‘My hope is for our victory'

Thirty-one years ago, on August 24, 1991, Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union - a date celebrated as the country’s Independence Day.

But far from the parades, fireworks and concerts of times past, this year the day also marks six months since Russia’s invasion and the start of the Ukraine war - a full-scale assault that has ravaged the country and its people.

Six months on, 17.7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Mass displacement continues, with 6.4 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe and a further 6.6 million having fled their homes for safer areas within the country.

A quarter of Ukraine’s population is over 60, according to HelpAge International, a charity that supports older people. Even before this war, one in every three people affected by the conflict in Eastern Ukraine since 2014 was older.

Older people are among those who have been displaced or who have become refugees, while others remain at home through choice or their lack of mobility. Many need specific support in terms of healthcare, emotional support or crucial hard-to-get supplies; yet older people’s needs are often overlooked by the humanitarian response, HelpAge reports.

At the same time, there are many older people volunteering to do all they can to support others in need.

We spoke with some of these volunteers to hear their memories of Ukrainian independence in 1991, how life has changed in the decades since Soviet times, and what this year’s Independence Day in the shadow of Russia’s war means to them.

“Independence Day will definitely mean more this year,” says Tatyana Milko, 62, a grandmother in Dnipro who together with HelpAge, assists older people in need of support. “The country is closer together now. Before, it was just another holiday and a day off. We used to make jokes. Now, it represents the inner strength and pride of Ukrainians.

“In future, I know we will be fine, happy, and independent. Everything will be Ukraine.”

Vira Okhrimenko, 71

“When the declaration of independence was made [in 1991] I was in Maidan Square with my boys,” remembers 71-year-old Vira, a mother of two sons from Kyiv. “There were so many people and it felt so patriotic.”

She was brought up in the Soviet Union, earned a university degree, got a good job in aviation and received a home through the government at the time. Through her government job, she also travelled to Uzbekistan, where she lived for a year. “I realised then I was Ukrainian. I left it all to come back home in 1978,” she says.

Her patriotism only increased. After the 1989 law of languages declared Ukrainian the official language, “I asked myself why we were ashamed of our language, unlike other countries. I talked to my children in Ukrainian and I used Ukrainian at work too.”

“Much changed in Ukraine after independence,” she says. “It gave a push to our society. In the early 90s, life was very difficult, but there was a feeling that we were responsible for our own lives and we made our own decisions.” Survival was hard, but life in Ukraine improved, she says.

“Everything has been turned upside down since 24 February,” she now says. “Before, I had peaceful plans and a peaceful project. Now despite my age and the fact I am retired, I understand that I must help my country.” Vira volunteers, knits, helps people get the medicines they need and also assists the territorial defence forces to get basic supplies.

“I hope that our army and our defence will continue to resist. Independence Day this year means even more. The last six months have taught me a lot.

"Who gave Russia the right to condemn us and decide who can live and not live? They cannot tell us how to live. We are an independent country and we want to live in our way. Our victory is my first hope for the future.”

Vladimir Shaverin, 71

“Independence was complicated for me,” says 71-year-old Vladimir. “I can trace someone’s views of the Soviet Union. Some idealise it, some make it a horror. The debate is polarised.”

Vladimir is originally from Russia and served in the army during Soviet times, entering military college in Kyiv in 1968 and retiring from service in 1992.

There are good and bad things about both pre- and post-independence, the father of three feels, and argues that the issue is not black and white.

“In the Soviet Union, you were sure of your future, particularly in the army, with good housing and a good pension. I felt I belonged in the right place and I was sure of myself. Officers like me were respected.” But he adds that independence brought opportunities, including new business prospects for him and more options for his children’s futures.

“I know I would have been a different person in the Soviet Union and I respect myself more following independence. At one stage in my life, I was driven to spirituality. It affected how I saw the world and what it meant to be human. Life in the Soviet Union did not answer that question.”

He is unhappy about Russia’s war and volunteers with the Rotary Club - which he has been part of for 20 years - helping with food and medical supplies and taking aid to schools, hospitals and the military.

Vladimir has lost friends to the fighting. But he also says: “I hope we understand we are all human and can get past the idea of Russian and Ukrainian.”

About Ukraine’s future, he says: “If we win, the authorities must change. People will not tolerate corruption anymore and with that, the country will start to improve.”

Tatyana Antonova, 69

“Inside, I feel I am Ukrainian,” says 69-year-old Tatyana, originally from eastern Russia. Her father was in the military so her family moved around a lot. In 1975, she relocated to Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region.

“I put down my first roots here. It was then that I started believing in independence,” she says, explaining that when the country’s independence referendum took place, she was part of the voting commission that oversaw it.

“I understand what Russia is. I have seen a lot of it,” she says. “When I arrived in Ukraine, I thought it was cosier, a welcoming place.”

Tatyana, who has two adult sons, still has family and friends in Russia but says it isn't as easy to talk to them anymore. “I don’t talk to my friends there as they don’t believe what is happening here. I still keep in touch with my sister, but we don’t talk about the war. She doesn’t want to hear about what Russia is doing here.”

She says her wish for the future is for Ukraine to win the war, as soon as possible. In the meantime, she volunteers, making flags and disposable underwear, feeding people, organising clothing for displaced people and counselling those in distress. “I will not go back to Russia. Ukraine is my motherland,” she says.

“Independence Day will have a different meaning this year,” Tatyana adds. “Us Ukrainians love our freedom. We can say what we believe. My friends in Russia say they have a democracy. What kind of democracy is it if you cannot call a war a war?” she asks.

Yulia Kosinska, 64

“In the referendum on independence I voted against it,” recalls 64-year-old Yulia about Ukraine’s 1991 move to declare itself a sovereign state.

“As a person who was born and brought up in the Soviet Union, I was very sad that this huge country had fallen apart. The feeling of independence really only came to me in 2014. Before that, I was patriotic but patriotic about the Soviet Union.

“I was raised in an orphanage, which I think affected my attitude,” she explains now. “I didn’t know what would happen after independence. It was an uncertain time for me. It was the passion of my children for independence that changed my opinion.”

Yulia was born in Zhytomyr and has lived there her whole life. She remembers life with her husband and two children being “normal” around independence, and since then her life has revolved around her family - including her three grandchildren.

When Russia invaded, things changed. “On 24 February I was woken up by explosions. There is a big military presence, including a school, in Zhytomyr. Many of my friends and family immediately joined the territorial defence … Many houses nearby were destroyed and so many people were killed and wounded,” she says.

After that she began volunteering - providing support to families, as well as knitting, making clothes, camouflage nets, balaclavas and other things for those on the front lines. Even after the war ends, she intends to continue volunteering to help the army.

“Independence Day this year is very special,” she says. “Eight years of war, and especially the last six months, have been monstrous. All I want for the future is victory, victory, victory. I hope God will help our men come home. We will have a lot of work to do.”

Volodymyr Gorobets, 59

“I know that right now Russian soldiers are living in my parents’ old home,” says 59-year-old Volodymyr from the Zaporizhia region.

The father-of-one fled Polohy, the town where he lived, before the Russians arrived there in March. Since then he has volunteered, helping send medicines and pharmacy parcels there.

“I supported the Soviet Union at the time of independence,” Vlodomyr admits. "It gave us a lot. But my wife came from western Ukraine where they are much more nationalistic. I know now how right they were.”

He says his support for independence was gradual, noting that “there were many positive things after independence, but I was unhappy that Ukraine didn’t preserve the achievements of the Soviet Union, [like] health, education”.

“We knew we had to pay something for our independence,” he adds. “It was harder for us to live initially, but we had more freedoms; we had democracy, although it wasn’t perfect.”

“Everybody expects that the Ukrainian army will show some achievements by Independence Day, but we are realistic and we have to use common sense. We must keep our soldiers alive,” he says, also expressing concern for his relatives who are on the front lines.

“My wish for the future is that Ukraine becomes a truly independent European country. The war is a huge grief but it can also lead to huge possibilities. I want us to be ruled by true patriots. Only then can we become properly independent.”

Valentina Pomomarenko, 60

“I have always thought and fought for myself,” says 60-year-old Valentina, who worked for the Department of Education until just after independence.

“The structure of education showed the absence of freedoms in the Soviet Union. I was very limited in what I could do in my studies and in my work as a result. I had two children during Soviet times and felt independence would be better for their futures,” she says.

When she moved to Kyiv, she saw that Ukraine was becoming freer and was more open to opportunities. “When my girls were growing up I wanted them to have a Western education. They studied abroad in the early 2000s. The ideas of independence and freedom had already been planted in their minds.”

“I have always been socially active,” says Valentina, adding that she took part in the Orange Revolution in 2004 and in Maidan in 2014. “Before independence, our lives were pre-determined by the state. In an independent country, there are so many choices.”

She lived on the outskirts of Kyiv but was in Dnipro when the Russian invasion began. She is still there, staying in a flat with her husband, children, and four grandchildren. “We don’t want to go back to Kyiv yet as we feel safer here. The war is too close.” She spends her time volunteering and helping mostly displaced people in the city.

“We never used to think of Independence Day as we do now. This year it will be based on blood,” she says. “It used to be just another holiday but now Independence Day is the essence of the fight for freedom. In the future, I am sure we will win. We will get our political and economic dividends. I am very optimistic.

Raisa Panteleymonova, 72

“There was a political crisis at the time Ukraine became independent. We saw how people lived in other countries and their different lives and values. There was a question mark about our future,” says 72-year-old physicist, Raisa, who was once a member of the Communist Party.

“We were so used to stability during the Soviet Union. So many things were decided for us by the Communist Party. I was curious about what our freedom would mean.”

Although independence was not a straightforward process, people continued to hope and work for the better, she says. “We had to learn a new way of life and change our psychological paradigm.”

Raisa, who has five children, says she took her future into her own hands. “We knew we could be a strong nation. One of our main achievements is that the power in Ukraine belongs to our people. The numerous revolutions we have had show this.”

On February 24, she remembers being woken up at 5:30am by soldiers who told her the war had started. She then called the hospital and they said they needed “Everything, everything”.

“Things like bulletproof vests and boots are organised by volunteers,” she says.

“We have two fronts,” Raisa explains, ”one is where the fighting takes place, the second is here with volunteering,” something that has become a “massive phenomenon” since the war started. “It has brought people together who want to support the army and our country.”

“Ukraine is covered with the blood of our best sons and daughters,” she says. “This year, Independence Day will mean we continue to fight for our land and our values.”

Michail Shevchenko, 65

“I was not afraid of independence but I felt no euphoria,” recalls 65-year-old Michail, a former electrical engineer from Zaporizhia. “I was trying to understand what independence would mean for me and for Ukraine.”

“The country developed after independence and got better,” says the father-of-two and grandfather-of-three. He didn’t like all the changes he saw, but the mood was more positive.

Before the war, he worked with his son-in-law in creative design and had clients around the world. But now their orders have shrunk and those from Russia have stopped completely, he says. His relationship with his son who lives in Russia has also deteriorated since February.

Michail now volunteers with a centre that organises and distributes aid. “I was so depressed mentally after the war started and it affected me physically too. Volunteering has given me a purpose,” he says. But it has also filled him with sadness.

“In the humanitarian work I have done I have seen a river of grief: older people, pregnant women, people who have the remains of their lives in their bags after bombings. Hearing these stories has filled me with negativity. I hope that this will end but at the moment I don’t see how it will.”

“Independence Day will have a new meaning for many people, but it is unclear to me why,” he says. “I think you have to earn independence and I don’t think we have done that yet.”

Natalya Danilova, 68

“Over the last 31 years, in my opinion, neither Russia nor Ukraine has done well. It has been a difficult time for both countries,” says 68-year-old Natalya, who lives in a camp for internally displaced people near Kamianske that was set up in 2014 - she moved there shortly after it was built.

“It is difficult for me to know who to trust,” says the former businesswoman who was born in Russia. At the time of Ukraine's independence, she lived in Alchevsk in Luhansk Oblast. Alchevsk is now occupied and attacked by Ukrainian forces, while Kamianske is attacked by Russian forces.

“I was against independence at the time [of the referendum]. I had few hopes because it was a dark time in Ukraine. We had high levels of corruption and criminality,” she says.

Natalya had lived in Siberia up to 1990 when her first husband was killed there. After that, she moved to Ukraine with her two children.

In the camp, where she now lives with her second husband, she says residents see her as an informal leader. She takes care of gardening, looks after new arrivals, and provides basic psychosocial support to make things easier for those in distress.

“Independence Day will not mean more to me this year, but I am more worried about us being attacked because of the significance of the date,” she says.

She longs for the nights when she was able to sleep properly. “I wake up three or four times a night because I am scared we will be attacked.”

“In the future, the first thing I want is peace. I want our children to come back to Ukraine.”

Larisa Syomina, 71

“We didn’t understand what independence was when it happened. After a while I learnt that it meant that we needed to revive our country,” says 71-year-old Larisa, a former engineer who lives with her son in Dnipro.

She says there have been many ups and downs since independence. “Looking back, independence was such an important thing. Our belief in independence is part of our belief that we will win and rebuild our country when this is over.”

Ukrainians have worked very hard to get to where the country was, she says. But since the Russian invasion “many people have lost their lives and been left without anything”. Since March, she has been volunteering, mainly making camouflage nets and bags for soldiers.

“I don’t understand how we can see so much shelling and bombings every day, or how so many people in our country can have been left with nothing,” she says.

“I wish it were true that Independence Day will be special this year,” Larisa says. “I want our army to show the Russians that this is our home and we are not strangers here. [But] it’s too early to say how this war will end.

“First and foremost my hope is for our victory. Then I want us to rebuild our country and for us all to live even better lives than we did before.”