Olena Makarenko is a Kyiv-based journalist and a documentary filmmaker. Since 2015, she has been covering the events and processes happening in Ukraine for foreign audiences.
With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in its third year, Ukrainians are adjusting to life during wartime. And the Black Sea resort city of Odesa is no exception.
Ten years ago, Ukrainians took to the streets in protest after the president tried to wrench the country away from the West and turn it back toward Moscow. A decade later, they’re fighting on two fronts, battling the Russian invasion and the internal problems that threaten to weaken the country.
For the students and staff at Harant, in Lysychansk, the new school year is starting without a school: The building is in ruins and the city -- also largely destroyed -- is under Russian control. Online, though, the school is preparing to teach students now spread out across Ukraine and beyond.
Amid the gutted ghosts of apartment-buildings ravaged in the Russian onslaught in February and March, residents of this town in northern Ukraine are returning – and rebuilding their lives after grievous losses.
