On a freezing cold, misty day, small groups of people gather, sometimes hugging, sometimes crying, sometimes just silent.
In front of them, the wall of St Michael’s golden-domed monastery in the centre of Kyiv’s old town.
The walls are now festooned with the faces of thousands of soldiers, all dead, all killed in this war with Russia.
It started as a single picture of a fallen soldier placed on the wall. This memorial now stretches into the distance, and there’s no space left except on the very top of the wall.
A cafe worker brought out a ladder so a family could reach up and place their loved one’s picture alongside fallen comrades.
Image: The Kyiv memorial wall
A short distance away, a funeral procession enters the grounds of the monastery, past the faces on the wall and into the ornate interior of the monastery’s chapel.
Another funeral service for a soldier killed in battle, another family left in grief.
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There are so many of these services, and they’re so common it’s easy to forget another life has been lost. This soldier’s name is Pavlo Verdybida, killed at 34 years old.
His comrades gather in the monastery’s chapel, holding candles and paying respects.
His best friend Andrii, also just a young man, also a soldier, told me he too is ready to die for Ukraine.
“Our president wants to save people, but we are ready to die for Ukraine,” he said.
Image: Funerals in St Michael’s monastery are common
Image: Andrii, 33
“They [Russia] destroyed my generation, they destroyed my country, and we are willing to fight. I hope the president makes the right decisions, but whatever he decides we will all respectfully accept it and follow what he says.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is looking for a way to stop the fighting, and he is acutely aware of the sacrifices so many people are making.
When we spoke on Friday, he made it very clear to me that he doesn’t believe any lives lost are for nothing.
“I believe that these people who are no longer with us, they already have prevailed. Putin… has not realised it yet, but Ukrainians have already won, and Ukrainians who are no longer with us, they put everything they had at stake, and they are already winners,” he said.
“Because if Ukrainians had not united back then, sacrificed their time, their life, their comfort, then Putin would have conquered the whole of Ukraine.”
This country does not want that to happen. Ever. And many here believe the only way it will not is if they have complete security guarantees.
Image: Hanna Hopko
Russia ‘will repeat aggression’ with bad deal
Dr Hanna Hopko is the co-founder of the International Centre for Ukrainian Victory, and is an expert on international relations.
She says that joining NATO and the security it brings would be good for Ukraine and indeed the rest of Europe.
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“Ukrainians, after such a sacrifice, when almost in each family we have someone either wounded or in the battlefield, or helping our armed forces, so we understand that with a bad deal, Russia will repeat its aggression again,” she told me.
“So, this is why the issue of security guarantees is [an] existential one, it’s critically important, it’s crucial for all of us, including Europe and NATO.”
For now, at least, the Ukrainian people remain united against the threat posed by Russia despite the effect it is having on the country.
But many we have spoken to during the three weeks we have been here concede that they are tired and are perhaps beginning to feel that some sort of peace deal, however imperfect, may just be better than the status quo of continuous fighting – and the inevitable loss on the battlefield.
Source : Sky News
