In September 2025, RE-ENGAGE researchers Morten Bøås, Sophie Gueudet and Kristian Lefdal travelled to Kyiv to conduct fieldwork for the Horizon Europe RE-ENGAGE project. The project examines how configurations of trust and distrust, social cohesion and polarisation, authoritarian drift and democratic pushback, EU enlargement policy, and external authoritarian interference in domestic politics shape the political trajectories of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, and how these dynamics are perceived and experienced by citizens.
Although all accustomed to researching sensitive issues in fragile political environments, they were uncertain what to expect, and how to move beyond the formal research protocol, in a country at war. They encountered a city that was strikingly vibrant, alive with cafés, restaurants, bookshops, and museums, while parks were filled with flowers and people enjoying the late summer light.
Yet the war was never absent. Beyond the frequent air alerts and the particularly intense attack on Kyiv on the night of 7 September, it permeated the atmosphere in quieter, less immediately visible ways. The coexistence of everyday routines and existential threat was not abstract but lived and embodied, at once palpable and profoundly unsettling.
It is not, however, their story to tell. The experience of livelihoods under fire belongs first and foremost to those who have been living it for four years.
Among them was Vira, one of the Kyiv based university students trained as an enumerator to carry out the vignette based survey. Her account brings into view the accelerated maturity imposed by prolonged war, the daily calculations between risk and routine, and the deliberate insistence on continuing to live, study, and engage.
RE-ENGAGE owes her, and the other students who carried out this work, a great deal. It therefore seemed essential to give space to her testimony, as a voice that speaks from within the conditions that both sustain and constrain the research.
Vira: “Ukraine is not only enduring—it is living”
The full-scale invasion has completely changed my priorities and values. Having been born in the Kharkiv region, where we experienced the occupation, I realized how fragile the ordinary things that we often take for granted are—sleep, electricity, freedom of movement, and the ability to plan for tomorrow.
In February 2022 I was fifteen. But from that moment, I no longer felt like a teenager. There was a sudden responsibility not only for myself but also for my younger sister and my friends, especially during the days when we were separated from our parents because of logistical chaos. The usual teenage interests lost all meaning, and childhood ended almost overnight. Still, I do not regret having had a short childhood. This forced maturity gave me clarity about what truly matters and shaped the priorities I live by today.
Living under occupation and then moving to Kyiv, a city under constant shelling, also taught me to notice the smallest details—a morning coffee, a lecture that goes on despite air alerts, laughter with friends. These moments are reminders that life is not only about survival or fear. They are ways to reclaim happiness and to resist the war by continuing to live fully.
The most inspiring thing is seeing every day that life continues despite everything: children happily heading to kindergarten, utility workers tidying up parks where couples will sit in the evening, and street musicians enchanting passersby with their new compositions. In such an atmosphere, it is impossible to give up or succumb to despair.
Life must go on, and that is probably part of our strength as Ukrainians.
As a student of international relations, this experience also reshaped how I see my field. International politics is not just theory in books anymore—it is about whether our voices are heard, whether our country is understood, whether justice is defended.
Of course, I feel that the war is taking away a part of my youth, but it also gave me resilience and clarity: what really matters is freedom, solidarity, and the chance to live our lives fully.
I also realized that I carry personal responsibility for my perception and reaction to events. Even in the darkest times, I can decide to move forward (even if it’s just small steps), to contribute, and to remind others that Ukraine is not only enduring but also living, creating, and speaking to the world.
What Vira’s words tell us about civilian resistance
Vira’s reflection that even in the darkest times she can decide to move forward and contribute echoes the atmosphere surrounding fieldwork in Kyiv.
During training and early interviews, an air-raid alarm sounded. Yet, as the RE-ENGAGE team recalls, none of the students rushed to the shelter. Other students whose classes had been interrupted stepped outside—smoking, chatting, waiting on the lawns between university buildings. In Kyiv, interruption has become part of the daily rhythm in which life and war unfold together.
The conditions that interrupted fieldwork were often the same conditions shaping the political attitudes RE-ENGAGE seeks to understand.
Ukraine presents a stark configuration. Respondents show high trust in the military and in the president, while trust in many other national institutions and political actors is low. Some questions—particularly those touching on military institutions—generated higher rates of refusal or “don’t know” responses than observed elsewhere. Even amid strong civilian resistance, caution persists, shaped by uneven trust and differing assessments of risk.
Ukraine’s endurance rests not only on developments at the front, but on the persistence of social and civic life under strain. Resistance unfolds in lecture halls, cafés, parks, and homes—wherever daily routines continue despite uncertainty. The vitality of society and the capacity for defence sustain one another.
Recognising this interdependence is essential to understanding trust, resistance, and political attitudes in wartime.
And as Vira reflects, “Ukraine is not only enduring but also living, creating, and speaking to the world.”
Credits and acknowledgements
RE-ENGAGE is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 101132314). This article draws on RE-ENGAGE fieldwork in Ukraine and on reflections shared by RE-ENGAGE researchers during project activities and podcast recording. The RE-ENGAGE team extends sincere thanks to Vira. Her contribution and reflections provide invaluable perspective on the lived context of this research.
