Can Europe switch to a ‘wartime mindset’? Take it from us in Ukraine: here is what that means | Oleksandr Mykhed

Day 1,024 of the invasion. Kyiv, 7am. Friday the 13th. In a former life, someone would have observed that this is a day that portends bad luck. But in a country where shelling is a daily occurrence, it has become irrelevant. I wake up to the sound of an app on my phone warning me of an increased missile threat. While my partner and I are hiding in the corridor, I read the news that the Nato chief, Mark Rutte, has called on members of the US-led transatlantic alliance to “shift to a wartime mindset”.

With the first bang of the air defence system, a thought strikes me: for those who have not already been living with it for nearly three years, how would you explain this mindset? What is this wartime thinking?

Let’s start with the basics. Try to accept the thesis that Russia is your enemy. Everything Russian is your enemy. I know this is complicated. But Russia has been using literally everything as an instrument of hybrid warfare: sports, ballet, classical music, literature, art – these are all platforms for promoting its narratives. Even your neatest Russian Orthodox church could conceal Russian intelligence officers, just waiting for the command to put down their incense burners and take up arms. Don’t forget that for advocates of the political doctrine known as “the Russian world”, this world is potentially limitless; it exists wherever the Russian language is spoken and monuments to Pushkin have been plonked down.

Before the invasion, the enemy will try to unsettle the internal political situation. Local rightwing radical movements and parties will rise, financed by Russia. They won’t need to ram you with their tanks immediately, as they can simply bribe hundreds of useful idiots and bloggers to sow chaos and stir up distrust towards the authorities. They will disseminate targeted social media content that will provoke you, pressing hard on your society’s sore points – all generated by Russian bot factories and psychological operations specialists.

Russia will use teenagers as an instrument of chaos. As if on a bizarre quest, they will receive tasks from their handlers via messengers. They will set fire to military vehicles, plant explosives under a local power station, place a phone call to a school to report an explosion – anything to sow chaos.

It’s hard to believe, but it won’t be Vladimir Putin himself invading your country. It will be hundreds of thousands of ordinary Russians who have been told for decades that your values are evil. No one will care about the nuances and subtleties of your specific leftism, libertarianism or liberalism. What Putin calls the “collective west”, he regards as uniform, and evil.

Wartime mindset is understanding that before invading your country, Russia will compile a list of experienced military officers, public intellectual figures, journalists, politicians, writers and prominent doctors, and will try to eliminate them all. It will try to wipe out those who are at the forefront of thinking up ideas, as well as the first line of military reservists.

Bizarrely, the cohort in greatest danger might be your surfers. The ideologue behind the “Russian world” concept, Aleksandr Dugin, assigns a special place in hell to them: “The most terrible ghettos will be made for surfers – this is the most impudent, the most anti-Eurasian phenomenon. There is nothing more revolting than riding on this disgusting board displaying a white-toothed smile.” And he is dead serious. You have been warned.

Wartime mindset means having a “bug-out bag” packed and ready to go, to fit your whole life into one backpack. Copies of documents. A few family photos. A first aid kit. A power bank. A spare pair of underwear and socks. Something you can leave home with.

The most difficult thing to believe is that war could be on your doorstep. And this doorstep is not symbolic, but very real: the doorstep of your own home. The loss of your favourite porcelain, your parents’ books, childhood photos of your grownup children, the inability to take your beloved cat, dog or hamster while being evacuated – all of this is real.

It always seems that war is something that happens to someone else, in some poorer part of the world. They can’t just start dropping bombs on the capital of a European country in the 21st century! Wartime mindset is the realisation that they can.

And no matter how hard you try to prepare, one day you will wake up to an enemy missile attack. You will think that it will be over in two or three weeks, another month at most. Soon you will lose track of the days. But you will love your country with all your heart. You will fall in love with the national humour and character again, and rediscover your national cuisine. In fact, you will come to regard every national dish cooked in the dark (as there will be no electricity) as an element of national resilience and resistance.

While waiting for a miracle, I really want to believe that none of this will happen to you, as it has happened to us.

Kyiv, 10am. End of the air-raid alert. The Russians have launched 90 missiles and 200 killer drones targeting civilian infrastructure. The goal remains the same: to force Ukrainians to live without electricity, heat and gas. Terrorising civilians is a method typical of a terrorist country. An ordinary morning of abnormal reality, and yet the world’s common will is not forceful enough to stop it.

I realise that I have run out of time to tell you the most important things of all: give your partner a kiss right now; take a course in tactical medicine, and another in firearms training; buy a power bank; write a will; and find out where the nearest bomb shelter is. For no reason. Just in case miracles don’t happen, and you find yourself called upon to shift to a wartime mindset.

Translated by Maryna Gibson

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