The Ukrainian leadership previously urged citizens to avoid panic. Now the situation has changed. Ukraine is becoming a state of emergency.
LVIV Ukrainian Irina Jasinska received a message from her child’s teacher yesterday. The school should pack a backpack with water, biscuits, a child’s personal information, a flashlight and warm clothes.
The backpack needs to be packed because Ukraine is now preparing for war in a whole new way.
– We are preparing for the worst, but we hope for the best, Jasinska says in the queue at the post office in the center of Lviv.
The queue is exceptionally long and leads to the passport collection point. As part of the preparations, Ukrainians take care that their own and loved ones’ passports are valid.
So is Jasinska, who is applying for a fresh passport.
Even in the earlier weeks The Ukrainian leadership urged citizens to avoid panic. When the western countries ordered their citizens to leave Ukraine immediately in the middle of the month, the Ukrainians themselves did not receive any further instructions from their leadership.
Now the situation has changed. A radical change has taken place in just a day. Ukraine is becoming a state of emergency for the whole country, with the exception of the occupied territories of Donbas.
Tuesday night, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi called the reservists into service while speaking to the people on television. At this stage, the call concerns part of the reserve, some 250,000 men aged 18-60.
In addition, the Ukrainian parliament began work on an amendment to the law on the right of civilians to carry a weapon and use a weapon in self-defense.
Weapons are now well traded in Ukraine. The fishing and hunting shop in the suburbs of Lviv cannot be photographed inside, but behind the counter you can see a long line of different rifles.
Coming from the store Roman stops to give an interview. He has bought a new sight for his rifle.
– I’m updating my equipment, Roman says. He doesn’t want to say his last name.
A new kind preparation also means more work for Lviv volunteers who send equipment to Ukrainian army soldiers.
A group of women wrap green strips of carpet weaving around a fishing net.
– This will be a cover to hide the tanks and weapons, says Marija Gapuk.
At the back of the room is a box shop for equipment donated by volunteers: long underpants, sweaters and blankets.
There is also one young, 18-year-old, among women of retirement age Anna Butrei. He’s studying at university, but has become a shift to braid the ground cover for an armored car.
– This is a difficult time for Ukraine, we all need to help, Butrei says.
Older women drilling next door have a lot of opinions, especially about Russia and Ukraine Vladimir from Putin.
Lavra Hari-Talantsuk is 78 years old. At the age of five, he was transported with his parents to a prison camp in Siberia with his parents. The reason was the Soviet administration’s claim that the parents were enemies of the state.
Hari-Talantsuk interrupts the speech and shows a throat surgery if he tries to speak Russian.
– I’ve had enough of Russia, he says in Ukrainian.
Lviv in western Ukraine is strongly Ukrainian-speaking and far from the front line of the war in eastern Ukraine. But since Monday, preparations for war have begun across the country.
Monday was a turning point. It was then that Vladimir Putin recognized the rebel areas of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent after a showy Security Council meeting.
The speech he gave in recognition of Putin was another shock. Putin questioned the right of the whole of Ukraine to exist as an independent state.
Reddish Galina Muha says that Finns should be awake too.
– Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire, including part of Finland. Your Finns should think about it, Muha says.