Your horizon expands when you meet people from different cultures. To do so, you can visit countries far away, but often that is not even necessary at all. Even for people who, like us, live in the most rural area of the Netherlands.

This story happened a couple of months ago in the south of Ukraine. The entire Kherson region, including Tavriyske –the village where I grew up (located about 70 km from the border with Crimea)– was the enemy's focus since the first days of the invasion. In Kherson and some local areas of the region, fierce battles were fought with the Ukrainian military. The latter withstood the fight but retreated because of the large preponderance of enemy forces. As a result, control over the region very soon wholly passed into the hands of the occupiers.