Fear and Hoping in Kyiv

Optimism and what it means

This post will mark a slight change in tone, and concentrate on more personal impressions rather than comments on information manipulation.

I suppose that this in itself marks a decent starting point, however – those two points cannot be separated. There is a delicate and vulnerable correlation between assessments of the situation in Ukraine now and how we personally feel – or hope – events might develop.

I am minded in this by this recent blog by Phillips P. Obrien, who complains that much reporting on supposed Russian successes in the war remains based on what Russian forces might accomplish, not what is happening on the ground. This tension might seem obvious, but it is fascinating to consider how optimism and pessimism can quickly engulf and contaminate our understanding of what is happening in Ukraine now.

(This tension between hope and assessment is complicated by the fact that the war is extremely messy and very difficult to analyse. I try to avoid commenting on military developments, given my lack of experience in that area. However, I do get particularly concerned when Russia analysts stray from their specialism within the field and attempt to discuss military affairs – this happens a lot.)

I’ve just come back from Kyiv, which in many ways is as distant from the war as can be. This seems callous and tone-deaf, but that is partially deliberate.

I travel to Ukraine a lot, and every time I go my experiences are very different, even if there is short time between each trip. I’ll admit that I haven’t been to any of the frontline areas or to places, such as Kharkiv, that are currently suffering from regular and brutal attacks. But my impressions, for example, in Kyiv, change each time. And with them my optimism.

This optimism and these impressions come from the city and also from the people. They also come from my flawed sense of what is happening at the front – distant though that is (at least psychologically) from the capital – and how that impacts on popular moods in, for example, Kyiv.

It is extremely difficult to assess popular sentiment (though I shall make some overall and anecdotal comments here). I can speak to my own views, partial as they may be. But there seems to be more people out and about than, say, this time last year. The Kyiv summer has struck with its usual impudicity, and the locals have rushed out onto the vast boulevards to enjoy sprawling spaces and daytime events. The food in the capital is better than ever, and restaurants and bars are full, despite the electricity shortages and growing complaints about the end of the Third Coffee Wave.

Writing this, I am well aware of my tone and the lack of concern it might display to people involved in the fighting. People I know and hugely respect have been in Kharkiv. People I love are somewhere in Donbas. I admit, I have had feelings of guilt through absence ever since I helped people flee from the east after the invasion started in 2014, and watched the unfurling violence on television screens from the safety of the west of the country.

I do not begrudge the stories of Ukrainians who have managed to move away from danger. For example, last month I attended a large food festival at the Art Platform complex in southeast Kyiv, the first time I have attended an event there in several years. I was invited by Ukrainian friends (not from Kyiv), and it was a joyous day. The weather was perfect. The food trucks were varied and very good (barbecue food carefully weighed out before being sold), and there were many arts and crafts stalls from people in temporarily occupied territories; it was good to buy merch and support them.

The atmosphere was joyous, defiant, and it was glorious to see people – young families with children and dogs – take time to enjoy themselves, eat, and drink, and listen to live music. The fact that people can find spaces for fun, even for limited periods, among such trauma, is such a positive note, and testifies to a society that refuses to be bowed. Ukrainians should not be denied these moments, no matter how conditional or fleeting.

Joy and defiance can come at times of war. One section of the festival was dedicated to raising funds for the military and various units. It had on display a donated jeep from the UK (scrawled with anti-Russian graffiti), on which children could clamber and play, and captured Russian weaponry, including a Shahed drone. It was this intrusion of Russia’s war into otherwise such a glorious day that highlights the sacrifices of the defenders and how they enable such events. They also underline how important it is that Kyiv wins.

Iranian Shahed (Geran) drone, shot down over Kherson oblast (author’s own photograph)

There is something deeper in this which I have been considering for a long while, though can only voice informally. Much of my previous work and thinking has focused on eschatological strands in Russian philosophy and how these impact political activity and social behaviours. Russian thought has since its modern conception struggled with the axiomatic appreciation of the material world, with many of its chief protagonists dismissing the current state of matter as imperfect and demanding that humans act to transfigure it.

There is something deeply unsettling about a philosophical tradition that fosters such a strong sense that materiality is inherently unsatisfactory. This strand of thought demands human activity, and has strongly influenced Russian (and Soviet) policies. To my mind, this dissatisfaction of – and at times animosity towards – the physical world has driven much of Russia’s destruction of Ukraine. There is an optimism in elements in Russian culture and thought, a belief that the world can (and must) be improved; though this is entirely conditional on the demand that humans change the world, even when these acts are inherently destructive.

I’ll try to avoid essentialising cultures (though it is a particularly weakness of my work), but I do compare that nihilistic element in Russian thought with the desire of the Ukrainians I know to relish in the present moment. Why else would the Ukrainians have as their flag a demonstration of their relationship with the world as it is now: the symbol of the field fecund and content under the blue sky, the symbiosis of the physical and the ideal.

But that might be a step too far. I have written (sensibly) on Russian eschatology as a philosophical principle, and I believe that this element of Russian thought is underestimated or misunderstood as an influence in political and social culture. I intend to write much more on how the Kremlin is inspired by and exploits this type of thinking: Russian thought is not anything if not practicable.

Where does that leave us with hope, in Ukraine and for Ukraine? My friends in Kyiv and elsewhere vary in their outlook, and their optimism to some degree is tempered by reporting about events on the front. This is why Russia is so determined to message that its troops are advancing and succeeding in their wider aims. However, it is vital to underline the positive aspects of Ukrainian life, the importance of family, food, pleasures for now, but also to demonstrate the basis of a future stable and prosperous economic that will flourish when the war is over. This is the promise of a future that is not abstract, but rooted in the potential of the present. That future is possible, and must be defended.