Six months ago, at around 5am on 24 February, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian war that started in 2014. Though tensions had been increasing between the two nations in the previous months, few could have predicted the bloodshed that would follow.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has verified a total of 5,514 civilian deaths during Russia's invasion of Ukraine as of 14 August 2022, but says that real numbers are likely to be much higher. According to the UN, at least 12 million people have fled their homes.
Over the past six months, openDemocracy has published hundreds of stories from Ukraine and the surrounding region, about the conflict and its impact both inside and outside Ukraine. We spoke to five of our regular Ukrainian contributors about six months of war and what lies ahead.
