Tracing Patterns — Kyiv, Friday, March 17th

I no longer look at photographs of ruZZian destruction of Ukraine.

If I’m honest, it’s not because the material — as distressing as it is — freaks me out.

It’s because:

a) I now choose not to give ruZZian abominations a share of my eyeballs or my headspace;

b) For me, it’s time to look to Ukraine’s victory, including the liberation of territory that everyone here is expecting, and;

c) I have seen actual not photographic destruction — such as ruZZia’s attempt to make an urban desert of places like Saltivka, a suburb of Kharkiv, where many square kilometres of homes have been totally levelled — and everything else is ‘ruin porn’ by comparison.

It doesn’t have to be anybody else’s choice. But we all do have to make choices in war. I pick up undertones in every conversation here. To stay or go. To keep optimistic or succumb. To keep one’s view on the horizon or on the horror.

So, for example, there’s news yesterday that some 120 people who were murdered at Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, during its ruZZian occupation are yet to be identified. That is horrific. That such a thing could be possible in the 21st century in a modern European city. But ruZZia has shown that its brutality has no emotional or logical boundaries.

Yes, we must mark that fact. It’s important that it be known if only to honour the innocent dead and to remind ourselves of the evil that Ukraine truly continues to face — whether at Bucha or Bakhmut.

And, then, we can lift our sightline. We are what we choose to see. I walk the streets of Kyiv and I see:

· Bus station posters offering people on-line and telephone psychological support — a relatively new and welcome development for Ukraine;

· Billboards advertising for recruits not only for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but specifically for “Brigades of Attack” (nastoopu);

· Young people fashionably dressed and the cafes buzzing — a resistance founded on vibrancy and life;

· Telegram channels about partisan activity on the occupied territories, including Krym — a modern UPA seems fully engaged;

· TV panels devoted to scenarios about how the Russian Federation is likely to collapse through national uprisings of non-Russian peoples, which validate my old bosses at the Ant-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN);

· Companies offering training for future travel agents and real estate agents for what many expect to be a post-victory boom, and;

· The return of Happy Meals to McDonalds.

Perhaps, this seems trivial. Perhaps, it might be interpreted as denying the scale of destruction and death — and therefore insensitive. I hope not.

I hope it reflects something I sense in many, many others here. That there must be a better future.