Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

‘We will fight to the last drop of blood’: My Ukrainian family’s message to Putin

Derek and his Ukrainian family at a gathering in their home village of Szybalyn.
Derek and his Ukrainian family at a gathering in their home village of Szybalyn.

I am British, and hold a British passport. But I’m also half Ukrainian.

My father was born in a village called Szybalin, roughly 100km southeast of Lviv.

Between the wars, it was part of Poland, and in 1939 my father (who had just been conscripted into the Polish army) was taken by the Russians to a hard labour camp in the Urals, where he spent 18 months witnessing the daily atrocity of fellow prisoners starving or freezing to death.

Somehow he survived, and was eventually transferred to Scotland to be part of the Polish Free Forces.

After the war, and terrified of returning to the USSR, he settled in Fife.

Connections with his family in Ukraine (he had seven siblings) were sparse, and he died aged 91.

From that point, I lost contact with Szybalin, until I received a Facebook message in 2018 from a cousin twice-removed, who said she was living in the house my father was born in, and asked if I would like to come to visit.

My son Janek and I packed our bags and flew out to Lviv, where were driven to Szybalin.

The next eight days were a whirlwind of sight-seeing and meeting relatives.

A lot of relatives.

Janek and Derek in Szybalin in Ukrainian national dress.

Some days we visited four or five houses in an afternoon (mostly in the village), where there were gatherings of relatives I hadn’t known before.

There was no shortage of photos, and vodka.

Ukrainians possess generosity – and long memories

The people in Ukraine are far from wealthy by our standards, but each family laid out a table covered with food and drink.

Good times were had and I wasn’t allowed to spend any money.

Everything was on them.

“Put your wallet away. Your money is no good here,” I was told.

Szybalin – home to Derek’s family in Ukraine.

I soon learned Ukrainians are generous to a fault.

My ties to my new-found family grew immensely, along with my knowledge of Ukraine.

Nearly every village and town has a war memorial.

However, the years aren’t 1939-45. They are 1943-51.

These were the years of a guerrilla war against Russia.

Ukraine has already endured enemy occupation

Little is known about it here in the West. But the people of Ukraine spent eight years trying to evict one of the largest armies in the world from their country.

They didn’t succeed, of course, and the following decades were lived under a dictatorship.

Freedom finally came in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Far from being “one people” (as Putin put it), the Ukrainians (as we all now know) are intensely patriotic.

Theirs is a very different identity, which has been shaped – ironically – by the collective memory of the damage caused by their neighbour.

Starved by Stalin – and still they didn’t submit

One particularly defining moment was the Great Famine of 1932-33.

Called the Holodomor, the cause of it was intentional, man-made and carried out on the orders of Stalin.

All crops, livestock and food were confiscated down to the last loaf of bread and sheaf of wheat, resulting in up to 10 million deaths.

People ate grass and there were cases of cannibalism.

A memorial to Ukrainian independence.

Why did Stalin do this?

Because he feared Ukrainian nationalism, and wanted to subjugate the population.

It is has now been recognised as an act of genocide – a deliberate attempt at eradicating an entire people.

In her book, Borderland: A Journey Through The History of Ukraine, Anna Reid described the country prior to Holodomor as being similar to Austria in terms of prosperity and appearance.

She wrote that the damage caused was so severe, and decimated such a large proportion of the country, that it has not properly recovered even to this day, 90 years on.

Putin has misjudged Ukraine if he thinks the people will give in

Another landmark in Ukraine’s history was taking place while I visited – the war in the Donbas region.

We spoke about it – a lot – and yet no one referred to “separatists” or “rebels”.

The talk was of fighting Russia, and Putin.

Several people from Szybalin (which is about as far away as you can get from the region) were in the army fighting.

Now, of course, the threat from Russia is of a different magnitude.

My family in Ukraine are (so far) quite distant from the conflict, but are doing what they can to help refugees by giving them food and finding accommodation as they move to the Polish border.

No-one knows what’s in Putin’s mind, and how this war will evolve, but he has gravely miscalculated if he thinks the people there will submit easily – or at all.

“We will fight to the last drop of blood,” I was told in a recent message from Szybalin.

That sounds like a cliché, a phrase that might be used too easily in times of war. But I believe it.

If anything — through the Holodomor, the occupation by the USSR, the fighting in Donbas — the Ukrainian people have become more patriotic, and that is partly caused by the desire to be free of the interference and suffering brought on by its neighbour.

Should Putin’s military might succeed (and there is no guarantee it will), he will be faced with a guerrilla war which will last for years and possibly decades, causing immense long-term damage not just to Ukraine, but also Russia itself.


Derek Uchman is a journalist from Monifieth.