Three years. That is how long Ukraine has been at war – or at least, that is how long the world has counted. Three years of full-scale invasion, of relentless destruction and resilience. Yet for Ukraine, this war did not begin three years ago. It has been eleven years of lives stolen and futures erased. For many, this anniversary is just another news headline, a distant conflict playing out on television screens. But for Ukrainians, it is deeply personal. This war is not just about politics or territorial disputes; it is about lives, futures stolen before they could unfold.
For Ukrainian students abroad, these years have been a test of dual realities – being hugely privileged with the opportunity to continue our education while carrying the burden of a homeland in turmoil. Nonetheless, this is not just about those who left; it is also about those who never had the chance. This is the story of one such student – an “unissued diploma”.
In 2022, thousands of Ukrainian students found their academic aspirations threatened by war. Some, like myself, managed to navigate the chaos and pursue their studies abroad as planned. Others were not as fortunate. Education, once a certainty, became sheer vagueness; university applications, once seeming so important, faded in significance against the backdrop of air raid sirens and bomb shelters. Despite the upheaval, I remained among the lucky ones – my plans disrupted but not erased.
But what about those who never had that second chance?
Oleksandra Borivska was 18 years old, a student at Vasyl Stus Donetsk National University, studying international relations. She was an activist, a young woman with ambitions strikingly similar to my own. She dreamed of a diplomatic career, of travelling the world, of seeing the Grand Canyon. She was learning English, planning to study Spanish, and, like me, had a deep love of photography. Her life was full of possibilities, waiting for the moment she would receive her diploma and step into the future she had envisioned.
But unlike me, she never got that future.
On 14 July 2022, a Russian missile struck Vinnytsia. Oleksandra was on her way to a driving lesson. She never arrived.
Her diploma was never issued. And never will be.
Her ambitions, her aspirations, erased in an instant. She was not a soldier. She was not on the front lines. She was a student, just like me. She was walking down the street, thinking about the weekend, about the next class, about the future. A future that was taken from her before she even had the chance to grasp it.
The arbitrary nature of her death forces an uncomfortable question: what justification can exist for a war that claims the lives of young people before they even have the chance to begin? What possible reasoning could make this feel anything but unbearable, anything but deeply, unforgivably wrong?
Is it fair that I am here, continuing my studies, while she is not? That the only difference between us was the randomness of geography, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Wars are often quantified in territorial gains and political consequences. But the true cost is measured in stories like Oleksandra’s – a student who will never graduate, a future that will never be realised.
And she is not alone. Thousands of students, young professionals, and brilliant minds have been lost—not because of their choices, but because an unjust invasion disregarded their right to live.
As I pursue my education, I do so with the knowledge that I am living the life that Oleksandra and so many others were denied. Every milestone, every achievement carries the weight of their absence. It is a strange feeling – to celebrate while knowing that someone else never got the chance. To move forward while knowing that so many stories were cut short mid-sentence.
Oleksandra’s diploma will never be issued. But her story must be told. And we, as Ukrainian students, will carry her memory – not as a distant tragedy, but as a solemn reminder of why we must persist, why we must succeed, and why we must never stop telling these stories.
