Paris, September 25, 2024,
Dear readers, dear readers,
For the past few months, the idea of a trip to Ukraine has been in my head every day. The time apart from my family, from my Sasha, is definitely too long. I haven’t seen my sister since November 2023, I don’t know she’s pregnant, she doesn’t even know my son, her nephew… But, at the same time, I’m very worried. I would like to go with my son, but he is very small. What will I do in case of an attack? My family tells me that it is too dangerous, I tell them that they are there, that Sasha who is going to have a baby is there, so why not me? My sister and I found a building with a single-block concrete parking lot, which is apparently the best way to stay safe during a massive rocket attack. I’m thinking of renting an apartment there, but the prices in the center of kyiv [Kiev, en ukrainien] They are exorbitant. The same as in Paris, except that the average salary in Ukraine is 18,800 hryvnias, which is equivalent to 420 euros.
The truth is that I already bought Warsaw-Kyiv train tickets for October 10. But I still hesitate: should I finally see my family and introduce them to my son or be safe with my heart broken in two? These impossible dilemmas are my daily life, as I believe that of millions of Ukrainians.
For over thirty months I’ve been waking up afraid to look at my phone screen. My brain is full of information that my consciousness refuses to integrate.
September 4. Attack on Lviv. I see this father, with a painful and blue face. He lost everything, his three daughters and his wife.
September 7. I found out that a friend from college lost her two cousins at the front. He considered them his brothers. His family is devastated.
September 10. I discover the testimony of a racist [contraction de « russe » et de « fasciste »] captured by the Ukrainian army. The video was published by the channel. [du gouvernement ukrainien] United 24. This man unscrupulously admits to having raped three girls, two boys and six women in Avdiivka, before killing them at point-blank range against a wall. By order of his commander, he said. I reposted this horror on my networks to show the whole world what plague the Ukrainians are protecting Europe from.
Now I regret it a little, but, under the influence of emotion, pain, anger, when I shared the video, I added “That a man like that had no right to live.” In the comments I was told that by writing this I was not respecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So human rights and the right of Ukrainians to survive are two different things for Westerners? And when I talk about the rights of Ukrainians, I also think about all the other peoples caught up in wars. The gap is so deep between us and others.
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