While thinking about the war, its history, and its potential outcomes, it is important to keep Ukrainian voices first and foremost and to remember the very personal, human dimension of this tragic war.
Our Voices from Ukraine series offers Ukrainians a platform to share their experiences, thoughts, and perspectives. The contributors are trusted individuals contacted through our networks and anonymized for their protection.
Special thanks to Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland, Erik Puzanov, and Kateryna Hora for their work bringing these stories to us.
- Vasil, Belarusian Community Leader in Kharkiv, 73 years oldThis story is about Belarusians of Ukraine, natives of a large family from the Belarusian Polessia in the time of Russo-Ukrainian war. Belarusian Polessia is located in the south of the Republic of Belarus and borders Ukraine. This is land is beloved by the people who live there, whose melodious speech tends to be long-winded…
- Account from a camp for Russian POW’sIs evil innate or acquired in circumstances? Is it formed under external influence or does it spring from within? No matter whether it is the former or the latter, eventually, evil appears, and where it came from seems to make no difference. I frequently find myself torn between granting importance to the concept’s nature or…
- Yana Kosinova. Member of Brave Action Ukraine (braveaction.org)I KNEW THERE’D BE A WAR, BUT I WASN’T READY FOR WHAT IT’S LIKE I wake up from the sound of explosions and immediately I realize it has begun. It is dawn now, the sky cut with smoky traces from missiles. My body is trembling. I am running around the apartment, collecting documents, shoving a…
- Oksana Astapovych, Member of Brave Action Ukraine (braveaction.org)Many Circles of Hell At first, you simply believe that everything is fine, that your relative will contact you soon. And you wait: a day, two, three… Then you ask everyone who might be able to answer: “How many days is considered normal for defenders not to get in touch?” You ask friends in the…
- Ruslan, Ukrainian Army Soldier, 44 years oldWe were given the task of retaking one freaking village. The storming group had eleven men. When we started to advance, I felt the shelling increase every minute. When we reached the point 500 meters from the position we were supposed to take, it was like the hell. The barrage was so heavy that we…
- Kateryna H. Journalist. An account of days in Kherson oblastA blessing to be alive, I stand outside my hotel in a dark frontal city. All I can see is the stars and going up and down the burn of a bulky soldier’s cigarette. “Sweetheart I am going back to the frontline tomorrow and I know I will not come back”. In the most recent…
- Kseniia, psychologist, 38 years old. Feb 24, 2023Today, 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. From confusion, fear, and paralysis to absolute confidence, a sense of our boundless power, an unbridled desire to act,…
- Petro, security guard, Irpin, Feb 23, 2023A security guard of a private housing neighborhood in Stoyanka, a town near Irpin in Kyiv Oblast. Interview conducted on February 23, 2023. Last year, on the 3rd of March, Russians were already in Stoyanka. At times I keep wondering whether someone helped them to enter the town – they came very rapidly, all at…
- Oleksii Yukov, founder of the NGO “Black Tulip”, Feb 15, 2023A founder of the NGO “Black Tulip” that evacuates dead bodies from the frontlines. Interview done on February 15, 2023. As long as bodies remain in fields, as long as soldiers are not returned to their families, the war is not over. I believe this to be the main motivation of my work. Since 2014,…
- Dmytro and Boris, medical professionals, Kyiv region. Dec 2022An article written by Ukrainian journalist Kateryna based on two interviews in Kyiv and the Kyiv region with Dmytro (not his real name), head doctor of a hospital, and Boris, director of a rehabilitation center. Both interviews were done in December. Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine has shifted the lives of Ukrainians irrevocably on personal and societal levels….
- Julia D, artist, Kherson. November 30Life in the occupation is very odd. You feel like you are somewhere in Cuba: it’s hot at all times, and you can’t wrap your mind around a thing. When the occupation started, my husband, our son, and I moved in with my parents – they had a big house with a big basement. Through…
- Ruslan, Ukrainian Army soldier, age 44. Sept 9We were given the task of retaking one freaking village. The storming group had eleven men. When we started to advance, I felt the shelling increase every minute. When we reached the point 500 meters from the position we were supposed to take, it was like the hell. The barrage was so heavy that we…
- Tatiana, a mother of 10 from Sloviansk. Sept. 2022My whole life I lived in Sloviansk. I married there and had ten beautiful children. My oldest daughter is married now and has her own son. They live close to our house. When the war started I was scared to leave Sloviansk – life there is all we had and all we knew. I am…
- Iryna, mother of Azov soldier, June 28Azov regiment soldier and photographer Dmytro Kozatsky offered the world a glimpse inside the Azovstal steel factory, where civilians and soldiers maintained the final resistance to Russian forces attempting to occupy the city of Mariupol. After helping to get the citizens to safety, Dmytro and his fellow soldiers surrendered on May 20. They were taken…
- Mariupol’s Last Stand: Inside Azovstal (media gallery)…
- Regina L, Mykolaiv, age 50. March-MayFebruary 22 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. Our home is in the south of Ukraine. Life here has not been…
- Arina, university student from Severodonetsk. May 6I am from Severodonetsk, Luhansk oblast. My house is in the countryside – about 10 kilometers away from the town. For the last three years I have been living and studying in Kharkiv. The week before the war, I came back home from Slovakia. The war started for me on February 23. I remember texting…
- Elena, PhD student, Kharkiv. March 18I am writing answers to these questions after 22 days of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. Kharkiv is confident in its defense. The city is constantly being attacked by rockets and fighters – there is artillery shelling. The main attacks are against ordinary houses and schools, markets, shops and churches. All my places were destroyed….
- Yevhen P, civic activist and PhD, Odesa. March 12The news about war started to spread widely in Ukraine three or four months before it actually started. I was trying to prepare somehow, but when you are in an ordinary state of mind, your brain doesn’t believe that somebody without reason will start to attack a peaceful country. Near 4:30 AM on February 24,…
- Vladimir, programming teacher, Kherson, age 24. March 11My story is not that interesting because I stay home most of the time. But I can write a few words about life in Kherson these days. On the first of March, five bad things happened: After this, not that much has happened in Kherson. The main things were that our televisions now broadcast Russian…
- Lyubov V, investigative journalist, Vinnytsia. March 11On February 24, my husband and my five-year-old twin sons woke up at 4:30 am to the sound of a rocket strike. Our house is 700 meters from a military base, the building of which was almost completely destroyed. When I went to Facebook, I read the terrible words that a war had broken out…
- Oleksandr V, from Kharkiv, age 40. March 11As a volunteer, I went to defend Ukraine in 2014, where I was wounded and returned home. I started my own Blade Brothers Knives knife business, and I founded and ran the Knife Fighting Federation of Ukraine. Now my business is ruined, and 90% of my Federation’s instructors have gone to the war. Russia attacked…
- Alexander D, Kyiv. March 11The last few days in Kyiv were “quiet.” Two days ago, a Russian fighter plane was shot down and crashed 6 kilometers away from my house. From that time I have heard nothing about attacks on Kyiv, but I still hear the sirens and read about air raid alerts in a special app that was…
- Marharyta, from Kyiv, age 25. March 10My name is Marharyta, and a few days before the war I turned 25 years old. I celebrated my birthday in Budapest. There, in their most famous ruin-bar, I wrote “Glory to Ukraine.” The day before the war I returned home and it was my last good night. I worked as a PR manager and…
- Olga B, university professor from Odesa. March 8Today, of course, one already thinks that all this was clear before. You can start with Crimea in 2013, or you can start with the eight-day war with Georgia. When the war starts, everyone is tearing their hair out: Why weren’t we ready? Why did our government sleep through everything? But let’s be honest: NOBODY…
- Aliona D, from Mykolaiv, age 40. March 1My name is Aliona. I’m 40 years old, and in the last 6 days, I’ve become homeless and jobless. It all started at 4:32 am on February 24 when my family was woken up by a series of loud and powerful explosions. We felt as if the world was ending. Later we found out that…
- University student, Odesa, age 21. March 1I live in Odesa, the seaside city in the south. It is one of the safest places in Ukraine right now. Nevertheless, people are preparing to defend the city: locals are enrolling in Territorial Defense units and providing the armed forces with food supplies, clothes, medicines. I feel a big tragedy (not love) in the…
- Diana (Write the World Review submission; 17 years old)This piece is republished with permission from the Write the World Review, which features a special series on Ukraine. Write the World Review publishes outstanding teen voices. Visit their website for more content and to listen to the author read her essay. Reconstruction My fingers are sore from the cold; my coat is soaked with rain. I am clinging to…
- Roman (Write the World Review submission; 18 years old)This piece is republished with permission from the Write the World Review, which features a special series on Ukraine. Write the World Review publishes outstanding teen voices. Visit their website for more content and to listen to the author read his essay. The War Is Not a Movie I have known two wars: the first I saw, heard and felt,…
- Yelyzaveta (Write the World Review submission; 18 years old)This piece is republished with permission from the Write the World Review, which features a special series on Ukraine. Write the World Review publishes outstanding teen voices. Visit their website for more content and to listen to a recorded reading of this essay. Trying to Escape The last five minutes I was running to the railway station under sounds of sirens….
- Varvara (Write the World Review submission; 18 years old)This piece is republished with permission from the Write the World Review, which features a special series on Ukraine. Write the World Review publishes outstanding teen voices. Visit their website for more content and to listen to the author read her essay. Refugee 5:33 a.m. i woke up to a rapid push: we were underway. our commuter train had been…
- Anastasia, from Odesa, age 29. February 28I’m going to be 30 on Saturday, if I make it. My country has been under attack by Russia since February 24th. Odesa has been bombed from the sky approximately 5 or 6 times over the past few days. There is information about a possible invasion from the sea. However, I believe in our military’s…
- Hanna R, from Mykolaiv, age 46. February 27I am in Mykolaiv. It is quiet right now, but some hours ago we had an air raid alert. According to the information from our authorities, there may be some groups of Russian soldiers in our town. Yesterday a group of tanks got into the central part of Mykolaiv. They shot at one of our…
- Lyubov K, IT engineer from Ternopil, age 33. February 27I’m staying in Ternopil city. It’s safe here. No fights or bombarding. But there could be some saboteurs to provoke actions. We hear a siren several times a day, which sends us running to the shelter. I’m shocked and scared. I still can’t believe the war is happening right now. I really don’t know what…
- Tetiana U, teacher from Kyiv. February 26My first language is Russian and my second is Ukrainian. Putin says he is protecting Russian speaking people in Ukraine from the Ukrainian junta (he means our legislative government). How he is protecting us by bombing the city? On February 23rd, Russia celebrated the day of the Soviet Army. On the 24th, early in the…
- Dmytro, age 35. February 26My hometown is Luhansk. It has been occupied by the Russian Federation for 8 years. I had to flee to Kyiv back in 2014. And if we talk about the current situation in Kyiv, it’s very hard. We woke up at 4AM on February 24th to read the news (it became a habit to read…
- Artyom, tour guide from Odesa, age 35. February 26Three days ago l woke up in my city. It was 5 am. And I heard the noise of a siren. My city was under attack. It was a shock. WAR!!! There was no panic. I understand this is the end for Russia… their mad dictator is now like Hitler in 1939. But can we…
- Violetta D, uni teacher and tour guide, Odesa, age 39. February 26February 24, 5:00-5:30 am. 5-6 explosions – people from all the districts of the city woke up. The first day of the Russian invasion. People were trying to fuel their cars, there were big lines. The first night was rather calm. Many people volunteered to go to the local defense center. February 25 was rather…
- Carolina, from Odesa oblast, age 21. February 26First of all, I moved from Italy to Ukraine two months ago as soon as I heard the news of a probable Russian invasion. I abandoned everything I had in Italy to be with my homeland and my people. On 23 February, I left my city of Odesa to go to the enlistment office. I…
- Anatoliy S, sales manager, Bucha city, Kyiv oblast. February 26In the city of Bucha, Kyiv region, fighting continues for the Antonov International Airfield, located in the neighboring village of Hostomel. Now we are in the basement of a ten-story building, which is equipped as a temporary shelter. It’s pretty cold and damp here. Outside, shells explode, although the airport itself is about 8 kilometers…