Maxim Siroyzhko kisses his girlfriend Yana Matvapaeva next to sandbags on the subway in Independence Square in Kyiv on April 21. The couple said they had not seen each other since February 27, when the war with Russia began. David Gutenfelder / The New York Times News Service
If the invasion of Russian President Vladimir Putin was planned, Sergei Volina would be dead and Lilia Cheridnichenko would either flee Ukraine or meekly submit to Russian rule.
Instead, Major Volina, who commands the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, the last Ukrainian unit in the besieged port city of Mariupol, was still alive this week. From the ruins of the Azovstal steel plant, he posted videos on Facebook and sent letters to Pope Francis, calling on the international community to intervene and rescue his wounded soldiers and approximately 1,000 civilians trapped with them.
“Hell on Earth” is how Major Volina described the situation in Azovstal in a letter to the Pope. “Women and children live in the bunkers below the factory. They are cold and hungry. Every day under enemy fire. Wounded people die every day because there is no medicine, no water, no food.
The future looks bleak for Major Volina and Mariupol. But he and his squad of several hundred fighters rejected repeated calls for capitulation. In this way, they detained large Russian forces in Mariupol, preventing them from redeploying elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, now the main front in this 57-day war.
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More than 800 kilometers northwest of the siege of Azovstal, Ms. Cheridnichenko carried out her own, smaller act of resistance. On Thursday, the 54-year-old returned to Irpin, a city on the outskirts of Kyiv, where some of the heaviest battles took place during Russia’s extremely fruitless attempt to seize the capital at the start of the war, and set up a shoe store in the city’s open Easter market.
Lilia Cheridnichenko is standing in front of her tent with shoes she brought to Irpen after the city was liberated by Russian troops. ANTON SKYBA / Globe and mail
The market, which Ms. Cheridnichenko said was about half the size of before the war, is in front of a bank where all the windows have exploded and part of its roof has been damaged by heavy weapons. Buyers stepped in, often unnoticed, by an explosion on the sidewalk where a mortar fell.
Police said this week they found 269 bodies after the withdrawal of Russian forces from Irpen in early April. Survivors said they felt the need to continue – if only to crack Mr Putin.
“Life! Irpin! ” Ms. Cheridnichenko shouted, smiling broadly, as shoppers began arriving on the city’s first market day on February 22, two days before the invasion began. Along with Ms. Cheridnichenko’s shoe booth, a dozen other vendors cared for tables laden with sausages, dried fruit, jams, pickles, and other goods — even wallpaper. “I cried this morning when I saw my clients. I was so happy to see their faces again, “said Ms. Cheridnichenko.
The war continues to rage in the east – where Russian forces withdrawn from the Kyiv region earlier this month were redeployed – and air raid sirens remain a feature of daily life in and around the capital and other major cities. But for Ms. Cheridnichenko, just being outdoors and among friends was a victory after hiding in a bomb shelter with her five grandchildren for 38 days and nights.
“I don’t have a husband, but I have the character of a warrior. So I set an example to my grandchildren that everything will be fine. Even when I was scared, I smiled at my grandchildren. ”
Mr Putin, in a speech just before ordering troops across the border, dismissed Ukraine as a fictional country, a land that was torn from Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. But two or more decades after his interference in Ukrainian politics – first supporting pro-Russian politicians and then fueling a proxy war in eastern Ukraine, which he used eight years later to justify this full-scale invasion – helped consolidate exactly what the Kremlin chief said did not exist: fierce , proud, united Ukraine.
This determined national spirit, along with the growing supply of Western weapons, has allowed Ukraine to at least prolong the conflict, which many analysts say will end almost as soon as Putin sends troops to the country.
“Kyiv in three days,” Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-linked political analyst, told The Globe and Mail in a February 26 WhatsApp statement using Russian spelling in the Ukrainian capital. This week, Mr Markov said the war would last “several months”.
And it’s not just Moscow that has mistaken Ukraine. On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden – who warned before the war that Russia would “fire” Kyiv – admitted he was “amazed” by Ukraine’s resistance. He said the country has proven to be “tougher and prouder” than he thought.
Mariupol, which has been under attack since the first day of the war – and where at least 18,000 people have died – embodies Ukraine’s rejection of the Kremlin’s plans for it. On Thursday, Mr Putin announced that Russian troops would not attempt to storm Azovstal – which has been turned into a five-kilometer-wide fortress – but would instead seal it so that “even a fly” could not enter or leave.
While he claimed it was a “success” and said Mariupol had been “liberated”, Ukrainian authorities said the opposite. “They cannot physically take over Azovstal. They understood that. They suffered huge losses there, “said Alexei Arestovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kyiv and Guy Verhofstadt, former Prime Minister of Belgium, during a visit with a group of European politicians on April 21. ANTON SKYBA / Globe and Mail
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told The Globe that Mr Putin, believing that Ukrainians are the same as Russians he has ruled since the turn of the century, has fundamentally misjudged the country he is trying to conquer.
“We will win this war for one reason: we Ukrainians are fighting and defending our families and children. The Russian army is fighting for the money. And I hope that everyone can see the difference between dying for money and dying for your children and the future of your children, “Mr Klitschko said on the steps of Kyiv City Hall, where he met with a visiting group of European politicians on Thursday. “We never get on our knees. We never want to [to go] back to the USSR, the Russian Empire. We see our future as part of the European family. “
The European delegation, led by former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, was the latest in a series of recent trips by Western leaders – another sign that Kyiv is slowly returning to its former state. The city, which had a pre-war population of more than three million, was a ghost town in the first weeks of the war, as most of its inhabitants either fled or spent their days in shelters.
These days, the city feels half-awake, with some restaurants and shops open, although traffic is still light even at what is usually rush hour.
Despite the sense of relief in and around the capital, the war is far from over. Mr Markov said “no one knows” whether Russia’s military goals will end with the “liberation” of the southeastern region of Donbass or whether Russia will try to retake Kyiv.
The horrors of this war continue to unfold in places like Irpen. Seven fresh graves were dug in the local cemetery on Thursday. However, the residents of this city, as well as the fighters in Azovstal, continued to fight.
“There is a desire to live,” said Pyotr Rudnik, 54, whose home was severely damaged in a March 6 air strike that completely destroyed a neighboring house. He and his wife survived because they were sheltered in their basement.
On Thursday, Mr Rudnik was among the first buyers to arrive at the Easter market. “We will not leave,” he explained. “We live here.”
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