Life in Ukraine, after 4 years of war

0:00Toma Istomina:This week on Up First, the State of the Union address is a civic ritual and a political event.

0:07Joanna Kakissis:We'll be watching to see how a president with low approval ratings handles the moment. We are also watching the United States confrontation with Iran. Listen each morning for overnight developments.

0:18Toma Istomina:Up First on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:25Toma Istomina:WBUR Podcasts. Boston. I mean, they are fighting an existential battle for the survival of their country, but they also see themselves as fighting a larger battle for Europe, which they see Ukraine as a part of.

0:41Joanna Kakissis:The view from Kiev four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

0:55Joanna Kakissis:It's Tuesday, February 24th, and this is Here and Now, anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley.

1:06Joanna Kakissis:Today on the show, we hear from two Ukrainians about life during wartime and what drives them to keep fighting.

1:12Dmytro Vezelov:In many ways, we don't really have a choice because unlike U.S. negotiators or maybe other people abroad, we know very well what the ultimate goal of Russia is in Ukraine. It's subjugating the entirety of Ukraine, and we just can't afford to pay that price.

1:30Joanna Kakissis:We'll speak with a man who left his desk job to join the army and about how his life has changed. I try to not look at my friend list on Facebook because about 10 % of my friend list on Facebook are people who died in this war. But first, European leaders are in Kiev today to show support for Ukraine, as the country marks four years since Russia's full-scale invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has not broken Ukrainians. But estimated casualties on the two sides, wounded, dead, and missing people, are as high as 2 million. Thousands of Ukrainian children are missing. Frontline towns are exhausted.

2:12Joanna Kakissis:And despite many U.S.-mediated peace negotiations, there seems to be no end in sight. NPR's Joanna Kakissis has been on the ground reporting on the war since its outset. Today, she spoke to Scott Tong, who started by asking her to share the story of just one Ukrainian.

2:29Toma Istomina:Let me tell you the story about Olha Chupikova. She's 52. She's from Kherson. It's a city in southern Ukraine that's been through an awful lot, including months of Russian occupation in 2022. too. Now, Scott Olha was a partisan, which means that she spied on Russian soldiers during the occupation of her city. And the intelligence she gathered as a citizen spy helped Ukrainian soldiers push the Russian troops out of her zone at the end of that year.

3:00Joanna Kakissis:Oh, so she got information on the Russians occupying her city and somehow snuck it out to the Ukrainian side.

3:06Toma Istomina:Yes, using a special phone line on her cell phone, actually. Oh my goodness. Yeah, she would send it out. And back in 2022, when I first met her, I kept thinking like she looked like such an unlikely spy because she had like these rosy cheeks and she wore this big sweater with big flowers on it, you know, so very innocuous. And, you know, I saw Olcha again late last year and she looked like a very different person. For one thing, she looked indescribably sad. She told me about her only son, His name is Edima, and he had been killed on the front line. Yes, and she explained here, she explains what happened.

3:54Toma Istomina:She's saying it was an explosive device that the Russians had thrown near his trench, and the snow had covered it. And the day before this all happened, he sent me this voice message. and here is her son's last message to her.

4:12Toma Istomina:He's saying, everything is just fine, Mom. The snow has fallen, but we are feeling out the path with sticks to check what's hidden underneath. And she, as she heard his voice, the tears were just rolling down her face and she told me that in addition to losing her son, she had also lost her home due to very intense drone attacks

4:36Joanna Kakissis:Joanna, you have reported on these stories of individuals, individual loss, of course, what's at stake for Ukraine. And from far away, you know, we are always asking, well, more broadly, what's at stake here? And I want to play a piece of sound. I went a year ago, almost exactly to the day, to a Ukrainian protest, kind of show of solidarity here in D.C. at the Lincoln Memorial. And I met a young man, Andrei Smolensky, young Ukrainian man, soldier, horrifically wounded in the war, lost both arms, lost his vision. Here is what he told me.

5:11Toma Istomina:We remember Chamberlain in 1938 coming to Hitler saying, oh, you're my friend. Chamberlain, who was the minister of England at the time, he said, we just made a great deal. This deal is going to bring the peace to our times. That's what he said there. And we know what happened after that.

5:31Joanna Kakissis:And we know what happened after that, Joanna. You know, he's saying this matters for Europe. This matters for the world. Pay attention. Do you hear a lot of this yourself?

5:42Toma Istomina:Oh, absolutely. I hear it every day from Ukrainians. And, you know, I hear all the time. Also, we hear it on TV all the time also from Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who has often described Ukraine as the defense line for Europe. And that if Ukraine falls to Russia, Russia will attack the rest of Europe next. You know, Ukrainians on the front line who are fighting the many soldiers I've spoken to, they also believe this. I mean, they are fighting an existential battle for the survival of their country, but they also see themselves as fighting a larger battle for Europe, which they see Ukraine as a part of.

6:19Toma Istomina:And also for this idea of a liberal democracy in which you are protected as a citizen, that you have freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of expression. and these are freedoms that are largely repressed in Russia, and the Ukrainians don't want to be part of that world. They very firmly want to defend this idea of liberal democracy and Europe.

6:41Joanna Kakissis:Joanna, this is now the fourth winter of this war, brutal winter this year. The power is often out. Not to make this about you, but you're there for us. What has it been like for you?

6:51Toma Istomina:Yeah, very, very brutal. This year, Russia managed to weaponize winter. They repeatedly hit Ukraine's energy grid and practically destroyed it. So that means we had lots of heating cuts. We had lots of electricity cuts. And many times I was sitting in a very, very cold house wearing my coat to bed, my downfield coat to bed because it was so cold. So, Joanna, are you wearing it?

7:16Joanna Kakissis:Are you wearing it now? Are you wearing it now?

7:18Toma Istomina:No, today we do have electricity, so I'm not wearing it now. I feel very lucky about that. But I do have friends who still don't have power and whose windows are iced up and who are wearing their coats at home.

7:29Joanna Kakissis:Joanna Kikisis leads NPI's coverage of Ukraine and Russia's war now four years on. Joanna, take good care. Thank you.

7:37Toma Istomina:Thank you for having me on the show.

7:42Joanna Kakissis:Coming up next, Indira Lakshmanan speaks with a Ukrainian journalist who says it's entirely possible to imagine the war grinding on for another four years. That's after the break.

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8:33Toma Istomina:you and save more than 50 % at selectquote.com slash anytime. That's 50 % off at selectquote.com slash anytime. Toma Istomina is deputy chief editor of the Kiev Independent, an English-language online newspaper founded three months before Russia's full-scale invasion, And she joins us now from Kiev. Toma, welcome.

8:55Dmytro Vezelov:Hello, thank you. Thank you for having me.

8:57Toma Istomina:So I want to ask you, you are not only covering this as a journalist, you are living through this yourself, along with your whole staff. Russia has been attacking Ukraine with missiles and drones almost daily, overwhelming your country's air defenses, targeting the power grid, causing blackouts in the dead of winter. We know that last year was the deadliest year on record for civilians in Ukraine since 2022. How are ordinary people in your newsroom and beyond coping with this onslaught that never seems to end?

9:28Dmytro Vezelov:It's a very accurate characterization, I think, description. So I think 2025 specifically was a very difficult year on many levels because just in general, after years of war, people have gotten pretty tired. And then on top of that, we had to deal with this endless negotiation process led by the United States, by Trump's administration. And on top of that, 2025 was extremely intense in terms of aerial attacks. And of course, Ukraine is a big country. It's the biggest country in Europe. So your experience as a civilian really depends on how close you are to the front line. and depending on that you face different kind of level of danger but also types of weapons that can be a threat.

10:17Toma Istomina:Right, right. Let's try to give listeners a bit of an overview which is that Russia now controls about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. For our American listeners that's an area about the size of our state of Pennsylvania. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia has the upper hand. And yet what he predicted in 2022 would be a rapid route has turned into a prolonged war with the highest casualties for Russia since World War II. So tell us, how has Ukraine been able to hold the line against a much bigger, more powerful army? It's a very complex question, but I think the number one single most important factor in this

11:02Dmytro Vezelov:ability to defend and hold the line is Ukraine's will to do so. It was the decision early on in 2022 that nobody was going to surrender. And it is the daily decision of Ukrainians to keep taking these risks. And in many ways, we don't really have a choice because unlike U.S. negotiators or maybe other people abroad, we know very well what the ultimate goal of Russia is in Ukraine. It's subjugating the entirety of Ukraine, and we just can't afford to pay that price. Aside from that, of course, the Western aid has been crucial. Ukraine wouldn't be able to fight with its own weapons, whatever it had in 2022 against Russia.

11:48Dmytro Vezelov:But it's also the creativity and inventiveness of Ukraine's defense sector, which is now pumping out 3 million FPV drones per year and is making other inventions from sea drones to other weapons that are now crucial to Ukraine's defense.

12:08Toma Istomina:You published an editorial this morning predicting that the war could easily drag on for another four years. Stuck in the same cycle, Russia attacks, Ukraine defends, the West calls for new sanctions, peace talks start, peace talks stop. So with that sort of set cycle, what do you think it will actually take to stop this war?

12:30Dmytro Vezelov:Well, for the war to stop, the situation that we're in right now needs to be made impossible. And I think it's clear that why the war continues is because both Ukraine and Russia are determined to keep fighting. Russia wants to keep attacking and Ukraine is determined to keep defending. And because both have enough external resources to keep doing it, despite everything that we've gone through over these four years. So you can cut, of course, resources from Ukraine. And then we will just see Russian tanks roll over all over the territory of Ukraine and then probably move further into Europe. because history shows that authoritarian regimes feel rewarded and their appetite only grows when they make territorial gains.

13:17Dmytro Vezelov:Or you could be tougher with Russia, put more sanctions. Russia still makes enormous amount of money on its oil exports four years into the full-scale invasion. European countries could send their troops to support Ukraine. That would send a very powerful signal, but also would reinforce Ukraine's manpower situation, which obviously, for obvious reasons, is very hard for Ukraine to keep up with Russia in that sense. So there are many ways in which you can weaken Russia's ability to continue this war. And of course, the Western world, the democratic world should be interested in ending the war.

13:58Toma Istomina:Toma, taking off your analyst and expert hat as a journalist who's overseen coverage for four years, What is it like for you as a Ukrainian civilian experiencing this war? Share with us some of the stories that you've put in your pages in the last four years that stick out to you most.