Ninety-one missiles rained down on Ukraine last night, an orchestra of destruction conducted by Vladimir Putin. For Ukrainians, this symphony of violence has become an uninvited score to our lives, a grim cadence that we navigate with both defiance and resignation.
I follow the waves of missile trajectories on my smartphone, like a modern astrologer tracking the course of a malevolent constellation. Sometimes I do this from the depths of a bomb shelter, sometimes from my own home. With time, you learn to read these patterns: the missiles launched, the routes they carve through the sky, the logic—or lack thereof—behind their destinations. Kyiv, the city I call home, is often a waypoint, a target, or a bystander as the missiles pass overhead to strike the western reaches of my country.
But do these places—where missiles fall, where they wound and kill—mean anything beyond their destruction? Or are they mere points on a map in an unholy game of chance, their significance burned into the earth only after the smoke clears?
Drone strikes no longer startle me as they once did. They hum like gnats in the background of a larger, darker story. Most are intercepted, but not all. Even when they aren't, it feels like a macabre kind of roulette, a game whose rules Ukrainians have memorized but can never control.
Yet two things still make my heart tighten.
The first is the launch of Russian strategic bombers from their airfields. These relics of Soviet might take flight to the Caspian Sea, where they unleash their cargo of missiles on my country. The bitter irony? Ukraine once handed over these bombers and missiles to Russia in the name of peace. History’s grimace echoes in the roar of their engines.
The second is the resurrection of Putin’s V-2—a weapon of vengeance, a postmodern homage to Hitler’s terror from above. Hitler aimed his V-2 rockets at Britain, an act of desperation in a war already lost. Putin’s Oreshnik, or "Hazel," rockets target Ukraine with a sinister twist. No longer just weapons of war, they are instruments of a new religion—one built on fear, destruction, and the promise of nuclear annihilation.
In Kazakhstan, Putin reveled in his newfound deity. He spoke with the fervor of a prophet, extolling the virtues of his weapon: the temperature of its blast rivaling the sun, the cleansing fire that burns away all life it touches. He was selling fear—Russia’s only export of value in this crumbling empire.
And here we are, trapped under the shadow of his obsession. He believes his Hazel rockets, his nuclear threats, are the magic keys to the world’s surrender. A dealer of terror, he beckons Ukraine and the West with his Faustian bargain: give up, or risk the unthinkable.
The comparison to Hitler’s V-2 ends here. Hitler did not have nuclear weapons. Putin does. This difference makes him not merely a dictator but a megamaniac, a threat that transcends borders and timelines. His delusion of unchecked power begs an urgent question: does humanity have the resolve to confront him?
Can the world’s democracies remember their promises? Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees. One of those guarantors now uses its missiles to destroy Ukrainian cities. The irony is as scorching as the flames left in the Hazel's wake.
What will it take for the world to find the "black block," the unseen force that disrupts this madness before it spirals into global catastrophe? Who will stand up, not just for Ukraine, but for the fragile idea that humanity’s shared future matters more than the ambitions of one deranged man?
The missiles continue to fall. Yet, like the resilient arcs of life described in Gravity's Rainbow, we Ukrainians find ways to survive, to endure, to hope. Maybe one day, the hazel will grow green again, not as a weapon, but as a symbol of life reborn.
Until then, we remain. Defiant. Waiting. Believing.
Glory to Ukraine!
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