As dawn broke on February 24 in Kyiv, I woke to the sound of explosions and the wails of air raid sirens. Huddled in my little apartment in the city, I felt sick with anxiety. I knew instantly that, from then on, my life and the lives of so many others would never be the same. Something irreversible had just happened: the glimmer of hope which many of us had kept alive despite the rising fear of an imminent war had been violently smothered.
I grew up amid the flat lands and coal heaps of what is today eastern Ukraine. A big family, in a three-room flat, we spent many laughter-filled evenings over Olivier salads and borscht. After studying at the international language school at Gorlivka, I left Ukraine for the United States. The pull of my family eventually drew me back to my country.
War broke out in 2014 and I was forced to move to Kyiv, where I registered as an ‘internally displaced person’. I slowly found my feet in the city, working for civil society organisations, and later becoming active in a global coalition to fight poverty. I eventually made my way to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). With MSF’s focus on improving health care access in eastern Ukraine, I saw an opportunity to retain links with a region I remained profoundly attached to, even as I continued to live in Kyiv.
The tragedy of eastern Ukraine has now befallen the whole country. In an extremely short time, millions of people have been forced to leave their homes. Many are displaced within Ukraine and some two million have become refugees in neighbouring countries. From where I am staying now, they are all around me.
And now war is back—this time fiercer, more brutal, and with a force, I fear, will leave us all scarred.