After a particularly harrowing night of Russian drone and missile strikes this month, Viktoria Horban knew exactly what she would do to lift the spirits of her beleaguered city near the front lines of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“I thought, today is the right day to put up the Christmas decorations in the shop,” says the ebullient store clerk at Ramazan, a women’s fashion shop on Sloviansk’s main square, where she has “helped women feel beautiful” for 23 years.

“I knew the tree and the twinkling lights would cheer people up,” she says. “With all the sadness and uncertainty we are experiencing, I thought we needed something happy and bright.”

Why We Wrote This

Russia’s Vladimir Putin has vowed to take all of the mostly occupied Donetsk region either through negotiation or militarily. Even

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