It is very hard to believe that in the year 2022 we are witnessing a brutal full-scale war. Russia is invading a big country and that is happening not in the shadows of a remote island or at the heights of the African mountains but in the middle of Europe! The Russian invasion of Ukraine makes it clear that all the ideals and improvements after World War II were fake. The world watches as a nation is destroyed by air bombardments and tanks, a country is occupied, children are killed, hospitals targeted and even pregnant women are brutally attacked.
Last week, I was in Ukraine as a journalist and interviewed former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Archbishop Yevstratiy Zorya, the spokesperson of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Lviv Mayor Andrey Sadovyi, Lviv Governor Maksym Kozinsky, families, refugees, armed villagers and ordinary youth in the Ukrainian streets. It was one of the toughest and saddest experiences of my life. I saw widespread resistance in all the people I met and anger toward the state that destroyed their lives.
Politics and politicians are a different topic. Ukraine may have made mistakes as a state, and there may have been provocations and wrong decisions made by the Ukrainian government; however, whatever the reason might be, there is no justification for such a brutal invasion. A nation is dying, a nation is suffering, families are being divided, people are losing their homes.
We (me and my colleague, a camera operator) crossed the Romanian border to enter Ukraine. At the border, there were only women, children and the elderly. Men between the ages of 18-60 are not allowed to leave the country, so women and children have to leave their fathers and spouses behind. I saw long lines of people waiting to cross the border. Many could only take one suitcase to transport their whole lives in. Everything else had to be left behind. Kids were tired, sleepless and hungry. I saw children who have become homeless but still clung to the toys in their hands.
In Ukraine, we traveled from the southern border over to Chernivsky then to Kyiv, where the road was frightening and dangerous. You could feel the bullets aimed at your back while you traveled in the dark. Gas stations don’t sell gas. The markets are empty. It is ice cold and at every entrance of every village you are stopped by armed men for security checks. In the capital Kyiv, we found a ghost town. There was literally no one on the streets other than armed soldiers.
I traveled to Lebanon during the war in 2006 and to Iraq in 2004 as a journalist, but I never witnessed the deathly silence that I saw in Kyiv. Kyiv in every way felt deserted. After we conducted our interviews, we left the city with our ambassador and the embassy personnel the next day. Turkey has been one of the last countries to withdrew its ambassadors from Kyiv. Others left many days ago.
From Kyiv we headed to Khmelnytskyi to spend the night before reaching Lviv the next day. Lviv has become a “safe haven” amid the war. “Safe” of course in Ukrainian conditions. Nowhere is actually safe. Russia is lobbing bombs on military bases near Lviv and sirens ring almost all night, but in terms of the distance between the tanks and the city, it is considered “safe.”
There is a big migratory wave flowing from all over the country to this western city, and the population has almost doubled in the last three weeks. We had the chance to observe the effects of the migration and talk to the mayor and governor of Lviv while staying there. We also met with a middle-class family in their apartment in the heart of Lviv to see the war through their eyes and listen to their experience.
It is very sad to see a city that was so lively and happy a couple of weeks ago so depressed, worried and afraid. People live in schools, theaters, they wake up with sirens, they are scared about losing their relatives back home.
It is a humanitarian disaster and a big disappointment for our age. Russia should be stopped. Here, Turkey plays a key role as an actor who is able to talk to both sides. That is why President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’s efforts for dialogue are extremely precious.
