It looks like a video recorded with a phone from an apartment window. The camera pans over a line of cars stopped on the road below, and it takes a minute to understand what we're seeing.
Then a procession appears: about 50 people walk slowly behind a coffin wrapped in the Ukrainian flag. When the shot zooms in, we see that the oncoming traffic on the eight-lane highway has stopped and people have gotten out of their cars. Some stand solemnly while the funeral takes place; most are kneeling on the asphalt, with their heads bowed in respect.
When I saw the post on social media, “Today the funeral of a fallen defender in kyiv,” almost a thousand viewers had reacted with comments or emojis. Among the most common: heroyam slava — glory to the heroes.
American Memorial Day was set aside to honor those who fell in the Civil War. Now Americans play “Taps” and lay flowers on the graves of those who died in many wars, all of them in the past. Here in Ukraine, people can only dream of the day when flag-draped funerals are over and battles are distant memories commemorated by a nation at peace.
More than two years after the Russian invasion of February 2022, Ukrainians are tired. The war has not gone well. Many of Ukraine's friends abroad, particularly in the United States, appear to be losing interest. According to a March 2024 survey, more than two-thirds of Ukrainians have a close friend or relative who is serving or has served on the front, and with the death toll in the tens of thousands, too many have lost someone. So perhaps it is not surprising that the ardor and enthusiasm of 2022 has faded.
The most obvious sign: Unlike the early days of the war, when thousands of people rushed to recruiting centers and waited, often more than 12 hours, for a weapon and a uniform, today the army is struggling to enlist new combatants, and the troops are suffering for it. It is one of Russia's main advantages on the battlefield.
Still, even now, exhausted and disheartened as many are, Ukrainians have not lost respect for sacrifice and honor. On the contrary, it seems to come up in one form or another in almost every conversation.
Some of my friends, civilians who have not served, argue that we are all sacrificing ourselves simply by staying in the country. After all, almost 6.4 million Ukrainians, about 16% of the population, remain abroad, and those who remain here pay a price every day.
“I could do a postgraduate degree in Europe,” said a young man, an official who does not want to be identified. “Instead, I'm sitting in the dark, with no running water and no way to heat food, waiting for the next aerial alert: a siren warning that a ballistic missile is headed my way.”
Others question whether civilian life requires heroism. “The only people who sacrifice are those who risk and give their lives,” insists economic researcher Alvina Seliutina, 33 years old. “I can't compare myself to them.” Still, there is no doubting his sense of duty. “It's my country, it's my family. “You don’t abandon your family just because times are tough.”
In fact, a recent survey suggests, 83% of Ukrainians still regularly donate or volunteer, primarily to help the armed forces. Every business seems to have a bottom line; all social media channels request daily.
Even students find ways to donate. One tries to save some hryvnia every time they ask him. “I don't want to be the kind of person who ever ignores a fundraising request,” she tells me. Others give according to a schedule. One volunteers at a clinic every third weekend; another shells out several thousand dollars every two months to pay for a drone for a friend on the front lines.
Soldiers have mixed opinions, some more bitter than others, about the growing reluctance to enlist. Valery Shyrokov, 47, an infantryman and mortar gunner who volunteered in 2022 and served, among other places, in the bloody battle for Bakhmut, uses the word “disappointed,” but his attitude suggests something much more. strong. “I no longer talk to friends who have not served,” he tells me. “I can't stand being around them.”
Yevhen Shramkov, 46, recently wounded in the fighting near Chasiv Yar, is more bewildered than angry. “I'm not in the habit of judging others,” he explains in a Zoom call from the hospital where he is recovering. “But I don't understand those who are left out. It's like passing someone injured or in danger on the street. “Who doesn’t stop to help?” He hopes to spend another month in the hospital and then return to the front to join his unit.
Both those who are in service and those who are not think that if war were better, more men would enlist. “If we had enough ammunition, if we felt that the West supported us, things would be different,” explained a friend. “No one wants to be a meat shield for Europe. Nobody wants to die if we can't win.”
Maybe, maybe not. But the environment is nothing like that of the United States in the Vietnam era or that of Europe at the end of World War I. Elite units that promise capable commanders and proper training have no problems recruiting. The legendary Azov Battalion is said to attract more applicants than it can accept. And it's not hard to feel the guilt, conscious or unconscious, that devours most of my useless male friends.
“We know what the fight is about,” my friend the official reminded me. “Whatever sacrifice they are making, big or small, everyone understands why. Our lives are at stake and our existence as free Ukrainians.”
Tamar Jacoby is the director of the New Ukraine Project at the kyiv-based Progressive Policy Institute.
