Letter from Lviv

Loss, resilience, and a hope one day to count blessings not missile intercepts.

Iryna Dobrohorska

Iryna Dobrohorska is Christian Aid’s Country Response Director for Ukraine.

A woman stands at the back of an armoured military vehicle, the door of which is open.

Iryna stands by a displayed military vehicle.

Ukraine is only two years older than I am. My personal history is intertwined with Ukraine’s history. Instead of the carefree fun I should be having as a young Ukrainian woman, on Saturday I was reflecting that my last two years have been dominated by war since Russia began its full-scale invasion. Over those 730 days, I have witnessed the best and worst of humanity.

I was evacuated from Kyiv to the sounds of explosions nearby, fearing I would be raped or murdered by Russian soldiers if they entered the capital. I’ve wept over losing university friends in combat. I’ve despaired at how Ukrainian writers are being deliberately targeted by the Kremlin.

But I also observed the speed that we Ukrainians built trust and social connections with unknown people. I was proud of the warmth of my hometown, Lviv, which welcomed people from the east of the country - it crushed the myths that Russia was trying to ooze into our national life that we were a divided country that didn’t have the right to exist except as part of Russia.

Not just in Lviv but all over Ukraine. This month in Odesa I felt the same warmth extended to elderly displaced people when I hosted a visit to our local humanitarian partner Heritage Ukraine by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. He saw for himself how the team, funded by the Scottish faith charity Blythswood, had opened their doors and their hearts to these traumatised strangers facing an uncertain future.

One of those displaced people, Nadia, told me: “We want to go home, but our home is being shelled. At least here we stay with dignity.”

The violence inflicted by Russia is not becoming any easier in the prolonged war we now face.

t’s a scene of resilience I’ve grown accustomed to as I’ve crisscrossed the country to play my small part in the astonishing humanitarian effort powered by the UK public’s incredibly generous donations.

The Iryna I saw in the mirror in 2021 wouldn’t recognise the young woman I see looking back at me today.

In Kherson, I was recording the stories of illegal detention of civilians to the sound of artillery fire. In Mykolaiv, my window view was an apartment block with the roof blown off and clay-coloured water was the only drinking option.

I never thought that I would learn the types of weaponry used in modern warfare. Now I know the difference between the motorbike sound of a drone from the missile whistle above my head followed by the clank when it detonates nearby.

Security awareness is an everyday reality in Ukraine. We often debate during an alert whether choosing to sleep in our own beds instead of going to a shelter may turn out to be our last night. A six-months pregnant teacher friend of mine in Kyiv was killed in her sleep from a drone strike.

The violence inflicted by Russia is not becoming any easier in the prolonged war we now face. Yet I also sense the paradox that we’ve accepted the war becoming everyday normality and so has the rest of the world.

Global attention today is not focused only on Ukraine. A host of other crises are taking precedence in the need for a humanitarian response. My biggest fear is that the long-term nature of our crisis reduces global actors to sympathizing observers.

What I do know is that my generation of young Ukrainians who have lost so much will not allow that to happen. More than ever, I feel the need for a just and resolute peace for Ukraine. With the help of our international friends, the day will come when those who have suffered can go back to rebuild their homes and communities.

As I move on to engage further in Ukraine’s recovery efforts, I feel privileged to have worked for Christian Aid as part of the humanitarian response. I’m most proud of our role in being a catalyst for local people to help themselves by setting their own community priorities in the kind of support they need, giving them a sense of dignity and self-worth.

It’s that kind of world that I dream about - where one day I will count my country’s blessings instead of how many drones and missiles were intercepted the night before.

Snippet

America

Comment

Trauma

12 September 2025

3 min read

Why Charlie Kirk’s murder shook me so much

When violence hits close to home, we search for answers

Will Fagan

Will Fagan serves as a minister in the Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Mourning students at a vigil hold a sign about Charlie Kirk.

Students at Texas Tech hold a vigil for Charlie Kirk.

X.com/OldRowOfficial.

Unless you've managed to avoid all news this week, you’ll have heard of a series of unconnected violent attacks in the United States, the most recent being the assassination of 31-year-old conservative political activist Charlie Kirk during a speaking engagement at a university in Utah.

Every time there is a shooting in my country – whatever the motives – I become physically sick and had a similar reaction this week. I cannot watch the news; I delete social media and avoid the topic in conversation as much as possible. Our present and public culture of violence coupled with the resultant news cycle is simply too much, too fear-inducing, and leaves one with the helpless thought of, “what would happen if I was in a situation like this?” I’m sure I’m not alone in this response.

I do not agree with Kirk’s politics (though as an ordained minister, I wouldn’t tell you if I did), yet what I can tell you is that his death has gripped me in a way I couldn’t have foreseen, nor expected, becoming strikingly close to home. Kirk was 31 with a three- and one-year-old child. I am 32 with a three- and one-year-old. The idea that this could happen, period, followed by the thought of a prospect of never seeing my own children grow up completely undoes me.

This is undoubtedly a common response to when tragedy strikes individuals with whom we can readily identify. I doubt I have to list examples (were you 37 years old when Princess Diana died?; etc). because you’re probably thinking of certain instances right now in times where tragedy has hit, even metaphorically, quite close to home.

As I write this not from a gun control perspective, nor a political one at all, what is the theological answer to why events like this continue to happen? It is a question that I have been asked, unprovoked, by three young fathers (of diverse political persuasion) this week who have been gripped similarly to me.

What continues to come to mind is a blanket statement written by the Apostle Paul in his first century letter to the Galatian churches in which he calls the backdrop of our lives, “This present evil age.” It is a harsh statement, and it is unpleasant, but I also think it is true. How, you ask, can I apply this first century statement to 21st century life?

For one, Paul is writing about the time before Jesus Christ returns, a time that Christian teaching states that we presently occupy, so the statement does apply. But perhaps more importantly, when I look around, I confess that, especially in weeks like this one, “this present evil age” is an existence that I recognize. It is an existence that tragically we can largely expect, an existence that cannot be fixed politically, personally, or corporately as much as we would like to.

Rather than depressingly stripping us of agency, how is this helpful? I find it helpful in two key ways: First, this present evil age as a descriptor is helpful because it helps answer, “Why?” to my despondency, confusion, and nausea at senseless tragedy. It helps me put those feelings somewhere and begins to, if only slightly, give the nonsensical a name.

More than that, though, it forces me to look beyond this world, and to a power greater than the seen forces here – a power that I cannot see, a power that is good, merciful, and just, a power that will one day, and hopefully soon, make all things new.

Of course, we cannot make sense of senseless and violent and sickening tragedy. We weren’t meant to, and that is grievous. So might we only call on the name of the one who has come to this present evil age before, and that he might come again – soon.

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