This is the most terrible agony of Ukraine

After so long, our fight now is also to understand again who we really are

I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD REALLY live a war by myself along my lifetime. I was someone naive enough to consider barbarism as something related to past times, based on the understanding that today's institutions are so extensive, widespread, strong, and decisive to successfully prevent this kind of worst from coming into reality.

Even knowing well that European history was characterized by brutal wars at all times, and Ukrainian territory in particular testifying a vast amount of this horror, my 36 years lived in peacetime were not enough to project myself in such familiar circumstances to the land I happened to have been granted the miracle of life.

This is not only a war that tests the tenacity of a country, but tests as well the resilience of 40 million people who suddenly were thrown into a different dimension of life, where all the previous frames of reference fell expired, and everyone was compelled to reinvent a different version of themselves.

Lives that needed to be lived without families, without jobs, without the profession we were used to employ our talents, in a different city or nation, in the expectation of a missile attack anywhere at any time. Anxious by our loved ones in the frontlines, or taking part in them ourselves.

There's no discussion that Ukraine is a nation of strong people, but we have never to forget much of this strength comes from the energy of citizens that are broken from inside. Millions who are finding courage and force amidst a nightmare in their own souls, without understanding anymore who they are and which are the set of beliefs that compose their own lives.

Millions of Ukrainians who will never have the opportunity to find themselves anymore, and will someday regenerate their existences in the bounds of marginality, loneliness, and alcohol, completely devoid from the human potential they could contribute to the reconstruction of the land. Potential many of them were actively using for our common prosperity before the war.

This is the most terrible agony of Ukraine at this moment.

We know we will definitely defeat Russia soon, we know that we have the free and good part of the world by our side, we know the importance and the reasons of our fight. We know what is at stake. But we have reached a stage of mental exhaustion that is also challenging all the logic behind our purposes.

We are just facing the reality that after almost two years, many are not knowing anymore who they are. Which one is their mission in this world.

What is this misery all about?

It has been too much time and it's sad to hear that many refugees are not intending to return to Ukraine anymore. Our kids, our mothers, our wives. Those who remain cannot even blame them, because we are sensible enough to understand that life, as hard as it takes sometimes, must follow its own course.

We are humble enough to understand that we are not the same individuals anymore. We are a nation of millions of broken hearts and broken personalities trying to find ourselves among the panic.

The only thing we have for sure is that we will not give up. No matter the state of our minds and souls, we will keep going on.

No matter which Ukraine will remain from this catastrophe, we will keep fighting for anything that resembles a nation regardless of how hard we will need to work to rebuild it. We are alive for a reason. Many of us lost touch with this reason. But even in the case we cannot count with our loved ones who won't come back again, we will count with each other.

We will take care of each other. For them, for us, for anyone who will take part of the new Ukraine we are going to erect somehow in the near future.

Thank you again for staying with us.