‘Devastation, fear and loss’: Lessons from Ukraine revealed after three brutal years of war

On February 24, 2022, Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. Three years later, the country is still fighting a war it didn’t start.

COMMENT

On February 24, 2022, Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Three years later, I remain in awe of the Ukrainian people’s resilience.

They are still fighting a war they neither started nor wanted.

They live and breathe a fierce strength, bravery and resilience within a devastating and uncertain environment that is, thankfully, unimaginable to most.

For the past two and half years, I have been engaged in research projects with academics at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv, Ukraine.

To say they inspire me, and I have learned from them, is an understatement.

In one research project I did together with seven Ukrainian academics, they reflected on their experiences of teaching through war.

They generously shared things I cannot fathom, including:

● The daily challenges of trying to match student numbers with available shelter space. And then, when the strikes come, as they inevitably do, quickly moving into the shelters and continuing to teach through the fear and unknowns of the attack.

● How important it is not to watch the news for more than 10-15 minutes a day, because the pain and loss you internalise when you watch any more than that has the very real potential to overwhelm and disable you.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Picture: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

● The heavy weight of pressure and responsibility they feel knowing how much every student needs a safe space to learn and just “be” – spaces within which students feel needed, connected as part of a whole and engaged in work that holds meaning and purpose for their country and people.

● The emotional intensity of having your students engage in work that will help the community around you. Like my friend and colleague, Dr Mariya Tytarenko, who shared about her journalism students writing pieces for the City Council encouraging people to adopt children who had been orphaned by war into their families. As a mother of two, she talked about the tears that streamed down her face when she read the pieces, as they did for me when she shared her story.

● How important it is to allow yourself time to stop and feel the pain, to cry if you need to, and then, somehow, find the resolve to dig deep once again and harness the strength to keep going.

A symbolic illumination called Rays of Memory is seen over the graves of Ukrainian soldiers who died in the war with Russia. Picture: Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP

● The simple idea that resilience is nurtured by standing together, even as you desperately call out to the rest of the world to see and hear you.

In the end, their messages to me are about the power of connection, care and relationships. Something we can all relate to and hold dear.

In another research project with two of my colleagues from Bond University and four Ukrainian colleagues from UCU, we explored the keys to organisational resilience within the first two years of the war.

Of the 86 Ukrainian executives and business leaders we surveyed, each representing a different small to medium sized enterprise, the number one thing they credited to their organisations’ resilience and survival was their people.

People are the key to resilience.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to live within a genocidal war where you don’t know what will happen from one minute to the next.

Nowhere is safe in Ukraine.

A man holds a newborn child in the bomb shelter of a maternity hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine. Picture: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

To date, more than eight million refugees have left their homes seeking safety.

This year, on February 24, they will have been living within unfathomable uncertainty, devastation, fear and loss for three years.

They live with daily air raid alarms, drone strikes and power outages.

So many of their friends and family are displaced, fighting on the front lines, dead or missing.

And yet they get up every morning and go to work. Their children go to school. Life goes on.

That’s the meaning of resilience; they engage with each other and do everything they can to survive and protect and support and nurture.

TSvitlana Zavaly, 67, walks over the rubble of her house destroyed by a Russian bomb in the village Velyka Pysarivka. Picture: Genya Savilov/AFP

They just keep going.

It’s important for us who aren’t there to connect with them. They want to be seen and heard. They don’t want to feel alone in their fight.

I keep coming back to the fact that people need each other. It’s such an important part of life. We need to remember and celebrate it more often.

The strength we draw from relationships can help us be more resilient, and that can help us be well.

We can give that gift to others too.

We can help build resilience with a smile, a hug, listening, laughing and just being there for each other.

A woman looks at a classroom prepared for pupils in a subway station on a day of the new school year in Ukraine. Picture: Sergey Bobok/AFP

Pupils attend a ceremony held in a subway station to mark the beginning of the new school year. Picture: Sergey Bobok/AFP

My family and friends helped me build resilience during my 11-year journey fighting a rare and aggressive cancer.

Thankfully, the resilience which lifted me through those years is still with me now.

It is important to note that resilient people do not experience less distress, grief or anxiety than others.

Life has a way of giving those things to all of us.

But as my Ukrainian research partners who have become lifelong friends illustrate so profoundly, there will be highs and lows, good days and bad, and the inevitable exhaustion that comes with challenging times is something we need to recognise and respect.

We can learn how to work through the lows and embrace the highs.

Amy Kenworthy is a professor of management at the Bond University Business School. Picture: Cavan Flynn

So many of my Ukrainian educator friends have shared that they would have been much less prepared for the war if they had not lived through Covid. They went from one crisis straight into another.

But they focused on learning throughout, and are resiliently using that knowledge to navigate living within war.

As we mark the third year of this brutal war, we send them the message that they are neither alone nor forgotten.

We see and stand together with them.

To donate donating to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, visit the Volunteering and Help Center, UNHCR or Australian Red Cross.

Amy Kenworthy is a professor of management at the Bond University Business School, and researches management learning and education, as well as care and wellbeing in organisations

Originally published as ‘Devastation, fear and loss’: Lessons from Ukraine revealed after three brutal years of war