Today, on the one-year after of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I look back and see what a difficult, tragic, sometimes unspeakably horrific path of transformation I, and perhaps the whole of Ukraine, have gone through.

Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine has shifted the lives of Ukrainians irrevocably on personal and societal levels. As Ukraine closes in on one full year of war, people have had to adjust to an aggressive new climate, reconstruct their habits and work schedules, and mentally acclimate to a harsh new reality.

Today I saw tanks passing by my building. They looked dirty, outdated and out of place. Although I knew they must have been on the way to the military base right outside of the city, it was unsettling to see.