2023-08-07 16:37:15
Sleep is often one of the collateral victims of war, and that of Bohdana Levytska did not resist her first night of bombardment. On February 24, 2022, at 5:09 a.m. very precisely, the young woman was pulled from her dreams by the alarm sirens and the shots of the Ukrainian DCA, the anti-aircraft defense, above Kiev.
The information instantly flooded his foggy brain: “The war with Russia has begun”, she thought in shock. On his phone, messages from his friends are displayed in bursts. “The shells don’t fall on us, you can go back to bed”, launches his companion, Vitaliï Kuzmenko, closing his eyes.
How to continue to sleep when your country is bombarded by its huge neighbor? Bohdana lacks the quiet assurance of her boyfriend, a veteran who fought separatists and their Russian allies from 2014 to 2016, during the first Donbass war. She turns around the apartment like a panicked animal, her stomach loose. After thirty minutes, unable to bear it any longer, she shakes her companion again:
– Wake up, it has started.
– OK.
– No, it’s not okay. Wake up ! What can I do ?
– Pack your suitcase.
In three minutes, Bohdana throws her clothes into her bag and then shakes her boyfriend again who had dozed off in the meantime. Weary of the struggle, he finally let go: “Make me a coffee. » After a quick shower, the couple left the apartment by closing the double lock, rushed into the metro which still works despite the air alerts, then reached the small villa nestled in a residential area of Kiev where the mother of Bohdana. His companion sheltered, Vitaliï takes leave without looking back. Words are useless: everyone knows their mission.
Bohdana discovers a Kalashnikov at home
That morning, much of Ukraine is still paralyzed with stupor. Rumors of war fanned by warnings from the American intelligence services may have been circulating since December 2021, but few have given credit to it, starting with President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, who tends to criticize the US alerts. Contrary to general sentiment, Vitaliï and his small group of Donbass veterans took very seriously the announcements of Russian troop deployments on the country’s borders, information confirmed to them by friends in the army.
His knowledge of Russian colonial history – he studied history at university – convinced the young man of the reality of the threat. He and his comrades in arms began their preparations at the beginning of February. In the closet of the room, Bohdana discovers one day military clothes. Another, his hand falls on a Kalashnikov in the middle of the clothes. And then one evening, she surprises her man cleaning the automatic rifle piece by piece. His khaki backpack is buckled. The basic necessities were neatly stacked piece by piece. Today is February 23. “I understood that war was inevitable, remembers the young woman. I was scared, but I didn’t say anything. »
Vitaliï Kuzmenko, soldat volontaire, and Bohdana Levytska, militante et activiste. / B. Levytska
It’s the end of an enchanted parenthesis during which the two young people thought they were touching the happiness of a stable relationship, built on common values. “We understand each other without having to make long speeches”, summarizes Vitaliï. With her flamboyant red hair, her long figure and her boundless energy, Bohdana, 29, is the kind of woman who does not go unnoticed in an assembly. “She is the fire”, slips Svetlana, one of her friends. Face eaten by a brown beard, her boyfriend, 32, would go closer to the ice with his serious face, high forehead, poised tone and thoughtful voice.
A couple from the Maidan generation
Both belong to the small world of Kiev activists, educated, pro-European and resolutely anti-Russian people who maintain the flickering flame of Maidan revolution. This generation, largely apolitical before the winter of 2014, formed an opinion on the barricades of the Maidan, forming a citizen vanguard determined to turn the page on the Soviet heritage. Wounded in the square at the start of the movement, Vitaliï was one of the first victims of police violence, which prompted half a million people to demonstrate in the streets of the capital. Bohdana discovered there the strength of solidarity actions.
Bohdana and her mother in front of their house nestled in a residential area of kyiv. / Olga Ivashchenko for The Cross
On February 24, 2022, the Maidan generation regained the reflexes acquired during the revolution of the same name. “Vitaliï and I, we had developed a plan in case of invasion”, explains the young woman. One, she had to take shelter with her mother. Two, Vitaliï would find a group of Donbass elders who would defend kyiv arms in hand. Three, his companion would organize support for the army. They stuck to the plan. After forty-eight hours of astonishment, Bohdana joined the immense outpouring of solidarity that gripped Ukrainian society at the time. Everywhere, we improvise trenches, we collect food for the soldiers, we make camouflage nets, we gather equipment.
“Are the wedding offices open at the moment? »
Bohdana’s family home served alternately as a warehouse and as a shelter where a dozen relatives and friends settled. His mother, a veterinarian who welcomed activists during the “orange revolution” of 2004 and then that of Maidan, finds a second youth. The guests camp in the middle of the living room and huddle around the dining table. There is no lack of tin cans or carboys of water: on Bohdana’s advice, they were filled up before the invasion. The veterinary clinic on the ground floor is transformed into a warehouse where the volunteers store stacks of boxes of drones, clothes and money which will be used to buy weapons. The political organization that employs Bohdana has released hundreds of thousands of euros without hesitation.
In this warehouse, Bohdana keeps everything she will send to the Ukrainian soldiers on the front. / Olga Ivashchenko for The Cross
Caught in a whirlwind, the young woman avoids thinking too much about Vitaliï. Where is he ? He neither reappeared nor showed any signs of life. It was only after three days that she came across a photo of him in the middle of his unit, published on the social network Telegram. “At least he’s alive” she says to herself. The soldier finally rings the doorbell of the house four days after their last furtive kiss. This is not a courtesy visit: Bohdana informed him of the military equipment which is ready to be transported to the front.
He’s staying “barely fifteen minutes” says Bohdana. Time to load the boxes into his vehicle. At the moment of disappearing into the city, Vitaliï asks his companion, the air of nothing: “Are the wedding offices open at the moment? » Bohdana catches her breath for a brief moment, then replies in the same detached tone: “Okay…I don’t know, I’ll call.” » The ring and the request in good and due form will wait: the soldier resumes his journey without dwelling on his feelings. He did not say when he would return. On the doorstep, his companion accuses the blow.
Eyes unfocused, Bohdana smiles today as she rewinds the thread of her story. In her dreams, she had imagined a marriage proposal in Georgia, near a waterfall, preferably in September when the sun is mild, with her partner offering her a ring. Too bad for romanticism, another victim of times of crisis. ” I have not been disappointed, she confides. We were at the beginning of the war, it was not a time for emotions. »
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From one revolution to another: the granite revolution
Children of Ukrainian independence, Vitaliï and Bohdana are heirs to the events known as the “granite revolution” at the end of the USSR. In October 1990, students invaded October Revolution Square in the center of kyiv, the future Maidan, and began a hunger strike. The demonstrators, who refuse the new treaty of union supposed to take over from the USSR, demand the resignation of the prime minister. When the government tries to dislodge them by force, 50,000 Kievans flock to the square to protect them, a repeat of events before 2013.
Soon, the universities of the capital go on strike. The communist majority in Parliament must give in to the rebellion that is galvanizing Ukrainian society. On December 1, 1991, more than 90% of Ukrainians will say yes to independence during a referendum of self-determination, a result which reaches 85% in Odessa, 83% in Donetsk and 54% in Crimea, three regions nevertheless mainly Russian-speaking .
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