“Calm and peaceful as the rural surroundings may be, the agony of worrying about other friends and family members and an unpredictable future are not diminished.”
In a letter written over Easter, Yulia apologises for her silence since the invasion. She writes also of the everyday pain she has felt over the war.
Excerpts reproduced below have been edited for brevity.
“I tried to work online each workday to fill the mind with something else except the war,” she writes.
“It helps a little, but naturally does not change the situation. The war has a significant negative impact on every aspect of our life.
“Did I tell you that my parents-in-law were evacuated from Bucha just before this nightmare started? Currently they are living in our apartment in Kiev, and we have no idea when it will be possible for them to return. Thanks to the universe, their house was not damaged and wasn’t plundered by Russian barbaric troops.”
Bucha is a satellite town 30km northwest of Kyiv.
“Despite every effort of local authorities and utility services the city is still without gas, electricity and running water and the road between Kiev and Bucha is still destroyed. It was so horrible for us to realise that the white church where massive graves were discovered is only a 15 minutes’ walk from their home.”
The “white church” she refers to is St Andrew the First Called in Bucha, a whitewashed church with a gilt dome, founded in 1744. Since the end of the month-long Russian occupation of the town, a trench has been excavated outside the church.
According to the local police chief more than 300 people were buried there, although the toll appears to be mounting.
“In recent days it was officially announced that one in five were killed among those who didn’t leave the city,” Yulia writes.
“My husband’s colleague warned against returning soon; he said there’s a strong smell of decomposition.
“My father-in-law tells us that at the night before the day they were evacuated, these ‘liberators’ shone searchlights into the windows and shot at anyone they saw.
“I do hope after international investigation the punishment will overtake all those involved, but I clearly understand that even hard punishment will not bring back the life of the dead and will not make our pain less.
“Every day I feel this pain while reading the news. Each day brings new deaths, suffering, and injuries, every day someone loses their home, their life because of the horrific madness of the one dictator and his supporters.
“Unfortunately, in Ukraine people realised that in Russia more than 70 percent of the population is not just supporting, but proud of what their troops are doing here.
“We see these messages not from politics but from regular people with their calls to ‘destroy everything’ in Ukraine.
“It was a real shock for people in Ukraine to understand the level of hate against everyone and everything here.
“It’s impossible in the 21st century to turn someone into a killer or rapist only with the propaganda, without the person willing to be a villain.
“We’re in a safe place as for now, but it does not mean this place remains safe. We have airstrike alerts every day and sometimes at night. This morning started with missiles in Lviv and Kharkiv. In Lviv six people were killed.”
Lviv is in western Ukraine and Kharkiv is in the east. The governor of Luhansk in Ukraine’s east, Serhiy Gaidai, said civilians were killed by shelling on Easter Sunday and that “the Russians do not hold anything sacred”.
Yulia wrote that she badly wanted to go home, but it was impossible at the moment because of the danger of airstrikes and another possible Russian attack on Kyiv.
“I do not have enough words to describe how horrible it is to speak with my parents by phone and understand that it could
be the last time I hear their voices.
“I hope my next letter will be more happy and we’ll return to our regular conversation about peaceful things.”
That hope is no doubt shared by many in Europe and around the world.
