In 1991, the day the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, then the Soviet Supreme Council, embarked on the restoration of the country’s independence is indelibly etched in our memories—a cocktail of hope and anxiety, joy tempered by the fear that the Moscow despot might dispatch his troops from the barracks the very next day.
“Let’s hope they let us go,” an old childhood friend remarked, urging me to stock up on noodles. “The Muscovites won’t hesitate to orchestrate supply shortages,” he warned. Andriy wasn’t wrong; stores were already bare, and ration coupons for a kilogram of sugar per person per month were on the horizon. Yet, in light of events in Lithuania and Georgia—the storming of the Vilnius TV tower in January 1991 and the bloody dispersal of demonstrators in Tbilisi in April 1989—another threat loomed ominously: the spectre of direct military intervention from Moscow.
On the night of August 25th, my friend and I divided our “work” as follows: he would patrol the city, moving from barracks to barracks, and call me every hour with updates on the situation. Thanks to a string of botched Soviet monetary reforms, public phone booths were operating free of charge, so there was no need to budget for our ad hoc surveillance mission. My role was to monitor television and radio for any extraordinary announcements.
I vividly recall the neighbours’ windows across the street—lit almost all night. I wasn’t alone in my worry. A Soviet citizen of the time knew all too well that even if the Moscow dragon had weakened and begun losing its teeth and claws, it could still deliver a painful bite. Fortunately, Russian President Boris Yeltsin had other priorities: he was intent on dethroning Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the USSR, and reigning solo over the lands north of Ukraine, which, regardless of their name, had always been integral to the Russian Empire.
We wrapped up our vigil around five in the morning. Sunday was on the horizon, along with the prospect of a well-deserved lie-in, as it seemed Moscow wasn’t poised to intervene. The Kremlin had its hands full dealing with the fallout from the GKChP—the failed coup by KGB hardliners aiming to resurrect the USSR. By Monday, a new reality was shaping: a referendum, set for December 1st, was announced. “Well, it’s time for everyone to head out to the field!” declared Volodya Bodenchuk, the editor-in-chief of Molod Ukrainy (The Youth of Ukraine), where I worked. At the time, the newspaper boasted an impressive circulation of 800,000 copies. My colleagues and I were convinced that the nation’s fate hinged on our efforts.
Youth is nothing if not uncompromising—a quality that is both its strength and its Achilles’ heel. “When are you going to clear out?” the guard, Sanych, began to grumble from midnight onwards, trying to shoo us out of the newsroom. “I’m leaving soon, and the metro will stop running!” But his warnings fell on deaf ears. Everyone was engrossed in writing and rewriting articles, refining them to perfection, determined to sway the undecided to vote for independence.
On one emotionally charged day, the poet Viktor Teren visited the newsroom. “I was speaking at a rally in a village, discussing the prospects of a free life,” he recalled. “At the end of the meeting, the kolkhoz leader approached me calmly and said, ‘Don’t worry! We’ve already received a call from Kyiv. Everyone in our village will vote for independence!'” Teren shared this anecdote with the editor-in-chief, who then relayed it to us. It offered an unexpected yet telling glimpse into the mindset of Leonid Kravchuk, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the future president of an independent Ukraine.
In August 1991, the possibility of war with the Russians was a common topic of conversation, at least among journalists. Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh were already engulfed in conflict, and bloody unrest had erupted in Fergana, Uzbekistan. History has taught us that the Russian empire, regardless of the name it assumed in its various reincarnations, rarely relinquished its colonies without a fight. Even if everyone didn’t fully acknowledge this reality, many had an instinctive sense that conflict was looming.
I always sensed that this war was inevitable. It wasn’t a logical deduction but rather a visceral feeling, something I could sense in my very bones. Moscow has never known any other way. The war might have come sooner or later, during my lifetime or after, as a full-blown conflict or in some hybrid form. But with such a neighbour, avoiding it was difficult—if not impossible. Miracles, of course, do happen, but they are rare.
Thirty-three years ago, at dawn on August 25th, I gazed at the Kyiv sky, its hues uncannily mirroring the Ukrainian flag, and thought to myself, “Not this time. Everything seems calm. For now.”
