Author: Anton Semyzhenko

“Are there any emotional sentences, loaded statements, rhetorical devices in the given text? Please identify, tokenise and list all of them.”

The text in the picture above is an answer to the prompt given to ChatGPT by the President of the Kyiv School of Economics Tymofiy Mylovanov in a masterclass dedicated to using AI to detect and combat disinformation. The text in question was a study by the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland about Western businesses who remained in Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“Uncovering and busting disinformation is one of the significant challenges Ukraine is facing. If you choose the prompts carefully, ChatGPT can analyse massive amounts of information ― not as well as trained humans, but in just a few minutes,” says Mylovanov.

New AI tools have a positive image in Ukraine and are used in distance learning, business meetings, budget compiling and in warfare. On the other hand, officials and experts are calling for the development of a policy on ChatGPT usage. And there are some disappointments: when ChatGPT answers to users with narratives that echo Russian propaganda.

Zoya Lobod, Kyiv entrepreneur

Soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, online lodging marketplace Airbnb declared it would provide help for up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees in Europe, US and Canada. The San Francisco-based company offered vouchers for up to €2,000, to be used for renting a place for up to 14 days.

According to Airbnb’s website, 100,000 people took up the offer, but we don’t know how much Airbnb profited from its generous action PR-wise.

The sanatorium ― this is what Russian soldiers called the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in March 2022. At that time, they used its territory as a location to rest between their failed attempts to capture Kyiv, which is 120 kilometres to the south.

As it was too dangerous for the Ukrainian army to shell the nuclear site, this became a place of shelter for the occupiers. Chornobyl’s radiation, which was a global menace in 1986, now offered protection for an invading force.

But most Russian soldiers didn’t understand the threat of radiation and ignored basic safety rules.

They laid down on open ground and ate outside, where their bodies absorbed radioactive particles that will never go away. They dug trenches in the Red Forest, the most contaminated area around the power plant, and breathed in the dust. They stole abandoned army vehicles from the open air museum, which were kept about ten metres away from visitors during peacetime.

Without crossing into the firing line, they still did irreparable damage to themselves.

According to intelligence reports, nuclear power plants (NPP) were the primary targets of the Russian invasion. As well as offering shelter, they could be used to blackmail both the world and local population. While the former fears another Chornobyl catastrophe, the Russians can cut off the latter from the power grid, if they are not loyal to Moscow.

All this makes NPPs an even bigger threat to mankind. Right now there are no discussions in Ukraine about abolishing nuclear power as they are critical to the current energy balance.

But in the future, there may be more reasons to remember the phrase one of Chornobyl’s workers said to the occupiers: “After a fight here, you have only two options: a zinc coffin or a lead one”. While the first is commonly used to transport dead bodies, the second is a casket for radioactive matter.

Petro Zherukha is reserved and soft-spoken, and not the usual kind of man you would expect to see in military uniform. Until last year, he spent his time debating at a book club, playing chess, and, above all, playing music, as he was studying at the music academy in Lviv. Now he is a volunteer in the Ukrainian army.

Petro has made a similar life-change to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, but another detail made his journey specific: he is homosexual, and in war, this brings complications. The issues are not social: in many interviews, Ukrainian gay and lesbian soldiers have said how they do not experience discrimination either from their comrades, or from their superiors. On the contrary, when you see people from different walks of life defending the same values as you, taking the same risks as you, and suffering as you do, this builds loyalty. The problems start when homosexuals move from the field of battle to the field of law.

In Ukraine, only relatives can visit a person in intensive care, identify the remains in a morgue, or be the legal representative of the deceased. A gay couple may live together for 30 years ― but legally they are strangers. Petro wants to change this. He is pushing for a new law on civil partnerships for same-sex couples ― a more inclusive alternative to what his country has traditionally considered a family.

“Now I’m sitting on a bag of sugar in a house under shelling,” Petro wrote in a post asking for support for the petition to pass the law, “My private life is on pause, but I still think this law is timely. I am fighting for an Ukraine where there is no discrimination, and where everyone can defend their relationships.”

Within five days, the petition gathered 14,000 signatures. Parliament is expected to discuss the draft in the spring. The legal space in Ukraine is still lagging behind people’s attitudes and experiences, but society is bringing change.

A moment after this picture was taken, the woman held in an embrace in the centre broke into tears. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed, swallowed by grief.

This is Alina Mykhailova, a fiancé of the Ukrainian military Dmytro Kotsyubailo. Known by the call sign Da Vinci, he was one of the most talented and respected young officers in the army. Recently, he was killed in a battle near Bakhmut.

At his funeral on 10 March, the President of Ukraine, the Commander-in-Chief, the Minister of Defence and thousands of other Ukrainians stood down on one knee ― a mark of the highest respect.

Photographers kept taking pictures, and images of the heartbroken woman went viral. This caused a debate in Ukrainian society: how ethical is the broadcasting of psychically and emotionally challenging moments of someone in such a position as Alina?

One side says that Alina is a victim, and her right for privacy is sacred. The other side, which often includes journalists, insists this is war, and such expressions of grief are a significant part of it. To show this to the world is just and even necessary.

“I watch this ― and in my guts I feel that Ukrainians exist and I’m among them. The woman in the photo turns all of us into a living, pulsating social body,” wrote art curator Olena Chervonyk in a widely read article.

“It’s possible to nurture your Ukrainianness by other means. A person has the right to life and to death, which has to be respected even in such circumstances,” replied lawyer Larysa Denysenko. “This is not my pain, not my trauma, not my private space.”

Alina Mykhailova is also a politician and a soldier, and probably has her own thoughts on this issue. But she has not yet shared them, as she has been spending long hours every day at Dmytro’s grave.

“Incredible Georgian people who understand that friends need to be supported! There are, indeed, times when citizens are not the government, but better than the government.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Since 2005, Ukraine and Georgia had considered each other the closest allies in the region. But that changed once Russia launched a full-scale invasion on Ukraine’s soil. On 26 February 2022, Ukrainian president Zelenskyy began a statement war between Ukrainian and Georgian officials, which continues today.

While Georgians poured onto the streets of their cities to protest against Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Georgian government refused to impose sanctions against the Kremlin.

Over the following year, top Ukrainian officials accused Tbilisi of being too indecisive, duplicitous or even pro-Russian, while Georgian ministers and MPs replied that the Ukrainian side was “provocative” and “arrogant”.

In the last week, history repeated itself: Zelenskyy supported the recent pro-EU Georgian protesters and wished them “democratic success”, while Georgian prime minister Irakli Gabriashvili said that Ukrainian officials “should take care of their own country”.

I enjoy my night light, though it’s located outside my apartment. Lamps on my street in Kyiv have a warm orange hue. It reflects on my walls, adding cosiness to the place where I stay.

Last year, I barely saw it. For several months after Russia’s full-scale invasion started, Ukraine switched to the dim mode. Lights could help the enemy detect or reach its targets, so the whole nation kept them switched off.

Once the occupiers were repelled from Kyiv, this low mode ended. But after 10 October, Russia massively attacked the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and darkness came back.

I remember last November as a month when my colleagues were hastily searching for cafés with a diesel generator, so they could finish writing their articles. Our chat, once a place for sharing memes and planning barbecues, resembled a hackathon: we were talking about how to access the Internet without electricity, what we need to use car batteries at home, and where to find LED lights with a USB connection.

The hardest thing was knowing it would get worse: Ukraine didn’t have enough means of air defence at that time.

Now, for several weeks, there have been almost no blackouts in Ukraine. Thanks to the allies, army and electricians, our skies are far better protected, and the energy system is partially restored. It’s the Russian side which is exhausted now, having spent the bulk of their missiles.

After the windows in the opposite house became bright, street lighting also came back. My flat is cosier again. And my friends are wondering: could we ever imagine, back in November, that the light would return so fast?

It’s definitely not over yet. But Ukraine once again became an illustration of the inspirational phrase about the need to keep fighting even when the prospects are dark. Things can get brighter afterwards.

Ten years ago, it seemed hopeless. Corruption in Ukraine was so ubiquitous it was hard to name a sector that bribery and sleaze did not infect. Education, customs, medicine ― at every level of society was a corrupt method of getting things done, which was the easier route for many citizens.

Then-president Victor Yanukovych headed the trend, amassing a treasure trove of bribes. The 2013-14 clashes started partly because people were fed up with corruption. New president, Petro Poroshenko, won using the slogan: “Living in a new way”.

At first, everything went according to plan. Comically clumsy, pot-bellied bribe-takers from the transport police were fired, and new staff replaced them. After training, the officers worked according to western standards. Even well-paid managers or lawyers joined the traffic cops.

With transport police it was ― and is ― a success. But high-profile corruption remained: people like oligarch Dmytro Firtash were forced to leave the country, but kept their wealth. Five years ago, society radiated disappointment. New president Volodymyr Zelensky won a landslide with the promise: “As spring comes, we’ll start putting corrupt people in jail.”

Yet again nothing happened. Firstly, the pandemic messed up his plans, then Russia invaded. Ukraine had even bigger challenges ― until the war caused the biggest anti-corruption shift ever.

Without financial help from the West, Ukraine can’t make ends meet ― and our allies have set the rules for access to cash. One of these rules is reliability. That’s why our anti-corruption bodies are finally working at their full capacity.

Last week, in a true crackdown on the Ukrainian corrupt officials, investigators ordered hundreds of searches, and many suspects were detained. Several regional governors lost their posts, as well as customs and tax service management.

In a strange situation where war and hardship push Ukraine towards the rule of law, our only hope is that the effect will be long-lasting.

When I was a child, collecting firewood was often intertwined with danger. I grew up in a village near the Oleshky sands ― a natural desert near Kherson. Legend has it that some centuries ago there were meadows there, but the horses and sheep of the invading Crimean Tatars ate up all the grass.

In Soviet times, after the Second World War, pine forests were planted there. Schoolchildren put the seeds in straight rows, so from above these forests looked like combed hair. Still, the heart of the area was mostly treeless ― and the Soviet army decided to take advantage of it.

Thousands of bombs were dropped there, as the military tested their power. Some were equipped with parachutes, so many people from nearby villages now have a chute in their household, which is a handy cloth to clean freshly-picked vegetables before taking them to the market. To collect firewood, the locals went into this forest-desert, sometimes blowing themselves up on unexploded bombs.

In this century, though, the place was a rather safe tourist attraction. Spending a night there, I never saw more stars in the sky.

Last year, the Russians came there. They chopped many trees for the trenches and used the desert as a training ground. The place became dangerous again.

The same happened to many other forests in the occupied areas of Ukraine. The Russian army laid down weapons there, dug trenches or buried victims. During their retreat, they heavily mined everything. If you go into the woods around Izyum, Bucha, or Lyman, you never know if you’ll come back.

By horrible coincidence, infrastructure in these settlements is often destroyed. State and private initiatives for heating don’t cover everyone’s needs, so many locals can only warm their homes by cutting down trees, even if there may be the danger of explosives or fines for illegal logging. “Freezing temperatures scare me more than these [threats],” one logger from Izyum told the media.

Invaders turn many places in Ukraine to deserts, again. Our only hope is that one day life will return there.

When the first drones struck Kyiv, Oksana Kovalenko, 42, shared in a group chat on Telegram what she was seeing and hearing in real time. For this week’s European Focus, our authors Anton Semyzhenko asked her what she felt then and how she feels now.