“It has been almost nine months since I stepped away from my role in Ukraine, yet I am still trying to understand how war and ordinary life coexist: How people continue living while surrounded by fear, uncertainty, and loss.

War leaves many wounds that are invisible. You cannot always recognise trauma just by looking at someone on the street. People may appear to be coping, working, laughing, yet carry deep psychological scars from bombardment, displacement, bereavement, captivity, or prolonged fear.

Some of the moments that stay with me most vividly are mornings in Kyiv after heavy shelling. I would wake up thinking first about children and how they cope with growing up under constant air raid sirens. As a mother, I understand the deep helplessness that comes with being unable to fully protect your child from such fear and instability. These thoughts stayed with me throughout my day.

The morning after heavy shelling, people still commuted to work, children went to school, neighbours carried on with their lives. At times, it felt like everyone had learned to move forward by pretending nothing had happened. I found this understandable but deeply unsettling. The pressure to maintain normality can become a survival strategy, but it can also hide unresolved trauma. To me, death and the celebration of life have become part of the same day—and sometimes I still don’t know how to process that.

What struck me most in Ukraine is how life continues despite everything. People still visit theatres, cinemas, cafés, gyms, and celebrate small everyday moments. At the same time, war has become woven into ordinary life. Air raid sirens, explosions, power cuts, and grief have started to feel routine. This normalisation of war is one of the most disturbing aspects of the conflict, because when violence becomes familiar, it reshapes how people think, feel, and perceive safety, loss, and the future.
It is difficult to describe what it feels like to live in a place where air strikes and celebrations, fear and resilience, grief and ordinary routines exist side by side. Even now, I am still trying to make sense of it. The coexistence of life and death, hope and despair, continues to challenge how I understand both war and humanity.”