Ukraine War Stories
On the twenty-fourth of February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.
The war brought about major humanitarian crises, changes in military alliances, and major revisions to military doctrine. It also brought about economic upheaval, or at least worsening the one we already had due to the pandemic. Headlines blared across news sites and papers everywhere, screaming about every major news, words from important figures of this war, including the man safely tucked behind a mile-long table, and evidence of heart-wrenching cruelty.
Behind all these, however, are countless stories of common folk, much like you and I, who is being punished for the mistake of being on a piece of land Putin really wanted. Those stories don’t grab headlines simply because they are too small. They might not even manage to be an anecdote in a larger article because there are so many of them, following similar beats with similarly gruesome endings. And the news media only want to publish the freshest, newest, and largest news they can get.
As time goes on, we as outsiders may start seeing this conflict as between global powers and overlooked the people trampled beneath the fighting. Maybe the human losses will come up again as another mass grave is found, but most of the time we do not hear of the individuals in the war. It became this amorphous mass of suffering and armaments that we struggle to put a face on.
Ukraine War Stories is a game by Ukrainian game studio Starni Games. It is a interactive novel that puts you in the shoes of individuals finding themselves in the war. You need to make decisions to ensure your survival and the wellbeing of those around you, desperately trying to live in a hostile environment, to last just long enough to get to safety. It gives the pain a face and a voice, something that you and I can appreciate and empathize with more, and feel, if only for a moment, what the people of Ukraine are going through. The struggle to survive, the struggle to do what is right, and the struggle when facing men with guns and no morals. It lets us see through the eyes of civilians in Hostomel, Mariupol, and Bucha, and walk in their shoes as they and we try to keep them alive.
Every story, while fictional, are derived from personal accounts and articles upon articles of Russian cruelty on the people they claimed to be liberating. The stories are painful enough as mere works of fiction. But to see that each one of them is merely a representation of a facet of the suffering endured by the Ukrainians disgusts me to the core. Fifteen minutes of a diluted version of what they went through is already bad enough. The thought of actually living through what they are suffering right now both saddens and angers me.
The deaths and casualties of Ukrainians of this war may appear to be a mere statistic to us outside of Ukraine. But as the game shows, behind this statistic are the deaths and casualties of individuals, individuals who did not deserve what was brought upon them.
And behind the deaths and casualties are grief. Grief and mourning.
And injustice.
The Serhei Prytula Charity Foundation
The National Bank of Ukraine’s fundraising account