🇺🇦 The Ukraine You Rarely See in the News

2026/06/03

My first time visiting Ukraine was in October 2015. I went to Lviv and Kyiv for a pan-European student organisation gathering. The Lviv part was the pre-event for the organisation’s biannual conference, which took place in Kyiv after.

The annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas were relatively fresh, but already more than a year has passed by then. At that time, I had little knowledge about the country besides some news stories, my studies (which familiarized me more with Russian geopolitical ambitions and operations than with Ukraine), and a few Ukrainians I have met the previous years through the student organisation.

Having grown up and living in Hungary I had some prejudices, or rather projections, about how Ukraine might be. A cold, grey, impoverished, post-soviet hellhole with people probably even more grumpy and depressed than in my home country because history has been even harsher on them. My actual experience couldn’t have been further from my lousy assumptions.

Lviv almost immediately became one of my favourite cities. It wasn’t just the cosy and charming cobblestone streets and lovely Habsburg-era buildings, nice cafés and restaurants, or the cheap alcohol (I was a uni student after all). It was the people. They totally changed what I believed I knew about the post Eastern bloc and even life itself.

I found beautiful and charming easy-going people who couldn’t have been more different than what I was accustomed to growing up just a few hundred km to the west. They were cheerful, gentle, and incredibly welcoming. 

I couldn’t believe it. A population that just had a large part of their territory seized by Russia while waging an active war against them on their eastern territories, being plagued by endless corrupt governments, Moscow’s interference and blackmails, the lowest standard of living and salaries in all of Europe, and a harsh climate, is friendly, kind, and optimistic.

How can this be possible from a nation that went through hell in the 90s after the horrors of the Soviet Union and hundreds of years of repression? Their history was tragic for as long as anyone's memory can look back to. Russian repression, World War II devastation, massacres, the Holodomor…

I couldn’t help but fall in love with the place and its people. I visited many times in the following years, stayed in Mukachevo for three months back in 2021, and lived in Lviv for more than a year in 2023-2024. Very few countries went through so much in the past 11 years. I encountered different faces of Ukraine each time.

But the people never changed. They remained warm, positive, and full of life.

My time living there has been during a difficult period. Through the winter of ‘23 - ‘24 the situation looked dire. The Battle of Bakhmut has ended with Ukrainians needing to surrender the city after nearly a year of meat-grinder that inflicted heavy losses on their most experienced troops. Then the long-awaited summer counteroffensive failed. Polish farmers were blockading the border, Hungary was vetoing further EU-aid, and Trump managed - even from opposition - to block the next US arms package that Biden was trying to pass.

It was a winter where the future of Ukraine looked very bleak. Of course, people held and carried on with their lives, but the morale was at least wavering. It was nowhere near of a collapse, but it suffered serious hits after hits. But Ukrainians had no choice other than to remain determined to fight. They began to prepare for a long war and lots of hardships to come.

This time things looked very different. 

In a little more than a year the US has betrayed Ukraine and increasingly started aligning with Russia. Trump and his administration have been trying to force Kyiv into capitulation and get back to business as usual - and more - with Moscow. Then, just before winter they starved the country of air defence ammunition so it had little means of resisting the Russian bombardment of its energy infrastructure everybody knew was coming.

The country plunged into cold and darkness for almost the entire winter. Meanwhile, in the EU - as things not change - Orbán did everything he could to stop the next support package Ukraine desperately needed to survive.

It was a year full of destruction, cold, and pressure from not only Russia, but also from the world’s number one superpower. It didn’t help either that this superpower started a senseless war in the Middle East that mostly managed to benefit only Moscow by providing it with newfound revenues from increased oil and gas prices and sanctions relief from Washington.

The pressure on Ukraine, its government, and its leader was immense. But they resisted it all. They have endured the full brutal year, and absorbed every hit. During that time Europe managed to take over military and financial support from the US. Not just that, but increasingly made the continent so intertwined with Ukraine and its war effort, that in a lot of metrics it was now the continent’s own struggle as well. Europe put its reputation and security on Ukraine surviving and becoming strong. 

A shifting momentum (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

All of a sudden, Kyiv had some serious cards to play. It managed to turn a misfortune in the Middle East into opportunity by striking weapons deals with rich Gulf states under Iranian bombardment, boosting the country’s reputation as a reliable and professional partner. 

Despite Orbán putting everything into an anti-Ukraine campaign where Hungary’s public enemy number one became Zelenskyy, he suffered a huge historic defeat, and a tremendous collapse of his pro-Russian regime. The EU support came through with another sanctions package against Moscow, and the continent is more unified than ever in its support of Kyiv.

Since the beginning of this year the country adapted to and survived a harsh winter, managed to halt Russian advances (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), and slowly started inflicting higher casualties than what Russian military can recruit. They achieved a shifting momentum on the battlefield.

Their long-range strikes with locally produced drones and missiles are decimating the Russian energy sector, curbing the Kremlin’s revenues that sustain its war. Previously Ukraine needed permission from Washington or European capitals to go after Russian oil production. Nobody can stop them anymore.

Even the constant pro-Russian voices went quiet from the US, and their pressure on Zelenskyy and Ukraine has disappeared. The country proved that it can outlast any hardship and unjust pressure that attempts to destroy its independence, regardless of where it comes from.

During my six-week stay in Lviv this was felt in the air and in the people. They were more determined, more proud, and more confident than ever. They know that they’re no longer the tragedy of history, but actively and skilfully writing their own future.

The conversations shifted from “will the West continue to support us?” to “will the West deserve our support?”.

Today Ukrainians are the heart and soul of Europe. The future of Ukraine will no longer be determined in Brussels more than the future of Europe will be determined in Kyiv.