So, day 11. I still can’t believe that. It’s been tough in Chernihiv and it doesn’t seem to get better. Yesterday, at night, the plane was [shot down] above where we hide. News is shocking and depressive so we try not to discuss it … I’ve lost track of days. It all seems like a very long dream. No one believed the war [would] last more than two or three days.
In one of her daily messages from her bomb shelter in the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, a close friend of mine unambiguously described the reality that most Ukrainians are currently facing: that the increasing tensions along the Ukraine-Russia border seen a month ago have turned into a full-blown nightmare.
As someone who has spent extensive time in Ukraine over several years studying, volunteering with orphaned children and families of war, observing elections, and conducting ethnographic research until the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have widely established networks across the country. While I have been in regular contact with my Ukrainian friends and colleagues for some years, our conversations during the past three weeks have been dramatically different.
