‘I don’t want anyone else to die’ Traversing Ukraine from east to west, Meduza reports on how Ukrainians think the war with Russia will end

As Russian forces continue to pound Ukraine’s cities with airstrikes and make creeping frontline gains, President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that “an agreement to end the war is very, very far away.” But with the new U.S. administration heaping pressure on Kyiv to make peace with Moscow, ending the war has become a key issue on the international stage. Ahead of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, journalist Irina Olegova traveled throughout Ukraine to report for Meduza on how Russia’s full-scale invasion has transformed the country and how Ukrainians think the war will end. The following translation of her reporting has been edited and abridged for length and clarity. 

Editor’s note: The reporting for this story was done in December 2024 and January 2025, just weeks before Donald Trump’s return to the White House and his administration’s subsequent pursuit of rapprochement with Russia.

The East 

Sloviansk, Donetsk region

Artillery salvos from the front line can be heard clearly in Sloviansk, but the passersby don’t react. “I was in this very spot two years ago,” says Volodymyr, a pensioner walking his dog in Shovkovychnyi Park. “The weather was great, everything was great, and then the rockets started flying.”

Sloviansk first became a flashpoint in Russia’s war against Ukraine nearly 11 years ago. On April 12, 2014, an armed group led by former Russian FSB officer Igor Girkin seized the city, prompting Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, to announce the start of an “anti-terrorist operation.” In the weeks that followed, Girkin’s militia arrested, tortured, and killed Sloviansk residents. It took Ukrainian forces three months to recapture the city. 

Volodymyr blames Kremlin propaganda for the emergence of “pro-Russian separatists” in Sloviansk. He himself doesn’t follow the news. Though he believes the future is uncertain, he doesn’t see any “bright prospects” — and he doesn’t trust politicians. “The entire nation is in low spirits right now,” he says. 

Volodymyr’s family doesn’t have enough money to move to a safer place, and he has to care for his father and wife, both of whom have disabilities. “The fear of death doesn’t go away. Not for myself, but for my loved ones,” he says. “Everyone here has it. Some even lose their minds.” 

‘Let me die with my home’ 

Nearly 80 percent of Sloviansk residents were evacuated from the city after Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022. But some have since returned, and around 56,000 people live here today. For Natalya (name changed), the city has been a safe haven. “I’m from Kostiantynivka,” she explains. “It’s worse there. Here there are [incoming strikes] sometimes, and there it’s every day.” 

The front line is currently seven kilometers (about four miles) from Kostiantynivka, but Natalya goes back regularly. “I’m here for ten days, and then I’m taken back to hell,” she says. “My husband, our property, dogs, and cats are there. We don’t know what awaits us. If there’s [a strike], then let me [die] with my home. I don’t want to live without arms or legs.” 

Natalya “doesn’t even think” about moving farther away from the front; her salary from the grocery store is barely enough to live on, so she can’t afford to leave. And she doesn’t want to “end up in Russia” either. Natalya’s mother is Russian, and she has relatives in Moscow, but she stopped speaking to them because they support the war. Nevertheless, she believes “everyone” is waiting for peace. 

“In principle, I’m in favor of peace in any situation,” Natalya says. “But Putin won’t agree.” 

‘There are many zhduny here’

“I don’t want the Russians to come to my home. That’s what I’m fighting for,” says Oleksandr, a 25-year-old company commander in the Ukrainian army. 

Oleksandr is from Shakhtarske, a city in the Dnipropetrovsk region some 140 kilometers (86 miles) away. He lives in Sloviansk with his girlfriend, a 19-year-old local named Lera. “This is a separatist city; there are many zhduny here,” he says of Sloviansk, using a Ukrainian term for people who are “waiting for Russia.” “Even the local grandmas look at me like they want me to drop dead.” 

According to Oleksandr, Sloviansk residents with pro-Russian views no longer speak openly “because they understand it will cause them grief.” But Lera says that in some local Telegram groups, they refer to the Russians as “ours,” and local taxi drivers and shopkeepers often use the word “ruble” instead of “hryvnia.” 

Oleksandr has already suffered three combat injuries, one of which was severe. “It tore me in half,” he says. Taking out his phone, he shows a photo of himself lying in a hospital bed, with a seam of stitches running from his shoulder to his hip. “They thought I was done for, but I spent four months in bed and recovered,” he says. “If I were [in the politicians’ place], I’d have come to an agreement already, to be honest. I just want the war to end.”

Oleksandr spent the previous day transporting the bodies of fallen soldiers from the area around Chasiv Yar. “Our guys fight well, very well. But there’s fewer of us than there are of them. There are few of us left,” he says wearily. “Officially, my company has 110 men. Only five or six of us who stood in the ranks from the very beginning are left alive.” 

Nevertheless, Oleksandr believes Ukraine needs to fight until it achieves a total victory. “It would be psychologically difficult for me to agree to Putin’s conditions,” he says. “We’ll be here until the end anyway. We have to fight. What else can we do?” 

Lera suggests that if negotiations result in Russia retaining control over Ukrainian territories, there could be a “new Maidan” in Ukraine. “So many people were killed! Mothers will ask, ‘What did my son fight for?’” 

‘Cursed is anyone who moves their neighbor’s boundary stone’

“I’ll say it in Biblical words: ‘Cursed is anyone who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone,’” says Oleh Tkachenko, a Protestant chaplain of the Orthodox Church of God whose family owns a bakery in the industrial zone on the outskirts of Sloviansk. 

Oleh has been involved in volunteer work since 2014, delivering humanitarian aid all along the contact line and evacuating people under shelling. Starting in 2016, his family ran a bakery in Marinka that distributed some of its bread for free as humanitarian aid. At the time, Marinka was roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the combat zone in eastern Ukraine. But after Russia began its full-scale invasion, the city ended up less than a kilometer from the front line.

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The Tkachenkos moved their bakery to Pokrovsk, where they continued distributing free bread to nearby cities and Ukrainian soldiers at the front. But in the fall of 2024, Pokrovsk became too dangerous and the family fled to Sloviansk. Three months later, their bakery began supplying bread to frontline soldiers once again.

Oleh says Ukraine has already endured too much to conclude a ceasefire on Russia’s terms, but he doesn’t think victory will come easily. Rattling off the problems Ukrainians face, he lists corruption, difficulties supplying the army, gaps in the country’s defense, red tape, and media bias. 

In Oleh’s opinion, controversy over the use of the Russian language is “in tenth place” but there are other conflicts creating divisions. Whereas before, people in the east used to say that Donbas “feeds the country,” now western residents believe only they “defend Ukraine,” he says. In this context, Oleh sees national reconciliation as the key to uniting the country — but he doesn’t know how to achieve this yet. 

Izyum, Kharkiv region 

The road leading from Sloviansk to Izyum is freshly paved, but it’s flanked by charred trees, scorched ruins, and the skeletons of homes. Izyum spent six months under Russian occupation in 2022, and a significant portion of the city lies in ruins, too. 

Russian shelling put a hole through the five-story building opposite Larysa and Halyna’s home. They were a little luckier: the two pensioners only had to replace their window panes (which the local authorities paid for) and change their radiators (on their own dime). 

The two women think that one of the main conditions for ending the war should be the liberation of all occupied territories, including Crimea. “Otherwise, why were so many young guys left without arms, without eyes? Why were so many people buried there, in the forest [near Izyum]?! The war needs to end, but not by giving away lands. [The people] in Donbas are our people, too,” they exclaim, practically in unison. 

Larysa, who evacuated to Zhovtantsi in the Lviv region at the start of the full-scale invasion, says reports of polarization in Ukrainian society “are being overblown by those who benefit from them.” “There were lots of people there from Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Kherson, and everyone was treated normally,” she says of her time in western Ukraine. “The people there are very nice. It’s even a shame we’re not like that here. They’re friendlier.” 

Sisters Olesya and Svitlana (names changed) evacuated to central Ukraine at the start of the full-scale invasion. Like Larysa, they returned to Izyum after the “deoccupation.” And while their home wasn’t damaged, their flower shop had burned down. “We live in fear,” Svitlana says about the future. “It will probably be more difficult: the economy will suffer greatly. But we believe that Ukraine will get back on its feet.” 

Half of Izyum’s residents have left the city. Olesya and Svitlana still sell flowers, only now, their main customers are soldiers. “The boys say they’ll win back everything…” Olesya says. “Yes, we’d like the 1991 borders to be ours, but not [if we have to fight] to the last Ukrainian. If so, let everything remain as it is. Not at this price.”

“Give up territories? How?!” asks Olha, a local selling dried fish and homemade pickles on the outskirts of the city. “We survived the occupation and know what that’s like. It’s when you forget what bread smells like.”

Kharkiv 

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, almost 80 percent of Kharkiv residents said they used Russian in their daily lives. Varvara Sidina, 32, attended a Russian-language school and university. She started reading books and watching movies in Ukrainian after February 24, 2022. But she was still taken aback by the local attitude towards the Russian language during a recent trip to the western city of Lviv. 

“We enter a gorgeous opera house and there’s a [sign] at the entrance [that says]: ‘Territory free from the language of the occupier.’ Is this a bit harsh? Yes. Do I agree with this? No. We’re trying very hard [to learn Ukrainian], believe me. But why force it?” 

Sidina is a director at Kharkiv’s Timur Children’s Theater, which has staged all of its productions in Ukrainian since 2014. “Our children in Kharkiv have earned not only respect but also the right to speak in the language they deem necessary. They continue to live in [dangerous] conditions and, by doing so, they have already demonstrated their patriotism,” she says. 

Kharkiv has several schools that operate underground, including five in subway stations and one in a bunker. But due to a lack of space, most local children study online. Rehearsals at the Timur Theater, which take place in a basement shelter, offer a cherished opportunity for them to see each other in person. “There are drones over the city, the threat of [guided bombs], and children arrive saying: ‘Sorry I’m late,’” says Anton Zhilyakov, the theater’s artistic director.

The theater’s staff believe “only the army has the right” to discuss options for ending the war. “Ukraine is fighting to ensure that there’s never a repeat of the Soviet Union — when we said one thing, thought another, and did a third. Our children should grow up in an atmosphere of freedom, not hypocrisy,” says the theater’s co-founder, Olena Sidina. 

Varvara agrees with her mother: “We need to cut this umbilical cord and break away [from Russia], even if we bleed.” 

‘Anything except injustice’

Olha Kleitman, the owner of the Kharkiv-based architectural bureau SBM Studio, cut all business ties with Russia back in 2014. “I took part in the Orange Revolution and the Maidan. I don’t like injustice,” she says. “This unites all Ukrainians: We can stand anything except injustice.”

After her husband went to the front at the start of the full-scale invasion, Olha founded an aid organization for soldiers and opened a shelter that now houses 50 elderly people who lost their homes due to the war. She believes Ukraine can win if all citizens take it upon themselves to help their country: “We need to resist and remember that nothing is impossible.” 

Olha also believes that Ukraine must retake all of the occupied territories — but only once they’ve “found new gunpowder,” she says, paraphrasing former army commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. “There’s no need to kill our guys for no reason.” 

Olha’s office is a five-minute walk from Kharkiv’s famous Slovo Building, which was damaged in a Russian strike in March 2022 but has since been restored. Olha herself started studying architectural reconstruction and restoration last year, so she can take part in rebuilding the city. “They destroy us, we’re reborn; they destroy us again, and we’re reborn again,” she says, pointing to the Slovo Building’s memorial plaque honoring the Ukrainian writers imprisoned and killed during the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. “I don’t want to lose yet another chance to be reborn. Otherwise, they’ll just devour us like they did many times before.”

* * *

The Annunciation Cathedral in central Kharkiv has come under Russian shelling multiple times. Many sections of its stained glass windows are broken or boarded up. Nevertheless, priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) continue to hold services here. Though it declared independence from the Moscow Patriarchate in 2022, the UOC now faces an impending ban under a 2024 law forbidding religious groups from maintaining links to Russia. 

According to parishioner Lidiya, the church regularly leads prayers “for the Ukrainian army [and] peace in our country,” and worshipers come to services even when there’s a risk of shelling. “Sometimes you hear shelling during a service and your legs go numb with horror,” Lidiya says.

Lidiya doesn’t know how she feels about the issue of regaining the occupied territories. “It’s already scorched earth,” she says, wondering who will rebuild these cities when so many Ukrainians have fled abroad or died at the front. “Recently, a guy in his early twenties came to pray with us. He was almost in tears and didn’t know what to do,” Lidiya recalls. “His wife has gone to Moldova with their child and says she’ll never return to Kharkiv.”

The Southeast 

Dnipro

As of late February, only four to seven kilometers (two-and-a-half to four miles) remained between the front line and the city of Dnipro. Borys, 19, is in town visiting friends. He comes from Pavlohrad, a city east of Dnipro but roughly 110 kilometers (68 miles) from the front.

“I’ve been to more than a hundred funerals since 2022: my older brother is at the front; these were his comrades-in-arms. And then there’s friends and colleagues,” he says. “I’ve seen people who were blown up by mines, who survived torture. I’ve seen closed-casket funerals.” 

Borys says he wishes “Zelensky would stop this.” He thinks that Ukraine’s occupied territories should receive neutral status or become part of Russia, so long as the majority of Ukrainians are left alive; joining NATO isn’t worth such losses, he says. “But Russia needs to understand that new attempts to invade will end badly for it,” he adds. 

“I think we should start negotiations [with Russia] and then decide the fate of [the Donetsk and Luhansk] regions through an honest poll. So people can decide for themselves which country they want to be in,” chimes in his friend Ihor, 18. 

Borys and Ihor were still minors when Ukraine declared martial law because of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Unlike men ages 18 to 60, they could have left the country. Instead, they decided to stay and study tactical medicine. Now, Ihor is studying to be a psychologist, and Borys dreams of opening a rehabilitation center for injured soldiers. “Anyone who calls themselves a Ukrainian today invests a part of themselves into the common [good],” Ihor explains.“My friend, for example, listened to Russian rock and spoke Russian before the war. But when needed, he dove in, and now he’s in a trench, kneedeep in shit.”  

‘Putin isn’t the only one to blame’

Since 2014, Dnipro has been a hub for soldiers, volunteers, and Ukrainians evacuated from frontline areas. Here, ambulances and helicopters bringing severely wounded soldiers to hospitals are part of everyday life, fiction writer Yan Valetov says. 

A Dnipro native, Valetov believes his city and country have changed permanently. He thinks Ukraine should militarize, like Israel, and that every Ukrainian should own a weapon and have clear mobilization instructions in the event of another invasion. “We must prepare to be a nation that will always fight. We have a 140-million-strong country next door, and Putin isn’t [the only one] to blame,” he says. “The rockets that fly at us are made in factories by ordinary people who get paid for this. Mothers pour tea for their boys who come here to kill.” 

At the start of the war, Yan and his friends started a foundation that sent medicine and pickup trucks to the front. Then they decided to supply combat drones, as well. “I didn’t experience any moral suffering, because right now killing is necessary. I haven't reached the next stage yet — pulling the trigger myself — but I realize I can’t rule this out,” he says. 

Valetov writes in Russian, but he doesn’t think language should be a stumbling block for Ukrainians — and he’s come to terms with the fact that Russian-language books won’t be printed in Ukraine in the coming years. He sees the “process of Ukrainization” as a natural outcome of the war. “What matters is what you do for your country,” he says. “I have the blood of seven ethnic groups, but I was born and raised here, this is my land.”

The writer has mixed feelings about Zelensky. Though “he played the hero superbly,” Valetov disapproves of the president’s “boorish rhetoric” towards Western partners and insistence on Ukraine joining NATO. “We won’t be accepted into NATO in the next 10 to 20 years,” he says. “We’re being erased; there’s physically fewer of us than the Russians. And this isn’t a lack of courage, it’s math.” 

“Are we going to sacrifice a million [people] for Crimea? And then what will we get?” Valetov continues. “I’m going to say something [that sounds] bad, but the people in Donetsk and Luhansk are no longer ours — with the help of television and Telegram, you can flush everything [Ukrainian] out of people’s minds in 11 years.” 

If Ukraine holds on to 80 percent of its territory and strengthens it democratic institutions, this would be a “great success,” Valetov says. The way he sees it, victory for Ukraine means surviving this war. 

Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk region

“There’s war in the air,” says Oleksiy (name changed). “Yes, the front seems far from here, a whole hundred kilometers [away]. But people are still afraid.” 

A musician and father of two living in the industrial city of Kamianske, Oleksiy started a blog in February 2022 to help cope with the stress. Now, he broadcasts weekly discussions with his subscribers about classic films. He’s also part of a Christian community group that helps wounded soldiers. 

Oleksiy believes that internal divisions have always been part of Ukraine’s history. And he already sees new fault lines emerging because of the war: “‘You left, but I stayed,’ ‘You have three children and aren’t going to the front, but I am,’ ‘My son is fighting, but yours isn’t.’” 

“There are many who call themselves patriots but their language is propaganda and hate,” he says. “An emphasis on ideologies only leads to more division, and I see from my own family history that these points of conflict are difficult to heal, even with time. We [Ukrainians] only have one path: to accept each other as we are.”

Asked how the war should end, Oleksiy says politicians should take the value of human life into account in their decisionmaking. But he’s skeptical about negotiating with Russia. “Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils,” he says. “If we think sensibly, the one who started it should stop. But there are things we can’t influence, like a tsunami. Is it possible to reach an agreement with a maniac?”

The South 

Mykolaiv 

Located opposite the regional administration building, which a Russian missile strike destroyed in March 2022, Mykolaiv’s Alley of Glory has pictures of 600 fallen soldiers. Their relatives pay tribute to them here, leaving behind flowers, flags, and glowing lamps. 

Russian attacks left Mykolaiv without drinking water for the first six months of the full-scale invasion. According to locals, however, there’s much less shelling these days. 

“Many of my friends have died,” says Vadym, a student at the local shipbuilding college (whose name has been changed). “My friend Nadiya died, she was 20. She had a fight with her boyfriend, moved to a new apartment, and a missile hit the building that same evening.”

“My uncle, [who was] in the army, went missing,” he continues. “He was found dead a year later — his head was cut off.” 

Vadym says he wants “Putin to die and for Ukraine to be fully liberated.”  

‘I can’t look at the mothers in tears’

Tetyana, who runs a stall in Mykolaiv’s central market, says sales have fallen since the beginning of the war. She tried adding funeral goods to her range of products but ultimately couldn’t bear it. “I can’t look at the mothers in tears. I just can’t,” she explains. 

Tetyana’s considering going to work in a supermarket, where at least she’d have a guaranteed paycheck. She could have gone to live with her children in Poland, but she didn’t want to leave her dog and four cats behind. 

Though she tries to be optimistic, Tetyana says it doesn’t work. She worries that politicians have gradually turned the war “into a business,” and she doesn’t understand how the money sent to help Ukraine is spent. “I have a lot of friends at the front whose [relatives] equipped them,” she says. “[It’s like,] You want normal body armor and a good helmet? Get it yourself.” 

The Center

Maryanivka, Cherkasy region

The village of Maryanivka is the geographical center of Ukraine, but only about 1,000 people live here today. Many residents have gone to the front. Olena, who works at the local general store, says you can count the men who remain in Maryanivka on one hand. 

The store’s owner, Halyna, has a son in the military. “I don’t understand why our boys are at the front, but guys from Donetsk come here in their big flashy cars and live it up,” she cries (Maryanivka is about 500 kilometers, or 310 miles, from the front line in Donbas). “Why don’t they go there and defend their territory?!” 

According to Olena, Ukrainians are tired of the war for many reasons, including because many of them donate money to support the army only to hear about constant shortages of weapons and equipment. She’d like the war to end with Ukraine getting back its occupied territories, but “if it were going to happen, it would have happened long ago,” Olena says.  

Cherkasy

The regional capital, Cherkasy, looks like an ordinary peaceful city. Located in central Ukraine, the Cherkasy region comes under fire less often than other parts of the country and has taken in more than 100,000 displaced people from the hardest-hit areas. “Compared to what happened in Cherihiv, people here haven’t seen war,” says Vladyslava, a journalism student who lived through Russia’s occupation of the northern border region in 2022. 

Serhiy, 71, fought in Afghanistan, served in the army for 18 years, and was discharged after the nuclear accident in Chornobyl in 1986. Today, he’s retired and makes folding stoves for frontline soldiers. “Do you know what a Pyrrhic victory is? I don’t want such a victory,” he says. “But if our territories are given to Russia, this would be a capitulation, which isn’t right either. Therefore, just freeze the conflict. But on one condition: our country introduces the death penalty for embezzlement today. I’m no supporter of the death penalty, but I think it’s time.” 

Serhiy sees the fight against corruption and “saving our boys’ lives” as foundational to Ukraine’s victory. However, he rejects the notion that the country is battling domestic divisions. “People are being wound up,” including when it comes to the language issue, Serhiy says. “If we all started speaking Ukrainian and Putin surrendered tomorrow because of it, I’d sing our folk songs around the clock. But this isn’t a factor in [our] victory,” he argues. “Telling the truth — that’s what it means to be Ukrainian.” 

Pereiaslav, Kyiv region

The wall of the school in Pereiaslav has three new memorial plaques honoring locals who died at the front. In the background, an air raid siren sounds. 

“We shouldn’t freeze the conflict; we can’t show our weakness. When we do that, we’ll be defeated,” says Natalya Shkyra, who works at Pereiaslav’s Museum of Folk Life and Architecture of Middle Naddnipryanshyna with her mother, Lyudmyla. (Pereiaslav is known as the “city of museums” — it has more than 20.)

Natalya thinks Russia’s propagandistic claims about nationalism prevailing in Ukraine are unfounded. She sees populism as dangerous, but believes “healthy nationalism based on folk culture” only makes a country stronger. And she’s glad people abroad are learning more about Ukrainian culture. “We’re different, but that’s what makes us special,” agrees Lyudmyla. “If we preserve these differences, develop the strengths of each region, and, at the same time, get along and find something in common, then we’ll preserve ourselves as a nation.” 

At the Taras Shevchenko’s Testament Museum, there’s a charity exhibition of Ukrainian art to raise money for the military. “Many of our staff have relatives at the front,” says Kateryna Nahaiko, a history PhD student and one of the exhibition’s organizers. “The war has touched everyone, and our lives revolve around it.” 

Nahaiko believes that victory is only possible on Ukraine’s terms, which means Russia must relinquish the occupied territories. To support her argument, she quotes a Shevchenko poem: “Fight on — you shall prevail! God is helping you!”  

The Northwest

Zhytomyr

Borys’s shoe repair shop in Zhytomyr is just blocks away from a lyceum that was destroyed by a Russian missile in March 2022. With the front some 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles) away, such strikes are rare, so locals remember the exact dates of the attacks. 

Life in the city “seems to have come to standstill” over the last three years, the cobbler says. “Nothing new is being built, businesses are closing, and I also have fewer clients. Though maybe there are more cars outside because a lot of displaced people moved to the city.” 

Borys is 71 and has run his shop for 39 years. He says war affects older people in particular; living in fear destroys your health. 

Vasyl, a lollipop vendor on the city’s main street, says he finds the notifications from the air raid alert app on his phone especially distressing. But he believes the war must end with a total victory for Ukraine: “We need to get back our territories — otherwise, what did we fight for?” 

Lutsk, Volyn region 

The Moroshki vocal ensemble performs a folk song outside of the Zavokzalnyi Market in Lutsk. The ensemble used to sing in community centers and nursing homes, but now they perform on the streets to raise money for the Ukrainian army. 

Asked why they decided to collect donations, the singers start talking over each other. One says she has a son at the front; another has nephews, one of whom is missing in action. “We buy the guys what they ask for,” one woman explains. “Give [the Russians] a finger and they’ll take the whole arm!” exclaims another. “If there’s [any Ukrainians] who don’t want to live in Ukraine, then let them pack their suitcases and go to Russia, if it’s better there. We’re in favor of not giving up territories [and] what’s ours returning to us.” 

Natalya, a cosmetics saleswoman, agrees: “It would be great if the occupiers withdrew from all of our territories, including those captured in 2014. Many of my friends went to the front and some didn’t come back. Some of my husband’s relatives were killed, too. So many have died already! Giving up territory after that [would be] a bit strange.” 

“They’re stealing our boys!” cries Yevhenia (name changed). Her draft-age son “was taken right from the bus stop” to basic training, even though he should have received an exemption as his grandmother’s caregiver. Yevhenia says her son failed to submit his documents to the military enlistment office in time. “If I’d known that would happen I never would’ve let him go out!” she says, practically in tears. 

“I joined the [territorial defense forces] to protect my family,” says Stanislav (name changed). Now a soldier in the Ukrainian army, Stanislav has fought on the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv fronts over the last three years, as well as in Russia’s Kursk region. The Ukrainian army began an incursion into western Russia in August 2024 and, as of this writing, still occupies territory there. But Stanislav is dissatisfied with the Kursk operation. “The goal of showing the world that Russia is vulnerable was not achieved,” he says. 

Stanislav says he’s lost some of his enthusiasm since the first months of the full-scale war. “It feels like they just want to destroy us,” he explains. “Not just the Russians, but our command, as well. We’ve been sitting at the front endlessly. It’s as if they’re saying, ‘There’s no one to replace you, [so] you have to die here.’” 

According to Stanislav, morale is low and soldiers are just trying to survive. “Anyone who talks about peremoha should grab a Kalashnikov and go for it,” he says, using the Ukrainian word for “victory.” “On the Zaporizhzhia front, the Russians are making concrete and fortifying their positions with it. How are we going to break through? I’m horrified at the thought of going on the attack there. We’ll just drown in blood.” 

Asked what to do about the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics,” Stanislav argues that the easiest solution is to “amputate” the Donbas region. Mentioning the fact that Ukrainians live there makes him roll his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he says with a sigh. 

The West

Lviv 

The sign that says “Territory free from the language of the occupier” is still posted on the doors of the Lviv Opera House. “It doesn’t bother me,” says Yaryna, a lawyer who goes to the opera regularly. “My right to use the Ukrainian language was restricted until 2022.” In her opinion, language has a “border function,” and if Ukrainians want to live in an independent country, they should communicate in Ukrainian. 

“Lviv was always tolerant,” says Oleksandra Dyabina, a local tour guide and Lviv native who graduated from a Russian-language school. “To say that Lviv burns Russian speakers at the stake is prejudiced. But since [Russia’s 2014 annexation of] Crimea, it has been a bit uncomfortable to speak Russian in public,” she explains. “The poster at the theater is just a sign of the time we live in and what’s happening in general.” 

Oleksandra fled to Italy with her children in 2022 but returned to Ukraine eight months later. The way she sees it, “Lviv and Luhansk are two different Ukraines” when it comes to culture, architecture, cuisine, and attitudes towards religion. However, she believes Lviv residents worry about the occupied eastern regions just as much as other Ukrainians. 

Though she’d like to see the occupied territories come back under Ukraine’s control, Oleksandra thinks the most realistic option would be to freeze the conflict along the current front line, deploy peacekeepers to the area, exchange prisoners, and allow Ukrainians who want to move to Russia the opportunity to do so. Russian leaders and soldiers, she adds, should be tried for war crimes. 

* * *

Lviv’s cemetery for fallen soldiers is known as the Field of Mars. Lamps, candles, and string lights illuminate the headstones, which are adorned with flags, flowers, and Christmas decorations. Mourners can be seen at many of the graves: some sit in silence while others cry or say prayers out loud. 

“Sometimes widows come here with their children, because the children refuse to eat without their father[s],” says Mykhailo Kozak. He and his wife Natalya are decorating the grave of their 18-year-old son, Bohdan, who went to the front as a volunteer. Barely an adult, he died in the Donetsk region on February 9, 2024. “I don’t want anyone else to die,” Natalya says, crying. “Our little trooper is the youngest of all those who lie here.” 

Natalya stands by her son’s grave for a little while longer and then moves down the row of headstones, changing the batteries in the Christmas lights. “We keep an eye on the [other] boys, whose relatives can’t visit them that often,” Mykhailo explains. “There’s one whose parents went to Russia, and he lies here. Another’s relatives live far away — in the Donetsk region.”