Moldova: A divided country

I had first visited Moldova in July 2022, travelling down from Iaşi (pronounced Yash), in Romania, and spending a couple of days in Chişinău before heading to Odessa. That was my first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country that February. In the absence of direct flights to Ukraine due to the war, Moldova has become one of the main entry points into the country. Dozens of buses travel from Chişinău to Odessa every day, most people coming straight out of the airport and on to a bus. Refugees visiting their homes, women and children reuniting with their husbands and fathers who are not allowed to leave Ukraine.

I had not fully appreciated Chişinău on that first visit (see post of 23 July 2023). My perspective had been distorted by my arrival at the central bus station, situated in the heart of the city’s sprawling central market, a somewhat rundown neighbourhood, bustling during the daytime, but almost empty and rather forbidding in the evenings, when the market has packed up for the night. To get to my hotel, I had to pass along a derelict street of abandoned, broken buildings. I was in Moldova again for a couple of weeks in the autumn of 2024. On this occasion, I had the opportunity to visit other parts of the country, as well as Chişinău. I learned to appreciate Chişinău this time, its well-tended, shady parks, its cafes under the trees, its fine restaurants.

I was back again in the summer of 2025, passing through on my way down to Odessa, and spending a few days on my return. This time I spent a couple of days in breakaway Transnistria, the Administrative-Territorial Units of the Left Bank of the Dniester, as it is officially known in Moldova, or the Pridnestrovian (“by the Dniester”) Moldavian Republic, or just Pridnestrovie, as it is called by the unrecognised separatist state strung out along the Dniester river in eastern Moldova. In light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I had some qualms about visiting a territory under Russian control. On my visit to Moldova the previous autumn, I had been to the security zone along the ceasefire line separating Transnistria from government-controlled Moldova. On that occasion, I was on the side of the zone under Moldovan control, but getting there meant passing through a checkpoint manned by Russian soldiers, part of the trilateral peacekeeping force comprising soldiers from Moldova, Transnistria and Russia.

The House of Soviets, with Lenin bust, Tiraspol

The left, east bank of the Dniester split away from the rest of Moldova as the Soviet Union broke up at the beginning of the 1990s and Moldova moved towards independence. In a brief war that surged in 1992, with help from former Soviet, now Russian forces, the Transnistrian separatists prevailed, leading to a frozen conflict and the deployment of Russian “peacekeepers” who are still there today. The breakaway region has a complex ethnic makeup, with a plurality of Russians, as well as Ukrainians and Moldovans, and smaller numbers of other ethnic groups.

The territory of today’s Republic of Moldova had been part of the medieval Principality of Moldavia, with its capital in Iaşi, which by the 16^th century had become a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. However, in 1812, the eastern half of Moldavia, today’s Republic of Moldova plus territories to the north and south in present-day Ukraine, was annexed by the Russian Empire. The western half of historic Moldavia went on to unite with Wallachia to form the Romanian state in the mid-19^th century. When the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires collapsed at the end of the First World War, Romania expanded into ethnically and linguistically Romanian lands. Eastern Moldova, also known as Bessarabia, was incorporated into Romania. But the east bank of the Dniester became part of Soviet Ukraine.

In 1924, the Soviets created the Moldavian Autonomous Socialist Republic along the east bank of the Dniester, within Soviet Ukraine. The capital was initially in Balta, which is today a district of Odessa Region, but in 1929 it was moved to Tiraspol. The idea for the Soviets was that this autonomous region would be a magnet for the rest of Moldova, which they hoped to recover. When, during the Second World War, Moldova was annexed by the Soviet Union, the east bank of the Dniester, including Tiraspol, became part of the Moldavian Soviet Republic.

As the fighting in Transnistria reached its culmination in the summer of 1992, separatist forces, aided by the Russian army, seized the town of Bender, also known as Tighina, on the west bank of the Dniester. There are also pockets of territory on the east bank that remain under Moldovan control. Since 1992, the conflict has remained essentially frozen, although in 1997 an agreement was signed by the two sides, normalising relations between the two territories.

I have visited several unrecognised separatist territories, including Abkhazia in Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, when it was still under Armenian control, the Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, and Northern Cyprus. None of them have established a normal modus vivendi to the extent that Moldova has done with Transnistria. People travel back and forth freely. Marshrutkas (minibuses) leave Chişinău for Tiraspol every 20 minutes. Vehicles with Transnistria license plates (which bear the Transnistria flag) can be seen in Moldovan-controlled territory, just as Moldovan-registered vehicles can be seen in Transnistria. Entering Transnistria when I visited, the formalities at the crossing point were quick and easy. On the government-controlled side, no checks at all. On the Transnistria side, a quick check of my passport, my details entered in their system, and I was asked the purpose of my visit. I was then given a slip of paper, which I had to produce, along with my passport, on my return.

Transnistria is famed for existing in a Soviet time warp, with its Soviet era monuments, statues of Lenin and other Soviet heroes. Tourists visit Tiraspol for a glimpse of the old Soviet Union. The Transnistria flag even retains the Soviet hammer and sickle emblem. I had supper at a restaurant called Snova v SSSR (Back to the USSR), a kind of Disney land of Soviet nostalgia. But if a desire to hang on to the certainties of the Soviet world, above all its Russian primacy, was behind Transnistria’s separatism, beyond the outward symbols, I don’t think Transnistria today is very Soviet. Much of the economy has been privatised since the 1990s. Tiraspol has excellent cafes serving cappuccinos and delicious pastries, as well as numerous restaurants serving pizzas, burgers and all the fare of the modern world. Its shops are well stocked with all manner of produce.

Wall of Memory, Tiraspol

As well as the Soviet-era monuments, there are also memorials associated with the war at the beginning of the 1990s, commemorating the soldiers who fell for Transnistria. The Memorial of Glory in Tiraspol honours the dead of the Second World War, the Afghan War, and the Transnistrian War. At its centre is the tomb of the unknown soldier and eternal flame. There is also a World II tank. More recently, the memorial was reconstructed, with a Wall of Memory listing those who died for Transnistria.

In Bender, close to the western end of the bridge across the Dniester, linking the town with Tiraspol, there is a collection of monuments. The Stele “City of Military Glory” was unveiled in 2015 to mark the 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II. The president of Transnistria had designated Bender a “City of Military Glory” in 2012. Nearby is the Memorial of Commemoration and Sorrow, dedicated to those who died in the Transnistria war. The monument is described as an open chapel and is topped by a cross. Next to it is a restored infantry fighting vehicle whose crew had died in the fighting in 1992, and also an eternal flame. There is also a monument to Alexander Lebed, the Russian general whose intervention on the side of the Transnistrian separatists was critical in inflicting defeat on the Moldovan forces. Lebed was quite the hero for Transnistria. There is also a rather less well cared for monument to him in a scrappy untended park near the railway station in Tiraspol. Lebed’s involvement in the Transnistria war made him highly popular in Russia, and some considered him a potential successor to President Boris Yeltsin. He was a pragmatic general, who, despite his support for Transnistria, apparently regarded its leaders with contempt as a gang of corrupt “hooligans.” He went on to play a key role in negotiating an end to the first Chechen war.

Memorial of Commemoration and Sorrow, Bender

Yet another nearby monument in Bender is the Monument of Russian Glory, an obelisk topped by an eagle, which was inaugurated in 1912 to mark the centenary of Imperial Russia’s victory over the Ottoman Empire, and the annexation of Bessarabia to the Russian Empire. It had originally stood inside Bender castle, on a hill overlooking the Dniester, which has recently been much restored. All these monuments to military victories, those of the more distant past as well as the more recent victory over Moldova, seem to suggest a state fixated on war. This mirrors the obsession with war promoted by the Putin regime in Russia. In Tiraspol there were posters commemorating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, although it was the end of July, and the anniversary had been nearly three months earlier. Looking at the memorials to those who died to separate Transnistria from Moldova highlights the difficulties that would have to be overcome if Transnistria is to be reintegrated with Moldova.

Transnistria has faced a severe economic crisis in 2025, since Russia’s gas supplies were cut off due to Ukraine’s ending of a transit agreement at the end of 2024. Transnistria had depended on Russia’s supply of essentially free gas, which powered its industries as well as providing heating and electricity for its inhabitants. That dependency also ensured that Transnistria remained tethered by a tight leash to Moscow. The result of the cut-off was factories halting operations and power cuts for Transnistria’s residents. The crisis is potentially existential for Transnistria, where the economy and the government’s finances had depended on the subsidised Russian gas. An offer of EU help was rejected, presumably under Russian pressure. A partial solution was found by which gas is supplied by a Hungarian company through Moldova, funded by a Russian loan. But the crisis has highlighted just how vulnerable Transnistria is given its dependence on a faraway patron. Moldova itself, with EU help, had already been diversifying its energy supply away from Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and is hooked up to Romania’s electricity grid.

Transnistria finds itself ever more dependent on Moldova. Transnistrian enterprises have to be registered in Moldova in order to trade with Europe. Since 2022, the breakaway territory’s border with Ukraine has been closed. People and goods can get into or out of Transnistria only through Moldova. As it is recognised as part of Moldova, Transnistria has benefited from the Association Agreement Moldova signed with the EU in 2014, boosting trade with the EU, as well as ensuring that Transnistria’s exports have to comply with EU and Moldovan standards. This economic dependence gives Moldova leverage. Moldova’s approach towards Transnistria, with its openness to free movement of people and goods is probably wise, and stands in marked contrast to Ukraine’s approach to the separatist territories in Donbas from 2014 until the full-scale invasion in 2022. The prospect of an eventual peaceful reintegration of Transnistria into Moldova would surely be worth such patience.

In the centre of Tiraspol, tall flag poles fly the flags of Transnistria alongside those of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two separatist territories in Georgia that are sustained by Russian support. There are also representative offices of the two breakaway states, both in the same building. When I walked past, a man was busy putting up a poster commemorating the war in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia in support of its South Ossetian clients. Evidently there is a strong common sense of shared destiny among these separatist lands. But Transnistria’s position, cut off and lacking a common border with Russia, is more fragile those of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Out of Transnistria’s population of 475,000, according to the 2015 census, some 300,000 are reckoned to have Moldovan citizenship. Many Transnistrians have multiple passports, with around 150,000 having Russian citizenship, and 100,000 having Ukrainian citizenship, as well as smaller numbers with Belarusian, Bulgarian or Israeli citizenship, and many with Romanian citizenship. Walking in the centre of Tiraspol, I saw an advertisement for legal services for people seeking Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian or Romanian passports. The demand for alternative passports would seem to indicate a high degree of pragmatism among Transnistria’s residents.

While there is little sign at this point of a willingness on the part of Transnistria to reintegrate with Moldova, nevertheless a pragmatic willingness to rub along appears to underlie relations between Tiraspol and Chişinău. This is partly due to force of circumstances. Without Moldovan goodwill, Transnistria would be totally isolated. This pragmatism could be seen in the Moldovan referendum in October 2024, on placing the aspiration to join the EU in the country’s constitution. The referendum passed by a wafer-thin margin, indicating the extent to which Moldovans are divided over the questions of their relationships with Europe and with Russia. It passed at all only thanks to the votes of Moldovans living abroad, who voted overwhelmingly in favour of integration with the EU (more than 200 polling stations were opened abroad, only two of which were in Russia, much to Moscow’s annoyance). Moldovan citizens resident in Transnistria had the opportunity to vote in special polling stations in government-controlled territory, many of them inside the security zone. Official data show that over 15,000 of them did so, of whom 31 per cent voted yes to EU integration. Visiting some of the polling stations, I saw that, while the majority spoke with polling election officials in Russian, many spoke Romanian. Evidently, at least part of Transnistria’s population identifies with Moldova and with its European future.

Russian influence and interference in Moldova is intense. While the conflict over Transnistria remains frozen, Russia has continued to pursue a hybrid campaign in Moldova, seeking to influence its elections, supporting pro-Russian candidates in the hope of bringing to power a government more conducive to Russian interests. This was very much evident in the referendum and presidential election, the first round of which was held on the same day. The process was marred by massive vote-buying, involving money transfers from Russia, a key role being played by the pro-Russian Israeli-born Moldovan politician Ilan Shor, who currently resides in Russia, a fugitive from justice in Moldova following his conviction over a massive banking fraud.

Pro-Russian sentiment remains widespread in Moldova. A couple of weeks after the referendum, I was in the southern region of Gagauzia, an autonomous territory in southern Moldova. The Gagauz are a Turkic-speaking Orthodox Christian people, found in southern Bessarabia, in neighbouring Ukraine, as well as in Moldova. Most Gagauz had opposed Moldovan independence. Worried by the example set by violent separatism in Transnistria, in the 1990s Chişinău granted the Gagauz territorial autonomy within Moldova. Soviet nostalgia and pro-Russian sentiment remain potent within the region. In Gagauzia’s regional capital, I visited the local winery. It houses a museum of Soviet nostalgia, including artefacts from Soviet times, Soviet military and Komsomol (Communist youth league) hats that you can try on, a Lenin bust, and all the old flags of the Soviet republics, including the hammer and sickle. In referendums in Gagauzia in 2014, more than 98 per cent voted in favour of joining the Customs Union of Russia, Belaris and Kazakhstan. Over 97 per cent opposed integration with the EU, and nearly 99 per cent supported independence in case Moldova were to unite with Romania. In the October 2024 referendum, nearly 95 per cent in Gagauzia voted against EU integration.

Although the Gagauz have their own language, the lingua franca in Gagauzia is Russian, and during my stay in the regional capital, Comrat, and in my travels around the region, I mostly heard Russian spoken. Many Gagauz speak Romanian poorly, and there is a lot of sensitivity about the Romanian language being imposed. Within Gagauzia, people have the right to use Gagauz or Russian, as well as Romanian, in public life. I was told that many people do speak Gagauz in rural areas, but oddly, it seems that the language issue in Gagauzia is mainly about defending the use of Russian, rather than of Gagauz.

While the referendum in favour of EU integration marginally passed, thanks to the votes of the Moldovan diaspora, the majority of regions in the country voted against. As well as Gagauzia in the south, neighbouring Taraclia disrict, with its ethnic-Bulgarian majority, voted “no” by 92 per cent, and much of the north also voted strongly against. The presidential election held at the same pitted the pro-western incumbent, Maia Sandu, against Aleksandr Stoianoglo, an ethnic-Gagauz who was seen as the pro-Russian candidate. While Stoianoglo said he supported Moldova’s European path, he opposed the referendum question on enshrining EU integration in the constitution, and promised a foreign policy that balanced East and West. Sandu emerged victorious with 55 per cent of the vote. Mirroring the referendum result, support for Stoianoglo was stronger in the south and north.

While Sandu supporters put the closeness of the referendum and election results down to Russian interference and vote-buying, nevertheless the results would suggest Moldovan society remains divided over its relations with Russia and Europe. Rather than scorning those citizens who are unconvinced by the EU integration path, Ukraine’s example might serve as a salutary warning to proceed with caution, avoiding polarisation and seeking a broader consensus about the country’s European future. Moldova’s path towards Europe is surely clear. But with an aggressive Russian regime still using all means to put obstacles in its way, and a population much of which remains to be convinced, caution would surely be prudent.

War weariness in Ukraine

In the weeks before my arrival back in Ukraine in mid-July 2025, the country had been subjected to some of the most intense Russian missile and drone strikes since the onset of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Hundreds of drones in single nights, as well as ballistic missiles. Terrible pictures of red skies over Kyiv and other cities as fires blazed through the night, of shattered blocks of flats the following morning, and grim stories of families destroyed, of children killed. Travelling down from Chisinau to Odessa, I was expecting to find a country shaken by these terror attacks. I was expecting disturbed nights and sleep deprivation. Surely now people would be taking notice of the air raid alerts and seeking shelter in the basements? Yet when I arrived on a warm summer evening, my first impression was of normalcy. People sitting on café terraces, strolling in the neatly maintained city parks, children gambolling in the fountains, all apparently without a care. After a calm, restful night, I drank my morning coffee at one of the outdoor cafes at the city-centre Book Market. Men and women, young and old, relaxed, chatting, laughing. It hardly felt like a country at war at all.

But of course, everything was not normal. During my stay in Odessa, and again in Kyiv a few days later, there were night-time drone strikes. I slept right through them, my phone switched off so that I did not hear the air raid alert app, sheltered from the bangs by the double glazing and the ear muffles I wore. Buildings were hit, people were killed and injured. In Kyiv, a metro station not too far from my accommodation was hit. The station platforms, where people were sheltering from the drones, were engulfed in smoke. Yet on the following morning, people went about their business, drank their morning coffees, carried on as if nothing had happened. The afternoon after the strike on the metro station, workmen were busy about their repairs, replacing broken glass with plywood, and the station, despite some debris scattered about the entrance hall, was working normally.

Kyiv: the aftermath of a missile and drone attack

There is an outlandish dissonance between the reality of a desperate war for national survival, with thousands of soldiers risking their lives in the trenches among the shattered towns and villages along the frontline, the frequent missile and drone attacks on cities throughout the country, and the normal everyday life that continues amidst it all. While young men enjoy the good life in towns and cities like Odessa and Kyiv, going out to bars and cafes, frolicking with their girlfriends, other men, many of them by no means young, endure the destruction, the daily confrontation with death at the frontline, the terror of shellfire and drones, the loss of friends and comrades. And then there are the wounded, the men missing legs or arms that one passes in the streets of Kyiv and other cities. So many sacrifices. What must they think of these young men living it up at home as if everything were normal?

Ukraine’s armed forces face a severe shortfall of men. With certain exemptions, men aged between 25 and 60 are subject to the draft. Social media are full of stories of men being nabbed in the street and sent off to the army. Many live in fear of being caught. Some avoid going out more than is necessary. And despite Ukraine’s existential struggle, the wider society largely sympathises with the draft dodgers. There is deep resistance to the draft. Despite the advice of Western governments that the age for the draft should be dropped, there is strong opposition to requiring younger men, men in the prime of life, at the peak of their physical strength and fitness, to serve in the military. This year, there is a campaign to attract young men to join the army voluntarily, with higher wages than other soldiers receive. It is claimed to have had some success. But still, Ukraine’s need for more recruits is not being met.

What has happened? What became of the spirit of 2022, when, following Russia’s full-scale invasion, men and some women queued up to receive weapons and training, when men returned from abroad to defend their country? Is it exhaustion with the war? Is it that, after the disappointments of the failed Ukrainian offensive in 2023, and the slow, steady meat-grinder advance of the Russian invader, people have lost hope in eventual victory? Several people I spoke to gave their reasons. Relatives or friends who had served in the army had told them about chaos and mismanagement, of incompetent officers and of lives needlessly lost. Stories emerged from the front of new units decimated the first time they came into contact with the enemy, of new recruits fleeing in the face of Russian offensives, of desertions. No doubt, mistakes have been made. Chaos and confusion have always been a part of the horrible experience of war. Random, futile death has always been as much a part of warfare as heroic sacrifice.

The Ukrainian government’s reluctance to extend the draft to include younger men reflects the widely held position of Ukrainian society, the reluctance to make the sacrifices necessary to defeat Russia and expel the aggressor from Ukrainian land. Ukrainians are justifiably resentful about the slowness of Western allies to provide the weapons needed. Time and again, the West resisted sending crucial weapons systems, anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, tanks, aircraft, long-range missiles, and then relented too late, when opportunities had been missed, when the Russians had prepared fortifications, or moved logistics centres out of range. Western governments’ tardiness in sending weapons have cost Ukraine dearly.

But if Ukraine is to liberate Russian-occupied territory, whatever weapons systems it has, it would involve men going on the offensive against heavily fortified Russian positions, with the losses that would inevitably entail. Ukrainian military commanders have sometimes talked up the potential of new technologies that would enable them to take back territory while preserving the lives of their soldiers. Well, up to a point. But the Russians are also matching Ukrainian technological advances, and their leaders have no such qualms about sending young men to their deaths. Ukrainian society needs to decide whether it is ready to pay the price for liberating its land. And if not, perhaps it would be better to seek terms with Russia sooner rather than later.

One of my friends in Kyiv, originally from occupied Luhansk, told me he no longer thought Ukraine could take back the territory it had lost. Recent opinion surveys suggest his viewpoint is typical, that much higher numbers of Ukrainians are now willing to entertain the idea of giving up occupied land for peace. In 2022, he had been bullish, determined. Millions of Ukrainians were ready to fight for their country, he had said then. Now he was convinced most Ukrainians would accept the loss of territory, if it could bring an end to the war. This seems to be a widespread view now. That the sacrifices are too great. That, in the face of Russia’s greater size and capacity to wage war, and with the inadequate support of the country’s allies, it would be better to make peace sooner rather than later. And then there is the morale-shattering withdrawal of American support by the Trump administration, the shock of depending on a US president who cares not a jot for Ukraine or for the transatlantic alliance, and who places a far higher value on his relationship with the dictator Putin.

The idea that Ukraine should have to give up territory, that Russia’s aggression should be rewarded, is deeply offensive. Not just that. It undermines the basis of the post-1945 world order. If Russia is allowed to get away with its violent seizure of Ukrainian territory, every other would-be aggressor would be emboldened. And who would bet on Putin stopping there, once he had digested a chunk of Ukrainian land? But despite all the fine words, European countries have been slow to step up to the challenge posed by the noxious alliance of Putin’s aggression and Trump’s indifference. If we are not ready to give Ukraine the help it needs to defeat Russia, who are we to tell Ukrainians to carry on sacrificing their people indefinitely for what might, after all, turn out to be a forlorn cause? It is a terrible prospect. If things go in that direction, that Europe stands by and watches as Trump joins Putin in imposing an unjust settlement on Ukraine, it would rank alongside the betrayals of Munich and Yalta. But without adequate support from the West, Ukraine’s position would probably be impossible. The shame would be on the West, on Europe and America, not on Ukraine.

Uzhhorod: A complicated heritage

I travelled down from Kyiv to Uzhhorod on an overnight train in August 2024. Situated on the River Uzh, on the border with Slovakia, Uzhhorod is the capital of Ukraine’s Transcarpathia Region. One of the smallest regional capitals, with fewer than 120,000 people in 2022, Uzhhorord is far from the war in the east of the country. When I visited, Transcarpathia was the only one of Ukraine’s regions that did not have any night-time curfew. In contrast to Kyiv and all the other cities in Ukraine where I had stayed that summer, there were no air raid alerts and no power cuts during my three days in Uzhhorod.

Uzhhorod castle

Like other places in western Ukraine, Uzhhorod has a complicated history, having changed hands several times during the twentieth century. For centuries, the city had been part of Hungary, and was named Ungvár, castle on the River Ung, of which Uzhhorod is a direct translation. The castle itself sits on a hill overlooking the river. A postcard from a hundred years ago shows an imposing view of the castle from across the river. The view is blocked today. But with the steep slopes around it, and the imposing walls and deep ditch that surround it, it must have been a formidable fortress. By the 18^th century, its defensive purpose had largely been superseded, and, inside its walls, its buildings were remodelled for the comfort of the aristocratic families that lived there. Most notable of its residents were Count Miklós Bercsényi and his wife, Kristina Drugeth, at the end of the 17^th and the beginning of the 18^th centuries, at the time one of the richest and most powerful aristocratic families in Hungary. Bercsényi played an important part in the failed Ferenc II Rákóczi rebellion against Hapsburg rule, and the couple ended up living out their days in Turkish exile.

Following the First World War, Uzhhorod became part of the new state of Czechoslovakia. The Transcarpathian region was known as Ruthenia, a name that had once been applied to the whole of medieval Kievan Rus, which comprised much of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia. By the late-nineteenth century, the name “Ukrainian” had largely supplanted “Ruthene”. For a time, the question of whether the Ruthenes of Transcarpathia were a distinct nation or part of the wider Ukrainian people was open. In March 1939, as what remained of Czechoslovakia after the 1938 Munich agreement was dismembered by Nazi Germany and Hungary, an independent state of Carpatho-Ukraine was briefly declared by a leading local politician, Avgustyn Voloshyn. The language of the new state was declared to be Ukrainian, and its national anthem was to be “Ukraine has not yet Perished”, thus clearly identifying the Ruthenian people of Transcarpathia as Ukrainian. It only lasted a few hours, as Hungarian troops swiftly occupied the region. Voloshyn sought refuge in Prague. In 1944, the advancing Soviet Army occupied Transcarpathia and incorporated it into Soviet Ukraine. When the Soviets reached Prague in May 1945, Voloshyn was arrested by the NKVD and carted off to Moscow, where he died a couple of months later. In 2002, Voloshyn was recognised as a “Hero of Ukraine”. There is a statue of him next to the river in the centre of Uzhhorod.

The Synagogue, Uzhhorod

While the wider territory of Transcarpathia was and is predominantly Ukrainian-inhabited, Uzhhorod itself had, until World War II, been multi-ethnic, with Hungarians and Jews predominating, as well as Ukrainians and Slovaks. A strip of territory along the border with Hungary was also predominantly ethnic-Hungarian. Little remains of the Hungarian and Jewish presence now. Most ethnic-Hungarians had moved to Hungary, while almost the entire Jewish community had been transported to Auschwitz in 1944, along with the rest of Hungary’s Jews. A few ethnic-Hungarians remain. As I walked through a residential neighbourhood one morning, a lady called out in Hungarian from her balcony to a passing friend. Next to the castle, I dined in a Hungarian restaurant. But Uzhhorod today is a Ukrainian city. The language-rights of the ethnic-Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia has been at the forefront of fraught relations between Hungary and Ukraine following the passing of controversial laws on education and language in Ukraine, putting Transcarpathia’s Hungarians in the uncomfortable position of a political football in the disputes between the two countries.

Next to the river, a huge synagogue, built at the beginning of the 20^th century, is a testament to the city’s once thriving Jewish community. Since the annihilation of that community, it has served as a concert hall. Outside the building, a memorial to the local victims of the Holocaust, now looking rather uncared for, was erected in 2016. The building, unmistakenly a synagogue, despite its repurposing, remains one of the most striking buildings in the city.

The Faculty of Physics and Biology, Uzhhorod

Another building that I found particularly striking was the Faculty of Physics and Biology. Walking down a cobbled lane from the castle, the large building, with its high arched windows, the walls painted orange on the lower two stories, and unadorned stone higher up, looms at the bottom of the hill, its colours in different shades depending on the light at different times of the day. Like much of the old town of Uzhhorod, it is rather run-down and in need of renovation. But there is a faded grander in its shabbiness.

As elsewhere in Ukraine nowadays, the statues tell a lot about how the country has been changing over recent decades, those that have been built, those that have been toppled, and those that have been allowed to remain. An empty plinth close to the river still bears the name of Pushkin. Russian cultural figures are no longer celebrated. Their statues are being removed, and streets named after them renamed. Uzhhorod’s statue of Lenin was felled long ago. But historical figures associated with other states to which Uzhhorod once belonged are still marked. Not far from the castle, across the road from the Greek Catholic Holy Cross Cathedral, is a small statue of the 18^th-century Austrian Empress Maria-Theresa. Tomáš Masaryk, the founding father and first president of Czechoslovakia, has a street named after him, as well as a school, and there is a bust of him in one of the city’s parks. Close to the river is a big old ash tree commemorating Masaryk. Close-by his bust, is a statue of Milan Rastislav Štefánik, a Slovak who served as a French general, and along with Masaryk was one of the leading figures in the movement for an independent Czechoslovak republic.

Museum of Folk Architecture and Life, Uzhhorod

Close to the castle, the outdoor Museum of Folk Architecture and Life was a delightful, as well as educational place to visit on a warm summer’s afternoon. The museum contains numerous traditional houses transported from villages around Transcarpathia, laid out in streets, with gardens, many of them wooden, some with thatched roofs. Inside the houses are items of furniture, ornate traditional clothes and material, as well as artifacts including looms. The centrepiece is the wooden Church of St Michael, with its high spire and, inside, among the icons, a graphic depiction of the last judgement.

Living with Russian terror in Kyiv

A couple of days before my arrival in Kyiv in July 2024, a Russian missile had hit a children’s hospital in the centre of the city. Amid Russia’s campaign of terror against Ukrainian cities, missile strikes, the deaths of innocents, of children, have become all too common place. But this attack struck a new low. It was Ukraine’s foremost children’s hospital. News reports showed pictures of children with bald heads, there to receive cancer treatment, sitting outside. Rescue workers desperately pulled through the rubble looking for survivors. Volunteers brought water for those labouring in the hot summer sun. How could the Russian attackers do such a thing? What possible explanation could they give for a missile strike on a children’s hospital?

The world was shocked by the terrible images. But after all, the world had been shocked by Russia’s brutal attacks many times before. Each time there are expressions of horror, and then the news cycle moves on. And still spineless Western leaders debate whether to send Ukraine the weapons that could counter Russian terror, and whether to allow Ukraine to use those weapons to strike the places in Russia from which the attacks are launched with impunity. Simply put, some Western leaders do not put a high enough value on Ukrainian lives. President Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded with the West to give Ukraine the means to defend itself. And in return more words “condemning in the strongest possible terms” Russia’s terror, and support for Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” To Ukrainians facing the continuous barrage of Russian missiles, such words sounded like empty “bla bla”.

Kyiv is always lovely in summer. The café terraces, the parks, Trukhaniv island, with its bucolic views, lily pads, bathers, rowing boats. So tranquil, despite the violence that is never far away, the air raid alerts, the almighty bangs when missiles strike or are intercepted by air defence.

Trukhaniv Island, Kyiv

This summer, there were power cuts much of the time. This was not new. There had been power cuts since Russia started targeting the energy infrastructure in the autumn of 2022. But they were more frequent now, and lasted longer. They were not constant. During my stay in Odessa shortly before arriving in Kyiv, they were not too bad. A few hours each day, typically two hours at a time. There had been longer cuts before my arrival. In Dnipro, there were four-hour cuts, two or three times a day. That made it difficult to get on with normal life. In Kharkiv, despite all the wreckage, my stay was free of power cuts almost the whole time. I was lucky. But in Kyiv, when I arrived, there were cuts of up to seven hours, twice during the daytime. Some days there would just be a couple of two-hour windows with power. This was disruptive. Most cafes and restaurants in the city centre had generators, so it was possible to get a coffee and a croissant, to check my emails and social media. And then one day, after a couple of weeks of that, it was all much better. Power cuts few and far between, whole days with no outages at all.

I suppose, I hope, the electricity providers were using the warm summer months, with their long hours of daylight, to carry out repairs, to bolster capacity before the winter. This has been the story each year since Russia’s full-scale invasion; anxiety, fear about the coming winter. Would there be power? Would there be heating? So far, the country had done remarkably well. But the relentless Russian attacks continued, with the aim of making Ukrainians freeze, of making their cities uninhabitable, of breaking their spirit.

More than two years into the war, spirits were frayed. On the surface, Kyiv could appear quite normal. People went about their business. They went to work. They drank coffee with their friends. They went to bars, although, admittedly, the midnight curfew put a dampener on the city’s nightlife. But it was hard to escape the sombre mood. The disappointing failure of the previous summer’s offensive, the realisation that there would be no speedy end to the war, the relentless Russian attacks, the deaths, the tragedies, the streams of lies from Trump-supporting politicians and journalists who cynically blamed Ukraine for Russia’s aggression. It all took its toll.

On 28 July, the second anniversary of the mass-murder of more than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war at Olenivka, in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, there was a rally in the central Maidan square in Kyiv. Several hundred participants included family members of Ukrainian prisoners, as well as soldiers of the Azov Brigade, formerly known as the Azov Battalion, whose members had been among those killed at Olenivka. Olenivka was the site of a POW camp where Ukrainian prisoners were kept who had defended Mariupol during the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine.

Azov torches on the Maidan

It had not been possible to carry out a proper independent investigation of the explosion at Olenivka during the night of 28-29 July 2022, as the Russian occupiers and their local proxies did not allow access to UN investigators. However, Russian claims that the explosion was the result of a Ukrainian rocket attack did not seem to stand up to scrutiny. Rather, it appeared that it was caused by an incendiary device within the prison. The Ukrainian authorities, based in part on intelligence findings, concluded that the explosion had been caused by members of the Wagner group, a private military company responsible for numerous war crimes in Syria and Africa, as well as Ukraine. It was suspected that the motivation was to cover up evidence of the torture and murder of Ukrainian POWs that had taken place there.

The crime at Olenivka was a terrible trauma for Ukraine, prompting despair at the helplessness of international agencies such as the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to protect Ukrainian prisoners. The heroic defence of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol in the spring of 2022, as well as the brutal destruction of the city and the mass slaughter of thousands of its inhabitants, is a source of both pride and immense pain for Ukrainians. The murder of so many heroes of Azovstal at Olenivka redoubled that pain. While the release of prisoners brought back from Russia in prisoner exchanges is always a reason for joy, the evidence of their mistreatment intensifies the anger. That anger among the crowds on the Maidan on 28 July was palpable.

Following a speech by an Azov commander who had been among the Azovstal defenders to have been released in a prisoner swap, the ranks of Azov soldiers recited the Prayer of a Ukrainian Nationalist, and then held aloft flaring torches. Seeing these displays, I could not help but be reminded of the controversies that, despite the undoubted courage of Azov soldiers, have surrounded Azov from its inception. Azov was set up by far-right, neo-Nazi figures at the outset of Russia’s aggression in 2014. And despite claims that the unit has put its extremist origins behind it and become a regular, professional unit, shorn of the ideological baggage, displays such as this suggest that the brigade has not transformed itself as much as is claimed. For a start, the Azov soldiers still wear the modified Wolfsangel arm patch, a symbol associated with the Nazis. And then there is the so-called “prayer” of a Ukrainian nationalist, with its references to Ukrainian fascist leaders from the 1930s and 40s. And the holding aloft of torches looked more like a Nuremburg rally than a military parade.

The glorification of Stepan Bandera and the OUN fascists who resisted Soviet occupation in the 1940s, but also massacred tens of thousands of Jews and Poles, as well as Ukrainians who did not subscribe to their extreme nationalist vision, had at one time only had marginal appeal in Ukraine, mostly in the far west of the country. But the Maidan Revolution and Russian aggression have seen acceptance of the historical legitimacy of Bandera and the OUN, together with its symbols, spread to the mainstream. Russian propaganda makes preposterous claims about the supposedly Nazi leanings of Ukraine, with its Jewish president. But the normalisation and acceptance of the veneration of murderous fascists of the past, the erection of statues of them, and the naming of streets after them, is only grist to the mill of Russian propaganda. And there is no need for it. Bandera and his ilk have nothing in common with today’s democratic, European Ukraine. The courage of Ukrainians resisting Russia’s brutal aggression owes nothing to the warped heritage of such extremists.

Life amid the terror of war in Odessa

I had last visited Odessa in the summer of 2022, just a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (see post of 2 August 2023). The city had felt half-empty, with little traffic, and many shops, restaurants and cafes closed. There had been checkpoints manned by armed men all over the place. Returning in June 2024, the city had somewhat revived. Some people, at least, had returned. And some of the gaps had been filled by people displaced from war-torn places further east. A bit more life had returned to the streets. The roadblocks had mostly gone. The seaside boulevard close to the Potemkin Steps, Odessa’s most celebrated landmark, was open to the public again. There was a greater air of normality. The agent from whom I rented a studio apartment told me there were even a few visitors from other parts or Ukraine, come to enjoy the summer season in Odessa, even in wartime.

The Potemkin Steps and the wrecked Hotel Odessa

But new scars had appeared on the city as a result of Russia’s terror strikes. The high-rise hotel at the end of a promontory at the bottom of the Potemkin Steps had been wrecked, as had the marine terminal next to it. It had been an ugly hotel, as even its owner acknowledged, and had been disused for several years, a dreadful blot on the view from the top of the famous steps. If its destruction would not be entirely mourned, the same could not be said of the strike on the Transfiguration, or Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral in July 2023. During an attack that also saw strikes on residential buildings, a missile blew a hole in the cathedral’s roof, collapsing the altar. The shocked population came out to clear up the rubble caused by the explosion. In the afternoon, the Archbishop and the head priest of the cathedral led prayers outside the building. The city’s controversial mayor, who had been seen by many as pro-Russian, made an emotional statement, switching to Russian to speak directly to the Russian people, to tell them how much Odessans hated and despised them, calling them people without morals or values.

Damaged Transfiguration Cathedral, Odessa

In a dreadful irony, the cathedral belonged to the part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that had remained affiliated to the Moscow Patriarchate up until the 2022 full-scale invasion (a rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, inaugurated in 2018 with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, unambiguously stood with Ukraine’s struggle for its survival). The original cathedral had been destroyed by the communist regime in the 1930s. Having been rebuilt in independent Ukraine, it was consecrated in 2010 by no less a figure than the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Despite the Ukrainian Orthodox Church having broken with Moscow in 2022, many Ukrainians still regarded it with suspicion, and some of its clergy had been accused of collaborating with the invaders. The Russian Orthodox Patriarch had given his forceful backing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He blessed Russian troops and declared that those who died in battle would be cleansed of their sins. For his part, following the attack on the cathedral in Odessa, the head priest was unequivocal in denouncing the Moscow Patriarchate and the Patriarch himself. A year after the attack, the cathedral was closed, its windows boarded up. Renovation work was already under way. At the front of the cathedral, which had been undamaged by the blast, it was possible to step just inside the entrance. Notices outside the church were now in Ukrainian, no longer Russian.

Odessa’s Ukrainian identity had long been in question. Historically multiethnic, and with a large Jewish population, it was Russian speaking and, before the onset of Russia’s aggression in 2014, part of its population had identified as Russian. When I lived in Odessa in 2015-2016, one almost exclusively heard Russian in the streets of Odessa. Only in summer, when visitors from other parts of Ukraine flocked to the city, did one hear much Ukrainian. War had changed the character of the city, just as it had changed Ukrainian society in general. Under the onslaught of a brutal invader, few wanted to identify with Russia anymore. Waiters and waitresses, as well as shopkeepers, spoke to their customers in Ukrainian, as required by law. While Russian was still widely spoken, Ukrainian was now much more frequently heard in the streets. Shop signs were in Ukrainian.

Catherine the Great, off her pedestal

Outward symbols of the old Russian connection are also disappearing. The statue of Catherine the Great, the founder of the city, had been removed from its pedestal close to the Potemkin steps, replaced for the time-being by a Ukrainian flag. Little flags commemorating people who had been killed fighting for Ukraine had been placed around it. The bust of the great Russian poet, Pushkin, close to the city hall, was still there, as was the statue of Prince Mikhail Vorontsov, a governor of New Russia in the early 19^th century, with his seat in Odessa, next to the Transfiguration Cathedral. Pushkin had lived in Odessa for a time, and reputedly had an affair with Vorontsov’s wife. But such associations with the city’s Russian history are out of favour now. Not all Odessans were happy with such attempts to re-write the city’s history, even among those who were 100 per cent loyal to Ukraine. A couple of my Odessa friends were sorry about the removal of the statue of Catherine. But in the present climate, such views tend not to be voiced publicly.

In the early weeks of the full-scale invasion, Odessa had been in Russia’s sights. But Russian forces had been beaten back before Mykolaiv, to the east of Odessa, and then pushed out of Kherson and across the Dnieper river in the autumn of 2022. A series of Ukrainian strikes against Russian warships, and on the naval base at Sevastopol, in Crimea, had effectively pushed the Russian navy away from the western side of the Black Sea. While Odessa, like everywhere else in Ukraine, was not safe from terror attacks by Russian missiles and drones, Russia’s attempts to capture the city had failed. Whatever its history, Odessa’s future is as a Ukrainian city.

Summertime in Odessa

Odessa in summer is always delightful, even in wartime. People sit in the city’s well-tended gardens, eating ice creams, listening to street musicians. Children play. Delivery cyclists flit about with their boxes of hot food on their backs. Yet the mood in 2024 had a sombre edge. As throughout much of Ukraine, there were power cuts, the result of Russian attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure. There were frequent air-raid alerts, ignored by many, but threatening nonetheless. Sitting with a friend on a café terrace one lunchtime, we were startled by a loud bang. It turned out it had come from the port city of Chornomorsk, more than 20 kilometres along the coast. It often surprised me how loud the bangs were from explosions quite some distance away. Many Ukrainians had become used to air raid sirens and loud bangs, even blasé about it. For others, it was a constant strain on the nerves. But after more than two years, it was becoming exhausting. The failure of the previous summer’s much heralded Ukrainian counter-offensive had dampened spirits. The prospect of a long-drawn out war, with the uncertainty of continued western support, was draining. The need for ever more recruits for Ukraine’s army was stretching the commitment of some.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, volunteers had flocked to the army. Young men queued up at recruiting offices. Techies used their expertise to send drones against the columns of Russian armour. Elderly ladies prepared Molotov cocktails and knitted socks for the soldiers. Two years on, all those who wanted to volunteer had done so. Now the army was having to draft people who did not want to go to fight. Walking in Ukrainian cities, one all too often passes men (and some women) walking with prosthetics, or with an arm missing, an all too vivid reminder of the dangers involved in going to war. In Odessa, I heard stories of men being pulled off the street and forced into the army. Most men between the ages of 18 and 60 were not allowed to leave the country. The age at which men could be drafted had recently been reduced from 27 to 25 (younger men could volunteer). But some had either bribed officials to let them cross the border, or slipped out of the country illegally. Close to the Moldovan border, one could see abandoned vehicles. I was told they were left by men who had sneaked across the frontier. I was also told of police officers offering to let men evade the draft if they paid a bribe, otherwise they would be sent to the army. Probably such tales of corruption were rare. But they were widely believed.

The impression that the sons of rich or influential families could escape the draft, that the longstanding poison of corruption continued to afflict the country, even in wartime, had a corrosive effect. There had been scandals concerning military procurement, of defence officials on the take, even at a time when the country was fighting for its very survival. A defence minister had been sacked, reportedly for having failed to get to grips with such shaming dishonesty. The sense of a united country, of shared sacrifice, had been degraded by such stories. The very fact that life in Odessa, even with the air raid alerts, the bangs, and the nightly curfew, appeared so normal was surreal. Was this really a country locked in an existential struggle? I had heard that many soldiers, returning on leave, were disturbed to see the extent to which normal life continued. President Zelensky, with his regular addresses to the population, tried to sustain a sense of purpose, of pride, and of optimism. But in a drawn-out war with little good news, it is not always easy.

Kharkiv: living with Russian terror

I arrived in Kharkiv by minibus from Dnipro on a hot summer’s day at the end of June 2024. I had briefly visited the city a year earlier (see post of 6 September 2023). I had been struck then by how, despite the widespread destruction, the city was very much alive, and people continued to go about their daily lives. Walking out of the bus station, a short distance from the city centre, the destruction of war was immediately evident. Shattered buildings with boarded up windows, what had once been rooms now exposed to the open air. There are many streets like that in Kharkiv.

Strolling through the central Shevchenko Park an hour or so later, between manicured lawns and beautifully kept flowerbeds, it was easy to imagine that all was well with Kharkiv. The covered-up statue of Shevchenko, for protection against missile strikes, was, however, a reminder that it was a precarious well-being. And then, all of a sudden, there was a tremendous bang. Unprepared for such a noise, I jumped slightly. A small group of children quickened their pace. But most Kharkiv residents just carried on walking or chatting with their friends on park benches. This was the kind of everyday experience that after two years of war was barely even noticed by the citizens of Kharkiv, inured to the noises of Russia’s war of terror against their city. I later learned that the bang emanated from the small town of Derhachi, just to the northwest of Kharkiv, which has been savagely mauled by repeated Russian strikes.

Shevchenko Park, Kharkiv

Kharkiv carries on with its life. People go to work, meet friends for coffee, go out for family dinners. But the war is inescapable. Air raid alarms are a familiar fact of life all over wartime Ukraine. But during my few days in Kharkiv, there were air raid alerts almost all the time. They were so frequent, that it became hard to remember in any moment whether there was an air raid alert or not. Apart from the missiles and drones lobbed at the city, sometimes in the background the dull thuds of artillery fire could be heard. A few weeks before my arrival, Russia had launched a new incursion north of Kharkiv, seizing a few villages. Ukraine’s defenders had held firm, and the Russians had not got very far. But the fighting was still going on.

Destruction in central Kharkiv

The city centre is scarred by missile strikes. Almost every street has damaged buildings, the result of missile or drone strikes, often in clusters. Some have windows boarded up, having been blown out by nearby explosions. Others have been completely wrecked by direct hits. The regional administration building stands empty and forlorn on the central Freedom Square, having been struck by a missile in the early days of the Russian invasion. Several other buildings around it are also wrecked. This is the backdrop to peoples’ lives in Kharkiv. Life carries on, but after more than two years, the strain of living with Russian terror must take its toll.

In the northern-most suburbs, the destruction is even worse. During the early months of the invasion, in 2022, Saltivka district, in north-east Kharkiv, had been shelled on a daily basis. When I visited, on a hot Friday morning, around the metro station the streets bustled with life. Street traders sold ripe fruit, vegetables and flowers. Butchers did a thriving trade, as did kiosks selling pirogi, pies stuffed with meat, potato, cheese or cabbage. Walking a little further, I came to a picturesque lake, surrounded by trees. Men fished, children fed the ducks, and people bathed in the cool water, a refuge from the stifling heat. A pleasant weekend scene on a hot summer’s day. But walking further on into Saltivka, there were more and more buildings with boarded up windows, pock-marked by shrapnel.

Saltivka

And then the landscape changed altogether. One moment walking among buildings still inhabited, windows boarded up, but still serviceable. People sitting outside the blocks of flats, chatting with friends, others carrying home their weekend shopping. And the next moment, no more than a hundred metres on, a shattered scene of wrecked buildings, broken, crushed, burned out, collapsed. Every single building damaged. Children’s playgrounds now overgrown with vegetation, schools wrecked and boarded up. No more children. A place of desolation, empty, the people gone, no longer habitable. Outside one block of flats, an elderly lady tending her flowerbeds, a hold-out, too old, too set in her ways to move to a safer place. Amidst these abandoned, broken buildings, with no electricity or water, nature is already re-asserting itself. First it is the overgrown weeds. Soon, if the people do not return, new trees will start to sprout.

Close to the Russian border, Kharkiv is particularly vulnerable to Russian strikes. During Russia’s spring cross-border offensive north of Kharkiv, Ukrainians were beside themselves with frustration that, while the Russians launched attacks from just over the border, western countries would not allow them to use weapons they had supplied to strike back at the places from which the attacks emanated. Russian planes could launch their glide bombs across the border, knowing the Ukrainians could do nothing about it. The Russians could rain down terror on Ukrainian towns and villages with impunity, because western countries tied the hands of Ukraine’s defenders.

An attack on 25 May on a DIY hardware store and a residential area, killing and injuring several people, was widely reported internationally, and caused particular shock. People going about their weekend shopping ripped apart by Russian missiles. But this was the daily experience of Kharkiv. Finally, at the end of May it was reported that the US government had given Ukraine limited permission for strikes against Russian targets just across the border. This appeared to make an immediate difference, and the pressure on Kharkiv let up somewhat. But still, Ukraine was forbidden to use western weapons for deep strikes against Russian military targets. And Kharkiv residents continued to be subjected to frequent missile strikes.

A few days after my arrival, I was sitting in the park when there was another big bang. As before, people didn’t even look up. I later learned that a depot of the logistics company, Nova Poshta, a kind of Ukrainian UPS, had been hit. Again, Kharkiv residents carried on with whatever they were doing. But we should not accept that this becomes normalised. It should not be acceptable that western countries leave Ukrainians to face the barrages of Russian missiles and drones, wringing our hands every now and then when there is a particularly deadly attack, but otherwise leaving Ukrainians to confront it alone. More than two years into the war, why is Ukraine still lacking sufficient air defences, having to make impossible choices about whether to protect cities or frontline positions, which cities to protect, and which not? Why are Ukrainians still far outgunned by the Russians invaders when it comes to artillery shells? And why do we still tie Ukrainians’ hands behind their backs and deny them permission to use the weapons we provide to strike military targets deep inside Russia? Enough of this half-hearted support. Enough of leaving Ukrainians to pay the price for our angst about Russian escalation. Give Ukrainians what they need to defeat this evil.

A return visit to Dnipro

I had spent two months in Dnipro as an election observer in 2006. At that time, it had been called Dnipropetrovsk, in honour of the Ukrainian Bolshevik, Grigory Petrovsky. The city was renamed Dnipro in 2016, in line with the de-communisation policy that followed the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014. The city had had other names too, including Yekaterinoslav (“Glory of Catherine”), in homage to Catherine the Great, who had decreed the city’s foundation in the late 18^th century.

Dnipropetrovsk had been an important Soviet industrial centre. Its particular claim to fame was as the centre of the Soviet Union’s rocket production, for which reason it was closed to foreigners until the glasnost era of the 1980s. There is a monument to the rockets that played such an important part in the city’s history close to the regional administration building in the city centre. The city was also one of the most important centres of political power, both in the Soviet Union and in independent Ukraine. The Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, was from the nearby town of Dniprodzerzhynsk (which reverted to its pre-Soviet name, Kamianske, in 2016) and made his early career in Dnipropetrovsk. Brezhnev built a network of allies and dependents there, the so-called Dnipropetrovsk mafia, which wielded huge influence when he reached the pinnacle of Soviet power.

Dnipro, Rocket City

Dnipro’s political importance continued after Ukraine’s independence. The country’s second president, Leonid Kuchma, had been the director of the Yuzhmash (“Pivdenmash” in Ukrainian) plant that produced the rockets and spacecraft. During and after his period in office, key political players and oligarchs from Dnipro, the Dnipropetrovsk clan, continued to play an outsized role in Ukrainian affairs, including prime ministers Pavlo Lazarenko and Yulia Tymoshenko and oligarchs Victor Pinchuk, Kuchma’s son-in-law, and Ihor Kolomoisky.

Dnipro, like all of Ukraine, had suffered economic upheaval in the fallout of the Soviet collapse. When I was there in 2006, while there were a few slick cafes and nice restaurants, the signs of the impoverishment of much of the population were all too evident. The city had a rather drab look to it.

It was a very cold winter, with temperatures at night persistently below minus 20 degrees during much of my stay, and sometimes below minus 30. Such temperatures were a new and interesting experience to me. After a few minutes outside, my cheeks became numb. If I accidentally left home without my woolly hat, within seconds my ears were burning from the cold. If I wanted to take a photo, I had to be quick, as without my gloves my hands quickly became non-functional. But in my apartment, which overlooked the Dnieper river, close to the monument to the fallen of the Afghan war, I was toasty warm, even too much so. At night I slept naked on my bed, with no coverings, otherwise it was too hot. Sometimes I had to open a window to let in a blast of cold air as the only antidote to the insufferable heat inside. Like most homes in Ukraine, I had no control over the temperature of the heating system, which was switched on in the autumn and off in the spring by the local government. Ukraine received its gas from Russia at highly subsidized prices, and there was no need to economise with heating. Except that Russia’s goodwill was becoming uncertain and unreliable.

Since the end of the Soviet Union, there had been persistent controversy between Ukraine and Russia over gas prices. Given Ukraine’s desperate economic straits, the country struggled to pay even the below market prices that Russia charged, and often did not pay. As Moscow tried to maintain its dominant role in its “near abroad”, hoping to rebuild Soviet-era ties, it seemed unreasonable from a Russian perspective that it should continue to sell cut-priced gas to Ukraine as it asserted its independence. From Ukraine’s perspective, Russia was using the gas issue as a weapon to maintain its grip on the country and prevent it from pursuing its own course. Only a couple of weeks before my arrival in Dnipro that cold January in 2006, Russia had briefly cut off the gas supply to Ukraine. The thought of facing a Ukrainian winter without heating was a terrifying prospect for Ukrainians.

The failure of successive Ukrainian governments to reform the energy sector not only left the country vulnerable to such Russian pressure, it also sustained epic levels of corruption in the country, as well-connected oligarchs benefited from the cut-price gas supplies that enabled them to accumulate vast profits. While a shift to market prices would undoubtedly have been painful for the population, by simultaneously denying Russia a means of exerting pressure and tackling the grotesque levels of insider corruption that poisoned Ukraine’s politics and society, such reform would have put Ukraine in a much stronger position to fend off mounting Russian bullying and coercion over the subsequent years.

The hardship of many Ukrainians was disturbing. In the evenings, I would see teenage boys in the streets, boys with nowhere warm or safe to go, facing a night in the cold, fear and worry in their eyes. My assistant told me many of them had left home to escape drunken, abusive fathers, but had nowhere else to go. Sometimes the police would let them stay in the warmth of the railway station, she said, but not always. Arriving back at my apartment, I sometimes passed groups of youths huddled in the stairwell, having managed to get inside the locked entrance to the building. Snow cleared from the streets was piled high along the roadsides. My assistant told me that every year, when the snow thawed, some dead bodies were uncovered, homeless people or drunks who had fallen over and never got up.

I followed the progress of six electoral commissions in Dnipropetrovsk region. It was terribly stressful work for them, with extremely long hours, especially in the last days before the election. Three commission members suffered heart attacks. One woman in a small town close-by Dnipro had her son with her, sleeping on a couch while she worked through the nights. Apparently her husband was not sufficiently responsible to be able to take care of the boy himself. Her son was sick she said, and she had taken the job at the commission to earn some money to pay for his medical care. But she was damaging her own health in the process. Aged, I would guess, around 40, she was one of the ones who had a heart attack. Elections are important. But the sacrifices should not need to be so great.

Monastyrsky island, Dnipro

I revisited Dnipro briefly in the summer of 2014, as warfare was raging further east in Donbas. After eight years, the city looked very different. Perhaps this was partly because it was summer. Warm sunshine and parks full of luxuriant greenery always make a place look better. Walking along the bank of the broad Dnieper river, and crossing the footbridge to Monastyrsky island on a warm summer’s afternoon, Dnipro appeared to be blossoming. I was particularly struck by a dilapidated old building on the island’s bank, nestling among the lush foliage and the lily pads. It was a lovely sight.

The mood in Dnipro that summer of 2014 was intensely patriotic. Ukrainian flags were everywhere. The façade of the Soviet-era Parus Hotel, on the river bank, was adorned with an enormous Ukrainian flag. The Ukrainian national anthem blared out repeatedly from loudspeakers on a city-centre square. Statues of Lenin had been felled during the recent turmoil of the Maidan revolution. Dnipro was a predominantly Russian-speaking city, but the outpouring of national feeling in response to Russia’s aggression gave the lie to claims that Russian speakers were pro-Russian or in any need of being rescued by Russia. The majority had voted for the Party of Regions of ousted President Yanukovych. But they had never wanted to be part of Russia, or to have Russian tanks overrunning their country. Dnipro had had its pro-Russian protesters, but they were well outnumbered, and had never presented the same level of threat as their counterparts in other eastern cities. The recently appointed regional governor, Kolomoisky, had responded firmly, offering financial rewards for information about separatist activity.

Returning again in the summer of 2024, the impact of the war was ever present. As a result of Russian attacks on critical infrastructure, there were four-hour long power-cuts two or three times per day. As in other Ukrainian cities I had visited since the 2022 full-scale invasion, the frequent air raid alerts were largely ignored by the population, but they were unsettling, and Dnipro too had suffered its share of missile strikes raining down murderous terror on innocent civilians. In an exposition in a corner of one of the city parks, amidst broken military vehicles, were the road signs of occupied towns in eastern and southern Ukraine, pock-marked with bullet holes. Many of them were towns I had come to know in my time in the east almost a decade earlier, and to which I still feel a strong sense of attachment: Luhansk; Severodonetsk; Lysychansk; Popasna; Shchastia; Debaltseve. As well as names that have become all too familiar because of the tragedies associated with them: Ilovaisk; Avdiivka; Mariupol. In the centre of it all was a statue of a little girl holding out an apple to a soldier, a symbol of the gratitude of the Ukrainian people to those who defend them against the monstrous aggressor.

Yet Dnipro was very much alive. Now with many more delightful cafes and restaurants than when I had first stayed there, full of people enjoying the warm summer weather. The population had been augmented by people displaced by the fighting further east and south. Dnipro had become a major hub for humanitarian organisations. A friend told me about the conditions displaced people lived in, many of them crammed into student accommodation, families occupying single rooms, sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities among many. Though it was far from ideal, many did not want to move further on, she said, let alone abroad. They wanted to stay as close as possible to the homes they had been forced to abandon.