Nobody stands in front of the Soviet grave of honor in Berlin.

The Red Army soldier has shouldered his rifle - this war is over.

The district administrator of the Märkisch-Oderland district has just sent a fresh wreath "in honorable memory" to the fallen Soviet soldiers of World War II.

The two Russian tanks at the front of the Straße des 17. Juni are silently waiting and admonishing.

1000 kilometers away they roll again.

A day when nothing is like before.

Russia has invaded Ukraine - just writing the sentence is difficult.

Of course: there were all the smart analysts who saw it coming as well.

Who warned and held out the very prospect of the scenario that has now become reality.

But who really expected the brutal cold-bloodedness that the President of the Russian Federation is now showing, as if he were following the script of a historical World War II film?

Ordering an invasion in the early hours of the morning, knowing that nobody would stop him – who knew it?

Anton has it.

The young Ukrainian with blue streaks in his hair and a pierced lip stands in front of the Brandenburg Gate and tells how he and a small group of friends have been demonstrating here for weeks for tightening of the sanctions.

For the fact that German politicians are finally using the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as a means of exerting pressure when they otherwise lack the courage to provide military support.

"Now it's too late," says Anton in a moved voice, "now it's just a matter of making it clear to everyone: the war has begun.

he is there

on your doorstep.

And it can only be stopped militarily.”

Wrapped in Ukrainian flags

The young man himself seems a little surprised by his pathetic words.

Of the fact that he really demands a fight, he, today, in the year 2022. As if to affirm his general peacefulness, he bends down to give a hug when saying goodbye, but then leaves it at a handshake and hurries on.

"Putin kill yourself" is a popular slogan on the protest signs of the nearly 500 demonstrators who made their way to the Brandenburg Gate on this sunny February day in Berlin.

The idea of ​​honorable tyrannicide has also been revived.

The mostly young Ukrainians did not come to the landmark of their new hometown to protest against Putin, but to express their pain, their anger and their fear.

Wrapped in Ukrainian flags, they stand on Pariser Platz: men in jackets with briefcases, families, groups of friends, young women with tears in their eyes.

Like lines of a pious prayer

One of them holds up a sign that reads her desperate opinion in Cyrillic letters: "Putin is the greatest terrorist of all".

She struggles to keep her composure, doesn't want to talk much, fear for her relatives in Kiev has completely taken over her.

At that moment, a speaker starts singing the Ukrainian national anthem through the overdriven microphone.

The young woman lowers the poster and shyly clutches her heart.

Also a gesture that seems unusual, but which suddenly takes on something completely natural here, now, in these hours.