This week’s Uniter cover feature, by city editor Tessa Adamski, examines the efforts to aid Ukrainian refugees resettling in Manitoba. It’s no coincidence that this issue will be on stands on Feb. 24, which will mark one year since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It’s been one year of war, of senseless bloodshed and innocent Ukrainians murdered by Russian colonizers and Belarussian collaborators. For those of us with family in Ukraine, it’s been a year spent sick with worry. The first months of the war were undoubtedly the most stressful I’ve experienced, watching helplessly from afar, hoping against hope that my relatives would stay safe.

When fighting shifted to the east, far from where my family is, it was some small comfort. But as images, videos and eyewitness testimony continued to emerge, the sick feeling in my stomach stopped its ebb. Indiscriminate bombing of residential buildings continues. The horrific massacres, wanton destruction, torture rooms and stories of rape in places like Bucha, Mariupol, Kharkiv and dozens of other cities and villages aren’t something we can allow ourselves to get used to.

The danger of a long, draggedout conflict like this is the waning of public attention. The perpetrators of Russia’s genocide in Ukraine are counting on this. As horrific as the images are, we can’t allow ourselves to look away, to stop feeling the pain needlessly inflicted on our brothers and sisters. And when this war is over, when Ukraine has survived Russia’s imperialism once again, we must demand justice and accountability.

Published in Volume 77, Number 19 of The Uniter (February 16, 2023)