The first thing I consider extremely important is that Ukraine has overcome the fundamental regional differences we still observed before 2014. The differences between East and West, South and Center have not disappeared. But they are no longer fundamental. We have become a united country in regional terms.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. For me, this is one of the most positive changes of the independence era. It greatly contributes to social solidarity. And without solidarity, it is impossible to have a viable future in the terrible war we are experiencing today. In this sense, I would even say that we are now more integrated than many other democratic countries. Look at the US: regional and political divisions largely determine whom society elects and what direction the country takes. In Ukraine, these differences have lost their former sharpness. There is another extremely important change. Sociology has a methodology for measuring social distance – how close we consider members of different groups to be and how willing we are to accept them, up to the point of being ready to see them as members of our own families. Before 2014, Ukrainians had the smallest social distance between Russians and Belarusians. Traditionally, they were considered the “closest” to us. After the Euromaidan, the annexation of Crimea, and the beginning of Russian aggression, everything changed. Today, citizens of Russia and Belarus are among the groups toward whom Ukrainians maintain the greatest social distance. And it is important to stress that we are talking specifically about citizens of these states, not about a person’s ethnic background.