FactualThe urban and connected youth, employed before the war in the creative sectors, put their talents at the service of the resistance.
The father talks about his son. In fact, it’s the only thing he likes to do, or almost. He is a 58-year-old worker in a food factory, “a simple family” he says, in Cherkassy, central Ukraine. His cap sinks to the eyebrows, face marked. The wind is whistling, sour and damp, it smells of the coast, but it’s a river you see there, the Dnieper, so wide here that they call it ” the sea “.
His son ? Sergiy Ambos lights up to describe him, his intelligence, his gold medals in high school, his success in university. “These young people understand what we do not understand. We grew up in another ideology, we learned another story, we spoke another language. » It was the USSR, before the independence of Ukraine in 1991. The father walks through the blocks of buildings that have always cut his horizon, bare concrete aligned for miles, pure Soviet period. “Today, our children are showing us the way, we have to accept it. They know, they have information, repeats the father. This war is their war, that of our children. »
In Cherkassy, again, but towards the city center this time, in a building that houses a dog grooming institute, an aesthetic clinic for humans and a flock of start-ups. The impression is brutal, that of passing in a few minutes from black and white to color. In the basement of the building, designer armchairs make up a living room, Wi-Fi, toilets, and a fresh water fountain. It’s an air-raid shelter, set up a few hours after the start of the Russian invasion. Ivan Podolian receives visitors there, while the siren howls outside.
In his office one floor up, Podolian has developed a banking app to raise funds, he oversees the manufacture of tourniquets and batteries for soldiers’ cell phones. Hoodie, fluent Englishman, leader of a citizens’ association, he sports all the outward signs of belonging to this urban, educated and furiously connected generation that roamed the planet, a laptop under his arm a few weeks ago and who today is reinvesting his talents in supporting the resistance to the Russian attack and uniting around President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Further on, on the road to the exodus to the west of the country, Vlad put his computer on the bonnet of his car. Zoom conference with UK customers amid traffic jams and floods of displaced people. “What is all this noise? », a guy in a tie is surprised on the screen, at the other end of Europe. ” It’s the war, responds Vlad, 24, tattooed from head to toe, who only gave his first name, like other witnesses. But don’t worry: the work continues. We want to make money to help the country. »
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