I need not a date, but a victory

The Great War of Russia against Ukraine turned 300 days

The ritual calculation, I think, will come to naught after a year. And now I don’t know people (I judge, however, only by my environment) who with children's impatience cross the cells in the calendar, as in anticipation of vacation and a trip to the sea: “Well, when, when, when already?” Not interested in dates, but victory. And not just a victory as a finish, but with guarantees that the aggressor at least has a nuclear sting that would not be able to repeat. Of course, I would like to quickly.

It's not about getting used to war, although in it too.

Infinitely, like a nightmare, stretched on February 24th. Every hour throughout Ukraine exploded, burned, gnawed from missiles, bombs, shells waiting:

The world leaders, Russian civil society, some extraterrestrial civilization (emphasize the necessary), are about to shake the Kremlin in an adult way, and the nightmare will stop as quickly as it began.

The first week was enough to restructure consciousness: world leaders are afraid of the third world, because they are waiting, evaluating how much Ukraine itself is ready to resist, whether it needs independence. Theories about the presence of active extraterrestrial civilization, as well as Russian civil society, were not confirmed. But the collective Putin in tanks with the “Z” icon, in a demoniac TV and in the people's imperial readiness “take their lands” and “punish Khokhlov” was convincing.

Further, reality began to be perceived as a science - extremely heavy, traumatic, but necessary for those who connect their future only with Ukraine. Hence the unprecedented number of volunteers - fighters of territorial defense forces, volunteer movement, a common celebration at the time of the release from the Russian occupation of the next settlement, resistance to the challenges that accompany the war when the lack of light, water, heating, and communications were added to shelling.

I’ll say from personal experience: there are completely different things to work in the war (in my case, we are talking about journalism) and live plus to work in the war. I went on business trips to the ATO zone and to the controlled territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk region since 2014. I will not say that very often, the colleagues-decisors managed more. One of the most tenacious (because of the first?) The memory of Debaltseve in early February 2015, before the Russian army closed the Ukrainian units in the “boiler”.

Black, mixed snow at the bottom of the funnel. The crow's flock flies around the top with a top cut off like a knife. Two-story dark Barak house with a broken roof. Nona, a self -propelled artillery installation (in comparison with the scope of the current large war - primary school - primary school). On the streets is dead, not a soul. In the City Council, an endlessly tired mayor named Papaioan - just sent the last column of minibuses with white rags on the mirrors to evacuate - there are no more people - he asks for the void, not hoping for the answer: “How to bury the dead? They demolished it into our garage, well, at least frost ... ”A taxi driver who managed to persuade a double tariff in Kramatorsk, the basic city for mediaers, is nervous:“ Hey, let's go back, get into a knead! ”

On the porch of the factory administration, still Stalin, with columns, there is a group of people in a dark. Men smoke, women just got up to breathe: the only reliable basement where you can leave the bombing. I am running to them from the car - in the armor with the inscription "Press", in the helmet, with a recorder. I ask the first thing that comes to mind:

- Why don't you leave? It’s dangerous ...

- Where to go? - a woman of about fifty shouts right in the face. - Who needs us? The house was broken, we live in the barn. Will you take it to your apartment in Kyiv? Well, take it? I am going right now and go ahead ... are you silent? So that you all disappeared, the devils are damned!

The driver signals. I'm retreating. A few hours later, I sit in the Kramatorsk in the carriage of the Intersity high-speed train: conductors in company clothing, Wi-Fi, waiters are transporting carts with yogurts, snacks, sandwiches. Several military - apparently to rotation, also rides in the wagon. One immediately fell asleep, the other for too long and loudly (the consequences of the concussion?) Communicates on the phone. The neighbor wrinkles. Like, I understand everything, but you can’t like that ... six hours and Kyiv. Debaltseve disappeared in darkness, like a bad dream.

Three hundred days they did what did not work out for eight years: the war ceased to look like a local disaster, which, if desired, could not be seen.

Russia quit playing the “third party to the armed conflict”, “complex partner” and so on - showed hands, smeared with blood.

The Ukrainian military turned into idols. And the notorious six handshakes are no longer required to find a family where one of the loved ones fought in the Izyum direction or freed Kherson. The front and rear are connected.

Huge human masses raised from places of trouble are moving around the country (about refugees that Europe accepts and further everywhere, generally silent). But there was an amazing trend. You come from Kyiv, where, after blows on infrastructure, there is no light, water and warmth, write about Odessa, where for the same reasons there is no all of the above, and there they say: “Here Kharkov suffers, we have even less!” In Kharkov, in turn, they worry about Kherson: “The“ Russian world ”takes revenge on them, which he received a knee under the ass!”, And the Kherson people ask about Bakhmut: “Lord, if only they survived! Standing? "

I write this column on the phone, which is attached to the empty Powerbank, in the light of a plot flashlight, and I use a cat as a heater. Air anxiety siren in honor of the 300th day of the war today in Kyiv did not sound, but also ahead of the night.

By the way, statistics from the Kyiv Digital application. During the martial law in the capital of Ukraine there were 625 aircraft, and their length reached 675 hours and 9 minutes. Yes, we became fatalists: after such changes, the victory of Ukraine is inevitable.

Kyiv