I just came back from a 3-week trip to Ukraine. I spent time in Lviv, the Carpathians, Kyiv and Odesa. Wonderful country and people.
Let me know if you have any questions!
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Hi William, how fascinating! What was the nature of your trip, and did you have to take any special precautions to go? Would love to see any pictures you took of your travels 
It was tourism. I have been following the news from Ukraine very closely over the past few years and have been feeling the pull to visit.
Not really, the only real pain was getting there, as it requires a Schengen visa too, but I didn’t go to the east.
Here is me on the Maidan on Independence Day
I’ll try to remember to upload a few more pictures this evening/tomorrow!
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Hi William - from where you were, could you tell (or feel) you were in a country engaged in conflict? Was it perhaps manifest in a more subtle, psychological way? How would you describe the people’s sense of national identity? How’s the history?
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In everyday life in the cities, it was very easy to forget the country is at war - life goes on as normal for the most part, except you see a lot of recruitment advertising for various military units, you see quite a few soldiers on break walking around (especially at the train station) and of course the nightly curfew. There was one night in Kyiv when I was woken up by bombing (same night where a bomb hit an apartment block killing 25 people…) and when I was hiking in the Carpathians I actually heard a drone get shot down.
I think it would be hard for me to give an accurate analysis of the psychological changes as it was my first time visiting and my Ukrainian is very poor so communicating normally with people especially older people was difficult.
VERY STRONG sense of national identity - most obvious is the flags EVERYWHERE (Odesa had the most!) - people wear Ukrainian symbols a lot, people take the 1 minute of silence a day seriously, businesses advertise with their help to the military.
The history is great, especially the old towns like Lviv and Odesa (I really wish I spent more time in Odesa). Many little museums all over the place (rather than a few big ones). Highly recommend getting a local guide for a couple of tours to help break the language barrier.
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“I was woken up by bombing (same night where a bomb hit an apartment block killing 25 people…“
This is terrifying. We haven’t changed much as animals but our killing machines have become so much more effective.
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Well done. Please excuse my curiosity. Were you concerned about your safety and how bad is the damage in general due to the Russian bombardment? Do the Ukranian air defenses manage to repel most of the incoming aerial threats? Thanks.
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Hi sorry for the late reply. In general Ukraine is able to repel 90+% of the aerial threats. But the russians send A LOT so the remaining 10% can be quite damaging still.
At least in Western Ukraine and Kyiv which are not close to the Frontline it is rare to see actual bomb damage unless you go seek it out directly.
Honestly never really feared, I was more angry and frustrated on the night or two when there was heavy russian bombing. They do warn you ahead of time and you can go to a shelter
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Hi William, thank you. I hope that this horrible war will be equitably resolved soon.
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Hi William, thank you so much for your post. Really interesting. There’s an amazing English language news team there - The Kyiv Independent. We’ve had the pleasure of working closely with them and helping them launch their membership model. The bravery of these (mostly young) journalists is truly astounding. For anyone who is interested, you can see more of their work here: https://kyivindependent.com
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I’ve had the pleasure of subscribing to the Kyiv Independent for more than a year now!
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