Is It Time to Surrender?

I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT. More than I should.

What if we surrender? What if we give up the fight?

What if Ukraine stops resisting?

Not as a strategy. Not as a debate. I mean really, lay it down. Give them what they want.

Let it end.

No words. No message. Just silence.

Not because we believe we should, but because I just want to live again.

I need a breath. I need to walk outside and feel like the world isn’t collapsing. I need to stop watching people I love disappear.

I need my country to have a day without grief.

And yes, part of me thought, what if I disappear too?

Not from life, but from this war. From this country. From this journal.

From this role.

No final post. No goodbye. Just… stop.

Some days, it feels like peace. Too easy. Too tempting.

Just this low voice in the background:

Maybe it’s time to stop. Maybe it’s time to let go.

Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a fight for attention. Not for myself. But for my country. For the people still suffering here.

There’s so much happening in the world, so much pain, everywhere. And here I am, trying to make sure no one forgets Ukraine.

And yes, it matters. It’s my duty. As a human. As a Ukrainian. But sometimes I also wonder if I am stealing space from other stories that also deserve to be heard.

Explaining why Ukraine matters is so obvious, after all, we all know what’s at stake.

We all know what Russia is. What it does. The images are everywhere. But I don’t feel comfortable to compete for empathy.

I don’t want to fight for attention.

I don’t want to take anything away from any other war, any other grief.

What if I just don’t come back?

What if this journal just ends?

Would anyone notice? Would it even matter to someone?

But then something hit me.

I remember that my feelings here are not only mine. These feelings, this pain, this fire, they just don’t belong only to me anymore.

Because when I’m living and sharing my experience of the war, I am connecting myself with so many of you.

You who give me not only messages of strength, but also tell me that my resistance, the Ukrainian resistance, inspires you in your own war.

You tell me that my words give you strength for your own battles.

Battles against anxiety, against depression, against a terminal or incurable disease you just discovered.

Against a future that just collapsed under your feet.

And me?

What right do I have to surrender, when so many of you are writing to tell me you are still standing because you saw someone in Ukraine not fall, and decided to stand, too?

Yes, my friends. I’ve talked so much about surviving. About life.

And along these three years, ironically, I’ve already lost some of the friends like you that I have known because of this journal.

People who lived in the most peaceful countries and had found me, read every post, sent the most beautiful messages… And are no longer here.

It’s easy to think we’re only fighting for life in Ukraine, but the reality is that life is a battle everywhere.

And sometimes, your personal Russia doesn’t make the news, but it’s just as devastating.

And still, you never gave up your battles.

Your personal Russias.

So how could I?

I don’t have that right.

Russia is not just a country. It’s a concept.

It’s the force that tries to erase you.

That tells you to stop fighting.

That whispers you don’t belong.

That the world is better without you.

.

And Ukraine, well, Ukraine is a concept too. But a very different one.

Ukraine is a concept of you.

Of who you are.

Of who you are when you decide to resist.

The part of you that refuses to disappear. The part that holds the line when everything else is falling apart.

.

You don’t give up when you receive the notice that you have cancer.

You don’t surrender when your doctor says your spouse has Alzheimer’s.

You don’t break when you’re begging your landlord not to throw you out into the street because you can’t pay the rent and have nowhere to go.

You don’t give up when you love someone of the same sex, your community turns its nose to you, your parents expel you from home, and you have to restart your life thousands of miles or kilometers away.

You don’t give up when you’ve lived for 30 years in the country you’re in, where you have kids, where you have built an entire life from nothing, and then suddenly a president decides you don’t belong and that you have no right to live there.

And so they invade your house, arrest you, and deport you just because you didn’t have a piece of paper.

You never give up. You carry the weight.

You resist.

You go on.

And yes, you certainly think so many times about giving up.

But you just don’t.

You don’t.

Because resisting is the greatest act of love we can have for ourselves.

And for the world around us.

That’s why I will not surrender to Russia. I won’t.

.

Not because resisting is easy. But because you show me every single day that surrender is not an option.

Well, maybe it’s still an option on the table, waiting. But it’s also the one that forgets the miracle of being alive.

The miracle we carry just by waking up.

Just by breathing.

Just by going on.

Because that’s what life is, my friends.

Life should be called resistance.

And like you, I love this miracle too much to give it up.

🇺🇦

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📖 “The Divine Comedian: Ukraine’s Journey Through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise” is more than my first book: it’s Ukraine, seen from inside the fire, and the hope that refuses to die. Download it for free (PDF & Kindle) and see what survival really looks like.