A dialogue from Israel with a Ukrainian friend under fire

"This Russian tank was hit a kilometer and a half from my house. The rumbling is terrible, and from time to time we hide. And right now, there is a firefight up the hill in the direction of Zolochiv. It's six kilometers away from me. I'm afraid for my children and grandchildren." This report is from a friend and classmate from the history faculty at the university, who is writing to me from the basement of his house in Dergachi in the Kharkiv region.

He is descended from an ancient Ukrainian family that has lived there for centuries on their land. Russian armored vehicles for the second day are trying to break through Dergachi – and this is twenty kilometers from the border with Russia. From Dergachi to the outskirts of Kharkiv is another 25 kilometers.

When it rumbles heavily nearby, the family with children descends to the basement without windows. My friend writes: "This, brother, is the real Patriotic War, not for Stalin, not for the Soviets, where people were oppressed, but for their country, purely for their own! Israelis understand this 100 percent, while the Putinistas do not."

I urged him to be careful and not to heroize and to protect his loved ones. And he said that Ukrainians now have their War of Independence — thirty years after formal independence.

Shimon Briman (Israel).
Photo: sent from Dergachi, Kharkiv region from the interlocutor of the author.