Is it WW3 yet?

is it?

Let’s begin with the hopeful news: winter is over! The sun is (sporadically) out, temperatures are well above freezing, and Kyiv residents are crawling out of our cold, ecoflow-powered, thermal-foam-insulated apartments into the open air to catch the sunshine. Life instantly feels more livable, the multiple problems facing every Ukrainian seem more solvable, interactions with strangers and the ever-stranger world seem slightly more possible than in the midst of frost and ice.

‘Finally, it’s spring!’ A poster spotted in Kyiv’s Podil district.

I have peeled the insulating layer of thin transparent plastic from my windows. The foam I had stuffed into the weakest spots between the windowpanes and walls at the apartment I’m renting - I’ve removed it until next fall. I have spent more time offline this week and less time doomscrolling and dissociating. Packing the winter insulation away, I closed the chapter called ‘the cruelest winter of war, thus far’.

The news of putin’s buddy being dead is also good news. The U.S. killing of Iran’s regime leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has probably gotten putin to fortify his bunker. Iran under Khamenei provided russia with the Shahed drones and military technologies that helped our enemy to maximize damage against Ukraine while minimizing cost.

After spending countless nights fearing for my life because flocks of Iranian-made Shahed drones were attacking Ukraine’s capital, I can only be content that one of the leaders of the global axis of evil is dead. When is it finally time for putin to follow, huh?

A meme Ukrainians have created in response to the possibility of Ukrainian air defense experts helping shoot down Iranian drones.

The good news probably ends there, as the removal of one dictator doesn’t mean that a harsher, more tyrannical power won’t emerge in his stead in Iran. Anne Applebaum’s assessment sounds right: “For the region to be at peace, Tehran must transform itself from the headquarters of an insurgency back into the capital of a country seeking to build peace and prosperity for its own citizens. Iran does not need a new dictatorship, but self-determination and a pluralist government that respects basic rights.” Yes. But how - and when? As we are well aware, a russian war against Ukraine, which was supposed to last first a couple of days, then two to three weeks, is now in its fifth year.

‘Fortunately, the bad days are over.’ ‘The time has come for even worse ones.’

None of anything that has happened this week signifies a relief for Ukraine. The trilateral talks between the U.S., russia, and Ukraine, are now in question - if the talks were ever even real enough to lead to a ceasefire. As Politico reports, Ukraine will likely experience an ammo shortage, especially for the Patriot air defense systems produced by the United States, which were already in short supply. Rising oil prices as Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping passage, benefits russia. As more oil money flows into the russian economy, it will keep powering its war machine. Shahed drones will not be shipped to russia as before, but russia no longer needs Iran’s help - it has localized its own drone production by using the same design.

The global outlook is grim. Millennials are in for another round of hard times. I have no energy left in me for being shocked or anxious about that. I have to work tomorrow, and maybe I will go on a date and meet someone new. And prices are only going up, so I might buy myself a slice of cake from an ever more expensive petrol-generator-powered bakery. Fortunately for me, I have gone through my years of shock and adjustment to living in war, and now I am continuing with my creative adaptation.

I think WW3 has started for Ukrainians way back in 2014, when russia annexed Crimea and impunity followed, leading to the russian full-scale war against Ukraine and a hybrid war against Western democracies. For Ukraine, the world has already been at war for a long time. The question is when the historians will put an actual date marking the start of WW3, and which historians will be left to tell the tale.

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