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A life full of sudden changes has taught Ukrainians to adapt quickly. For example, many homes now have power banks or generators in case of attacks on power plants and electricity outages. To cope with water shortages, many households keep a bucket of water stored. These small adaptations have become a part of daily routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite constant threats, life goes on. Words like \u201cKalibr,\u201d \u201cIskander,\u201d and \u201cSmerch\u201d \u2014 names of different types of missiles \u2014 have become familiar, even to children, who now distinguish between different kinds of attacks. Every residential building, school, office, and shopping center now has a shelter, usually in the basement. In large cities, metro stations serve as the main shelters. In Kyiv, people bring folding chairs and wait out alarms deep underground. In the early months of the war, entire families lived in metro stations for weeks, setting up tents, as it was the safest place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of air raids, in Kharkiv, alarms became so frequent at one point that people largely stopped reacting to them. Most continue with their daily routines unless the alarm signals a particularly dangerous threat like ballistic missiles or aviation attacks. Maintaining calm, positivity, and the flow of everyday work remains a priority, which is why cities continue to function so actively even during wartime. This resilience is a clear demonstration of the incredible spirit and bravery of the people living there.<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nTraveling to Ukraine itself has become a new challenge for those living abroad. Since Ukrainian airspace remains closed to passenger flights, journeys must start from international airports in neighboring countries \u2014 Warsaw, Vienna, Budapest, and others. From there, travelers must take a bus or train to the Ukrainian border, then either transfer to another train or wait \u2014 often unpredictably \u2014 at border checkpoints. For example, during my recent trip, it took only about an hour to enter Ukraine, but almost six hours to exit. Two years ago, some of my acquaintances waited up to 19 hours. Even today, people continue to travel for work, to see their families, or simply to return home. While reaching Kyiv or Lviv is relatively manageable, getting to Kharkiv, where my family lives, requires another separate journey. My return trip from Kharkiv to Yokohama took almost two full days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Things that once seemed temporary \u2014 sirens, blackouts, nights spent in shelters \u2014 have now woven themselves into everyday life. But they have not broken the people\u2019s spirit. On the contrary, it only highlights the remarkable resilience and strength of Ukrainians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For me, it\u2019s important to share these observations with those who have not visited Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war. Behind the dry headlines and news reports, there is real life, where people continue to study, work, laugh, and hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every trip back home to Ukraine is a reminder of how much people’s lives have changed over the past three years. War has become part of everyday reality, transforming not only cities but the very rhythm of life. The first thing that catches the eye is the damaged buildings. Traces of explosions, broken windows boarded up with plywood, and shattered storefronts are no longer exceptions \u2014 they have become part of the landscape. Many people have not returned to their apartments \u2014 some cannot afford to restore their homes, while others no longer feel safe living there. At the same time, some buildings have been repaired. For example, the Nikolskiy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9428,"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426\/revisions\/9428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbv.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}