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For Ukrainians this is a thousand days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country Above all, they are distinguished by the omnipresence of war in their daily lives. It is enough just to walk along the streets of Kyiv to understand that nothing is normal. “Here, right in the city center, it’s dark, many of the lights don’t work anymore because there are power outagesand many people walk around with their phones on as flashlights to avoid falling,” says passerby Emma.

“Indeed, many infrastructures have been restored, but this is not enough. What worries me is what if [las fuerzas rusas] They’re attacking new energy production plants, we will clearly reach a turning point. We will see even greater displacement of people not only in Ukraine itself, but also beyond its borders,” worries Matthias Schmale, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukrainewhen winter is approaching and Ukraine’s energy capacity is minimal.

The threat of bombing adds to the material hardships of everyday life

Although millions of Ukrainians live far from the front line, the consequences of the war continue to affect them every day. “A lot of my close friends try to switch off and prefer to stay at home, play video games or go to work from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., just to escape somewhere, from reality,” says Maria Bindyuk, who works at a bookstore. Moreover, the threats of Russian bombing with glide bombs, drones or missiles are added to the material difficulties of everyday life. Sirens have been sounding every night in Kyiv since September, and the south of the country has not been left outfar from it. The Odessa, Nikolaev and Kherson regions are most susceptible to attacks by Russian drones.

According to Ukraine, In October, Russia launched more than two thousand aircraft, almost double the number in September.. Most of them were Iranian-made kamikaze drones “Shahed”. And these drones don’t just attack military targets. “More and more civilians are telling me that they have been targeted by drone attacks. This is not just a sensation, I was told in detail how drones monitor them… Because the principle of a drone is that you don’t know whether it is watching you or attacking you. Just the noise it makes in the air above you is clearly psychological horror,” says Matthias Schmale. Unfortunately, it seems that these devices will not leave the Ukrainian skies anytime soon: recently North Korea announced that it was going to produce serial explosive dronespresumably for Russia.

In purely military terms, Russia currently occupies slightly less 20% of the territory of Ukrainethat is, 600 thousand km2including the Crimean peninsula. The fighting takes place mainly on two main fronts. The first is in the Donbass, along a line of about 1,000 kilometers that stretches from Kherson in the south to the Russian border east of Kharkov. Since it is protected by up to five lines of defense, this line is practically impassable due to minefields, which today cover an area of ​​at least 200,000 km2.

Losses, a closely guarded secret on both sides

Another major front is located on the other side of the Ukrainian border, in Russia. This is the Kursk region, which the Ukrainians captured last August. Since then, the Kievans have lost 400 thousand square kilometers, which they managed to conquer there, but their the invasion of Russian territory allows them to give battle to the enemy and pose a threat to the Russian system. After two and a half years of war, the situation on the Ukrainian side has stabilized after a period of real crisis when ammunition supplied by American aid stopped arriving. And while the Ukrainian army also has problems with turnover and recruitment, the Russians face the same difficulties, which is why they decided to turn to North Korean soldiers.

The real difference in Moscow’s favor lies in its greater strategic reservea shortcoming that Kyiv, against all odds, was able to partially compensate with the help of the American permit issued this weekend attack Russian territory with long-range ATACMS missiles. While this will not change the balance of the war, it should at least allow the Ukrainians to slow down the Russian advance and give themselves a welcome break.

Finally, The issue of casualties remains a closely guarded secret on both sides.. However, in mid-September, American sources assessed more than a million number of dead and wounded in Russia and Ukrainewith losses twice as large on the Russian side: 200 thousand killed and 400 thousand wounded versus 80 thousand killed and 400 thousand wounded on the Ukrainian side since the start of the war in February 2022. On this symbolic day of a thousand days, Ukrainians love to remember this The war for them began in 2014, exactly three thousand 926 days ago.with the first Russian territorial violations in Crimea and which have since Russian aggression has only intensified.

RFI