Even before the Russian war of aggression, women in eastern Ukraine were barely heard, their needs and concerns ignored. Our pilot programme, launched in 2021, opened the space for women to discuss issues and formulate demands that would make their everyday lives safer. We are picking up where we left off with the new Women's Platform for Peace.

Our work with women in eastern Ukraine has shown even before the war escalated on 24 February 2022: Violence against women is a military tactic is, writes our programme manager Annemarie Sancar in the latest issue of à propos. Women's experiences must be part of the process of dealing with war crimes.

In an interview with Swiss newspapers the Belarusian peace activist Olga Karatch expresses her concern that her country could enter the war against Ukraine. In an article for our magazine, she writes about the impact of increasingly toxic masculinity on men and women in the region. She was a guest at events we held in Bern.

Common paths to peace: this could be the title of this print newsletter. Because the women from Colombia and Ukraine featured in this issue are on these paths – even though war is still raging in Ukraine and a peace agreement has been in force in Colombia since 2016.

In an interview with our Ukrainian programme coordinator Olena Zinenko, she recalls the first days and months after the Russian attack on 24 February 2022 and talks about the path she has travelled since then. She also explains why women must be the driving force behind a future-oriented "life agenda" in Ukraine.