<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/24/a-train-through-ukraine-a-journey-into-the-stories-of-two-years-of-war>
"The opening bars of the Cossack March rang out from the platform speakers at
Zaporizhzhia-1 train station, jaunty trumpets transitioning into a rousing
military march, heralding the departure of train number four, the 17.53 to
Uzhhorod.
Carriage attendants slammed shut the heavy metal doors, a few people on the
platform waved forlorn goodbyes in the evening gloom, and the train clattered
off on its journey across the entire breadth of Ukraine, a 900-mile ride from
close to the frontline all the way to the border with the European Union.
In the two years since Vladimir Putin’s invasion, the railways have been
Ukraine’s lifeline, connecting cities and carrying millions of people to
safety. Train number four has 10 carriages, nine with second-class, four-bed
sleeper compartments, and one luxury carriage of two-bed compartments, for the
20-hour journey from the smokestacks of Zaporizhzhia to the cobbled alleys of
Uzhhorod.
In the decades since independence in 1991, Ukraine has often been viewed
through its divisions, particularly the tensions between the largely
Russian-speaking east and the mostly Ukrainian-speaking west. That was always
an oversimplification, masking many different and more subtle dividing lines,
unsurprising in a country of more than 40 million people, with a turbulent
history.
When Putin launched full-scale war two years ago, the east-west divide
dissolved further. The Kremlin’s idea that many Ukrainians would welcome Russia
turned out to be false, and a new and broad national identity was forged in
opposition to Russia’s marauding armies. Even in places such as Zaporizhzhia, a
grimy industrial city on the Dnipro River, of broad avenues and bombastic
Stalin-era buildings, people put up fierce resistance to the Russians.
But if the big story of the first year of Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s war
was one of resilience, inspiration, and unity in the face of an existential
threat, as the war enters its third year, new fault lines are starting to
appear in Ukrainian society, ones that could be hard to repair when the war is
over: between those who fought and those who did not, those who left and those
who stayed, those who have lived under Russian occupation and those who have
not.
The war has reached a particularly difficult moment, with a challenging
situation on the frontline, cracks showing in the international support for
Ukraine and the cumulative burden of two years of disrupted lives. In addition
to the hatred for Russia, there is now another thing that unites most
Ukrainians. It is most noticeable at the front, but also visible in the
corridors of power, the homes of ordinary people and even here, in the
compartments of long-distance trains: exhaustion."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
