On 5 March 2026, Alina Rohach, Project Manager of the Spain and Latin America Cooperation Program at the Transatlantic Dialogue Center, published a column in Opinión 51 (a Mexico-based platform for news and opinion led by female columnists) reflecting on what life in Ukraine looks like after years of Russia’s full-scale war — beyond headlines and battlefield maps.
Rohach argues that “War does not suspend life within the country; it forces it to transform.” In practice, this means daily routines reorganized around uncertainty, constant adaptation, and the effort to keep the present moving without allowing fear to take over.
A core message of the piece is that resilience is not a slogan but a lived routine shaped by repeated disruption — including mornings after nighttime attacks and continuing work even without electricity, heating, or water. While acknowledging the mental-health toll documented by psychological research, Rohach also highlights the coping mechanisms and shared discipline that help people keep functioning.
Beyond individual endurance, the column emphasizes social cohesion under pressure: community self-organization, municipal support spaces, and critical workers repairing networks under constant risk. The text stresses that visitors often leave Ukraine speaking less about destruction and more about people’s ability to sustain relationships and rebuild social life — because, as Rohach notes, “a country is first and foremost a community.”
Finally, the column speaks to a fatigued global audience and reframes why Ukraine’s struggle matters in human terms: the right to a predictable life, freedom, cultural continuity, and the ability to imagine a future without external imposition. Ukraine’s story, Rohach argues, is ultimately about protecting the everyday — and insisting on life despite war.
Read the full column via the enlace.
Este proyecto contó con el apoyo de la International Renaissance Foundation.