The Dispatch: Featuring Maksimas Milta

By: Maksimas Milta

I’m writing these lines on March 20 — four years since Ukraine stopped Russia’s attempt to capture Kyiv and forced a retreat that reshaped the course of the war.

Back then, just weeks after the full-scale invasion began, the Kremlin's plans “to capture Kyiv in three days” collapsed. In the months that followed, Ukraine liberated significant territory, including the regional center of Kherson. Despite a vast disparity in resources, Russia in 2025 managed to capture barely 1% of Ukraine’s land. And in the first months of 2026, Ukraine regained 460 sq km — an area roughly four times the size of Paris. Though a modest gain in military terms, it is an important boost after a year that saw the highest number of civilian casualties since the start of the full-scale war.

Before joining The Reckoning Project, I had been to Ukraine many times — from Lviv to Bessarabia, from Crimea to Odesa . But it was only after moving to Kyiv in fall 2023 that I began to understand, more holistically, how life under full-scale war evolves — not in headlines, but in habits, moods, and quiet adjustments.

I remember a meeting in late 2023 with Kyiv-based journalists from some of the finest outlets, incl. The Economist, Financial Times, and The Guardian. There was a shared sense that the time ahead — 2024 and beyond — would be much harder. It was a sobering moment, especially for those of us who, watching from the outside, had invested hope in Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive, whose results ultimately fell short of expectations.

That assessment proved accurate. The strike on Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, the human safari attacks in Kherson, and the widespread power outages in the summer of 2024 all underscored a war becoming harsher and more indiscriminate. By 2025, Russia had significantly ramped up its drone and missile production. There were days last July when more than 700 aerial weapons were launched at Ukraine in a single day.

Even prior to last winter being marked by disruptions to electricity, heating, and water, exhaustion had already set in across the country. It cuts across geography and class. Whether in Kyiv or closer to the front, whether affluent or not, it is in the air.

And yet, exhaustion here is not an excuse — it is almost a condition of life. From the outside, especially in central Kyiv or in the busy streets of Lviv, it can seem as though life goes on. Cafés are open, people gather, the city moves. But beneath that surface, it is difficult to find a family untouched by the war — someone serving in the armed forces, someone displaced, someone injured or lost.

This is what shapes the country today. Not only resilience, but a kind of clarity. The fifth year into the full-scale war, the fourteenth year since Russia’s aggression began, Ukrainians continue to endure — but also to define what comes next.

That question “What comes next?” feels increasingly urgent, sociological polling confirms that. What will the recovery look like? Not only in terms of reconstruction or accountability, but in terms of people’s lives. Travelling across Ukraine, speaking with people in different regions, you hear a common thread: a determination that life after the war must be better, more dignified, more secure. That aspiration is not new. It echoes the same demand for dignity that mobilized Ukrainians in 2004 and again in 2013-2014 — and that continues to drive them today.

At the same time, Ukraine is not simply enduring the war — it is innovating through it. From advancing international accountability despite geopolitical deadlock, to defending civilians while the resources are way too slim, the country is setting precedents in real time.

For organizations like The Reckoning Project, this has been (and remains) a profound learning experience. Our work here has shown how documentation, investigation, and storytelling can come together — not as parallel tracks, but as a single effort toward justice. This is why we are expanding this model beyond Ukraine — last year we started our work in Sudan with Ukrainian experience serving at the core of what we are aiming to achieve there.

Since 2022, life in Ukraine has changed in ways both visible and subtle. It has become heavier, more complex — but also more focused. And if there is one thing that stands out, it is this: even under immense pressure, the determination to document, to hold accountable, and to insist on dignity has not diminished. If anything, it has only sharpened.