Before the War

As of February 2022, parts of Ukraine had been under Russian occupation for almost eight years. In 2014, many of us watched the struggle of geopolitics and ideology unfold on our television screens as ordinary citizens and politicians fought over the country’s future and against external interference. We witnessed this through the Euromaidan protests, which ended on 22 February 2014 — eight years to the day before a new Russian offensive ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

During my travels in Ukraine, I saw a country with its own challenges, yet one not so different from our own.

Here is a little of the ordinary I saw before the war.