The Healers
Combat medics amidst war crimes. Lawyers-turned-aid-workers in the warzone. Financiers turned refugee coordinators. Expatriate translators in train stations. Doctors, aiding free of charge at the border. Volunteers, all living out the better angels of human nature. The suffering of the Ukrainian people is unimaginable. The selflessness of those who’ve put their lives on hold to heal this suffering in a million different ways, does the same. These are THE HEALERS. 
“Every Person Will Have Their Own Trauma, But Now? It’s Just Dry Souls.”
A Conversation With Anna Maiboroda, Ukrainian Combat Medic
Anna Maiboroda - Grandmother & Ukrainian Tactical Medic
Anna Maiboroda is a Ukrainian grandmother-turned-avenging angel. Though her weapons - combat medicine, relief coordination and a fierce belief in her people - don’t burn tanks and drop helicopters, she is a soldier for her motherland. As a tactical medic and director of “Patriota”- an NGO that provides and develops emergency medicine resources in Ukraine - Anna has devoted her life to healing her compatriots since the Russia-backed War in Donbas began in 2014.
In the eight years since, Anna and her organization provided thousands of NATO-standard medical kits to the frontlines and taught 65,000 Ukrainian troops to be paramedics.
When I spoke with Anna, she had just returned from an aid mission to her decimated home city of Irpin. Over a shaky WhatsApp video connection, Anna greeted my interpreter, Mykola Sarancha, and I with the wartime Ukrainian salute, “Slava Ukraini.”
“It was very difficult to see how the city of Irpin looked,” she explained. “I wanted to cry. Many of the buildings are destroyed. Dead people, dead civilians were in the street. And many pets are in houses waiting for their owners, because they left them at home.
Speaking from a Kyiv apartment, Anna wore red lipstick and a black turtleneck and puffed her vape discreetly during our conversation. Like the eyes of so many involved in this war, Anna’s seemed to shine from a place beyond exhaustion: a place where horror and deprivation aren’t just taken as a matter of course, but as fuel that keeps the inner fires - of resistance, of will, of survival - burning.
“I am used to it. At first I was shocked, but now I’m not. Me and my friends, soldiers who fought in 2014 to 2016, we were mentally prepared for war, so we felt alright. We weren’t scared. In my opinion, strong people can live with this kind of thing.”
But the current war is an entirely different beast from the limited conflict in Donbas. Back then, Russia denied involvement. The aggressors, Anna quipped, were Ukrainian separatists from Luhansk and Donetsk who “just happened to buy tanks and anti-aircraft systems” from Russia.
“But give somebody a finger and they will bite until they get to the elbow. That’s exactly what happened. First the Russians took Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk and the world didn’t say anything. Now we have WWIII in Ukraine.”
And this statement rings grimly, increasingly true. Russia and Ukraine have been trading fire in the Donbas for nearly a decade. Only now, however, with the world’s collective attention trained on the frontlines in Eastern Europe, can we see what the Ukrainians knew all along.
“This war has a striking level of cruelty,” she said, “I couldn’t believe how cruel the Russian soldiers and Kadyrov’s troops are. They are like animals. They are killing everybody. Shooting cars full of women and children, cars with “children” written on the side. They are raping people, raping women.”
Anna explained that Putin’s forces are employing tactics with dark echoes of the Holodomor, or terror famine that Joseph Stalin’s USSR inflicted on Ukraine. Namely that—as recent UN reports corroborate - Russian troops are burning warehouses full of food, destroying agricultural equipment and killing farmers to starve the world’s second largest producer of grain.
Equally disturbing, the Russians “are killing Ukrainian doctors, many of them. Even before, in 2014-2016, they looked for the big red crosses on cars to find Ukrainian doctors to kill. But now it’s terrible. It’s like a safari for the Russians hunting Ukrainian doctors.”
Despite the constant threat posed to medical personnel, Anna and her colleagues--military surgeons, civilian doctors and citizen volunteers--continue their daily work on the front lines.
“We are always doing something. Always learning something. Every day, every hour, we do not sit. Each morning, we get a list from the Ukrainian troops about what they need. Because so many people have joined the army, the Ministry of Defense couldn’t afford to give every soldier everything they need. So we are checking the lists of battalions to see what they need. Then we find the money, buy those things and take them to the soldiers.”
To stay safe from enemy fire, Anna explained, “we’ve figured out a few steps. For example, when Russians are bombing, we do not go to that exact place, because the ambulances are too exposed. So we wait in other places while the military doctors get wounded soldiers to the checkpoints, and then we take them to the hospitals or other places.”
Despite the ever present violence and chaos, morale amongst Anna and her compatriots remains high: “our soldiers are laughing and saying: now Ukraine doesn’t have to join NATO, but NATO has to join Ukraine,” she said with a smile that needed no translation.
Fear, she explained, simply does not factor into their actions.
“We don’t have any fears. We have anger. We are thirsty for victory. We cannot step back. It’s impossible because it’s our land. We have our will and we know what we are fighting for. That’s why we will win. Russia is a big fucking zit and we have to push it and pop it and destroy it.”
Anna’s fierce words offer a glimpse into the odds-defying spirit that has fueled Ukraine’s resistance throughout this terrible war. Listening to her speak, it isn’t a question of if Ukraine will win. It’s a question of when.
And after the Ukrainian victory?
Anna will put down the field dressing kit and pick up the sewing kit. She plans to knit a quilt for her granddaughter. She’ll take her medical talents to the peacetime world and help civilians with aid and training.
“The world is very easy to break,” she said in closing.
“The world is beautiful when cities are not destroyed. When the sun is high up and the sky is very blue. When children are running around and shouting and you are with your family and everything is alright…the world is perfect. And it takes just one second to destroy everything.”
“I Don’t Want To Speak Russian. Ever.”
Tetyana Kostorna, Volunteer Coordinator/Marketing Director for Lviv National Philharmonic
Tetyana Kostorna - Volunteer Coordinator/Marketing Director for Lviv National Philharmonic
“I haven’t met a single person that wants a compromise. We will fight to the end. I don’t want to hear anyone talking about us suffering. We are not. We are fighting and we will do it to the end. I am ready to get a weapon. I am ready to kill these guys.”Tetyana Kostorna is a lawyer, mother, head marketer for Lviv’s famed philharmonic orchestra…and a passionate volunteer coordinator in one of Lviv’s busiest reception hubs for internally displaced Ukrainians. Since Russia’s invasion began, Tetyana has been a key part of her city’s organic response to the crisis.
Compelled by the dire circumstances, she and her colleagues began volunteering without formal direction or training at the outbreak of war. What they’ve achieved is a remarkable feat of grass-roots coordinatipon, collective problem solving and united compassion. They have assisted thousands of displaced Ukrainians on their hard journeys into the future.
We met Tetyana in a converted gallery space on Mykola Kopernyca Street in the heart of Lviv.
Formerly the back half of the famed Lviv National Art Gallery, the space has been converted into a bustling humanitarian center in the heart of town. Against the backdrop of the ornate Potocki Palace nextdoor, baggage-laden refugees and neon-vested volunteers mill around outside the gallery, hauling and helping and resting and chatting.
Inside the multi-level gallery space, the bustle increased: pallets of supplies--from clothing to medicine to slabs of bottled water--move around amidst tired groups of people. Only one thing wasn’t being stacked and carted off for distribution: food.
When we spoke with Tetyana, the present shortage of donated food weighed heavily on her mind.
All people I’ve met here are so strong. They are working with all their forces. We are fighting here to get food and strollers to the regions in need. And to give them to the people who came from all these areas.
All of the volunteers were self-coordinated. I’m a volunteer. I’m not someone from an NGO--you simply see what you have to do and organize it. I feel like its my passion to get the strollers and then give the strollers to those in need.
They are not refugees. They dont talk about themselves this way. And we dont feel this way about them. They are internally displaced people. All of them are waiting to go home.
But they need everything. People from Kharkiv, Mariupol, Bucha. They came with nothing. They are living in shelters. They just have their clothes and usually one bag.
We are doing everything that we can. And we feel that it’s working.
I am surprised by the change in attitude because I already read European articles about conflict between Ukraine and Russia. It’s not a conflict. This is genocide. They want to destroy us. They hate us. For me, it’s absolutely black and white. There are no compromises. It is not a conflict. We didn’t start the war. No. We were living in our beautiful free country. We were fighting for it for many hundreds of years. We’ve had these angry people near our borders for thousands of years. They want our history. They want our ways. They to take all that we have to take for themselves and rewrite history.
No.
Everything is so clear. We are very together. Before, if we were saying there was an Eastern Ukraine and Western Ukraine…not anymore. We are Ukraine. We are together. And we speak Ukrainian.
In previous years, we used to speak Russian. Now, everybody speaks Ukrainian. Even for me: my parents speak Russian. They are the only people I’ll speak Russian with, just because they are my parents. With other people, I don’t want to speak Russian ever. I want to forget Russia. A journalist tried to talk to me in Russian. I said ”I don’t understand you”.
I don’t want anything to do with those ugly bastards killing Ukrainians.
It’s not a hope, it’s my belief that Russia will not exist as it does not now. At its borders and at its center in Moscow. I am sure it will change. But about hope: I don’t ever want to see those people in my country.
I haven’t met a single person that wants compromise. We will fight to the end. I don’t want to hear anyone talking about us suffering. We are not. We are fighting and we will do it to the end. I am ready to get a weapon. I am ready to kill these guys.”
Tetyana’s spirit, however, continued to burn with a rare incandescence. There was no hopelessness, no possibility of defeat, no doubt about Ukraine’s eventual victory.
Truly: Tetyana and her colleagues’ passion is as formidable as any sentiment we’ve encountered in this world. Our conversation--about life during wartime, the challenges Lviv faces, and Ukraine’s fiery rejection of the Russian aggressor--has been condensed and edited below.
“My name is Tetyana Kostorna. I am originally from Lviv. I am the head of the volunteer department. We are giving help to the internally displaced people. This place used to be an art exhibition center and now it’s a humanitarian hub.
Before the war?
It’s hard for me to remember how it was before in Lviv.
I have two kids, so we’d wake up and move to school. Then I’d run to my workplace to work with journalists and the orchestra musicians. I was living with my two sons and now there’s ten of us at my place. I have a beautiful commune. It’s not only my sister’s family but a family of people we weren’t acquainted with before the war. A family from Kyiv and my friend came with her daughter. This is the thing that helps me to fight. When there are alarms, we stay in my home, my sister plays guitar and we sing Ukrainian songs.
I am absolutely excited by the Ukrainians.
“A City That Has No Limits.”
A Conversation With Martą Dermańską, Manager of the Volunteering Development Team
Martą Dermańską - Manager of the Volunteering Development Team, Center of Public Communication, The City of Warsaw
It’s a challenge for every aspect of the city…but I think it’s also a chance for us to show who we are. A chance for us to show that, though the city has a history of tragic events…it can be a city where people heal from tragedies.
In late spring of 2022, Warsaw was a city on strange footing. It wasn’t mobilized for wartime…nor was it a city at peace. Ukrainian flags hung from near every balcony. Hotels, stadiums, and every space in between were full of the displaced. Tented basecamps set up by various NGOs, sprouted up around the city offering hot food, tea, SIM cards and translation services. News of the war dominated televisions and newsfeeds. There was only one topic of conversation.
The whole of Warsaw felt like a beautiful and complicated humanitarian compound. Of course, the rippling effects of Putin’s war put pressure not only on the city’s infrastructure, but the volunteers who put their own lives on hold to assist the displaced.
Few were more familiar with this polarity between stress and compassion than Martą Dermańską, the Manager of the Volunteering Development Team for Warsaw’s City Hall. We spoke with Martą on a chilly morning outside of Warsaw Wschodnia, or the Warsaw East Train Station.
Having worked in the volunteer space for nearly a decade, the current crisis was unlike anything that Martą had seen. She discussed the deepening complexity of the situation, the phenomenon of ‘burnout’ amongst well-intentioned volunteers and the deep cultural ties between Poland and Ukraine.
Her words have been edited and condensed below.
And there was a time when we had to put everything on the side…even though we couldn’t put it all on the side. There are other things we manage in Warsaw, things we couldn’t do in two months. So we split our teams in our departments and my director and I took the volunteering team. We had to cope with that.
At the beginning, we were focused on basic social services. Now, we are thinking about how to integrate the people who are staying here. We are dealing with how to provide education and integrate those people into local societies. Also, we are working on how to help those people from Warsaw who took guests into their homes. That’s a challenge because nobody knows how long this will last, and the more time our guests will spend in homes and good warm places, the better. So we’re thinking about how to make our citizens better able to keep those guests in their homes for as long as they can.
Another thing we are really dealing with is that we have to take care of the volunteers… because these people are tired. They gave a lot of themselves and got really involved. They gave their physical strength, minds and hearts. And now they are tired.
We have to show them that you really have to take care of yourself as well, because you need the power to help. So we’re working with some NGOs in Warsaw which are giving the volunteers free psychological help and that’s been really, really important.
Of course, in the first days I didn’t take care of myself either. So after I think two weeks, there was a day that I came back home and I slept for 24 hours or so and my head director said, “Okay, that’s enough for me.” She explained we needed to take care of ourselves as well. So after my work hours I try to live a normal life: spend time with my family at home, go for walks, enjoy the beautiful weather, read books and take bike trips in the forest. I try to do normal things after work.
But my everyday work inspires me, you know? I have the ability to organize shelter, to help volunteers to work well so they are able to directly help people in need. I think that is the thing that is keeping me inspired: my ability to work in the place where I am working.
I think that we are all surprised by what we can do. Not just at City Hall. There are a lot of NGOs helping and so many normal people who have thrown off their normal lives to help everyday.
I have this feeling that we are doing our part in something enormous.”
“It’s so real. It’s so close to us. Poles and Ukrainians have such similar cultures. My great-grandfather was Ukrainian. My name, Martą Dermańską, is a Ukrainian name. A lot of elderly people in Poland remember when our borders looked different, when a lot of Polish people lived in Lviv. We have common places and common history, and I think that’s the main reason the war has moved us so much.
In the first days, the people who were coming to Warsaw had relatives or close friends here. There were already a lot of Ukrainians here, and many of them are housing their relatives. But as the days went by, people began arriving who had no idea what to do. Sometimes they’re just looking for help, but sometimes their health conditions are poor. We have stories of people with cancer whose treatment stopped when they came here, so we have to provide them with a lot of care.
There are so many tragic stories.
I remember two weeks ago, there was an older lady with her daughter, a son about three years old and a five day old little child. I don’t know how this child survived because they came from eastern Ukraine all the way to the train station here. They heard the alarm that the bomb is coming, just took one bag and came here. So many come here with one bag and nothing else. The amount of people living in Warsaw went up 10%.
The scale is a big challenge.
