Ukrainians mourn their dead after almost 1,000 days of war – but US move sparks hope

Barely anyone speaks – there is virtual silence apart from the sounds of passing vehicles and the wind whipping through flags and photographs commemorating the dead in a war that started 1,000 days ago when Russia invaded.

What is really striking is the sheer number of people who have died, and this memorial in Kyiv’s Maidan Square represents just some of those who gave their lives defending their country.

Soldiers in camouflage fatigues pause to pay their respects to comrades, civilians stop and stare, heads often bowed.

At the same time, on mobile phones, news alerts announce another missile strike on Ukraine. This time in the port city of Odessa.

More dead, more injured, it never stops here.

As this war grinds on, with Russia making significant gains in the east, it says something about the Ukrainian people’s resolve to keep going.

For months the Ukrainian government has been pleading with the United States and its western partners for permission to use long range weapons to attack deep inside Russia.

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These weapons would allow Ukraine to target airfields and bases where drones and missiles are launched against Ukraine, and to attack supply routes and military camps. In effect – to take the fight to Russia.

Time and again civilians and soldiers alike tell me the West and the United States are scared of annoying or provoking Russia. Wrongly or rightly, most believe the West is happy for Ukraine to hold the line but not beat Russia.

News that President Biden, in the twilight of his time in office, has changed his position allowing American missiles to be fired into Russia, has been greeted with euphoria.

Although it’s tempered by his decision to allow them to be used only in the Kursk region of Russia, where North Korean troops are augmenting the Russian military.

I met Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko in the capital, she heard the news as she arrived back in Ukraine from a trip abroad.

She says the decision has “lifted spirits here” and calls the move “extremely significant” but says it needs to go further.

“As members of parliament we have been echoing the president in every single meeting we have abroad, asking for the permission to strike inside Russia’s territory, what this means is permission to liquidate 16 airbases from which Russia on a daily and nightly bases sends airplanes carrying missiles that are hitting Ukrainian homes, Ukrainian infrastructure, and basically making civilian life impossible in the country,” she told me.

She continued: “Having permission to strike inside of all of Russia would really change things round for the people of Ukraine first and foremost, but also on the battlefield.”

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She told me that despite the war dragging on, the Ukrainian people remain resolute and united.

“The resilience is still there, for us this resilience equals survival, if Ukraine stops fighting there will be no Ukraine, there will be no us as Ukrainians, there will be no housing, we would not be allowed to live under the Ukrainian flag, so the only option here is to make sure that Russia stops fighting and that Russia can never fight again.”

Over the past almost two weeks I have driven from the west to the east of this huge country.

It strikes me that you can barely pass a town or a village cemetery without the blue and gold colours of the Ukrainian flag punctuating the grey skies – marking the graves of the war dead.

A thousand days since the Russian invasion began, soldiers and civilians alike are still dying, but Ukraine is still fighting.

A thousand days ago, few thought that was likely.