“We make desserts for the local workers, and with the money we buy tanks for the soldiers.” I met Stanislav Zavertailo in 1 of his cafés in Kyiv in February 2024, during a visit with another journalists organized by the NGO n-ost. Zavertailo is simply a pastry cook and owner of the
elegant and trendy
and
cafés in the Ukrainian capital.*
For the past 4 years, a condition of both cafés’ gross has been utilized to acquisition military equipment for the army. erstwhile I met him, Zavertailo said that with all the money he had donated over the last 3 years, he could have opened 2 more shops. “I buy weapons to kill Russians before they kill us.”
“We make desserts for the local workers, and with the money we buy tanks for the soldiers.” I met Stanislav Zavertailo in 1 of his cafés in Kyiv in February 2024, during a visit with another journalists organized by the NGO n-ost. Zavertailo is simply a pastry cook and owner of the
elegant and trendy
and
cafés in the Ukrainian capital.
For the past 4 years, a condition of both cafés’ gross has been utilized to acquisition military equipment for the army. erstwhile I met him, Zavertailo said that with all the money he had donated over the last 3 years, he could have opened 2 more shops. “I buy weapons to kill Russians before they kill us.”
. Both of his cafés support erstwhile employees. Though Zavertailo has not enlisted, he knows he will gotta join within the next fewer years—as shortly as the youngest of his 3 children comes of age. In fact, he is already training. “We’re either ready or getting ready. What about you?” Zavertailo’s communicative is an “ordinary” 1 in a Ukraine engaged in total war with Russia.
There are presently dozens of foundations and hundreds of initiatives in Ukraine focused on getting money, weapons or equipment to the military, and to train and feed soldiers. There are also
to support relatives, friends, household members or circumstantial brigades. Not to mention workshops run by civilian volunteers that manufacture drones.
Civilians besides put their skills at the service of the war effort. Today, there are over 2 thousand start-ups dedicated to defence. For example, the recruitment agency Lobby X – run by Kyiv entrepreneur Vladyslav Greziev – created Lobby X Army, a website where each brigade can post “job offers” that fill gaps in the army’s recruitment service.
The civilianization of war
“Strategic analyses of war typically neglect the question of society,” writes Anna Colin Lebedev. “Instead, It is in the social sciences […] that we find a reflection on war’s transformation of societies (the burden on victims and veterans, material destruction, population displacement, changes in social ties and status, etc.), but besides on war itself (the production of discourse and ideologies, military culture, the reorganization of economical activity, forms of resistance, etc.). War has a quantifiable material cost, but a more qualitative approach is needed for assessing its societal cost and comprehending the depth of the social transformation that waging war demands.”
Lecturer and researcher Anna Colin Lebedev focuses on the relation between citizens and the state in post-Soviet societies. She has published Jamais frères ? (“Never Brothers?” Seuil, 2022), an analysis of the similarities and differences between Russian and Ukrainian society; and Ukraine : la force des faibles (“Ukraine: the strength of the weak”, Seuil, 2025), an essay that revisits many of her reflections on the subject.
Before 2014, peace was taken as a given by most Ukrainians. Today, it is war that has become a part of everyday existence. As Colin Lebedev explains, “We live in societies where it has been assumed for many decades now that there is no request for strong defense, that the precedence is social welfare, education or unemployment. I think Ukrainians had the same conviction. And so, erstwhile war breaks out, the army is incapable to cope.”
When it comes to preparedness – military, but above all civilian and social – Ukrainian society resembles another European societies. “We are politically and economically liberal, urbanized, educated and connected societies”—very different from those societies of the past where, in the event of “high-intensity war, the majority of citizens believe and accept that it is up to the state to delegate their roles and duties,” that it is average “to make sacrifices, if the state tells you to.”
Like many another countries, since gaining independency in 1991 Ukraine has importantly reduced the strength of its armed forces: full military personnel fell from 465,000 in 1993 to 165,000 in 2013. At the same time, the percent of contract soldiers (i.e. those not enlisted through compulsory conscription) rose from 8 per cent in 2001 to 70 per cent in 2013.
When Russia launched its large-scale invasion in 2022, Kyiv’s opposition to this act of aggression astonished the world. Behind Ukraine’s consequence there lies a phenomenon that may present a challenge to European societies. Colin Lebedev speaks of the “civilianization of war”, a neologism coined by Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer to describe how wars are increasingly waged and carried out by civilians.
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As Colin Lebedev explains, this is already actual of hybrid wars or attacks on infrastructure. But in the case of Ukraine, this aspect is especially pronounced. Since 2022, the country has had to massively grow the size of its army. Today, “at least three-quarters of people in the army led civilian lives before 2022. And what happens is that, erstwhile they join the armed forces, of course they assimilate military culture, but they besides hold civilian culture and practices, a civilian professional culture.”
In fact, the full of Ukrainian society is active in the war, in a different sense to the acquainted “war economy” that conjures up images of women manufacturing bullets in factories during the Second planet War. Instead, “Ukrainians believe that, with their professional skills, they have a function to play in the defence of the country.” any people change jobs, others “put their skills entirely at the service of defence.”
The very structure of defence is more open to civilian input. People experimentation with tools and techniques, and erstwhile these experiments yield results they can “convince the state to adopt these techniques.” This allows for formidable dexterity and adaptability. The logic “is different from ours; here (in Europe), defence is top-down.”
According to Colin Lebedev, this support of civilian input is tied to the past of Ukrainian society. On the 1 hand, there is an underlying distrust of the state that arose with the end of the USSR and with independence. “Ukrainians have learnt not to trust on the state, due to the fact that it was fragile, due to the fact that there was corruption, due to the fact that the welfare state had collapsed…”
From the Maidan uprising to the war in Donbas, a section of Ukrainian society was committed to a grassroots defence of the country, via a multitude of projects and groups. Civilians, and not just those on the political right, went to enlist. Associations were created to aid the battalions with food or supplies, or to support veterans.
Why? “When I interviewed Ukrainians in 2015 who had enlisted in the army or were supporting it,” says Colin Lebedev, “they told me: ‘I know precisely how many kilometres there are between the Russian army and my city and my home; I know that if I don’t halt them, they’ll keep advancing.”
It’s a simple, applicable consequence to a tragic situation. “The threat – to your household and home – is clear and identifiable and it goes beyond the question of your country. It’s a lot more concrete, and forces everyone to say to themselves, ‘I gotta do something’. And here lies a major difference between us (Europeans) and Ukrainians. We are already at war with Russia, but this war is conducted on the frequently ambiguous level of hybrid warfare. It is not the Russian armed forces marching towards our cities, but another types of attacks. I think it is more hard for Europeans to realise that they are under threat.”
“When you have rights, you besides have duties,” Alla told me (I’m not including the surname due to the fact that the interview took place informally, without the consent of her battalion, which is required for a soldier). “I love my hometown, Kyiv, and my erstwhile way of life, so I have something to defend. After the Russian invasion of 2014, I considered various scenarios.”
When I met Alla in February 2025 she was cheerful and somewhat punk. “I know Ukrainian history,” she told me. ”I’m convinced that [the Russians] will never halt trying to conquer us. It was only a substance of time. I never imagined myself in the army, but I knew I’d be ready if necessary. due to the fact that I can do it, I’m not afraid, I have something to defend.”
Today, Alla is 38. She enlisted as a volunteer in 2023, after the large-scale invasion. In her erstwhile life she was a writer and present she is part of a drone unit (looking for targets, communications with another units and working with maps and video streams). “I took part in the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2013. I besides took part in any major marches in Kyiv: the women’s rightsmarch, Kyiv Pride, and protests against the demolition of old buildings. And many others. Being a soldier means being part of something very crucial for our future.”
For Alla, as well as the colleagues who were with her – men and women aged between 35 and 40, all volunteers, all from professions far removed from the army and the military planet (a videographer, a writer, a doctrine professor) – joining the army was the continuation of a journey that had begun much earlier. It is 1 of the concrete and possible choices that life presents—and besides an obligation.
“Sometimes I think about different scenarios: what will I do if the war ends, or how will I live through this or an even worse war, for the remainder of my life. But then I come back to reality and ask myself what I request to do now. I’m changing roles within the army to gain fresh skills and be more efficient; I effort to stay in contact with my loved ones. And I think about having children too. But for now, it’s more of a dream.”
Today, she told me 1 year after, “Looking back at the last three-plus years, I have become a much more military individual than I was as a civilian. I may never return to journalism due to the fact that I consider my current occupation to be more crucial for the future of Ukraine”.
According to a survey carried out by the market investigation and analysis centre Kiss, 54 per cent of Ukrainians over the age of 18 who are not serving in the military are “definitely or somewhat” ready to enlist in the Armed Forces and defend Ukraine if necessary. While mobilisation is mostly perceived as necessary, it must be “fair”, writes Colin Lebedev, meaning that “the request for socially equitable recruitment” should be combined with “equitable deployment to the front lines.”
Translated by Ciarán Lawless
Francesca Barca is simply a journalist, editor and translator with a degree in contemporary past from the University of Bologna. She covers Social issues and inequalities at Voxeurop. She has worked for respective European media, including Courrier International and Cafébabel. She is simply a associate of Nothing2Hide, an NGO specializing in digital security.
This article is part of the PULSE collaborative project. Silvia Martelli (Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy), Marina Kelava (H-Alter, Croatia), Nikola Lalov (Mediapool, Bulgaria), Martin Tschiderer (Der Standard, Austria), Petr Jedlička (Denik Référendum, Czech Republic), Justė Ancevičiūtė (Delfi, Lithuania) and Tornike Kakalashvili (Obct) contributed to it.
*Update from May 25th: During the night from Saturday the 23rd to Sunday 24th of May, Kyiv (along with many another parts of Ukraine)
. respective businesses were hit, including a café owned by Stanislav Zavertailo, who was in the process of beginning a 3rd café. Fortunately, there were no casualties. Russia launched 90 missiles and 600 drones in an attack that lasted respective hours and is considered by many to be 1 of the heaviest since the start of the full-scale war.
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