Two years ago, the city of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine was threatened with annihilation as Russian troops seemed set to reduce it to rubble as they did in Mariupol. Russian forces completely surrounded Chernihiv, a regional capital 200 kilometres north of Kiev, from the outset of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022, right up until April 2022. During that 40-day blockade, citizens were stuck in their city lacking electricity, heat and water. They had little to eat and were in constant fear of being bombed. Chernihiv is tranquil and green again and some …