One year ago, Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion on Ukraine - the biggest European invasion since World War Two. The war has led to the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian citizens and left more than 13 million people either as refugees abroad or displaced inside their own country.

When Vladimir Putin sent soldiers into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, it seemed Russian forces would easily sweep into the capital, Kyiv, and depose the government. Instead, Ukrainian forces have become a symbol of international strength and the world has rallied to show solidarity against the illegal invasion.

As we reach the grim one year milestone since the invasion, Varsity spoke to Ukrainians in the Cambridge community about their reflections on the past year and how the conflict at home has changed their lives.

Danny, a third-year student who studies Chinese at St Catharine’s College, talked to me from Taiwan, where he’s spending his year abroad. He moved to the UK from Kyiv when he was fourteen, but still has friends and family in Ukraine. He told me that his life has “changed completely” since the war broke out, and that the days after the invasion were “the strangest time of [his] life”.

“I felt completely hopeless, like I was trapped in the Cambridge bubble…those first few days I don’t want to ever relive again”. After a frantic week making sure everyone was safe, Danny started mobilising: “in that moment, it’s fight or flight,” he told me. “Either you disappear or you mobilise to see what skills you have.”

Danny decided to mobilise, raising roughly £1,500 through a social fundraiser at a vegan cafe, sending over £6,000 worth of medical supplies and military equipment to the frontline, and speaking at the vigils on King’s Parade which were held almost daily in the weeks following the invasion.

He spent his summer working in an army camp as an interpreter with British and Ukrainian armed forces, and continues to do what he can to support the war effort from Taipei.

Other students have struggled balancing the Cambridge workload with their worries about their home country. One student, originally from a city in the northeast of Ukraine, told me that their studies were a good way to focus on something other than the news about the conflict. “When the war started, it was week six of Lent term”, they told me, “and maybe being in week six helped in that respect”. They had “so many other things to think about”, they said, that they just “tried to carry on [their] life as much as possible”.

The student said that while they had tried to help with Cambridge solidarity movements, it didn’t seem that there was much they could achieve “from a global perspective”.

Some of the others we talked to expressed concern that the urgency of the war has faded from people’s minds. Andrii Smytsniuk, who teaches Ukrainian in the Slavonic section of the MML faculty, worries about “Ukraine fatigue”. “It’s pretty much my job,” he tells me, “to make sure people don’t get tired of talking about Ukraine”.

When the war broke out, Andrii co-founded the Cambridge4Ukraine, and now spends much of his time working with Ukrainian refugees in Cambridge. He tells me that Cambridgeshire is one of the regions with the highest intakes of Ukrainian refugees per capita. The early days of the organisation were spent trying to find host families for Ukrainians who were coming to the UK. “Overall, we housed over 170 families from Ukraine in Cambridge”, he tells me proudly.

“It’s a completely new reality. I used to just go to work and suddenly I’m running organisations, receiving messages from Ukrainian refugees on an hourly basis.”

But he worries about the future for these refugees. When the six-month sponsorship period ends, many host families can no longer support them. He tells me that many move elsewhere due to the high cost of living in Cambridge, some even returning to Poland or Ukraine. He highlighted the difficulties of moving to the UK. “There are so many things that are different… even things like the self-checkout tills in Sainsbury's. Except for a few supermarkets in Kyiv, we don’t have those in Ukraine”.

But, Andrii tells me, there is cause for hope. “The support that Ukraine received has been phenomenal…it is often surprising that a country that is so far away, the other end of Europe, is supporting Ukraine. It’s great to see so many Ukrainian flags everywhere, even on Sidgwick Site.”

He’s proud of what the University has done to support students and academics from Ukraine in the past year, but says they can always do more. In the Slavonic Studies section where Andrii works, they’ve been hosting a lecture series on Eastern and Central Europe, as well as running free Ukrainian language courses for students. There’s been increasing interest in the classes in the past year, with 70 students enrolled in total.

Danny expressed similar gratitude for the way the Cambridge community responded to the war, telling me that the solidarity has been “amazing - I couldn’t be more grateful”.

Are there things they would like the student body to be more aware of? Yes, Andrii says. “The first step to solving the problems in Ukraine is understanding those problems; understanding Ukraine.” He encouraged students to delve deeper into Ukraine’s culture and history, recommending the music scene in particular. He laughs as he tells me that Kalush, the winners of Eurovision 2022, are actually from his region of Ukraine.

Danny agrees - for him, the crucial thing people can do is to keep educating themselves and engaging with events in Ukraine. “As soon as we forget about Ukraine, that’s when they (Russia) will win”, he told me. He highlighted the long history of relations between the UK and Ukraine, saying that we should see the conflict in terms of a fight for the “freedom of Europe” as a whole.

What about hopes for the resolution of the conflict? Andrii tells me that the war is like the “David and Goliath story” come to life; while Russian victory was expected within days, “Ukraine has stood strong and more importantly, free.”

“It shows that if you are right, you are going to win. There is no doubt in my mind that Ukraine is going to win. It’s just a question of time.”

On Friday (24/2), crowds gathered on King’s Parade at a candlelit vigil, organised by Cambridge4Ukraine, to commemorate those who have lost their lives. At the vigil, Andrii told those gathered that the past 365 days had been “the most difficult days in the lives of Ukrainians all across the world”- but that alongside the anger and pain, he felt “inspiration and hope”.

He told me that the focus of the events marking the war’s grim anniversary is highlighting elements that are shared across countries across Europe. “This is a global issue; all countries have been affected”.