Also yesterday there was a tense routine on the streets of Kiev, and along with the day-to-day conduct were also recorded individual plays of preparing for a possible confrontation.
Arms stores in the city were active and many civilians were equipped with weapons and ammunition as part of joining volunteer forces training to assist the Ukrainian army and out of a need for self-defense.
Routine events also carried a special hue due to the uncertainty.
A large demonstration by business owners and the self-employed took place in the center of the capital and dozens of policemen and members of the National Guard arrived at the scene of the demonstration.
On the economic nature of the demonstration, designed to protest a new law that would require business owners to submit receipts to their customers for any action, the protesters waved Ukrainian flags and sang patriotic songs.
"The fact that we are demonstrating here against the government shows our strength as a democracy. The citizens of Ukraine gained this democracy in the Maidan revolution and we will preserve it," a protester told Israel Today.
Ukrainian soldiers are training in the border area, Photo: AP
In a fashionable cafe in the city center, run by veterans of the volunteer battalions of the fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014, there was sparse traffic.
"Many went out to volunteer again. Others are getting ready to go out," says the owner, who is leaving the army himself.
Bogdan Chebak, a former fighter and social activist, says his origins are from the Donetsk city now ruled by pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, and he was forced to flee his home when marked by rebels as a government supporter in Kiev.
He is not worried about a Russian invasion of Ukraine but claims it is a significant possibility: "Those who do not really experience the fighting, like many of Kiev, feel confused and afraid that the fire will reach them this time. We who have experienced it once know what it is and are prepared for it." .
Chebak refers to the separatist uprising that took place in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in 2014, a few weeks after the Russian takeover of the Crimean peninsula.
So the Ukrainian army was forced to rely on the forces of volunteers.
Even today, volunteers from various organizations stand by the Ukrainian army as it prepares to try to block Russian armored columns in the event of an invasion.
One such volunteer is Dmitry Kotzioblio, a member of the far-right organization "Right-wing" and an outstanding commander who received a medal of heroism from the President of Ukraine and Vladimir Zlansky himself.
"I do not know what the Russians are planning. It is difficult to say. I believe they are interested in some limited action, to capture and crown some of our forces. But it does not matter. We are ready and fighting to the last drop of our blood," Kotzioblio told Israel Today during a train ride. eastward.
Ukrainian President Zlansky, Photo: AFP
Kotzioblio was only 18 years old when he became a fighter during the Maidan Square protest, a huge protest that ignited following the decision of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to withdraw from signing a partnership agreement with the EU and to seek agreements with Russia instead.
When Jankovic's police forces opened fire and killed dozens of protesters, some protesters decided to return fire using Molotov cocktails, cold weapons and weapons snatched from police.
After almost two months of bloody demonstrations, Jankovic was forced to flee and Ukraine began a deep political process of democratization.
President Putin, furious at Ukraine's liberation from Russian political embrace, responded by annexing the Crimean peninsula and igniting the uprising in eastern Ukraine, moves that managed to fundamentally undermine the country's new rule but fail to reverse the process and return Kiev to Moscow.
"The strategic situation has worsened"
At the same time, as if to reinforce Batotsky's remarks, the dialogue of swords between Russia and the West continues.
US President Joe Biden has threatened his Russian counterpart and said he would consider imposing personal sanctions on Putin in the event of an invasion of Ukraine. , Adding: "In the last two years the strategic situation around us has deteriorated, and we are living in the most dangerous situation since the Cold War."
Also, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has announced the receipt of a shipment of 300 U.S.-made Javelin-type anti-tank missiles, and they are joining hundreds of tons of combat equipment that has been handed over to the Ukrainians in recent weeks.
But at the same time, the head of the NATO alliance, General Jans Stoltenberg, announced that the alliance would not send troops to Ukraine, and the member states would decide on the nature of the action they would take.
Russia, for its part, has carried out a long series of military exercises from the shores of the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
The exercises included firing Iskander missiles, exercises of special units and paratroopers as well as extensive armor and artillery maneuvers.
Putin's nightmare
One of the main questions that makes it difficult for everyone, from ordinary citizens of Kiev to Baiden and NATO leaders, is what Russian President Vladimir Putin is actually interested in achieving in the current conflict. To launch a bloody war in a neighboring country that poses no significant military threat to his country? That independent Ukraine is a historical mistake and he intends to correct it.
"He was interested in annexing us to Russia or at best leaving us as a puppet state like Belarus," explains the adviser, also a resident of eastern Ukraine who was forced to move out of his home due to the fighting.
Putin.
Will decide on invasion ?, Photo: IP
In Totsky Malin also on Western countries and his attitude wins Ukraine, not as a partner in the struggle, but as an object. "There is no doubt that Ukraine is not around the negotiating table but on it. We lack the ability and power to make our own demands on the powers," he admits sadly. Asked why Ukrainians do not give up on the mighty neighbor to the east, as other countries in the post-Soviet space did, Batzky replies: "The reason Ukrainians will not succumb to Russian pressure is simply because they do not want to be like Russia. The totalitarian thinking that characterizes Russia does not fascinate them "As Putin's Russia becomes more repressive, so the Ukrainians need at least some persuasion to fight its influence."
But for Putin, whose rule is characterized by a sense of nostalgia for the Cold War-era world order, it is no longer a question of wanting to put Ukraine in Russia's only "arena of influence".
Putin began to see Western Ukraine as a real threat to Russia's security.
"For Putin, the possibility of the presence of NATO forces on one of his country's most important borders and the loss of the ability to act as he pleases due to Ukraine's armament with advanced weapons is a nightmare," admits Ukrainian adviser Totsky. Where the US, Western countries and Russia play, so explosive and dangerous.
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