It's 3:28 a.m. The hotel's quiet. I open the window. The rain has stopped. The lights in the city are still on. I'm going to get some sleep.
-Sabrina Tavernise, for The New York Times Daily in Kyiv, 2/24/2022
It's difficult to get to sleep when war drums are pounding. We can't even say it's a welcome distraction from other news, such as the pandemic. It isn't. In the safety of my upstate home, I thought of my husband's Ukranian-Russian family and a journalist friend who re-settled in Kyiv after finishing his studies in America. I wrote a couple of FB texts: "Thinking of you, hope you, your family and colleagues are safe."
1:36 a.m. a reply came in from the journalist : a thumbs up. It was repeated a while later, then stopped.
When she can't get to sleep, her adrenalin pumping, Sabrina Tavernise takes notes, with time stamps, Like every well-trained reporter, she creates a documentary record, a testimony, and thinks of herself as a witness to an historical event.
This morning, there are videos on every news site, interrupted by inane advertising, yet another television war.
The documentation grows and solidifies: The Russian bear is loosed upon the world. The Ukrainian spring is over.
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