Spirits are flagging in Kyiv as another year of war looms

"The toll of enduring a war that has now lasted almost four years is evident in almost everything in Ukraine: from the lanes of a swimming pool to the clientele of a hair salon, from the location of a cemetery to the casualty list, from the curfew to the power outages. Above all, it is evident in the increasingly weary mood of the population. What follows is an attempt to describe the corrosive effects of war on an entire country."

"In 2022, the first year of the invasion, finding a free lane in the swimming pool at Kyiv's Olympic Stadium wasn't a problem. But the pleasure of swimming alone gradually faded, in step with the advance of Russian troops and missiles. The first change came in September of 2022, when children returned to enjoy extracurricular activities in the water. They had disappeared from the city in February of that year, when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine and its assault on Kyiv."

"In the autumn of 2023, the second major change took place at the Kyiv Olympic Stadium swimming pool: one of the lanes was now reserved almost entirely for wounded soldiers. Men with severe injuries and scars covering half their bodies performed rehabilitation exercises in the water. The arrival of these veterans came shortly after the failed counteroffensive that summer on the Zaporizhzhia front, which proved a debacle and marked the last time Ukrainian troops held the initiative in the war."

War has transformed everyday life across Ukraine, touching places from swimming pools and hair salons to cemeteries, curfews and power supplies. The population exhibits increasing weariness. The 2022 invasion and the failed attempt to capture Kyiv produced displacement, later returns, and arrivals from fighting in the east. Swimming pools shifted from quiet lanes to spaces shared with children, displaced families, and progressively more lanes dedicated to wounded soldiers undergoing water rehabilitation. The failed counteroffensive on the Zaporizhzhia front ended Ukraine's operational initiative. Independent tallies place military deaths above 160,000 and wounded at least three times that, exceeding half a million.

Read at english.elpais.com