The Premonition of War

“Nobody knows about the future after March 2027,” says Pavlo Koshka of Ukrainian Voices in Brussels.

Four years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, another kind of uncertainty is already shaping daily life for many Ukrainians in Belgium: what happens when temporary protection ends? It is a question with no clear answer, but it affects work, housing, planning and the ability to imagine a future at all.

The evening before the full-scale invasion, Zoriana was sixteen. She went to the movies with friends, laughed, and thought it was just another ordinary night in Kyiv.

That is what makes memory so difficult: war does not always arrive with a feeling you recognize in time. Sometimes it enters quietly, while life still looks normal. In Premonition of War, Zoriana’s story runs through the episode as a reminder that behind every anniversary there is also a personal before and after.

“Sometimes silence says much more than a thousand words,” says Mykhailo Dzavitsky during Premonition of War, a commemorative performance in Brussels marking four years since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

There have been countless demonstrations, speeches and statements since 2022. But for this event, Ukrainian Voices chose something else: candles, silence and testimony. In the middle of the European quarter, that silence became its own message — about memory, grief and the refusal to let the war disappear into the background.

For Premonition of War, Zoriana Khetchykova and Darius Korickij followed the event in Brussels and listened to the questions that remain long after the anniversary speeches end. The result is a new episode of Redhorse Rebel Radio about memory, displacement and the uncertainty still hanging over thousands of lives.

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