Ukraine Update January 1-7, 2024

Dear everyone,

Hope you enjoyed your weekend. Here’s the weekly update about Ukraine.

Funny and sad story was spread on social media and gained a lot of attention. A Ukrainian man uploaded videos on his TikTok, telling how he swam across the river Tysa, which marks the Ukrainian border with Romania. This way, he ran away from Ukraine, where the borders had been closed for men aged 18-60 since the full-scale invasion started. According to him, he was met by Romanian police, given dry clothes and documents, and after that he continued his journey to the EU countries. The story has received a lot of support on social media, though there were also people who condemned him as a coward, or even a traitor. This man’s story got viral, but it is by no means unique – dozens of cases of crossings of border rivers are reported by Ukrainian media almost every week. Sometimes people get caught by Ukrainian border guards, and sometimes they even drown. Personally, I don’t support keeping the borders closed for such a long time. Ukrainians have proven themselves devoted to protecting their country and imposing Soviet-style limitations on them for more than two years is deeply inappropriate.

I see that the longer the borders will be closed, the more men will try to run away. The draft law on mobilization added a lot of fears. It is actively discussed in the society. The good thing is that some legislators have started developing new initiatives, designed to increase the attractiveness of military service, by providing better pay, more benefits, and better conditions of service. My husband Pavlo is helping his former colleagues (and comrades in arms – they’ve served together in spring 2022) with drafting these initiatives.

If you want to know more about his time on the frontline in Kherson region, you can read about it in my book The Fight Of Our Lives.

While many diplomats, politicians and ordinary citizens are pushing the US and the EU governments to vote for more aid to Ukraine, President Zelenskyy has made a call to speed up the decision to transfer the frozen Russian financial assets (amounting to about $300 billion) to Ukraine.

The EU has not come up with solutions on this matter yet. France and Germany insist that the immunity of sovereign assets is an integral part of our modern world order, that the West must defend (and that Russia is trying to destroy). There are fears that confiscating Russian assets would spook China and other authoritarian nations to draw down their own monetary reserves, that are currently held in the form of Western financial assets. The counterargument is that the response to the unprecedented Russian aggression should also be unprecedented. If Russia has decided to cancel its participation in the post-WWII world order, it should not enjoy the benefits of that world order, including the sovereign immunity. Besides this, it would be just if Russia paid for the losses it has caused in Ukraine, rather than the Western taxpayer.

The situation on the frontlines is sorrowful. Western analysts expect the Russians to try an offensive in the Kupiansk area, Kharkiv region, soon. Russian forces have been consistently shelling at least nine Ukrainian regions every day. Just yesterday, they have killed at least 13 and wounded at least 16 civilians. Both the US and Ukraine see that the ballistic missiles that Russia uses to shell my homeland have been produced in North Korea. One more proof that authoritarians can unite around their common goal of destroying democracies.

Having said this, we all have a lot of hope for the new year. And Bonya (my parents’ cat) sends his best wishes from the war-torn Kherson.

Wishing you a peaceful week.

Iuliia Mendel