Is it possible to normalize war in a positive way?

We Are All Still Here

There are certain fears we have when we think about the future, whether we talk about them openly or write them down. One of them is the weight of the present moment. Sometimes, what’s happening right now is so tragic, so unbearably painful, or so shockingly cruel—harsher even than death itself—that the idea of hoping or planning for anything ahead feels like an impossible luxury, or simply out of reach.

Yet, at the same time, we’re all still here. And by “all,” I mean not just the living, but the dead as well. They remain with us—their presence, in its own way, makes the future possible. This isn’t a paradox. It’s about the part they play in our tomorrows—about, in a sense, “trampling down death by death”¹The phrase “trampling down death by death” comes from the Paschal troparion, an Easter chant used widely in Eastern Christian traditions, including by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church..

Another fear is what I’d call “needless pain.” No matter how grown-up we are—or how experienced we pretend to be—we want to run from bad news. And when that’s not possible, we just want to cover our ears and close our eyes. Predictions and endless talk about the war dragging on forever frighten us, wear us down, and seem to sap whatever strength we have left. It hurts, and honestly, it would be better if those conversations didn’t happen. At least not in public. We already know the truth deep down, so why keep reopening the wound? But if we take that important idea—“We’re all still here”—and add the quieter truth that “We’re ALREADY here,” then something else comes to light: a truth that doesn’t have to hurt, but can actually heal.

We all need something solid to stand on. Uncertainty, false hopes, and living in a constant state of waiting wear us down much more than we can handle.

Should I break down, with examples, just how much this normalization has already happened?

Let me give a quick example with something I saw online: “I don’t care what it is—bombing, blackout, alien invasion, comet, meteorite, no water. I just need all of it to happen on schedule.” I could also mention EcoFlow units wherever you look, generators and inverters everywhere, and parking lots turned into makeshift shelters. Schools and hospitals have moved underground. People replace shattered windows without any drama—just a casual, “let it air out a little.” Cafés open to the sound of Shahed drones, and somehow, garbage trucks and trains still show up right on time.

Do I really need to explain that things will never go back to the way they were—not just because we can’t, but because we don’t want to?

In Ukraine today, no person or family has gone untouched by loss. No one has been spared from burying a loved one, losing something they owned, or feeling fear. All of these losses are etched into our bodies and our memories—they’re woven into our society, and into our future. Going back to “how it was” would mean throwing all of that away, pretending none of it ever happened. But we can’t—and we shouldn’t—forget the people and the things we loved and still love.

Why do we have to acknowledge the reality we’re living in and work toward a healthy way of dealing with war?

Because of Russia. In its current state, it will always be a threat to us. Even if we achieve the outcome we hope for—a return to the 1991 borders—that threat won’t disappear. A poor, desperate, unhappy Russia ruled from the Kremlin will keep falling back on the same old playbook. Now, instead of admitting responsibility, they’ll just say, “It wasn’t us, it was some local tractor drivers,” while launching new drones to hit our homes and factories. They’ll keep turning to hybrid warfare and constant deception—because for them, the lesson of “never again” after the horrors of World War II was never absolute. In their version, “never again” always comes with the asterisk: “We can repeat it.”

Until independent states take the place of the Russian Federation and stabilize, the Kremlin will keep seeing Ukraine as a “magic wand”—something it believes can fix all its problems if only it can bring us under its control.

In other, less hopeful scenarios—like a “new redivision of the world”—the threat will only grow larger and more systemic. Russia won’t leave us alone. In the worst-case, catastrophic outcome, our conventional war could turn into a guerrilla war. But honestly, we already have the skills for that. As the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces once posted on Twitter: “Look into the darkness like a predator, not like prey.”

If we start looking at the normalization of war in the most positive way we can—not in a negative sense—this call could mark the beginning of a new strategy.

Lame Comparisons

Before Christianity became one of the world’s major religions, being a follower of Christ meant taking on a heroic struggle—against evil, sin, and even death—by walking in His footsteps. The earliest Christians stood up for their faith and endured real suffering; their dignity and steadfastness in the face of martyrdom made them saints.

Evil hasn’t gone away, but over time, the fight against it—both in the world and within ourselves—has come to feel like it can be handled by going through the motions: paying tithes, confessing, belonging to a church community, and simply trying to sin less. These routines normalized not just faith itself, but also the promise of a secure, paradise-like future that faith is supposed to offer.

Most people at the time probably wouldn’t have called it the normalization of war with the Devil, but everyone understood that this battle would go on forever—and that didn’t discourage communities. To keep up the fight against Satan, you had to join Christ’s army, signaled by the right rituals and a few material sacrifices. Moreover, for an extended period, this struggle gave communities a sense of purpose, shaped culture and science, and, in many ways, helped drive progress.

Of course, this comparison only goes so far before it starts to break down. If the idea of Christianity’s normalization doesn’t resonate, try thinking of Sarah Connor from The Terminator. She’s the mother of John Connor—the future savior of humanity in a world facing a technological apocalypse. Sarah, who once struggled just to keep her notes organized, is forced to become a warrior. This was never her dream. No one in their right mind would pick war over a peaceful home or constant anxiety over comfort. But that’s the fate she’s handed.

We didn’t choose this war. The imperial spasms of our neighbor—hopefully signaling its end—have forced it upon us. To normalize war means becoming like Sarah Connor: tuning out everyone’s “deep concern” and learning to shoot, to run, to fight. It means mastering urban combat, using technology, inventing new weapons, and knowing how to use them. That’s the reality we’ve inherited.

It’s not the life anyone would choose, but it’s worth it if it means John survives. Or, to put it another way, it’s worth it if it means John survives and ends up saving humanity—a humanity that doesn’t always believe it can, or even should, be saved.

And if the Sarah Connor metaphor feels too harsh, there’s always a third way to look at it.

Normalizing the wolf gave us the dog. Domesticating dogs didn’t make wolves disappear—it just meant we no longer had to live in fear of them. If you had a dog, your home and livestock were safer. Then, once security was no longer the main issue, dogs brought all sorts of unexpected benefits: better hunting, help for the visually impaired, search-and-rescue work, and even more efficient customs checks. And maybe the most surprising gain of all? Love and friendship.

Can a positive normalization of war really take us that far? Absolutely. We’re already living it—because life during wartime has shown us what real love and true friendship look like.

Words That Trigger—or Don’t

Words matter. That’s why I’m constantly wrestling with my inner critic, who insists, “You can’t normalize the abnormal! You can’t treat evil as if it’s just part of life!” When I argue with her, I try to sharpen my reasoning and experiment with different ways of writing about these ideas.

This is about systemic solutions, not about accepting a life of constant horror. Taking war into account means things like building new homes with shelters, or training specialists in bionic prosthetics for this generation and the next.

If calling it “normalization” feels too ethically loaded, you could use “routinization” instead. But honestly, phrases like “war of attrition” or “a war spanning generations” are far more unsettling. Routine doesn’t trigger anyone. It sounds dull, maybe even boring. But it’s essential. No one debates routine—brushing your teeth, making coffee, washing your hands, cleaning the floor if you have the energy, combing your hair, or training Patron the dog.

Routine is our response to war now. It’s neutral. It’s grown-up. Routine doesn’t care what we think of it. But in the darkest moments, it’s routine that reaches out and pulls us back from the edge.

The routinization of war means things like cleaning a rifle—something our elders both practiced and passed down to us.

Ritualization is a good word, too, but it only captures part of the strategy, even though that part is a victory in itself. Not without pain, of course, but as communities and as a society, we’re developing sets of symbolic actions that help us find order in chaos, give meaning to loss, and create structure in a world where the effects of trauma aren’t going away any time soon. It won’t just end. You only have to walk through the Maidan to see that.

A minute of silence is a positive form of normalizing war: it doesn’t increase anxiety or despair, but instead helps us accept and share our grief. Experiencing that grief together, instead of suffering alone, is an act of dignity we’re learning as individuals and as a society—to lose together, to share pain, to keep living, and to help each other keep going.

There’s also the idea of taming. My friend, who’s a psychologist, says “taming” isn’t the perfect word for the whole process, but it does capture the psychological side. Taming means finding a way to live alongside constant danger without losing yourself—without losing your skills or your ability to create. It’s not about accepting war or making peace with it. It’s about dulling its impact on your mind.

My friend actually prefers the word “subjugation.” I think of it like this: subjugation is when society and the state not only manage the real consequences of war, but also anticipate its potential fallout, building systems and technologies to limit the damage it can cause. It’s not about war subjugating people—it’s about people subjugating war, finding ways to tame the chaos. I’m not a fan of the word “subjugation” myself; it sounds too grand, too ancient—almost mythical.

Risks of Normalization

When we talk about “being like children,” we have to admit that our kids don’t know any life other than one where war is the norm. It’s not good or desirable—it’s just reality.

Little kids know exactly what to do when the air raid siren goes off. The slightly older ones know that sometimes, the morning after an attack, they’ll get to skip the first lesson at school. The ones who are almost adults—kids who were ten when Crimea and Donetsk were occupied—remember the world “before the war” mostly through the stories of adults, not their own experience. Some of them are now soldiers, men and women at the front. They aren’t there so that things can go back to the way they were.

The cardboard protests³The name given to a series of peaceful demonstrations that took place in July 2025 across number of major Ukrainian cities to preserve the independence of institutions such as the NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau) and the SAPO (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office).? That’s yesterday’s children, the ones who grew up with war. They’ve learned to live in it, but they have no intention of letting war normalize corruption, theft, hypocrisy in power, or lies.

The writer and mother of two fallen soldiers, Svitlana Povaliayeva, once said that during the war, all of Ukraine became a giant civic organization. To keep moving forward, we have to nurture that achievement and turn it into a strong, unified state organization.

What stands in the way is the risk of opportunistic normalization of war. Throughout history, war has always been a commodity—a space for profit and for building impossible illusions. It’s been, and still is, an argument in both major and minor political games, an excuse for large-scale looting at the state and international level, and a breeding ground for human weakness and corruption. The question isn’t whether these risks exist—they always do—but how visible they are, and how willing communities are to refuse to tolerate them.

There are plenty of other real dangers when it comes to normalizing war—risks that can bring out the worst in individuals, communities, and society as a whole. Writer Artur Dron, in his book Hemingway Knows Nothing, puts it like this: “It is awfully convenient to have a small group of people you can always call heroes and pin your hopes on. Let them deal with the mess. If they go off to war, then let them come back with a victory, or let us greet them on one knee and remind ourselves that heroes never die.”

Back in 2014, and for a while after, this was already happening: blind normalization led to a public perception that the “Kyiv—War” train was one-way only. But reality was much more complicated. Blind normalization failed then, and it can fail again when it comes to handling complex challenges and responsibilities. An army that gives everyone a shot at a future is made up of people—not machines, not “expendable material”—and those people can’t stay on the front lines forever.

If we’re going to consciously normalize war, we have to face the problem head-on—not just shut our eyes and hope it goes away. Routinizing war means looking for real solutions. When will there be a law setting clear terms for service and demobilization? What kind of financial support should soldiers get, and how can it be increased? Should we consider mercenaries—and if so, how would we bring them in, and who would pay for it?

What should we actually be teaching our kids: how to take apart and put together an AK-47, or how to build robots that could one day replace both the rifle and the soldier? Should they learn to avoid mined forests, or to design systems that can detect mines? Do they need to be “cyber-ready”? And should we prepare for the “last” war, or for a future where war is simply a fact of life?

Routinizing war means taxes—higher taxes to fund weapons production and new technologies, to build and sustain an army that’s ready for today’s realities, not yesterday’s battles with horses and tanks. Now, a skilled drone operator can matter more than a tank corps general.

Routinizing war means building a shared set of skills—universal, mandatory training in things like using tourniquets, and maybe drones, too.

But alongside self-serving or blind normalization, there’s another danger: normalization that’s just for show. Imitative or performative routines are as stomach-turning as empty bravado. “Coffee in Yalta,” “Invincibility Points,” “fortresses,” uniforms worn by those who haven’t earned them, grand festivals for “breakthroughs” and “reconstruction”—all of it just deepens frustration and mistrust. The real work is different: routine, practical, technological effort, year after year. True reconstruction isn’t about fixing up façades—it’s about finding and implementing solutions that actually make us safer and reduce casualties and destruction.

There’s also the risk that comes with the idea of “ordinary people,” because there’s simply no clear answer for how so-called ordinary people are supposed to live in a normalized state of war. The truth is, “ordinary people” don’t really exist—it’s a political label that pops up during elections, gets idealized, votes based on immediate needs, and clings to staying “ordinary.”

But in today’s reality, everyone is complex. Everyone has problems. Some can be solved through grassroots efforts, others through international partnerships, and some only through state policy. We already know what it’s like to turn “ordinary people” into active, responsible citizens—and to solve problems through civic action. In a world where war is normalized, it’s complex people who live and endure—people learning to adapt, to help themselves and others, and to face both their own struggles and the challenges around them, in all their complexity.

A Reminder: We Are Already Here

Once we accept this simple truth, moving forward feels a little less daunting. We’ve already accomplished more than we ever thought possible. We’ve learned—and we’re still learning—faster than anyone, friend or foe, could have predicted. The cost has been tremendous grief. But the skills we’ve gained along the way are invaluable: initiative, speed, energy, creativity, courage, adaptability, and, yes, technological know-how.

We can’t always see ourselves as others do, but it’s worth trying. We’ve gotten used to our own resilience—the same resilience that continues to surprise the world. None of us chose this path, but here we are, leading the way in psychology, psychiatry, field medicine, surgery, rehabilitation, construction, rescue operations, and, ultimately, the restoration of just about everything.
And after that, there are even more examples—stories that, for now, can’t be told publicly. But across every aspect of production, logistics, reconstruction, consumption, and use, they’re there: creative fixes and future technologies, lasting partnerships with foreign companies, and not just aid based on solidarity, but real joint production, with ideas and innovations for technological change coming from us.

Taming war means transforming the entire security ecosystem. Right now, we’re leading the way in rapidly militarizing innovation and shifting toward societies built around dual-use technologies.

We’re already living in this new reality. That’s why we act as if the values of Western civilization still hold weight. But sometimes it feels like a values-based approach just doesn’t work anymore. Europeans seem exhausted by mercy and compassion, afraid, and unconvinced that this war is really about them. The war we have “tamed” ends up making our allies weaker.

I know I’m being unfair in that thought. My anger comes from watching my illusions about Europe’s strength and solidarity get shattered by war. The truth is, not all Europeans are tired of “deep concern.” They’re as varied as we are. There are incredible, steadfast people who’ve stood with us since 2014. And yes, I’m angry at those who remain “deeply concerned” and little more.

Maybe it’s exactly with these people that we need to change the way we talk. Fear, indifference, and condescension have left them completely unprepared for whatever the Kremlin has in store for them. Lately, there’s been a frenzy in Russia about the supposed flight times of the Oreshnik missile to Berlin, Warsaw, and Paris—eight to twelve minutes. Who knows if they really have this Oreshnik-Shmoresnik, but they definitely have other missiles that can hit those targets. These calculations remind me of the “To Lviv! To Kyiv!” slogans painted on Russian tanks in Donetsk in 2014. That wasn’t just empty bravado—it was a plan made real.

I would speak with indifferent Europeans about exactly that—not about us, not about the war, not about helping Ukraine, but about their own safety: where to hide, whether their walls are strong enough, whether the subway could serve as a shelter, how rescue workers would function, how to survive without electricity. We already have plenty of tips we could share. They might not believe it now, but they should at least write it down before it’s too late. That’s where I’d start the conversation—only then would I talk about weapons, support, and international law, which no longer really works.

Do I even have the right to say all this?

Do I have the right to put a positive spin on something so bleak, or to talk about taming what’s fundamentally abnormal? Where does my so-called “expertise” or “important expert opinion” actually come from?

All I can offer is this: back in 2014–2015, I measured my salary in Celox—by how many packs of hemostatic gauze I could afford. Now I measure it in spare parts for drones and electronic warfare gear. “We’ve come a long way,” as the old saying goes.

Those who found themselves caught up in the war of 2014 have experienced—and are still experiencing—the normalization of war in all sorts of ways. Every illusion we had (and there were many) was shattered. Yet those who went to the front in 2014 are still fighting today. Many now serve in the army of the Holy Archangel Michael.

Choosing to normalize war wasn’t easy—it has touched every part of life: the deaths of friends and family, displacement, looking for work, fundraising for the army, and the loneliness of being surrounded by people for whom nothing had happened and nothing had changed. Even harder was pushing back against the self-serving, blind, or performative ways this choice was sometimes carried out. But making a choice—and taking responsibility for it—is always tough.

With years of war behind us—years that stretch back well before the full-scale invasion—the horizon is clearer. The Russian Federation is still out there. And that means—not just for us, but for Europeans too—that “if there’s no wind, we have to row with our own hands.” It’s not a prophecy; the Romans who coined the phrase were just stating a fact. It’s unpleasant, but it’s something we can overcome. They knew the wind would return. It simply can’t disappear forever.

Here’s the hard truth: the world we knew and believed in really is gone. “When you feel that you need to rest, learn to play this exciting game about war”⁵From Vasyl Stus’ poem, “Here’s The Sun For You.” Find the full poem in translation at Asymptote, wrote Vasyl Stus. But that advice isn’t for us anymore. Now that we’ve learned to live with war, it’s on us to teach others this “exciting game.”

This translation was provided by the Frontier Institute, thanks to the support of PrivatBank.