"SLAVA Ukraini,” the middle-aged woman sitting next to me on the coach from Krakow to Lviv said to the Ukrainian border guard in military fatigues as she collected our passports. It means “glory to Ukraine”, as people in every corner of the world now know.
The guard smiled and murmured the words “heroiam slava” – “glory to the heroes” – the customary (bordering on compulsory) response in Ukraine since Russia’s large-scale invasion of the country in February. This exchange was repeated countless times as the guard collected passports: aside from myself and an American photographer, it seemed nearly every seat was occupied by a Ukrainian returning to their homeland.
