For a year, the war has upset their existence and suspended the projects of Marko, Oleksandra and Nikol, three young Ukrainians who intend to continue living despite loneliness, distance or pain.
In the family apartment in kyiv where he now lives alone, Marko points to the 2021 Christmas tree that still sits in a corner of the living room.
“It’s a bit symbolic, as if life had stopped since the war,” says the young computer science student, who will turn 18 in two months.
He had left kyiv on February 14, 2022, ten days before the start of the Russian invasion, to go to Lviv, in the west.
His mother “thought it was a good idea to leave, just in case, to be safe”, he explains in perfect English.
He returned to the Ukrainian capital at the end of June, after having spent several weeks successively in Poland, England and Spain, with relatives or friends. Separated, his mother is settled in the Netherlands, his father lives between Lviv and kyiv.
“I was really happy to come back here, even if it’s a very stressful experience (…) Since my friends were no longer there – they were in Europe, very few came back – I felt totally isolated in my city (…) It was quite difficult to manage psychologically”, he relates.
Since then, he has rebuilt a circle of friends for his first year at university, but from October he had to suffer Russian strikes on the energy infrastructure of the capital, which cause daily power cuts.
“At first I was stunned, it was difficult to go back to school, I was mentally distracted (…) It’s also quite scary because you don’t know where the missiles will fall,” he recalls.
In Bonn, Germany, where she has been staying with an aunt since the end of March 2022, Oleksandra, 19, also talks about her friends who remained in Ukraine who tell her “of the power cuts, air raids, massive missile attacks, and how difficult life is”.
“You can’t help but think about what’s going on there (…) Your friends, your parents, your relatives, your whole life has remained” in Ukraine, explains the young woman, who lived and studied the right to Kharviv (east), a city besieged by the Russians at the start of the war.
At first she thought she would stay two weeks in Germany, then return to her city.
“I had not considered this life for me. Until February 24 (2022), everything was going as planned, I wanted to study law. Now I don’t have this possibility”, she regrets during a ‘a telephone interview.
“I hope the war will end in six months, in a year, and that I can resume my studies” in Kharkiv, she hopes.
Nikol, 22, also “dreams” of returning to her home in Mariupol (south), the port city largely destroyed after being besieged for months by the Russian army, which fell in May.
A graduate in international relations and unemployed, she lives with her sister in kyiv.
His mother, ill and evacuated from Mariupol where there was a lack of medicine, died at the hospital in Zaporijjia (south) where she had been transported.
“I can be sad because of certain memories and moments in life, but I cannot say that I am unhappy,” she told AFP.
“I can’t help but be grateful to be sitting here and talking to you. When your life is in danger and you could have died 1,000 times but it didn’t happen, we just appreciate what we have left,” she adds.
Marko also says he is “very happy to be alive”, even if “it’s stressful, constant stress, partly because of the war, partly because it’s difficult to transition into adult life. in these conditions”.
‘I’m quite far from the front line, I live here in relative comfort, I don’t have to take a gun every morning to defend the country,’ he says, wondering if he would be ‘good’ in the army, “brave enough for that”.
“If your comrades have to save someone who is in shock on the front line, then you can be a burden. I don’t want to be that person,” adds the student, who appreciated being volunteer in a Ukrainian NGO, to help clear the rubble of destroyed houses, notably in Boutcha and Irpin, in the suburbs of Kiev.
Oleksandra has a 25-year-old friend who has been on the front line in Bakhmout (east) for a week, the epicenter of fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces.
“It’s scary, but we have to do it,” his young friend told him.
23/02/2023 07:22:56 – Kiev (Ukraine) (AFP) © 2023 AFP