After two years of war, a reminder of what Ukrainians are fighting for

As the world switches the channel to focus on the Middle East, Ukrainian-born ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH calls on Kyiv’s Western allies not to look away.

Two years of death. Two years of missiles falling on apartment blocks in Kyiv. Two years of lives disrupted, of families separated, of children stolen, of pain and trauma, of unspeakable loss. But also two years of courage. Two years of beating the odds. Two years of freedom, of resistance, of sovereignty. Two years of pride in my fellow Ukrainians, who have managed to fight back against a much larger force seeking to wipe our culture and our country off the face of the earth.

I was born in Chernivtsi, a gorgeous city in western Ukraine affectionately dubbed “Little Vienna” by locals. I migrated to Australia among the wave of Jews who fled the crumbling remnants of the Soviet empire in the early 1990s to seek a better life in the West.

I’ve watched from afar as the countries that emerged from the rubble of the Soviet Union pursued varying paths for their futures. There were those that marched toward democracy and the rule of law, and right into the heart of the European Union — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. There were those that switched one form of autocracy for another — Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan.

Ukraine, meanwhile, found itself among the countries stuck somewhere in between; its people repeatedly pulling it Westward, while a string of Kremlin-friendly rulers tugged it back toward Russia’s clutches. A thousand times, I had sworn off hoping Ukrainians would finally get the government they deserved, rather than the one bought and paid for by the Kremlin. Still, hope dies last.