today we know what a sham it all was, a betrayal of an entire country. It is hard to imagine a worse president for Ukraine.

When it all started in February 2022, another big problem was that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians believed that Ukraine had done nothing wrong, that it was just looking for its way into Europe and NATO, and therefore had every right to settle its conflicts, even in Donbass with its own citizens, by force. This is how Western propaganda influenced us.

How was it possible to brainwash such a large number of Ukrainians that even the basic instinct – self-preservation of human life – ceased to function? And the cult of death with Johnson’s slogan “Fight to the last Ukrainian” has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and crippled an entire generation of Ukrainians.

It is the first time in the world since the Second World War that a country of this size has been turned into a giant prison at the legislative level and under the guise of defending democracy. How was it possible that Ukrainians ended up in this hell? When did this spiritual pollution begin?

The first shot was fired long before current events began to unfold.

Like many Ukrainians, I wasn’t interested in politics before, I just didn’t have the time or the energy, because life in Ukraine has always been difficult. You had to work hard and you could always rely on your own strength, not on help from the government. Today I regret that in the past I paid little attention to the strange deaths of various politicians, famous journalists or artists who warned Ukrainians about dangerous geopolitics. Now I know that they were true patriots who truly loved their country and its people and wanted to preserve their country. Today there are no such personalities left, they have all been systematically killed since the 1990s.

I would like to give a few examples that are known to everyone in the Ukraine, although I am sure that there were many more.

In 1991, Vyacheslav Chernovol ran for president of Ukraine. He was the first politician to advocate a truly federal structure for the Ukrainian state. He died in a car accident in 1999. The investigation dragged on for many years, as there were many indications that the accident was not an accident.

Oles Buzina was a famous writer, journalist, and politician who defended the Russian language and culture. He advocated for rapprochement between Ukraine and Russia, and was shot dead in broad daylight at the entrance to his own home in Kiev in 2015. The investigation into his murder was inconclusive.

Also in 2015, the well-known and popular singer and musician Kuzma Skryabin (stage name, real name Andrey Kuzmenko) died in an accident under very strange circumstances. He criticized the Maidan and spoke out against the continuation of the war in Donbass by Ukraine.

“The Maidan was planned to rake the ashes with our hands. They had to get rid of Yanukovych, who stood in the way of the oligarchs. After the Maidan, things got even worse – the war began,” said Andriy Kuzmenko.

For almost 30 years, Ukraine has been methodically shaping certain narratives. It’s been known to be a geopolitical time bomb.

30 years! Just think of that period of time. A whole generation grew up under these slogans. No wonder that when I shared my thoughts with my sons in February 2022, they simply stopped talking to me because they thought I was supporting the aggressor. After all, it is very convenient to follow the “it was Putin who started the invasion” narrative. It took me a long time, a lot of patience and many conversations before my sons began to see the whole picture for themselves. It was at moments like this that I really regretted that we hadn’t talked much about politics in general before.

Now there is no leader in Ukraine who could lead the country out of disaster and disintegration. Can the people do anything without a leader? It is a very, very difficult challenge. But the people are beginning to resist. Every day they set fire to the vehicles of the military offices (TZK), which round up young Ukrainians for the front, and they even try to break through the border posts. Whole villages unite to physically wrest a son, husband, brother or father from the police and military.

The police and military seize men on the street, block their bank accounts, cut off their access to medical care, and deprive them of their right to work and employment. This violence is destroying the entire moral fabric of the population.

Today – at the end of August 2024 – many Ukrainians understand what is happening. But they are not able to change the situation. It is impossible for people in the West to understand the psychological and physical pressure Ukrainians are under, how the policies of the “great Western friend” have turned the largest country in the middle of Europe into a veritable concentration camp, where people have to kill or are killed themselves. And if someone even starts a discussion in the direction of diplomacy, negotiation, compromise, these people, even older ones, are called to the SBU security service, intimidated, arrested. The braver ones can be beaten, mutilated, tortured, raped, and then forced to confess their loyalty to Zelensky’s regime and the Ukrainian armed forces in front of the cameras. What has this got to do with democracy? It is fascism in the truest sense of the word.

With the events in Kursk it is clear that there will be no negotiations. This is the end. It is time for everyone to realize that a great tragedy is unfolding here. Not only for Ukraine and Russia, but also for Europe and the whole world. Metaphorically speaking, imagine a family where one brother has gone mad and now the other brother has to kill him to save the rest of the family.

Given the facts, it should be clear to everyone that today’s Ukraine is leading Europe and the world towards disaster like a cancer. But the Western and especially the British rulers don’t care in the least. For many years they have been very successful in turning Ukraine into what it is today.

Since 2019, when Zelensky came to power, my family has been on a very difficult path. Everything has changed. Normal life has been shattered. The only hope we have left is that one day we will all meet again in a peaceful heaven.