Ukrainians welcome spring, say they survived Putin’s ‘winter terror’
Ukrainians are marking their first day of spring on social media, sharing photos of fresh buds and blooms and acknowledging that they have survived a brutal winter of war.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said Wednesday that March 1 – which is considered the first day of spring in Ukraine – symbolized “another major defeat” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who failed to use the winter season to weaponize energy and win the war in Ukraine.
“Despite the cold, darkness, and missile strikes, Ukraine persevered and defeated his winter terror,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter. “Furthermore, Europe has not ‘frozen’ despite Russian predictions and mockery.”
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov also marked the moment, welcoming spring as a new, more hopeful, season.
“They wanted to freeze us and throw us into darkness,” he tweeted. “We survived.”
“Happy first day of spring, Ukraine,” the country’s border police wrote on Telegram on Wednesday alongside a photo of an officer holding a bunch of white flowers in the snow.
Ukraine’s state border guards also joined the celebration, writing on Telegram that the new month symbolized renewed hope and “the beginning of a new life.”
The weather remained cold in parts of Ukraine on Wednesday – with snow falling in some areas of the country, melting snow muddying the fields in Donetsk, and – as is a regular occurrence now – air raid sirens warning residents in Kyiv and Kramatorsk to take cover.
Yet among this, many Ukrainians enjoyed taking a moment to mark their spring, acknowledging their survival as a victory in itself.
Ukrainian soldier Yuriy Syrotyuk, who fought in the territorial defense forces, shared an image of a budding tree on Instagram, welcoming the “unstoppable and inevitable Ukrainian victorious Spring.”
“We survived this winter,” read one tweet from a user based in Kyiv. “We know the price of life. Let’s catch every moment of it.”
Officials and experts had warned at the start of the winter that Ukraine was on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, when a slew of Russian airstrikes targeted the country’s energy infrastructure, leaving citizens across the country facing blackouts and an absence of heat and running water.
On the battlefield, troops fought in temperatures below freezing.
At the time, the World Health Organization warned that the period of extreme weather could be life-threatening. “Put simply, this winter will be about survival,” said Hans Henri P. Kluge, regional director for the WHO.
On Friday, Ukraine marked one year at war with Russia, a conflict that has displaced millions of Ukrainians and killed tens of thousands of people on each side. Ukrainian forces have widely exceeded expectations, putting up a fierce defense against Russia. However, Russian forces still occupy huge swaths of Ukrainian territory.
Speaking on the anniversary of Feb. 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed his country’s “furious year of invincibility,” recalling the start of the war as “the longest day of our lives” and “the hardest day of our modern history.”
“We woke up early and haven’t fallen asleep since,” he said.