Before the full-scale war, President Volodymyr Zelensky promised to plant one billion trees in Ukraine, and the Ministry of Forestry recently reported that tree number one billion had been planted in Kyiv.
Planting trees is, of course, very important for the environment, especially in a country where the forests of the east and south have been scorched by war. This figure, however, evokes a slightly ironic smile. Even a million trees would be difficult to count or label, let alone a billion?
More realistic figures have recently emerged in other areas of our economy. For example, the government’s Hr. 1,000 ($24) “winter support” payment for which citizens can apply through the government services app or by mail.
This may not sound like much support, but for many pensioners, it is a significant sum. After all, the minimum monthly pension in Ukraine is Hr. 2,361 hryvnias ($56), and 40 percent of pensioners live on Hr. 3,000 ($71) per month.
One-off grants, while they may bring some relief to the poorest sections of society, seem to be a gesture more closely related to politics than economics.
The smallest figure which I will cite in this article is perhaps also the most telling: in Lviv’s famous Lychakiv Cemetery, there is only enough room left for 20 new graves for fallen soldiers. City authorities are urgently seeking a site near the city for a new cemetery.
As heavy fighting continues around Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk in the Donbas, near Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region, and in other front-line areas, each day, the Ukrainian command reports enemy casualties.
On average, they report 1,000 killed or wounded Russian soldiers. It is traditionally believed that, in their defensive position, the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s losses are smaller, but one would have to be completely naive to think that they were ten times smaller.
One of the most humane decisions recently announced came from the state-owned Ukrainian postal service: the personal belongings of fallen soldiers will now be returned to their families and friends free of charge.
We can only hope that the post office will not come up with specially branded packaging for such parcels, revealing the contents. During World War II, official notifications to relatives about the death of their son or husband arrived by mail in triangular envelopes. There were numerous cases where the recipient of such envelopes died of a heart attack before even reading their contents.
The number of Ukrainian prisoners of war who die after being freed has caused discussion in the media recently. It seems that the liberated prisoners are so weakened by the ill-treatment they receive in captivity that, after release, despite medical attention, they fall prey to chronic illnesses from which they cannot recover.
All former prisoners of war have a right to be demobilized. Besides physical ailments, prisoners of war almost always suffer from psychological issues that require the help of psychologists. Unfortunately, military psychologists are in short supply, and this must affect how well the medical services can prepare ex-prisoners of war for a return to civilian life.
The increasingly large number of captured Russian soldiers who have Ukrainian passports has also given rise to questions. Russia has forcibly conscripted more than 46,000 Ukrainian citizens living in the occupied territories. This number will continue to grow. Sometimes these soldiers seek an opportunity to surrender to Ukrainian forces as quickly as possible, but more often they are captured during combat.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s old dream from 2014 – to prove to the world that a civil war is raging in Ukraine – is being lent a veneer of reality as Russia forces Ukrainian citizens to fight against their own country, their own people.
Rather than dwelling on that tragic development, perhaps I should be counting the newly planted trees in the area around my Kyiv apartment.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily Kyiv Post.