I was on a late night Discord call with my friends when Russian troops attacked Ukraine. A quick message in a chat channel alerted us to the terrible events that were unfolding. For the next several hours more and more people joined the call as we pored over the information coming out of Ukraine. The New York Times posted updates every few minutes of troop movements and the reactions  of world leaders. The chat channels filled with videos of cruise missile impacts and anti-aircraft fire. And we tuned into the livestreams. There were (and still are) a number of YouTube live streams of still cameras set up in Kyiv. We combed through these streams, wondering if we would see any indication of what was going on.

It looked calm. Dawn was approaching and people were walking about. We watched as street cleaners came into view and began their jobs. A periodic air raid siren gave admission to what was occurring, yet for the most part Kyiv seemed normal, familiar, like it was a sunrise in Chicago or New York City. But I was observing the street cleaners of a city thousands of miles away, of a nation at war. And I was doing it live.

What an absurd thought for a person living 100, 50 or even just 20 years ago. What did the declaration and progress of war look like for them? Daily newspapers, reports on television, smatterings of photographs and videos. The volume of information increased decade by decade, and yet all of it was centralized. It was reviewed and curated through government and private news sources before being released to the public.

These days, though? War is immediate and unfiltered. The age of social media has brought about a cottage industry of content production, producing raw on-the-ground footage. Within seconds of the beginning of hostilities, videos were being posted. You can, if you’d like, view the explosions of Russian missiles hitting Ukrainian targets. You can see the brilliant shower of sparks as a Russian helicopter is shot out of the sky. You can survey the smoldering ruins of an armored convey just hours, or perhaps just minutes, after it had been attacked.

It all seems so wrong. A remarkable revolution in data and communication took place during the 75 years of relative peace in Europe. And now, using that technology, we can stare through a thousand eyes as the peace ends in real time. There is this level of uncomfortableness. We’re unwelcome visitors, peering into countless lives being irrevocably changed, and, sometimes, ended. Private moments made global. Should we watch it at all? Social media can turn world events into entertainment. People glance with shallow interest, as if it were sport and not something happening to real people. 

But here we need to watch, and watch closely. We have an imperative to engage with the content from Ukraine, because it shows us more than ever before the reality of warfare. 

Wars tend to generate an abundance of statistics. Casualties, deaths, numbers of rifles, tanks, planes, dollar amounts of destruction — these are all gathered and propagated to leaders and the general public. This has certainly been happening in regards to Ukraine. Statistics are useful, but they ultimately present an abstraction of the world. They are sterilized and cold. It is easy for the mind to read a statistic and know what has happened, but not, perhaps, understand what has happened.

Videos of war, however, produce a different reaction. There is a sinking feeling in your gut. The fighting is suddenly present in the room with you. Those reports of casualties and dollar amounts fade away and all you can focus on is the burning cars, the cratered roads, the collapsed houses, the body in the street. You move a tiny step closer to understanding the terrible, awful, horrendous events now occurring halfway around the world. These videos can never fully emulate the actual experience, but they bring us nearer to it.

The flood of footage from Ukraine provides an unprecedented opportunity for empathy. The U.S. mainland has not seen warfare in over 200 years. Invasion would be unthinkable and it affords us a great deal of comfort and security. Perhaps even complacency. And yet, combat is happening here and now, on screens right in front of us. I see it and am filled with a dread I have not felt before. I have the tiniest inkling of the horrible reality that millions now face.

As I wrote this last week, a Ukrainian jet exploded over Kyiv, briefly illuminating the early morning. I watched it, and you can watch it too. The war is now live. We must all reckon with it.

Andrew Scott is a junior in Grace Hopper College. Contact him at a.scott@yale.edu.