The Meteor‘s Anya Kurkina reflects on the distress in her homeland of Ukraine.

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. One year of bombing, of refugees, and—as in so many other conflicts—of lives interrupted. (According to the UN, at least 8,000 civilians have died and 13,000 have been injured.) For The Meteor’s Anya Kurkina, who grew up in Ukraine and whose parents still live there, this story is personal. She shares a bit of it here.

The Meteor: Thinking back to a year ago, February 24, 2022: What was that day like for you?

Anya Kurkina: Like every single Ukrainian, I remember that day really well. The entire week before was spent in speculation: Will he or won’t he [invade]? People were divided into these camps, and I was on the side of “he won’t.” I still believed, for some reason, that he had some fear, that he was a smart politician. But I think what happened is that he figured it would be a blitzkrieg for him—an easy win. So I was sitting there perfectly comfortable…and at about 2 or 3 AM, I get a call from my mom [in Kiev], and she’s in tears, and she just whispered to me: “It has started.” My dad had seen a rocket flare go by their window. And since that day, nothing has been the same—not for any Ukrainian there, or for any refugees.

TM: How are you feeling on this anniversary?

AK: The morning starts the same way for every single person from Ukraine right now: Wake up, look at Telegram (which is the equivalent of Messenger but protected), go through the WhatsApp groups to see the updates, and then you call your mom. And sometimes it’s rants about “the world is doomed,” and sometimes it’s, “I’m making tea, can you tell me how to cut a lemon?”

On this day in particular, we’re a little bit anxious because we don’t know what this maniac is going to do. There’s a big fear that he will escalate to…a different degree than ever seen before…All we have, unfortunately, is hope. [President Volodymyr] Zelensky would say we also need weapons alongside hope—that would be great. [Laughs.] But I do have hope.

TM: What have been the most hopeful moments this year?

AK: Every day is so rough, because there’s no guarantee of anything. You fear for your family, but also every region being hit—this week, Mariupol had to evacuate. For me, the [best part] has been to see how much people care. For one event [through Spilka, the arts collective and relief group Kurkina volunteers with], we raised 6K just by selling tee shirts and bowls of borscht. We can see how many people want to show support; in our volunteer group, we have people from Norway, Italy, Romania. It’s great to feel united in this fight.

And we were ecstatic that Biden went to Ukraine—and that he chose to come to Kiev as opposed to…a city closer to the border, which would have been much safer. It meant a lot.

TM: What do you want Meteor readers to know on this anniversary?

AK: You can donate, and you can just keep talking about it. I know it’s not a good dinner-table conversation topic, but we’re talking about something beautiful, and a way to [build] the world we want to see.