Ukraine is battling to preserve democratic progress during wartime. It’s not easy

KYIV, Ukraine — As an investigative journalist, then an activist, and later a lawmaker, Yehor Soboliev sought to expose corruption in business and government as a way to defend Ukraine’s budding democracy.

Now, as a soldier battling Russia, he’s had to put those aims on hold as he fights alongside some of the people he once tried to bring down.

“Till the victory, we are on the same side,” said Soboliev, a lieutenant in a front-line drone unit. “But maybe — definitely — after the victory, we should separate ourselves from each other. And we should continue that fight in making our country more honest, more responsible, more serving to its citizens.”

Ukraine has spent years trying to build a Western-style democracy, although not without some bumps along the way as it shed habits from its Soviet past. Russia’s full-scale invasion two years ago raised the stakes of these democracy-building efforts, which are fundamental to Ukraine’s goal of joining the European Union and NATO.

Soboliev’s feelings capture a paradox within Ukraine: To beat back Russia and remain a democracy it has felt compelled to temporarily suspend or restrict some democratic ideals.

Elections have been postponed, a once-robust media has been restrained, corruption-fighting has slipped down the agenda, and freedom of movement and assembly have been curbed by martial law.

And as Russia pounds Ukraine’s cities and makes battlefield gains, the unity sparked by the invasion — and the sense of common purpose crucial to defending democracy — have come under growing strain.

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