SAD BUT STRONG

OUTPOURING OF EMOTIONS IN KYIV ON ANNIVERSARY

- BY SIMON MURPHY

In the shadow of death, a proud Ukrainian woman tells me about life.

Standing by a poignant Kyiv memorial honouring the fallen, Olha Guyazdovska says she is tired of war. But, with yesterday marking four years to the day since Russia's full-scale Ukraine invasion, it is far from over.

Olha, 34, says: “I think that now many people live every day with shock. Every day our heart is stressed. Every day and every night we don't sleep. Because we don't sit at home we sit in a shelter. Four years we live in the country and... many people died and this is not good.”

We are in the capital's iconic Maidan Square, the setting of a key turning point for Ukraine.

Protesters were massacred here in 2014, sparking the toppling of the country’s pro-Kremlin regime. Ukraine has been on a long road since. Russia’ illegal annexation of Crimea came the same year, as did fighting in Ukraine's east with Kremlin-backed separatists.

Then came Moscow's full-on invasion on February 24, 2022 - a day that will live for ever in Ukraine's history. But, despite the terror of attacks from the skies since, life has had to somehow continue. “We don't know what we must do and what we can help because the situation is not normal and we haven't got control,” Olha explains.