War and civil society: what can Europe learn from Ukraine?

“We make desserts for the local workers, and with the money we buy tanks for the soldiers.” I met Stanislav Zavertailo in one of his cafés in Kyiv in February 2024, during a visit with other journalists organized by the NGO n-ost. Zavertailo is a pastry chef and owner of the elegant and trendy Honey and Zavertailo cafés in the Ukrainian capital.*

For the past four years, a portion of both cafés’ revenue has been used to purchase military equipment for the army. When I met him, Zavertailo said that with all the money he had donated over the last three years, he could have opened two 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 one of his cafés in Kyiv in February 2024, during a visit with other journalists organized by the NGO n-ost. Zavertailo is a pastry chef and owner of the elegant and trendy Honey and Zavertailo cafés in the Ukrainian capital.

For the past four years, a portion of both cafés’ revenue has been used to purchase military equipment for the army. When I met him, Zavertailo said that with all the money he had donated over the last three years, he could have opened two more shops. “I buy weapons to kill Russians before they kill us.”

Zavertailo employs around 400 people. Some have gone to the front, and some have died. Both of his cafés support former employees. Though Zavertailo has not enlisted, he knows he will have to join within the next few years—as soon as the youngest of his three children comes of age. In fact, he is already training. “We’re either ready or getting ready. What about you?” Zavertailo’s story is an “ordinary” one in a Ukraine engaged in total war with Russia.  

There are currently 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 individual citizens raising funds to support relatives, friends, family members or specific brigades. Not to mention workshops run by civilian volunteers that manufacture drones.

Civilians also put their skills at the service of the war effort. Today, there are over two 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 also on war itself (the production of discourse and ideologies, military culture, the reorganization of economic 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 relationship 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 need for strong defense, that the priority is social welfare, education or unemployment. I think Ukrainians had the same conviction. And so, when war breaks out, the army is unable to cope.”

When it comes to preparedness – military, but above all civil and social – Ukrainian society resembles other 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 assign their roles and duties,” that it is normal “to make sacrifices, if the state tells you to.”

Like many other countries, since gaining independence in 1991 Ukraine has significantly reduced the strength of its armed forces: total military personnel fell from 465,000 in 1993 to 165,000 in 2013. At the same time, the percentage 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 resistance to this act of aggression astonished the world. Behind Ukraine’s response 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.

As Colin Lebedev explains, this is already true 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 expand 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, when they join the armed forces, of course they assimilate military culture, but they also retain civilian culture and practices, a civilian professional culture.”

In fact, the whole of Ukrainian society is involved in the war, in a different sense to the familiar “war economy” that conjures up images of women manufacturing bullets in factories during the Second World War. Instead, “Ukrainians believe that, with their professional skills, they have a role to play in the defence of the country.” Some 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 experiment with tools and techniques, and when 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 history of Ukrainian society. On the one 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 rely on the state, because it was fragile, because there was corruption, because 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 help 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 exactly how many kilometres there are between the Russian army and my city and my home; I know that if I don’t stop them, they’ll keep advancing.”

It’s a simple, practical response to a tragic situation. “The threat – to your family 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 have to 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 often ambiguous level of hybrid warfare. It is not the Russian armed forces marching towards our cities, but other types of attacks. I think it is more difficult for Europeans to realise that they are under threat.”

“When you have rights, you also have duties,” Alla told me (I’m not including the surname because the interview took place informally, without the consent of her battalion, which is required for a soldier). “I love my hometown, Kyiv, and my former 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 slightly punk. “I know Ukrainian history,” she told me. ”I’m convinced that [the Russians] will never stop trying to conquer us. It was only a matter of time. I never imagined myself in the army, but I knew I’d be ready if necessary. Because 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 previous life she was a journalist and today she is part of a drone unit (looking for targets, communications with other 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 also took part in some 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 important 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 world (a videographer, a writer, a philosophy professor) – joining the army was the continuation of a journey that had begun much earlier. It is one of the concrete and possible choices that life presents—and also 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 rest of my life. But then I come back to reality and ask myself what I need to do now. I’m changing roles within the army to gain new skills and be more efficient; I try to stay in touch with my loved ones. And I think about having children too. But for now, it’s more of a dream.”

Today, she told me one year after, “Looking back at the last three-plus years, I have become a much more military person than I was as a civilian. I may never return to journalism because I consider my current job to be more important for the future of Ukraine".

According to a survey carried out by the market research 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 largely perceived as necessary, it must be “fair”, writes Colin Lebedev, meaning that “the need for socially equitable recruitment” has to be combined with “equitable deployment to the front lines.”

Translated by Ciarán Lawless

Francesca Barca is a journalist, editor and translator with a degree in contemporary history from the University of Bologna. She covers Social issues and inequalities at Voxeurop. She has worked for several European media, including Courrier International and Cafébabel. She is a member 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 other parts of Ukraine) was subjected to heavy bombardment. Several businesses were hit, including a café owned by Stanislav Zavertailo, who was in the process of opening a third café. Fortunately, there were no casualties. Russia launched 90 missiles and 600 drones in an attack that lasted several hours and is considered by many to be one of the heaviest since the start of the full-scale war.