The War in Ukraine, Year 2: As Seen Through the Perspective of CDU Professor of Medicine Dr. Victor Chaban( continued)
It’ s very interesting how this year has unfolded. A lot of people whose hearts and minds are in the right place. The weekend that Putin invaded, it was very, very interesting. Vladimir Klitschko spoke out, and as the mayor is Mayor of Kyiv, he was willing to personally fight to the death. His words spoke volumes, he being a legendary international heavyweight boxing champion.
Yeah. It was a very, very interesting position that Klitschko and President Volodymyr Zelensky took. Because on one side, they acknowledged exactly what you said, which is we know that Russia is a formidable enemy. We know that they have all the weapons and the armament. Obviously there had been this history of people in East Ukraine conspiring to essentially allow the Russians to occupy that territory and then lay a greater claim to the whole of the Ukraine as being part of the Soviet Union.
So, what Vladimir Klitschko came out and said was that he was willing to put down all of the other interests that he had going, and Zelensky essentially said,‘ I’ m not I’ m not going to go into a bunker’. The thing that is very, very compelling to me, from a human standpoint, is how the leadership essentially put their lives and their hearts and their minds on the line as examples.
And that seems to have been something that really inspired the country a tremendous amount. A tremendous amount of carnage, a tremendous amount of destruction, a tremendous amount of denial by the Russians of their real motives, which, at this point, I mean, I don’ t want to get too political here, but that their intent was that they wanted to destroy the legitimate leadership and claim that the people of Ukraine were very much in alignment with becoming part of Russia again.
They got lessons for life that right now, I’ m reading about in the news all the time. The people demolished Russian sculptures, even of Russian World War II heroes. Catherine the Great had a monument in Odesa. Now it’ s gone. Potemkin, another Russian historical figure, was buried in Kherson. When the Russians left, they took his remains back to Russia. They knew the Ukrainians were gonna throw them away. Russia, they took all our historical artifacts from the museums that were Russian. With that kind of distraction and complete looting, everything was gone. Sometimes Ukrainian people realize that this is two different cultures whereas before you wouldn’ t believe it.
Let’ s talk very specifically about an area also that I know you’ re very familiar with: what impact is the war having on healthcare? It’ s certainly a crisis; besides demoralizing people, demolishing buildings and destroying the water supply and the other essential things that we know. Why bomb a kindergarten? What is your assessment of the war’ s impact on healthcare in Ukraine?
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People are brave, nobody expected so much courage and so much strength of both our people and the military
For my colleagues still working actively at the Medical University, the effect is horrible. Nobody is talking about the pandemic, and nobody is screening patients. Nobody is delivering drugs on time in the occupied territory. I know because they said they didn’ t have any medication to treat chronic diseases. Russia during occupation has never supplied anything. But even when Ukraine liberated territory, there’ s still very big shortage of medication. First, what they did, they came to the drugstore and they couldn’ t find any supplies, so it’ s hard to tell. Ukrainians have developed a different mentality during the war. They’ ve put aside all personal problems and are mainly talking about the core issue of our armies. They donate to the armies the last penny, but everybody realizes that Ukraine is going through a major disaster.
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CDU College of Medicine | PG. 26