Ukraine, which has been waiting for months for an imminent Russian invasion, is now also facing aggravation of hostilities in the east of the country, Donbas, where the separatists have announced the massive evacuation of the civilian population to Russia.
“The truth is that you breathe tranquility”, portrays the Chilean Fernanda Aedofrom the Ukrainian city of Lviv, where this Thursday lived the “Unity Day” convened by President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was a day of celebration called by the government in response to reports anticipating a potential Russian invasion for that day, which ultimately did not happen.
During that day, Aedo tells CNN Chile, “I felt the unity of the Ukrainian, we are all in this together and we are going to get ahead no matter what happens.” After that, “today I feel calmer, although I have my backpack ready in any case, because obviously something can happen”. Food, passport, clothes, and “some money” are counted among those belongings.
Meanwhile, he assures that “everything continues as if it were any other day, I continue working from 9 to 7 in the afternoon, if I go to the supermarket everything is there, there are no shortages or anything like that.”
“In general, people are very confident that nothing is going to happen,” ensures against a possible invasion. “My friends from Ukraine, the truth is that they do not believe it is possible, they say that, well, this situation has been going on for a long time, since 2014. So it is not something new for them. In this context, I believe that they are already used to this zone of conflict, that this relationship with Russia is constantly happening, that there is something going on there on the edge, but nothing beyond.”
Likewise, she details that beyond the strong Ukrainian nationalist sentiment, she sees examples such as that of her boyfriend, who is from Ukraine but has family in Russia. “You have to understand that, I don’t know if most people, but plenty of people here share roots with Russia, so they are always in contact”, so “it is not that they are going to start hating Russia on that side”.
As for the fear that the Ukrainian armed forces will have to face a widespread Russian attack, he perceives that “people trust Ukraine’s military power quite a bit”. On the contrary, he considers that there is “a feeling that people are bored of this happening, that there is always a conflict with Russia, so they are prepared to defend their country, whatever the cost.”
In this scenario, he explains, it is his family in his homeland that shows the most concern. But she, like thirty other Chileans in Ukraine, had already been contacted by the Chilean authorities who were seeking to keep a record of those who were in Ukrainian territory. However, she assures her, she was not given any plan of action in case the worst were to happen.