Living through the war in Ukraine

‘I just read they bombed Kyiv. This is the worst! I’m so sorry.’ A message from my labmate was the first I saw about the full-scale Russian invasion. I called my parents in Dnipro. Several strategic objects in the city had been hit, but they are adamant about staying. ‘We stocked up on water and aren’t going anywhere. Don’t worry about us.’ They don’t want to flee again.

Back in 2014, when I was studying in France, they got stuck in Donbas taking care of my grandma. On the phone with my mom in the evenings she would tell me about armed people, clearly not locals, marching on our street, military vehicles entering the town, someone organising fake referendums. Sometimes over the phone, I could hear the shelling. They managed to escape to Dnipro with my grandma. None of us have since been able to return to Donbas. Apart from the logistics, it’s just not safe there if you have an openly pro-Ukrainian position.

Still, we are luckier than many in Ukraine. Dnipro is a relatively safe city, thanks to its geographic position and the efforts of the Ukrainian army. And I am abroad with a job and a lab. Many Ukrainian scientists have had their research disrupted and put on hold indefinitely. Many have also joined the Ukrainian army or volunteer. And some, such as inorganic chemist Oleksandr Korsun, a lecturer at Kharkiv National University, have been killed in Russian shelling.