Voices in my head

A man wearing a dark suit walks into a casino with a woman and a young boy. They crouch down together in a corner of the room. Banks of slot-machines hum and chirp all around them. In the orange glow it could be three o’clock in the afternoon, three o’clock in the night, or any other time. This is Las Vegas but it could be anywhere.

We are at war. But the enemy is not who we think it is.

At the end of 2023, the peoples of Ukraine and Belarus stand at very different points on their European journey. While our Ukrainian neighbours continue to repel a criminal invasion now in its tenth year, so that they can rightfully enjoy the gains of their revolution of dignity and prepare for membership of the European Union, Belarusians remain shackled by a brutal dictatorship, their democratic opposition forced into exile. The countries’ fates may be tied by history, geography, and culture but, for now, they are separated by a war that neither of them chose. And yet, one existential battle unites them profoundly, a battle that the European Union, too, will need to win in the years ahead. The battle for the truth.

A fresh-faced teenager crouches in the rubble, wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest. Volleys of sniper fire cut through the air, and the boy ducks. Men of all ages scream instructions to one another, keep their heads down, and hope. It might be the trench of a battlefield, far from the city, but this is Institutskaya Street, in central Kyiv, on February 20th 2014. It is day 92 of the Maidan, the Ukrainian people’s revolution of dignity, and the boy has just pulled a lifeless body away from the line of fire. ‘You can’t surprise me with anything,’ he says. ‘You thought it would be easy, just go to the Maidan, hang out for a bit and then go home? Not me. I always wanted to be on the front lines.’