Two months after Russian forces first invaded Ukraine, the feelings and future of the country remain anything but certain.
“Uncertainty. I would say this is the exact feeling. I don’t know when I’ll be able to see my family, no clue,” says Gela Turabelidze, who has stayed behind in Kyiv while his family relocated to Spain.
For him, the losses are mounting and they are intensely personal.
“One of my teachers and her husband, he was killed in Bucha,” said Turabelidze.
He runs a language school in Ukraine that actually partners with American universities, including some in Texas.
He’s also old friends with Sergiy Kudelia, a native Ukrainian and well-known political science professor at Baylor University.
“People are just suffering enormously. The Russian Army have been constantly shelling them, and bombing. It’s surreal what is going on here,” says Turabelidze.
That’s primarily happening in the eastern part of the country right now, where Russian forces regrouped to relaunch a massive new attack.
While life in Kyev is improving, Turabelidze says all bets are off if Russian President Vladimir Putin takes his “war crimes” tactics to the next level.
“If a rat is in a very desperate situation, it will attack you because there’s no other way out,” says Gela. “We’re talking about country with nuclear arms […] so you never know what it might result in.”
