When you are fleeing from war, trying to cram your entire former peaceful life into one suitcase, and find yourself thousands of kilometers away from your home, it is important to meet people who will not let you 'fall.' The feeling that there is someone who will always support you gives you the strength to keep going.

A week ago (on August 26, 2024), my attention was drawn to paintings and drawings on the walls of a subway station in the centre of Kharkiv. This deeply moving and evocative artwork is by children who will begin the school year on September 1. Unfortunately, most will be online, some will be in Kharkiv's underground school. It was built at a neighboring subway station a year ago. 

John Hall is a professor of law at Fowler School of Law in Orange, California, specialising in international law and art law.
In the summer of 2023, he came to Ukraine to volunteer with the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.  To help in any way possible, as well as to collect material for his research work on the destruction of cultural heritage..

Kharkiv residents know what capitulation to Russia threatens them with - in the first days of the war, their relatives survived the occupation in the Kharkiv region: Russian soldiers shot civilians, arrested and tortured them for their pro-Ukrainian position, robbed their homes...