1,000 days of full-scale war: Reflections from the Kyiv Independent team

November 19, 2024

By Ukraine

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As we mark 1,000 days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, members of the Kyiv Independent’s staff have paused to reflect. These reflections offer a glimpse into the profound impact of war — not only on a nation’s struggle for survival but on those who bear witness to its unfolding.

`Francis Farrell`

War reporter

Although I was in Lviv when the full-scale war started, the first months of the war were something I experienced mostly from the outside — through news, at a safe distance from the front line. Those first months had a frantic, superlative energy to them: a time of heroes and legends, but also of horrors and depravity we thought impossible in the 21st century.

I joined the Kyiv Independent during the season of liberations — a time that remains the most powerful experience of my life. Light and dark existed together: the unbridled jubilation of Kherson’s liberation made possible by what Russia had put the city through — the tortured, the deported, the stolen, the murdered. Even now, my iPhone suggests musical slideshows of “The Great Outdoors: Autumn 2022,” filled with pictures of the mass graves in Izium.

Light and dark existed together: the unbridled jubilation of Kherson’s liberation made possible by what Russia had put the city through.

Back then, we all thought that the next big counteroffensive was just around the corner, and we screamed at the West to act with greater courage and urgency. We knew the road ahead wouldn’t be easy, but we didn’t anticipate what came next.

First, Bakhmut: Russia’s dress rehearsal for wave attacks paired with the complete annihilation of cities. Then, the summer counteroffensive, which had taken on such a biblical weight in the lead-up that it left me with a pit in my stomach before it even started.

The counteroffensive taught me some important lessons — the greatest being the danger of wishful thinking and the necessity of clinging tightly to reality while navigating the darkness of war. Since then, the darkness has only deepened: realizing the West’s fear of Ukrainian victory, reckoning with Kyiv’s failure to fix internal issues in the military that could turn a stable defense into collapse, and understanding that no amount of individual heroism can stop a glide bomb.

Now, winter is coming, bringing with it what feels like a reckoning for Ukraine and the free world. It’s a bit hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel at the moment. But, in the meantime, there’s no shortage of light to be found around the place — in Ukrainians, and especially in Ukrainian soldiers, thanks to whom I can still type this out in free Kyiv.

`Anna Belokur`

Social media manager
One thousand days ago, I woke up in Helsinki, Finland, to a phone full of messages. The top one just said, “I’m so sorry.”

My friends and I joined hundreds of others holding signs outside the Russian embassy, standing in the snow and dark after the sun set in the early afternoon. Every time someone peeked through the embassy’s blinds, the crowd would scream angrily.

Finns are deeply reserved people who rarely make eye contact with strangers, but in the days that followed, other dog walkers began nodding at me and exchanging startled looks when cars backfired. There was a heightened awareness that Finland’s trademark peacefulness is a gift, not a guarantee.

There was a heightened awareness that Finland’s trademark peacefulness is a gift, not a guarantee.

Finns — like Ukrainians, Latvians, and a handful of others — have a joke: they don’t have to deal with deadly insects or hurricanes, but they suffer from the greatest natural disaster of all — sharing a border with Russia.

Finland has defenses woven into every part of society, from the spots under ordinary bridges designed for detonating explosives to the mandatory year of military service required of every Finnish man.

One man told me that training exercises are always based on the assumption of an attack from the east. I don’t know a single Finn who wants to fight, but I also don’t know a single one who isn’t prepared to.

Feb. 24, 2022, is the only time I ever heard Finns scream in anger. Writing this from Kyiv 1,000 days later, I draw strength from the fact that Ukraine still has allies who understand what’s at stake. These are nations that have closed their borders with Russia, advocated against any form of appeasement, and trained to defend against attacks from the east. Just as I wasn’t alone that day, we aren’t alone now.

`Anastasiia Mozghova`

War Crimes Investigations Unit’s executive producer

Today marks the 1,000th day of the full-scale invasion, but the war in my country has shaped nearly half my life.

When the war began in 2014, I was in middle school. Growing up in Donetsk Oblast, I remember those early days vividly — a child surrounded by adults grappling with the reality of Russian terror.

The news of the full-scale invasion came while I was in university in Bulgaria. By then, the decision to return to Ukraine after graduation felt natural. Now an adult, it's my turn to confront the terror.

Now an adult, it's my turn to confront the terror.

I do so as part of the Kyiv Independent’s War Crimes Investigations Unit. In these 1,000 days, the Russian army has committed thousands of war crimes. My team works tirelessly on cases of sexual violence, torture of prisoners of war, civilian murders, and child deportation.

People often ask if I’m exhausted by the constant exposure to such horror. My answer: my motivation outweighs the exhaustion. Justice is an essential part of Ukraine’s victory. It will come when the voices of war crimes victims are heard, and the names of perpetrators are spoken clearly and without fear.

Ultimately, our unity and determination will decide whether my children’s generation will have to face Russian terror. My hope is that they never will.

`Asami Terajima`

War reporter

A year ago today, I received a Facebook message from a friend serving in the mortar unit of the Ukrainian military’s 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade near embattled Chasiv Yar.

“We have suffered a great tragedy today,” he said.

I felt a chill, already dreading what he might say. I immediately asked what had happened. I was scrambling to finish packing for a work trip to Kherson, but my mind spiraled toward worst-case scenarios.

After a pause, he replied: “Three 200s.” The military code for killed in action in Ukraine.

Any loss is devastating, but you always hope it’s not someone close. I opened WhatsApp to check who had been online last and realized my dear friend Vladyslav hadn’t logged on since early morning.

I soon discovered that three men, including the unit commander and 28-year-old Vladyslav, had been killed by a Russian anti-tank missile. Another friend, who miraculously survived, had to pull out the charred remains of Vladyslav’s body from their position.

The shock was unbearable. My mind replayed bittersweet summer memories: fishing in the dark before dawn, celebrating birthdays with late-night barbecues. Those golden days — despite their nearness to the front line — are now irretrievably gone. It’s strange how the warm smiles you once took for granted fade into distant memories.

Even now, it doesn’t feel real that they’re gone forever. The cottage-turned-military base where we spent those summers was damaged by Russian shelling this year. What remains are fleeting memories and low-quality iPhone photos.

A thousand days into Russia’s full-scale war, you develop a numbness to pain — a survival mechanism that feels both unsettling and inevitable. It’s hard to believe it’s been less than three years since I was a 21-year-old university student-turned-journalist on Feb. 24, 2022, questioning whether I had what it took to cover the war.

A thousand days into Russia’s full-scale war, you develop a numbness to pain — a survival mechanism that feels both unsettling and inevitable.

Long gone are the days when World War I-style trench warfare and cluster munitions were only scenes from films. Now, death feels ever-present, a constant reminder of how fragile and fleeting life is.

`Daryna Shevchenko`

CEO

It’s been exactly 1,000 days since Russia's full-scale invasion began, and I’ve been sleeping like a baby the entire time. I know that’s not what you expect to hear from a Ukrainian living in Kyiv, especially when most news reports focus on how Russian attacks deprive the nation of sleep and rest.

On Feb. 24, 2022, I woke up to my alarm clock, ready for a normal workday. My phone was buzzing with hundreds of missed calls and messages from colleagues and family. I slept through the explosions, air raid sirens, the noise in my building, kids crying, and dogs barking. It was the last morning in the next 999 days that I woke up feeling rested.

Since then, I’ve slept through hundreds of overnight attacks, drones flying by my window, and air defense missiles nearby. I thought I was lucky — or perhaps more resilient than others — until I realized that I had also lost my mornings. Returning to reality became a real challenge over the past three years. I drink coffee, work out, and take walks in fresh air, but nothing helps. I still spend most of my energy fighting for moments of concentration and trying to live life to the fullest.

My psychiatrist says excessive sleep under stress isn’t normal, just as insomnia isn’t. My attempts to convince myself that this is a “good sign” are a futile search for normalcy. And guess what? Normalcy has nothing to do with war.

And guess what? Normalcy has nothing to do with war.

I’ve been lucky not to lose anyone close to me in this war — yet. But none of us, here in Ukraine, are emerging unscarred.

Lately, I’ve seen more comments on social media from foreigners doubting the horrors of Russia’s war against Ukraine, looking at photos and videos from Kyiv, Lviv, or Odesa, where dressed-up crowds attend concerts or sit at cafe terraces, appearing so normal.

Sleep or no sleep, makeup or blood and bruises, our reality is never normal. Not in the last 1,000 days. The truth is, the only way for the world to preserve its normalcy is to help us recover ours.

`Teah Pelechaty`

Opinion editor

I wrote this poem in the early months of the full-scale war, before moving to Kyiv in August 2023. At the time, I worked on the Kyiv Independent’s news desk from Toronto, bearing witness to the war through a relentless stream of images and reports. A war fought in real time on my screen while the world outside my window remained indifferent, untouched.

Rereading this poem now, I realize how the exhaustion of carrying this grief for 1,000 days remains just as heavy as the day I wrote it — grief not only for what has been lost but for the unbearable contrast of living in between.

Even as I sit here writing, I've forgotten.
I tend to forget these days.

The city I care not to see assaults my eyes,
my ears,
my nose,
with its relentless permanence.

The billboard at the corner thrashes red,
abrasive and blinking,
and in its glare, I see her fingernails —
also red, but still now, lifeless.

At the club,
dim lights scatter across the throng,
fracturing faces, bodies, limbs —
suffocating.

As bodies crush and contort around me,
swaying to a cacophony of Canada’s Top Hits,
each appendage belongs at once to everyone,
to no one.

In a mass grave,
each appendage belongs at once to everyone,
to no one.

They are perfect, her fingernails.
So meticulously crafted and polished,
amaranth red and adhered to a hand that has long gone limp.
I wonder if they will remain as her body withers.

I forget her face.
I tend to forget these days.
I forget her face —
the woman with the red fingernails —
and yet, I do not search for it.

With each subsequent grave —
Bucha, Mariupol, Izium —
and with each subsequent face,
in my mind’s eye,
there remain only red fingernails.

`Kate Tsurkan`

Culture reporter

Focusing too much on how many days have passed since the start of the full-scale war only deepens the sorrow I feel when confronted with news of more innocent people who were killed by Russia. In such moments, the future seems distant, fragile – a thread barely visible.

Counting days can seem meaningless when time itself feels distorted. Plus, this war stretches back over a decade for some Ukrainians, and we can’t forget that.

What keeps me awake at night is thinking about how this war will shape my daughter and every Ukrainian child, leaving its shadow on their lives long after it ends. (Will it ever truly end?) The only thing I can count on is how I will try to bring kindness and goodness into the world.