'Fear, love, hope': Reflections on one year of war in sister city Kharkiv

'Fear, love, hope': Reflections on one year of war in sister city Kharkiv

On the one year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Cincinnatians plan to gather for a candlelight vigil in honor of the city's sister city, Kharkiv, which has been hit hard since the beginning of the invasion.

The vigil Friday night is intended to be "an opportunity to reflect and to remember our friends and colleagues in Kharkiv and throughout Ukraine," according to a press release.

Many who lived in Kharkiv at the beginning of the invasion have been displaced, but many remain.

“I can sum up the last year in three words: Fear, love, hope,” Oleksandr Hranyk, a school director in Kharkiv, told the Associated Press.

Cedarville University senior Abigail Rist grew up in Ukraine, but became an American citizen when she started school at the university; the building where she once lived and the playground she once frequented as a child are now unfamiliar and destroyed.

Rist said as the second year of the war begins, she's concerned people around the world may forget what's still happening in Ukraine.