How VE Day and Putin’s war are forcing Ukrainians to relive their painful past
As Russia marks 80 years since the second world war with wild celebrations, in Ukraine the tone is very different
Mariia Sinhayevska was 11 when the Germans occupied her village, near Zaporizhzhia in south-eastern Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. She can still remember some German words from the year she spent in school under occupation. The soldiers were friendly, she said, though not if you were suspected of being a Communist or a Jew.