25 November 2025 Tel Aviv, Israel In the early days of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, a saying circulated widely that went roughly thus: If Russia stops fighting, there will be no more war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no more Ukraine. While accurate to Ukraine, the saying is not entirely Ukrainian. The original quote belongs to Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel, who famously stated: If the Arabs lay down their weapons, there will be no more wa

1- 2 November 2025 Lviv, Ukraine - Kraków, Poland Larissa and I were introduced by a Ukrainian writer during the first year of the war. I was looking for a way to bring RISE to Ukraine and she was my first point of contact. She’s an American who moved to Kyiv some time ago and made it her home. When Russia began its full scale invasion, she lifted her proverbial middle finger to the approaching army and stayed right where she was. Three and a half years on, she’s still there.

31 October 2025 Lviv, Ukraine No air raids here last night. I do, however, manage to get hit with a cold. I wake up congested with a fever and a sore throat and a curse for the very existence of respiratory viruses. I go to a pharmacy, purchase and consume a huge amount of some sort of cold medicine - I don’t know the details because the labeling is all in Ukrainian - which immediately erases all my cold symptoms and replaces them with tachycardia, and head to rehearsal. Mari

30 October 2025 Lviv, Ukraine The day begins with an air raid. In my jet lagged stupor, I fail to hear the siren. I am woken instead by a text message from Leonid saying there is an attack and I need to come down to the basement shelter. My only experience with air raids is from being in Israel where the tiny geographic area means that from siren to detonation you have at most 90 seconds, so I essentially leap out of bed and hustle down to the basement, seven floors down. Whe