Four Ukrainians talk about their most formative moment in the war

Berlin A widow who lost her husband in a fight against Russian soldiers, a man hiding from the Russians in occupied Luhansk, a journalist who had to flee from the occupiers and a soldier who remembers the first bloodshed he witnessed saw: The Tagesspiegel asked four Ukrainians which moment in the past six months of the Russian war of aggression shaped them the most.

Tamara Yanina, widow

“I remember the first day of the war most vividly. All thoughts mixed up and it was difficult to concentrate. All the radio stations broadcast non-stop news about shelling, about a large-scale invasion.

All around me was panic mixed with a sense of unity. Queues formed at the military registration and territorial defense units, and I kept getting calls from relatives. And I always had to think about my husband, who was in Mariupol …