Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
End of dialog window.
Twenty-year-old Maksym Martseniuk opens up about navigating life in Kyiv after the outbreak of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, blending resilience with raw honesty.
Once focused on studies and weekend hangouts, Maksym's days now include frequent air raid alerts and adapting to unpredictable power outages. \"We’ve learned to find normalcy,\" he says, describing how his family cooks together by candlelight during blackouts—a small act of defiance against the chaos.
But beneath the adaptability lies emotional exhaustion. Maksym shares how friends who joined the military now text updates instead of memes, while his younger sister sketches their apartment’s bomb shelter \"to make it less scary.\"
Still, hope persists. He dreams of finishing his IT degree and rebuilding Ukraine’s tech sector, saying: \"Every code I write feels like planting a seed for tomorrow.\"
\"We’ve learned to find normalcy,\" he says, describing how his family cooks together by candlelight during blackouts—a small act of defiance against the chaos.
Maksym shares how friends who joined the military now text updates instead of memes, while his younger sister sketches their apartment’s bomb shelter \"to make it less scary.\" 
He dreams of finishing his IT degree and rebuilding Ukraine’s tech sector, saying: \"Every code I write feels like planting a seed for tomorrow.\" 
