Fiona4Ukraine

When I got off the train in Kharkiv over 3 weeks ago, the first thing to greet me was an air raid siren which, however you want to look at it, is a sign of coming home. It's taken me a little time to adjust to some of the changes in my volunteer coordination role, but what hasn't changed is the warm welcome and affection every day in Hell's Kitchen. From that perspective, it felt as if I never left. Winter is finally changing to spring. It's difficult to describe the daily difficulties and stress of a hard, cold winter, even without the war - wearing enough layers of clothing, boots, crampons, always looking at your feet to avoid slipping (again!) on refrozen snow, the shrinking of life because it's really too cold to go anywhere. One of the foreign volunteers put it eloquently: "Perhaps one of my biggest takeaways this time is the snow. The hardship of winter, the fragility of life/injury due to nature not aggression." Now the first bulbs can be seen, the...

I write this as I return on the Przemyśl to Kharkiv train, after a 3-week break in England and Iceland (where the title photo was taken). I was away for the 4 year commemoration of Russia's brutal, illegal invasion of Ukraine. It was almost 4 years ago that I began a journey that has really transformed me, from Krakow to Lviv to Odesa to Kharkiv (nearly 2 years ago). This could be a very bleak post. The bombardment of Ukraine continues, against energy and transport infrastructure, and civilian homes. More than a million Ukrainians have been without electricity, heating and water during the coldest winter in years, with temperatures dropping to -20C and below outside, and to 5 or 6°C inside apartments. This cynical bombing campaign is sometimes described as the kholodomor (death by cold). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/24/four-years-ukraine-invasion-russia-gains-small-ukraine-remains-resilient?CMP=share_btn_url A person walks down a street in central Khar...