Paris, July 25, 2023
Dear readers,
Yesterday I spoke to Sasha on the phone for the first time since returning to Ukraine on June 30. Twenty-four days without speaking. It hadn’t happened for a long time, such a long break, but I feel that we are exhausted after all the emotions that we experienced together during his trip to France. We needed to remain in this silence. While talking, we realized that our symptoms were almost identical. Sometimes I tell myself that we are united by ties that go beyond our understanding.
The month of July has never been my favorite, but there, I must admit that we broke all the records. Depression caught up with me just after Sasha and Mom left. No energy for nothing. And this little voice in my head that keeps saying: “Come on, Olga, stop complaining, you are totally safe, in a country at peace, you have no right to weakness. » I went to talk to a shrink about it.
According to her, we do not know, for the moment, how and to what extent the war impacts our mental health at all. I feel like I am a small part in an entity, that of the Ukrainian people who suffer and who suffer. News from the front and from Ukraine in general does not improve matters.
Attacks on Odessa, bombed daily for the past week, blocked by the Russians [Olga et Sasha ont choisi de ne pas mettre de majuscule à « poutine », « russes » et « russie »] grain exports to the Black Sea… The dead at the front are so numerous. Our resources of men and women are not infinite. And we are losing civilians every day because of missile attacks in the towns near the front, but also in the regions behind. There is no longer a safe place in Ukraine.
In fact, I’m afraid of the end. From the end of a war where we would lose and where our lands would no longer be ours. I am thinking of people who have already experienced this. It’s like taking away your right to have your roots, to call the soil on which you were born yours. This scenario where there would be no peaceful Ukraine, where I could not go when I want to see my relatives and friends is unbearable. How many people in Ukraine have the same feeling as me?
The last NATO summit was a disappointment for me. Despite the multiple weapons and various budgets allocated to Ukraine – and for which we are really very grateful – the West does not give us the main thing: planes with which we could attack without losing so many human lives. These hesitations are costing us too much. The war is installed, it does not move any more. I know we shouldn’t say it, but we have no more hope!
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