Nearly a year ago, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Wilson Center’s Sarah B. Barnes spoke with Member of Parliament Kira Rudik about the impact of the war on Ukraine’s women and children. Barnes and Rudik spoke again a few days ago, as the first anniversary of the conflict approached. Their conversation touched on the current state of the war, including impacts on infrastructure, the ongoing refugee crisis, schooling for Ukraine’s children, and retaining Ukraine’s heritage.

This transcript of highlights from the interview has been edited lightly for clarity and length. Watch the entire interview below.

Can you provide us with an update on the situation in Kyiv at the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine?

KR: Well, first of all, I can tell you that myself and the people of Kyiv, we are very grateful for the ability to be here. I think when I was speaking with you last time, none of us could predict what would happen. Since last time we spoke, there have been many events, but there is one thing that still remains the same—it is the air raid sirens that are going on and on almost every day, and a necessity to go and hide and be afraid for your life that has not significantly improved. Since we spoke, we have had more than 50 percent of the energy infrastructure destroyed. And right now, I’m speaking to you running on a diesel generator.

We knew that this winter will be the toughest winter for us since the Second World War, and it was indeed. It’s still like a half miracle and half hard work that we are able to get through it. We still have at least two cold months, but it’s already clear that we will probably go through this winter and survive.

This past weekend I went to the south of our country, to Kherson and Mykolaiv. Kherson was recently de-occupied in autumn. I can tell you that there is so much pain and struggle there—much more than we are experiencing here. So, whatever I’m telling you, when it sounds like something that is hard, and it is hard, it is nothing compared to what people are going through in the territories that were under the occupation.

Can you speak to the current situation for Ukrainian refugees and those internally displaced?

KR: It’s a super hurtful topic for me as a person who really wants to build our country to the best of its capabilities. There has been major migration, probably the worst and biggest migration since the Second World War in Europe. The calculations are very different, but it seems about 7 million people have moved out of the country. Some of them returned; some of them have moved back again. In total, 10 million people were displaced from their homes.

I have recently been to Warsaw. In Warsaw, they are building 80 schools for Ukrainian children, which is fantastic. But, then I’m thinking, what will happen to Ukrainian children? When are they going to return and are they going to return at all? We are losing the core of the nation—women with children. They are the ones we wanted to protect the most, when we said, ‘If you want or if you feel like you need to run for your life, please run. We’ll do everything to support you.’

The same thing is happening inside Ukraine. So, the main goal for us, for the displaced persons inside the country is to make sure that they make it through the winter. And I think right now we are pretty successful in that, both in supporting our military in the trenches, but also in making sure that women and children that had to leave their homes are cared for.

To what extent have the Ukrainians who fled abroad at the beginning of the war returned? Is such an initiative a part of the Ukrainian reconstruction plan? 

KR: We always need to remember that moving and returning back is 90 percent related to the school year. So, what we saw last August is that many women with children did return back home [to Ukraine] for the school year to start, so children could have some normal life.

But then, in October, there was another huge strike on Kyiv and other cities, which made so many families say: “No, we just cannot go through that.” And then they moved back to Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, etcetera. And unfortunately, what we see from the polls that we have in those countries is that those second decisions were final. Because once you start your new life abroad, then you grab everybody and say, “Okay, it’s time to return [to Ukraine],” and you come back and then you sit once again in a bomb shelter, you say: “Yeah, never again.”

And so at the end of autumn, the Ukrainian government was not urging people to come back, because with 50 percent of our infrastructure destroyed, we did not know if we would be able to sustain the same amount of people. So right now, we are bringing more and more generators to Ukraine to support critical infrastructure.

It is incredibly unfortunate for the country because, again, we are losing this best core soil that the future is going to grow on. However, I’m working with those women in Poland, and I know what they feel and what they think. I understand that there is a huge difference between the political perspective and humanitarian perspective. On the humane level, you say: “You, as a mother, have only one obligation. You have obligation to your children to make sure that they’re safe. That they have all the levels of comfort that you can provide to them, and that they’re getting the proper education. So please do that, and then we’ll figure out the rest.”

When we spoke a year ago, women had many essential roles in the war. Women were engaged as soldiers, organizers, health workers, in cyber warfare, etcetera. Are women currently deployed in the Ukrainian army and can you speak to the current role of women, as so many have been forced to leave as refugees or forcibly displaced?

KR: Everything I mentioned a year ago, it still remains the same. Ukrainian women are deployed in all areas, and maybe even more so, because what we learned is on the political level, and in the local councils, we mostly have only women left because the men went to the front.

As for the army, before the war we had 37,000 women in the Ukrainian army and 7,000 have joined since the full-scale invasion. So it’s a tremendous amount. So right now, up to 20-25 percent of the total Ukrainian army is women. And, similarly, women also are working on the local council level. They are incredibly busy, and are basically a network of people who have all the local governance issues on their shoulders. Women continue working on cyber warfare, humanitarian support, and aid. And even if they left Ukraine, they’re still working to get more help and [humanitarian] aid.

In addition to the human toll, the news shows devastating loss to Ukraine’s historical sites. Can you speak to what has been lost for Ukraine and what Ukraine is able to do to preserve its heritage?  

KR: First of all, when you are talking about the destruction, I remember things that I saw during the first months of the war, when the directors of the village museums were fleeing, having all the items packed into their cars or in somebody’s trucks, throwing away their own personal belongings, and trying to preserve some old books and pictures and some historical items that they knew meant a lot for the nation. I think we don’t know all the stories of heroism of the people who were doing such a fantastic job. The only thing that we can hope for is that the international tribunal that we are hoping [will be formed] for Putin, and everybody who was responsible for the war, will include the return of things that they have taken from the occupied territories.

But there is something else. No matter how hard it hurts, some of the things that are lost [are not] able to be restored, because there are some cities that were [reduced] to rubble. Our nation is getting something bigger by paying this price. We are getting the national idea, and we are getting this strong connection with our ancestors who were basically fighting the same fight.

Do you have any final comment you’d like to make?

KR: Last time we spoke with you, we did not know what’s going to happen. We only had one fuel that we were still running on, and this fuel is hope. And we learned that this fuel is really, really powerful because it’s being fueled by our lives, and by different beliefs, and by super impossible things that were not supposed to happen [actually] happening. When I last spoke with you, we were still begging for closing the sky and we had so many aspirations, but at that moment nobody believed that we would get the heavy weapons that we really needed. Nobody believed that we would be getting the candidacy to European Union. Nobody believed that we are capable of counter offense, and of course, nobody believed that we would take Kherson back.

Nobody believed that the destructions of Bucha and Irpin were reparable; and it is all happening, one by one, because we learned that impossible things can happen once you really, really want them and you push really hard. And especially the right things. So, it did not matter that nobody believed in that because we believed that we will do that.

So right now, same as almost a year ago, we do believe that we’ll win this war and rebuild our country, and we are going to run on this fuel for as long as it is necessary. Glory to Ukraine.