In an age of social media, next-day delivery and mobile banking, it’s easy to forget that we humans are still just animals. Not in the sense that we’re brutal, uncivilized creatures—though any Ukrainian or Russian soldier camped out in a trench in Donetsk may have something to say about that—but because we are organic beings whose senses and autonomic nervous system are designed to help us avoid danger and survive. Our bodies tell us when we’re thirsty and hungry.
When it’s cold, we shiver to keep warm. And sometimes, even when everything appears fine, we get a gut feeling that something just isn’t right. Now, as the specter of war continues to slowly transform Russian society for the worse, it is these fundamental instincts that President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin are trying, and failing, to fool.
With each passing day, Russian citizens are forced to confront the feeling that all is not well, and no amount of media propaganda or crackdowns on internet freedom to maintain the veil of normalcy can cover it up. For the past four and a half years, the wartime experience of your average Russian and Ukrainian civilian has been very different. Beyond the simple fact that people in a fifth of Ukrainian territory are now living under Russian occupation, ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones batter Ukrainian cities on almost a nightly basis.
Nearly 1,500 civilians were killed in such strikes just in the first six months of this year, according to United Nations figures, 37 percent more than in the same period last year. Now, as summer turns to autumn, the weary public must prepare to survive another winter with no power or heating to combat bitter temperatures. At this point of the war, not a single one of Ukraine’s 15 thermal power plants has managed to escape the reach of Moscow’s weapons; the nation’s thermal capacity plunged to just 10 percent last winter, and its available power generation capacity from all sources was less than half of prewar levels, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) and UNICEF figures, triggering rolling blackouts of up to 12 hours per day.
The scale of their suffering is considerable. But Ukrainians never thought this was anything other than a full-scale war. At 5 a.m. on February 24, 2022, residents of Kyiv were jolted from their beds by air raid sirens, the rumble of explosions in the distance and the sound of Russian military jet engines screaming overhead.
Almost immediately, the population understood they were locked in a battle for their statehood and survival. The Russian public was sold something very different: a lightning offensive so precise and effective it was not classed as war, but merely a special military operation. Within weeks, if not days, Ukraine would be conquered, the troops welcomed as heroes, and Russia’s status as a great power restored.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
