When Russia mounted a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many outsiders expected the worst. Predictions swirled that the capital city of Kyiv would fall in a matter of days or weeks.
But Kyiv, which is home to nearly 3 million people, is still standing today. So is the majority of Ukraine, even though the country has experienced extreme losses. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and military members have died, roughly 3 million people have been displaced within Ukraine, and 20,000 children have been forcefully deported to Russia.
Now, in a recent special issue of the journal Post-Soviet Affairs, political scientists from the United States, Ukraine and beyond take a fresh look at how the nation has persevered through the crisis. The studies examine how resilience can spring not just from armed forces but from the actions of everyday people and communities.
The special issue was edited by Sarah Wilson Sokhey, associate professor of political science at CU Boulder, and Inna Melnykovska, assistant professor in comparative political economy at the Central European University in Vienna.
"Ukraine is still there," said Melnykovska, who grew up in Chortkiv, a small town in western Ukraine. "You can still attend the cinema and concerts and can still have a great coffee in Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine. We wanted to know how society is still able to function and also resist in times of war."
Through five studies in the special issue, researchers trace that resistance back to a series of decentralization reforms that began in 2014, around the time when Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea. These changes shifted power from the national government to local municipalities around the country.
The research reveals how people and organizations, from small town mayors to parent and youth groups and activist networks, banded together to keep the nation running. These local players helped find housing for people displaced by the war, secured medical supplies, and kept the lights on in cities, literally.
"Ukraine is, in many ways, an example for other countries," Sokhey said. "The theme is resilience: There are some remarkable lessons here about how things can get done under really bad circumstances."
Stake in society
Sokhey gives the example of a doctor she met this year during a research trip to Lviv, a city in western Ukraine. By day, the woman practices medicine and teaches at a local university. In her off time, she leads a group of volunteers that solicits donations for medical supplies and sends them to the front lines of the war.
The doctor and her colleagues have kept up their work for more than three years and counting.
"There's a real fatigue that comes with having to do this all the time," Sokhey said. "But even with that, when they get requests in and need more people, they go to their families and their friends, and they can still get a bunch of volunteers."
These kinds of stories are common in Ukraine, Sokhey said. In many cases, their roots extend back to well before the war began.
In 2014, Ukraine began dividing the nation into 1,469 municipalities, or "hromadas." These hromadas retained broad powers to decide how they set their budgets. In some cases, citizens in hromadas even vote on the region's spending priorities, a process known as participatory budgeting.
Melnykovska believes the reforms empowered many people across Ukraine to get involved in local politics—and that involvement continued after the full-scale war with Russia erupted eight years later.
"These decentralization reforms gave everyone a greater connection to the state," Melnykovska said. "Every participant in society had a greater stake in Ukrainian sovereignty, in ensuring that Ukraine would continue to be there."
In one paper appearing in the special issue , Sophie Schmäing of the University of Greifswald in Germany explored how those early connections became useful during the war.
In the city of Dnipro, for example, a parent group that had originally formed to improve local schools started making candles for the army in 2022. In the winter, a group of young activists in Kyiv that had originally formed to get involved in participatory budgeting built a warming room for city residents as many lost power.
Separately, Sokhey and her colleagues examined how voting patterns in local elections shaped policies in Ukraine—a case of democracy in action.
The team found that hromadas with higher voter turnout rates also tended to spend more money on social services, such as housing and resources for displaced people and other vulnerable groups. Sokhey sees the results as evidence that local authorities are listening to and responding to the demands of their constituents.
"Even before the war began, Ukraine had been taking these steps to improve local governance and accountability," she said. "All the evidence we have suggests that these changes allowed the country to respond much more effectively."
Lessons for the world
Sokhey and Melnykovska emphasize that governance in Ukraine is far from perfect.
In one study in the special issue , for example, Maryna Rabinovych of The Arctic University of Norway and her colleagues highlighted several hromadas that have established martial law systems—which, the researchers argue, risk undermining local governance.
But Sokhey and Melnykovska added that countries around the world, including the United States, could learn a lot from Ukraine. Strong societies, where individuals and communities feel empowered to solve their own problems, are crucial for helping nations survive times of crisis.
"Ukraine's situation is probably good news for nations where state institutions are weakening," Melnykovska said. "These institutions have another pillar to help them survive, and that is society."
She follows the Facebook page for the mayor of her hometown, which has a population of about 30,000. The city has gotten creative, using international interest around the war to bring in funding for a variety of projects. They include efforts to modernize the town's energy system, along with improvements to water pipes, which date back to the Soviet era. Those kinds of efforts will become critical when people who fled Ukraine at the start of the war eventually start coming home, Melnykovska said.
The political scientist also offers a warning: Ukrainians have been remarkably resilient, she said, but they can only be resilient for so long.
"Society can get tired, and some resources are running out," Melnykovska said. "This resilience has been long-term, but it's not endless. There should still be support from outside."
