Utah native authors vivid account of war in Ukraine

SALT LAKE CITY — A new book tells the story of life in Ukraine during the first year of war in that country.

The author, Danielle Leavitt, is from Utah. She’s an expert on that part of the world, having earned a PhD from Harvard focusing on Soviet, Russian, and Ukrainian history.

Her new book, By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine, was just published. For Leavitt, writing it was both professional and personal. She lived in Ukraine multiple times as a child and young adult. She speaks Russian and Ukrainian.

“Ukraine has been such a formative place for my own worldview,” Leavitt told KSL TV. “When this war began, I really wanted to somehow transmit some of that to as many readers as possible.”

The book follows the lives of seven Ukrainians as Russia invaded in February 2022. Leavitt tells their stories of surviving missile attacks, fleeing violence, and saying goodbye to loved ones.

The idea for the book came to her after she got a hold of some diaries that Ukrainians had written for a humanitarian project, sharing their experience of persevering through peril.

“I really felt like these stories really matter,” Leavitt said. “They’re somehow essential, maybe, to understanding the war itself.”

In her book, Leavitt also weaves in the history of the region and Ukraine’s stubborn resistance to aggressors.

“The events of today are building on a very, very long history of Ukrainians fighting for the very things Ukrainians are fighting for today,” she said.

The United States has given billions in aid to Ukraine, but the war has become a polarizing issue for many, especially since President Trump took office again. Trump has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, most notably in an Oval Office blowup in February. Many Republicans, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, have called for ending aid to Ukraine.

So far, efforts to strike a peace deal have made little progress, although both Russia and Ukraine conducted a prisoner exchange on Friday.

“Nobody wants this war to end more than Ukrainians, and sometimes I think that’s difficult to understand because, in some sense, Ukrainians are the ones advocating to keep fighting,” Leavitt said. “Many of them understand that an unfair ending to this war is really just a prelude for further war.”

Leavitt hopes her book will help Americans comprehend what’s happening in Ukraine by getting to know those who are living through it.

“I hope that it helps readers to kind of reignite a sense of urgency and compassion for Ukrainians who are in many ways just like us,” Leavitt said. “You cannot understand what’s going on in this war if you don’t understand what is going on with the average person experiencing it.”

Leavitt started a book tour this week in Massachusetts, followed by a stop in southern Utah. She has events scheduled in Orem on Friday and in Salt Lake City on Saturday. More information is available on her website.