2022 has begun with more uncertainty for those living in Eastern Ukraine with violence and danger increasing daily.
Fears that armed conflict could again erupt in eastern Ukraine are being reported in the media as recent remarks and events point towards escalating tensions in the region.
For those people who live in eastern Ukraine’s conflict zone, however, many are too focused on everyday survival to pay much attention to news reports or to what the politicians are saying.
As further invasion threats loom, there are more pressing needs to face, such as where the next meal will come from.
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Oleg Serbo, a MWB staff member in Slovyansk, Donetsk oblast, eastern Ukraine, said, “This is our pain and our daily reality, that the war continues. The economic situation is deteriorating. Many people live on the brink of survival, far below the breadline. I believe that people’s spiritual awakening is the one and only answer to what we see here."
He says, “When it comes to the threat of war, we’ve already become used to living with that sense that things could take a turn for the worse at any given moment.
“In some ways, people are braced for the worst to happen, but at the same time, they hope that somehow everything will settle down and there will be no full-scale war.
“In general, probably like everyone else, we simply don’t know what will happen tomorrow, and we live in the hope that everything will be fine. Believers continue to pray for peace.”
The severe poverty that people are living in is an ongoing battle that they wake up to every day. The economy in eastern Ukraine, based around mining, metallurgy and chemical processing, has been shattered first by the ongoing conflict and then by the Covid-19 pandemic. High unemployment, food insecurity and a lack of access to basic services are challenges here, and there is a general unwillingness to invest in the region while the threat of further conflict looms.