After two years of war, Ukrainians are becoming pessimistic

IT HAS BEEN a long two years for Ukrainians, but for some the clock stopped the moment Russian tanks crossed the border. Residents of Hlibivka, a village 40km north of Kyiv, were trapped by the advance when the bridges behind them were blown up to save the capital. The Russian occupation marked the start of a nightmare for Olha Manukhina. Two days in, masked men jumped over her fence and kidnapped her husband and her son. She has not seen them since. She understands they are being held in a prison in southern Russia, two of thousands of civilian prisoners who don’t officially exist. It’s the uncertainty that gets her, she says, “the not knowing, the sense they are being left to die”.