What War Looks Like From the Inside

When foreigners ask me, “What is the situation in Ukraine right now?” or write something like, “I support the people of Ukraine,” I always feel that there is something very generalized behind these words.

Ukraine. War. Ukrainians.

There is a country somewhere, there is a war going on there, and some people live there. There are missiles, armies, politicians, maps of the front, numbers of the dead, destroyed buildings, international statements. All of this forms a certain understandable category called “war.”

But when I talk about this with you, I am not some random Ukrainian living in an abstract Ukraine inside an abstract war.

I am a person who feels and experiences this in my own body every day, who wakes up, works, takes photographs, grows plants, makes plans, gets tired, argues, feels happy, feels afraid, sleeps or doesn’t sleep, and sometimes jolts with my whole body from an explosion.

And this personalization almost completely disappears when we talk about war in general terms.

Everyone who watches a war from the outside already has some kind of picture in their mind of what it is supposed to look like. Often it is the picture from the news: destroyed cities, fires, soldiers, debris, blood, people among the ruins.

And that is true.

There were cities in Ukraine that no longer exist because of the war. They have been completely wiped off the face of the earth. There are territories where people are trying to survive under extremely difficult conditions. There are occupied territories. There are destroyed houses, entire streets, hospitals, businesses, lives. There are people who have lost their families, homes, health, future.

But war in Ukraine does not look only like that.

And this is probably one of the hardest things to explain or understand.

We still have large music festivals. Theaters, cinemas, restaurants, cafés and shops are open. People start businesses, renovate their homes, build things, plant trees, visit friends, travel, go on dates, take photographs, have children.

New asphalt roads are still being built and old ones repaired. Schools and universities are operating, although constant air raid alerts make the educational process more difficult.

Ukrainians still argue about politics, about global issues and about completely trivial everyday nonsense. They go to protests against government decisions or to protect trees. Nature reserves are created, people sort their waste and rescue animals. We still care about what the space around us looks like: the aesthetics of building facades, the appearance of cities, clean and tidy courtyards.

Ukraine is still an agricultural country. Fields are sown every year. Agriculture continues to operate. Food and crops are produced both for the domestic market and for export.

Life has not stopped.

But if, while reading this, you are thinking, “Oh, so they have festivals, restaurants, travel, so things must not be as bad as the news makes them look,” don’t give in to that thought. Because this is a cognitive simplification that most of us resort to when we cannot comprehend the scale of a process.

It is precisely the coexistence of normal life and war that is one of the hardest things about this reality.

The fact that people continue living does not mean there is no danger. The fact that I can go out into nature today and be photographed nude does not mean I won’t wake up from explosions at night. The fact that someone is sitting in a restaurant in the evening does not mean that a few hours earlier they were not sitting in a hallway, parking garage or metro station during an air raid alert.

A festival does not cancel out a missile.

An open café does not cancel out a destroyed building.

Planting a tree does not mean you are certain you will still be living beside it a year from now.

A person simply cannot remain in a state of absolute catastrophe twenty-four hours a day for years.

So they keep living.

When people ask me what the situation in Ukraine is right now, I cannot really answer for the entire country. The situation differs greatly from region to region. And I certainly cannot speak about the situation at the front as an expert.

I can only talk about what I see around me. And what I see is definitely not becoming calmer or easier.

Kyiv and the surrounding region regularly experience massive combined attacks involving missiles and different types of drones. Recently, the attacks have become more intense, and some of them last almost continuously for up to 40 hours. The very nature of the aerial attacks has also changed, and for a while I couldn't understand what exactly had changed or why it was affecting my psychological state so strongly. There are more fast jet-powered UAVs now, which are much more difficult to intercept than ordinary Shaheds. And on the level of my own personal perception, everything around me has become much louder and more frightening, while the attacks themselves have become far more exhausting for my nervous system.

The targets of the attacks have changed as well. While in winter they increasingly targeted energy infrastructure, this summer strikes on logistics centers and warehouses, including food warehouses, have become more frequent. After such strikes, some of the products we were used to simply disappeared from stores. The attacks continue.

And this is one example of how war enters everyday life. In the news, it might look like: “A logistics facility was struck.”

In real life, it means that a business is no longer operating, someone has lost their job, a company has lost its goods, a supply chain has been disrupted somewhere, and you walk into a shop and see an empty shelf where ordinary products were sitting yesterday.

Phrases like “one residential building was destroyed” (they always add the number, almost as if deliberately) or “falling debris” sound equally dry.

But in reality, it may be an apartment building that no longer exists. Someone’s apartment. Someone’s kitchen. A bed. Photographs. A dog or a cat. Clothes in a wardrobe. Someone’s life as it existed until that morning.

One night, we were under attack almost the entire night. It was so loud that even within our far-from-new wartime reality, it felt different. The air raid alert had been going since the previous day, and the attacks knocked out the electricity. In the morning, the horizon was covered in black smoke: a field nearby was burning, a city on the horizon was burning, there were fires in several places around us. Some fires are caused by direct strikes, others by debris from intercepted targets.

And I am standing there looking at it through my own window.

Just a few hours earlier, I had been thinking about completely different things.

About creativity. About a new photoshoot. About traveling. About the garden. About finally allowing myself to live a little more for myself instead of constantly postponing life until some abstract “later.”

You try to mentally escape into that long-forgotten feeling of normality. Of lightness. To make plans not because it is strategically sensible, but simply because you want something.

And then your body jolts again from an explosion. You look out the window and see a column of smoke. And in that moment, everything you do suddenly loses its value.

Not because photography, the garden, work or travel have suddenly become unimportant.

But because your brain very quickly brings you back to the basic reality: tomorrow, even this may no longer exist.

And it is nothing like the motivational lines in Reels telling you to “live as if today were your last day.”

It does not make me feel particularly alive or fulfilled. I do not wake up wanting to finally make all my dreams come true.

The constant awareness that tomorrow you may have nothing left mainly creates stress, fear, exhaustion, anxiety and periods when it becomes difficult to see any point in planning anything at all.

War is not experienced only through thoughts.

It is experienced through the body.

I can rationally understand what is happening. I can know that not every sound means danger specifically to me. I can spend years hearing air raid alerts and explosions.

But the body still reacts faster.

During an explosion, muscles contract involuntarily. The diaphragm tightens. The neck, back and fascia tense up. I do not control it.

Then neuralgia can start.

Recently, I had neuralgia running from my trapezius into my neck. It took about a week to go away, and almost immediately afterward another one started, this time in my thoracic area. I skipped workouts and could barely move normally.

And this is war too.

Not a dramatic photograph in the news.

Not a map of the front.

Not a political statement.

Just the body of a person who has spent years living in an environment where a sudden sound can mean real danger.

What exhausts me most is not even one specific threat. It is the absence of stability. You do not know whether the next night will be quiet. Whether you will spend it listening to explosions. Whether there will be electricity. Whether you will be able to make it to a workout or a doctor’s appointment. Whether the situation will change within a few days in a way that makes all the plans you have today meaningless.

On top of that comes the constant immersion in news and rumors. Once again, people are talking about a difficult winter and possible problems with the energy system, telling us to prepare, although it is often unclear exactly what we are supposed to prepare for or how serious it will be. A neighbor shares unverified information about a possible offensive, military scenarios affecting my region appear in public discussions, objects resembling anti-personnel mines are found in a nearby field...

And you end up trapped between these rumors, the collective anxiety coming through social media posts, thoughts about winter and the anticipation of the unknown. But not simply the unknown. The worst possible version of the unknown...

At the same time, you still have to get up, work, reply to people, cook something, go places, pay bills, deal with everyday problems, plan the next week or at least the next day.

It is quite difficult to live inside this every day and constantly pretend that everything is normal. Not only for other people, but also for yourself, because you simply need to believe in something normal in order to get up every day. As they say: Fake it till you make it, only in a very strange and distorted version.

I have a lifestyle blog on Instagram about nature, gardening, ecology, citizen science and just everyday life. I run it in Ukrainian. Sometimes I show everyday Stories where the war appears, or more precisely, my everyday life within it. But I do not do that very often and focus more on things that are alive. Ukrainians generally do not run their blogs with the subject of war woven through everything.

Because it feels kind of stupid to tell other Ukrainians about the same thing that all of us are living inside at the same time. There is no support in that for me either. It is like being in a psychiatric hospital and telling the other patients how tired you are of depression.

What is the point of telling someone about your anxiety when they are living with the same level of anxiety or an even greater one?

Somewhere a little farther away, the situation is worse. Closer to the front, it is much worse. Someone has lost their home. Someone has lost someone they loved. Someone is fighting. Someone is trying to handle the entire household alone because their husband is at the front.

And this is where another unpleasant thing happens: personalization disappears not only in the perception of foreigners.

It disappears among us as well. Because above your pain, there is always someone else’s pain that can objectively be called greater. Above your exhaustion, there is someone at the front. Above your fear, there is someone living closer to the fighting. Above your ruined plan, there is someone with a ruined home. Above your loss of a sense of safety, there is someone who lost their family.

And sooner or later, you start telling yourself, “Why am I even complaining?”

That is how your own right to fear, exhaustion, anxiety and despair gradually becomes devalued.

We often cannot even talk about this with the people closest to us. Not because we have become indifferent. Quite the opposite.

To listen to someone else’s fear, you need to have the emotional resources to withstand it. And everyone has less and less of that resource.

To share your own anxiety with someone who is living under the same conditions means, in effect, transferring some of that anxiety onto them.

Sometimes it feels as though keeping your fears to yourself is the most humane thing you can do.

Not only toward others, but toward yourself as well. Because opening up to someone and being met with the devaluation of your pain or your worries, or simply with their inability to withstand your emotions, can hurt more than saying nothing at all.

Sometimes I frustrate myself by sharing this everyday reality on my blog as well. I know that most people followed me here or on Instagram for something entirely different from stories about missiles, fires and the grim reality of a Ukrainian woman. After Stories like that, people unfollow by the hundreds.

Social media has generally taught us very well that any difficult reality ruins a beautiful feed.

But this is exactly what my reality is.

The same person who posts a photograph from the river today may have spent the night awake because of an attack. The same person who dances may have been looking out the window at black smoke from intercepted drones and fires around her only a few hours earlier.

The same person who creates something beautiful does not exist separately from the war.

And perhaps it is here, from the English-speaking audience that asks me about the situation, that I can sometimes receive something I often cannot receive from the people around me.

Not heroic support. Not advice. Not “everything will be fine.” And definitely not “the war will end soon.”

Just ordinary human empathy and conversation.

For many people who have already categorized war as something global, terrifying, something you should run away from, the obvious question will be: “Why don’t you move?”

Good question. I understand the logic behind it.

But move where?

The most obvious option is not even another country, but a safer region within Ukraine itself. And yes, many people have done exactly that. Some voluntarily, and some, unfortunately, because they were forced to after losing everything.

But the important word here is “safer.” Safer does not mean safe. The intensity of attacks, proximity to the front and specific risks vary greatly depending on the region, but missiles and drones have also struck parts of Ukraine considered relatively calm. Moving to western Ukraine can significantly reduce some risks, but it does not take you outside the war.

At the same time, it is still a full relocation. You have to leave your own home, find another one, move your belongings and animals, possibly change jobs and rebuild your entire familiar daily life.

And the accessibility of everything you need also varies significantly within Ukraine itself.

I live near Kyiv, in a large metropolitan area with the corresponding level of infrastructure and access to services. If you move to a small town or village simply because it is much quieter there, that does not necessarily mean you will have the same level of everyday comfort.

Of course, Ukraine has large cities in other regions with excellent infrastructure. But then the same questions arise about housing, work, the cost of moving and how much safer that place will actually be in the long term.

There is a second option: leave Ukraine entirely.

For many people, moving may look almost like traveling: you simply move from one territory to another. From a dangerous place to a safer one.

But your home, work, clients, relatives, friends, doctors, veterinarians, familiar services, everyday routines, social connections and knowledge of how life around you works do not automatically cross the border with you.

If it is another country, you also have a different language, a different documentation system, healthcare, taxes, rental rules, job hunting and a new social environment. Even completely ordinary things that you never think about at home suddenly become separate tasks.

And it does not necessarily have to be Europe. In theory, you can move to Asia, the Americas or any other part of the world where you have the possibility to live legally. But distance has its own price as well. The farther you go, the more expensive and complicated the move becomes, especially when you are transporting not one suitcase but part of your life and your animals. It becomes more expensive to return home, harder to come back quickly if something happens to your relatives, and more difficult to maintain a physical connection with everything you left behind.

So relocation really can remove or significantly reduce some of the direct physical danger of war. But it does not move you from a “dangerous life” into a ready-made “safe” one. It means having to rebuild a huge part of your life from scratch.

And here I probably need to explain one more thing that may not be obvious to people who mostly see Ukraine through war news.

Ukraine is not a place where people simply somehow survive without normal infrastructure, services or modern everyday comforts.

At least where I live, I have many things that make everyday life convenient.

Private healthcare, for example.

If I need a gynecologist, dentist, oncologic surgeon or another specialist, I can often find an appointment in private healthcare literally for the next day or within the next few days. Lab tests, ultrasound, MRI, dentistry and various types of diagnostics are available without having to wait a long time, if I am willing to pay for them.

And this seems like a small thing while you are healthy. But if you regularly need healthcare, having access to specific doctors and a system you understand becomes a very serious factor when you think about moving.

The same applies to ordinary online services. Banking, paying bills, postal services, delivery, shopping, ordering groceries, medication or any household items have long been such a familiar part of my life that I do not even think about them. Most of these things can be handled very quickly from a phone.

The same goes for food.

Where I live, there are large supermarkets with a huge selection of products across different price ranges, grocery delivery, local shops, markets and online stores. Before the war, I never thought of access to ordinary food as some particular advantage. It was simply there.

That is exactly why it feels so noticeable when some familiar products suddenly disappear from shops after strikes on logistics centers. Not because we are used to shortages, but precisely because we are used to a normal, well-stocked retail system.

There is also very basic everyday comfort.

I have a home adapted to my life. Heating. Hot water. Air conditioning. A washing machine. A refrigerator. All the household appliances I need. Internet. A workspace. Things that accumulated over the years and that I bought because I needed them.

Of course, all of these things exist in other countries. The point is different. Here, all of this is already mine.

When I move, I do not teleport my house along with me. I have to find another place to live that I can afford, that suits my needs and where the owner will even agree to let me live.

And if you are not moving alone, it becomes more complicated. I, for example, have two dogs.

Moving with animals is a separate topic for discussion and a separate pain altogether.

It is not just a matter of transporting them from point A to point B. It is transport, documents when moving abroad, finding housing where animals are allowed, the practical ability to transport large dogs, finding a new veterinarian and a clinic you can trust if something happens.

Here, I already know where to take a dog. I know where to buy food. I know which clinics are nearby. I know where I can get tests or examinations done. I know how this system works.

After moving, all of that has to be found again.

There are things that seem completely optional while you have them.

For example, the swimming pool where I can go to train. Massage. Other specific services I use. Of course, these are not available in every city even within Ukraine. But they are available where I live.

And if I simply move somewhere considered safer, there is no guarantee that I will have the same set of things that currently make up my normal everyday life.

Work is another separate issue.

There are professions you can take with you simply in a laptop.

And there are professions tied to equipment, a workspace, clients, the local market or a specific place.

Not everyone who moves to another region or leaves Ukraine can simply open a laptop the next morning and continue earning exactly the same way they did at home.

When moving abroad, language, a different market, different professional requirements and the need to build a client base from scratch may be added to that.

Relatives are another factor that keeps many people from moving.

Parents. Elderly people. People who need your help or simply your presence.

They do not disappear from your life the moment you move. And the farther away you go, the harder it becomes to return to them if your presence suddenly becomes necessary.

Sometimes the question “Why don’t you move?” sounds as if every person were a separate autonomous unit: here they are, here is a suitcase, here is another point on the map.

But a person almost never exists entirely on their own. There are dozens of connections and dependencies around them.

Home. Work. Partner. Parents. Friends. Animals. Doctors. Clients. Everyday life. Language. Property. Habits. Places they know. People they help and people who help them.

That is life.

So the choice is not actually between “a dangerous life in Ukraine” and “the same life, only without the war, somewhere else.”

That second option simply does not exist.

There is the option of moving to another region of Ukraine, reducing some of the risks while still remaining inside a country where the war continues, while at the same time losing part of your familiar level of comfort, infrastructure or work.

There is the option of moving abroad and distancing yourself much more from the immediate danger, but then an even larger part of your life has to be rebuilt, and the farther away the new country is, the higher the financial, logistical and personal cost of that decision becomes.

And then there is the life I have already built here, with all of its advantages and one very serious disadvantage in the form of war.

For some people, moving is the right decision. For some, it is necessary. For some, it has literally saved their lives.

I cannot speak for anyone else.

I am only explaining why the answer to the question, “If it is dangerous, why don’t you just move?” is not as obvious as it may seem to someone looking at Ukraine from another part of the world