Ukraine, three years later: “The worst thing is to think that the war may never end”

Nikopol (Ukraine)The siren was wailing loudly. A muffled voice through the megaphone informed the citizens that they could continue their walk. On one side, a family with a little dog was moving forward, paying no attention to the hustle and bustle around. From a nearby hill, between buildings with windows covered with wood, The Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant can be seen, bathed in the last rays of the sun. We then pulled out our cameras and suddenly a man in his 50s ran up to us. His name was Oleksandr and he lived in a nearby apartment building.

“Are you journalists? Did the drone come to film?” he asked suspiciously. Despite efforts to improve the perception of the press, journalists in towns near the front line are still met with skepticism. At the beginning of the war, many believed that their presence attracted attacks and destruction.

Within a few minutes we understood what he meant. The power lines that had fallen nearby were the result of a drone attack that had occurred just an hour before our arrival. Oleksandr lives in Nikopol. Despite the incessant artillery shelling and drone strikes, he refuses to leave the town. On the other side of the Dnieper River is Enerhodar, occupied since the beginning of the war.

The military claims that this town has not suffered the same fate as others in the Donetsk region, where destruction is constant, only because the enemy is afraid of accidentally blowing up the nuclear power plant. However, news of destroyed houses and deaths, mostly of civilians, arrive every day. This proximity to death is reflected in the small details: in shops and cafes, instead of saying goodbye with a "good morning," they now say "have a quiet morning."

Life under employment

One of the questions that people in Nikopol often ask themselves is what life would be like under occupation. Crossing the Dnieper in this area does not seem like an impossible task, so rumours periodically circulate about the possibility of Russian troops trying. Either way, the war has transformed Nikopol.

Oleksandr regrets that there are hardly any residents left, but his love for the city is what keeps him there. Many residents could not stand the situation and fled in cars at the beginning of the war. Some, he says, They still fear being recruited by the mobilization center. He recalls with nostalgia the leisurely strolls along the quayside: “We had an old town built by a German,” he says. According to locals, the man was married to a local woman and had invested heavily in the town. Now, entering the area is unthinkable: it could be a one-way trip. At the quayside of the Dnieper, only a fence with barbed wire remains.

Even the town itself used to be afloat. Two large factories ensured jobs with decent wages. Now, the only “benefit” is a pay rise of 1.20 euros per hour when the threat of bombing is imminent – which is almost always the case. The pipe production plant is a priority target for the Russian military. As in so many other towns, people in Nikopol want the war to end. But if that end comes in the form of a frozen conflict, the town will be changed forever. It will become a permanent border strip, a place where iodine is stored in first-aid kits just in case.

These changes are not unique to Nikopol. The war has reshaped the country, dividing time into a before and after. Those who remember those early days often say the same thing: they would never have imagined that the conflict would last so long. And that, more than anything else, has been the hard blow: the certainty that this will last for years, perhaps a lifetime. "The worst thing is to think that the war may never end," confesses a border guard who lived in an occupied zone. If his home is permanently in Russian territory, he knows he will never be able to return, at least not as a man with a military past. He speaks anonymously so as not to endanger his family.

The war has also left its mark on the capital. Before the conflict, Kiev embodied the dynamism of globalization, the same globalization that Trump administration spokesmen now promise to dismantle. Tech specialists earned astronomical salaries by Ukrainian standards, working remotely for giants like Amazon. For many, emigrating made no sense: taxes were low and conditions reasonable. Today, the industry that was once the engine of the Ukrainian economy is facing its own crisis.

“There are massive layoffs, whole departments are closing, salaries are being cut,” explains Kostya, a senior IT engineer. And the mobilization adds another layer of uncertainty. Neither foreign nor domestic clients show interest in the realities of war. So workers do what they can, stockpiling spare generators and routers and trying, through hardship and labor, to keep up with a world that no one expects.

As difficult as it may be, even in the worst of circumstances one can adapt if one has enough will. Andry, a 40-year-old translator, is raising his young daughter in a city subjected to constant bombing. Over time, the little girl has learned to distinguish the sound of drones and can even say "FPV drone." The problem is, when she hears the buzzing, she runs towards the noise and shouts: "Dronet, come with us!" Now, his parents face the challenge of teaching him to hide without giving him a new phobia.

A frozen truce

Reflecting on the Third anniversary of the invasion, which falls on Monday, February 24, Andry admits that this date finally forced them to see what they had been determined to ignore for eight years: the conflict in Donbass. "We have learned to find calm during alarms, to plan for the future more flexibly and to better tolerate the emotional instability of our neighbours. We have also begun to value the war experience of our grandparents," he says.

The proximity of death and the ability to live with loss are now an intrinsic part of a soldier's life. These are two of the changes that combatants mention most after three years of war. "I would like to repel a KAB [a highly-destructive, precision-guided bomb] with my forehead," says Dmitri, aka Jájol, while we make a coffee with lots of sugar after returning from the advanced positions. He began his journey in this war in Kherson, but he didn't understand what was at stake and what it meant until it was too late. "When my first comrade died, I understood that all this was real. That's when the war changed completely for me." Dmitri remembers each of his fallen comrades and shows me an endless gallery of photos.

A few kilometers from the front, a group of soldiers in the rearguard play a game based on funny associations. The Putin-related remarks elicit the loudest laughter. The conversation moves slowly, jumping from military anecdotes to everyday stories. It's not an unusual evening; they meet every week. But the atmosphere suddenly plummets when one of them mentions two "two hundred," the code for those killed in combat. "Sorry, two of our drone operators have died. I think it's time to end the game. It's not funny anymore," says a female commander.

However, this anniversary has also brought a new question: the future of Ukraine. What will happen when the news noise dies down and peace negotiations begin? Taras, a gunner in the 68th Brigade and at war from day one, firmly believes in a bright future. "We are a talented and hardworking people. We have already proven that in Europe. I am sure that with a little help, we will rebuild the country, perhaps even better than before."

At ground level in Donetsk, as we load supplies into a van, three drone operators discuss Ukraine’s future after the war. The cold prevents long conversations, and the increasingly close explosions do not invite relaxation either.

“Do you think there will be peace?” I ask them.

“It is unlikely to come soon,” one of them answers.

“What scares me most is that Ukraine ends up with a pro-Russian government or that we capitulate. For us this only means one thing: prison.”

“Or exile.”

“Exile? And who will let us cross the border?” says the third jokingly.

Myroslav, 41, press officer for the 68th Brigade and a soldier since the first day of the war, also does not feel that peace is close at hand.Trump's pressure to surrender to Russia “It can hardly be called peace,” he says. For him, the only real peace is the restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders. When I ask him about the most likely scenario, he mentions a freeze in the conflict: “It will be a bit like the situation with the ATO [Anti-Terrorist Operation conducted by the Kyiv government from Docisk to Dociz]. And that’s if we’re lucky and there’s no further shelling from the other side. But that’s not peace either, it’s just a frozen truce.”