In the early hours of 24 February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine was at war with Russia – and put the country into a state of martial law.
Tracey McVeigh, editor of the Guardian’s global development desk, tells Annie Kelly what happened next. “Immediately if you were a male aged between 18 and 60 you were not allowed to leave the country. So there were all these hard choices going on behind closed doors in every family. If you were married and maybe had young children. Did your partner take the kids and leave? And all those incredibly difficult conversations were happening in a very short space of time. And I’m not sure you’re ever prepared for that kind of conversation within a family.”
Alex, a DJ, explains to Annie how this felt. “I was scared, so I didn’t want to go to the war of course, because I know that I’m not that kind of a type of guy that’s going to be in the frontier and killing someone, because I don’t know, it’s just not me.” But everyday, he says, he has to live with the fear that he could be sent to the frontline. “I’m accepting this thought that I could get there and be in the worst moment of my life. And I just need to accept it. Meanwhile, Shaun Walker, the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, tells Annie what the hopes are for peace.
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