2023-07-08 04:00:07
500 days of guerra. 500 days! That’s 500 days of bombing. 500 days of deaths. 500 days of a humanitarian tragedy that began in February 2022. 500 days of a failed international policy. 500 days that parents don’t see their kids. 500 days that thousands of people do not return home. 500 days of hunger, thirst, anguish. 500 days of uncertainties.
Today the war in Ukraine completes 500 days. I could repeat 500 times that Ukrainians and Russians, two peoples who were once brothers, are fighting bloody battles. The reasons, they perhaps understand more than we do… I would venture to say that these “reasons” have changed 500 times since then.
While there are 500 days here in Brazil nothing has changed, apart from the price of everything. War affects everyone indirectly. Some, even directly… But what affects me the most (directly, of course) in this story is remembering when it all began. People’s despair when the Russian army invaded the small town of Mariupol. The fear of dying and the anguish of never seeing the family again.
Luís Felipe and I were there when the missiles began to cross the skies over eastern Ukraine. Whoever did not die, fled or was captured by the Russians. Mariupol no longer exists. It turned to ruin.
We managed to continue our coverage in Zaporizhia, where the nuclear power plant is located, attacked days later. A month later, the Zaporizhia plant was occupied by Russian troops. But we continue, with luck, our journey in Kiev.
We got off the train, alone, in the middle of the railway line. The composition could not stop at the station because the place was under Russian attack. The capital of Ukraine was never conquered in that war. Attacked, yes. Dominated, never. Until now…
It was from a high place that we managed to enter live in the Jornal da Record and, from there, hear the warning sirens of the attacks, the bombings and the screams of people trying to take cover. There were dead and wounded. The beginning of a war is chaotic. Nobody knows where to go, how to protect themselves. No one knows where the shot or the missile is coming from.
I never imagined actually going through this. We were the first Brazilian journalists to arrive in Ukraine, ten days before the war, not knowing if there would really be one. It’s been 500 days. 500! But we still have it all alive in our memory.
See one of the reports at the beginning of the war:
Footage shows destruction caused by Russian attack on Ukrainian city
#Day #War #Prisma