This week on the NYR Online, Linda Kinstler writes about a system in Ukraine that enables citizens to petition their government:

Ever since the government introduced the service in 2015, civilians and military personnel have routinely used it to submit appeals and request relief from the effects of war. The president is constitutionally obligated to consider any petition that garners 25,000 signatures within ninety days; official responses are posted alongside the original text.

Over the past decade the site has become a living archive of wartime Ukraine, an open record of popular concerns. Researchers around the world have continuously polled Ukrainians about their experiences and opinions of the war; several of those surveys report increasing openness to a negotiated peace and territorial concessions. But these letters offer a more detailed window into public sentiment. They convey a profound desire to secure state recognition for the war dead, an urge to exert some small influence over national affairs, and widespread concern over conditions at the front.

Below, alongside Kinstler’s essay, are five recent articles from our archive about life in Ukraine since Russia invaded.

Linda Kinstler
‘Where Are Our Boys?’

A website where Ukrainians can petition the president has become a living archive of wartime and an open record of popular concerns.

Tim Judah
Black Swan Times

Three months into Ukraine’s counteroffensive, even the best predictions about the war’s outcome could still be thrown off course.

—September 13, 2023

Carol Schaeffer, photographs by Alex McBride
‘A Book Is a Quiet Weapon’

Across Ukraine, libraries devastated by the war are culling their collections of Russian-language books and Russian literature.

—April 21, 2023

Ada Wordsworth
Ukrainian Lessons at the Train Station

A diverse community of volunteers has gathered on the Polish border to assist Ukrainian refugees, but the outlook for Ukrainian refugees already in Europe is often bleak.

—December 8, 2022

Sophie Pinkham
Immune to Despair

In his novels, rock songs, and social activism, Serhiy Zhadan has long been a builder of bridges in Ukraine, an essential figure in a bitterly divided landscape.

—September 22, 2022

Molly Crabapple
In the Shadow of Invasion

Across Ukraine, people fight, grieve, sing, skateboard, selfie. “We will think of our pain after victory.”

—September 9, 2022

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