Not far from the active front line of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, within earshot of artillery duels between Russian and Ukrainian forces, a school building shows little outward sign of life.

But inside, a single classroom has been lit, heated with two stoves, connected to the internet, and hung with bright and hopeful accoutrements of learning.

It’s an unexpected sanctuary for students who made it through five months of Russian occupation, and it’s one kernel of what Ukrainian officials in the town of Lyman hope will become part of a newly reinforced post-war patriotism.

A teacher oversees several primary-age students writing in their notebooks, while several high schoolers follow online classes of the Ukrainian curriculum, using laptop screens to connect with fellow students and teachers who are spread across Ukraine and Europe.

After Ukrainian troops forced a Russian retreat from the area around Lyman last October, educators say they had to go door to door and basement to basement, searching for remaining students in a town where 90% of the buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

“I did not think school would be possible; we had no electricity, light, or internet,” says 10th grader Yelizaveta Romenska, whose classmates fled Lyman, like 75% or more of the pre-war population. “I didn’t realize any kids were still left.”

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Ukrainian pedestrians pass residential buildings damaged by a war that is still just a few miles distant, in the previously Russian-occupied Donbas city of Lyman, Ukraine, April 25, 2023.

Last autumn, the bespectacled Yelizaveta emerged from sheltering into a world transformed by war. It’s a world in which Ukrainian officials – in Lyman, as well as across swaths of liberated territory where pro-Russian sympathy has long been common – have been racing to provide services, from food and utilities to home repairs.

Their goal: to give residents reasons to be more patriotic citizens, and increase their trust in Kyiv.

“Pro-Russian thinking”

Indeed, residents of liberated territories say that while the heavy hand of Russian occupation often exacerbated divisions in their society, by forcing many people to choose sides, in the months since liberation some have also experienced a newfound sense of unity and national purpose.

Among the tools are the 10 single-classroom schools for the nearly 400 school-age children that remain in Lyman and 39 surrounding settlements. In this classroom, written on a whiteboard, are the words: “We’re holding the educational front line of the Donetsk region.”

“They are very grateful and very happy to come here” to the revived school, says Nadiia Didenko, head of the Lyman education department. She describes how, when she was appointed in 2018, three local schools still taught in the Russian language. Her first step was to shift teaching to Ukrainian – a move that was fine with children, she says, but “radically opposed” by some parents, who sued her in court but lost each time.

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Nadiia Didenko, head of the education department for Lyman, in a classroom in Lyman, Ukraine, April 25, 2023. Behind her is a poster warning children about hazards, including grenades, IEDs, and unexploded ordnance, from a war that is only miles away.

Ms. Didenko and the entire Lyman administration worked outside the city during the Russian occupation. But she was surprised when a senior colleague, whose “very active, and very pro-Ukrainian” stance proved to be “just fake,” collaborated with Russians, was elevated to the department head, and tried to recruit other teachers to work.

That teacher and those she recruited ultimately fled to Russia, Ms. Didenko says.

“Today, I hope after this [Russian invasion] it will be possible to completely break this pro-Russian thinking,” she says. She expects children to become “more conscientious citizens,” and their parents, too, noting, “I think what they saw here was not so sweet.”

Trying for “normal”

Helping them make that shift in thinking are systematic efforts across liberated zones by Ukrainian officials cognizant of the need to demonstrate a better vision of a shared future.

On top of making damage assessments in Lyman, for example, Mayor Oleksandr Zhuravliov speaks of efforts to revive a musical school and rebuild the Lyman women’s soccer team.

“With our actions, we want to convince people that Ukrainian lawful power ... after the complete destruction of our energy, gas, and water infrastructure, that we have started to restore those vital things,” the mayor says.

He ticks off statistics for water and electricity supplies for each area, and says volunteers two days earlier brought eight tons of food. Covering damaged roofs is also a priority.

“We are trying to bring back life. … We are trying to get back to normal,” Mr. Zhuravliov says.

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Lyman Mayor Oleksandr Zhuravliov lists multiple projects to restore normal life to local residents, but says the close proximity to the war presents a major challenge, at his office in Lyman, Ukraine, April 24, 2023.

What is the biggest hurdle? “The war – what else could it be?” he says without hesitation. “You have a million projects in your head, the roads, the roofs, houses, the hospital has to be rebuilt. But we cannot rebuild everything, because the war is not too far away from here.”

A similar conclusion is made by Ihor and his wife Tetiana, whose 2-1/2-year-old daughter Valeriia clutches several red tulips while riding a toy car on an early spring afternoon. They are beside a multistory apartment building, where running water has not yet been restored ­and the glass is often missing – smashed by a Russian rocket that landed nearby last February or by explosions from any of the other frequent Russian attacks.

“Since Ukraine gained independence [in 1991] I heard only promises,” says Ihor, who asked that his family name not be used. The only change is that city workers have started to remove garbage that piled high for months.

“It’s possible to buy new windows, but there is no point; they could be blown out again,” he says.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainian parents who gave the names Ihor and Tetiana, and their daughter Valeriia, are among residents trying to carry on with daily life in the Donbas city of Lyman, Ukraine, April 24, 2023. Water has yet to be restored to their building.

Building trust

The issues faced by officials and residents alike in Lyman – including grappling with residual pro-Russian sympathy – are mirrored in Sviatohirsk. It’s a town renowned for its 16th-century Orthodox monastery 16 miles west of Lyman that was occupied by Russian troops for three months and is widely damaged.

“When we came here after de-occupation, we saw that every person had lost 20-25 kilograms of weight; the Russians just didn’t bring humanitarian help here,” says Volodymyr Rybalkin, head of the Sviatohirsk military-civilian administration, who was appointed to the post by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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A cyclist passes a destroyed Russian tank near the Cathedral of Saints Vera, Nadezhda, and Liubov, an Orthodox Church loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate, in Sviatohirsk, Ukraine, April 22, 2023. Three months of Russian occupation left the city severely damaged and with just 550 residents remaining of a pre-war population of 4,000-plus.

He says those who stayed under occupation – some 550 people out of a prewar population of 4,000 plus, often citizens who “decided Russia is not a bad thing” – and those who are now returning should be treated equally.

“It is important to show these people that their government is taking steps to take care of them,” says Mr. Rybalkin, a former mayoral candidate who, before the war, lost a local election to a member of a pro-Russian party.

“With our deeds, we will show that they can trust us, and we can build on that trust,” he says. “We will see the results as time passes.”

Mr. Rybalkin speaks as local officials mark Earth Day with a first post-liberation gathering at a central park. It has a festive atmosphere, with municipal workers cutting the grass for the first time in months, music playing, and locals mixing around free coffee, tea, and food, provided by American and Dutch charities.

Parked nearby, too, is a metal container that provides hot showers, toilets, and laundry machines. The U.S. Agency for International Development is listed on the door as one donor.

“From our side, we try to make such events, to have people work with us, to socialize, because we need to get them together,” says Mr. Rybalkin.

“Installing Ukraine”

When asked about the prevalence of pro-Russian sympathy before the war, he notes that the former mayor, Volodymyr Bandura, very publicly collaborated with Russian occupation forces and fled with the Russians as they retreated.

“We are installing Ukraine here,” Mr. Rybalkin says. “I feel society is more united now, because everyone saw the real face of Russia. Even those who decided to leave with the Russians, they are complaining now to relatives here that they are not living an easy life there.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainian volunteers with the American charity World Central Kitchen hand out some of the 600 meals they distribute daily in Sviatohirsk, Ukraine, April 23, 2023.

Residents may appear more relaxed on the street, but are often wary of speaking to a foreign journalist, and frequently refuse to allow their photograph to be taken, citing video and images taken by Russian journalists during the occupation that landed those featured in trouble.

“I see now that we started melting a bit, because [the occupation] was a very hard time that put us on different sides, and made us angry toward each other,” says a retired teacher of the Russian language, who wears a red jacket, carries a basket of food at the community gathering, and gives the name Liubov.

“Now we can see each other,” she says. “We will be unified, but not soon.”

Residents say they are still in shock at how Russia defied their expectations.

“I know a lot of people who changed their opinion,” says Liubov. “These people just saw with their own eyes the way we were ‘defended’ by Russia. ... It was very hard and painful that this ‘brotherly nation’ came to destroy us. We were not expecting that.

“I can say that as soon as Ukraine came back here, from this moment we felt cared for,” she adds. “Let God help us get everything stable, and for life to return to normal.”

Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this story.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 leaders summit in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2022.

If they were dating, it would be called ghosting. And all those unanswered calls, texts, and emails might be cause for a shrug of the shoulders, a wry smile, and an acceptance that it’s time to move on.

But Joe Biden and Xi Jinping lead the world’s two major rival powers and by far the two largest economies.

So China’s rebuff of recent U.S. efforts to arrange a phone call between the leaders is more than a dating mishap. And it comes at a critical juncture in defining how the world’s single most important geopolitical relationship will look in the years ahead.

With attitudes hardening on both sides – from trade and tariffs to the future of the island democracy of Taiwan, which China has pledged to “reunify” with the mainland – the U.S. hope is not only to avoid a kind of diplomatic doom loop.

It is to find a way for both countries to agree on basic rules of the road – key among them, regular high-level communication – to keep their growing rivalry from leading to unnecessary, even unintended, conflict.

The longer-term hope, though it’s been looking increasingly elusive of late, is for America and China to find ways to cooperate on issues of worldwide concern: climate change, for instance, or debt relief for developing countries.

The good news is that Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi will talk, if not in the coming days, then surely before they’re next due to meet face-to-face at the G-20 summit in India this autumn.

Yet how soon that happens, and what they say to each other, could go a long way toward determining whether a more managed rivalry proves achievable.

Sharply divergent outlooks

Public signals from both sides have underscored the profoundly different ways in which the United States and China view the current tensions and the way forward.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks on the U.S.-China economic relationship at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, April 20, 2023, in Washington.

In a major policy speech last month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen laid out Washington’s concerns about China’s retreat from free-market reforms at home and China’s “confrontational posture” toward America and its allies “in the Indo-Pacific, [and] other regions.” That, she said, explained Washington’s determination to press for fairer trade, as well as its recent moves to restrict the sale to China of high-tech components with potential military applications.

But she dismissed talk of a full-scale economic “decoupling.” With U.S.-China trade totaling some $700 billion, that would be “disastrous” for both countries and “destabilizing” internationally. She added that U.S. policy was not aimed at preventing China from prospering: “A growing China that plays by the rules” would benefit China itself, America, and the world.

And she stressed the “essential” importance of communication.

But from China, the message has been diametrically different.

“Encirclement and suppression”

Mr. Xi told his rubber-stamp legislature in March that “Western countries, led by the U.S., are implementing all-round containment, encirclement, and suppression against us.”

In the weeks since, not only has he spurned suggestions of a phone call with Mr. Biden. He has welcomed a stream of European leaders – from Italy, Germany, France, and the European Union – for talks in Beijing. China clearly sees a twin benefit: cold-shouldering the Biden administration while reinforcing ties with America’s European allies.

There’s a measure of domestic political signaling on both sides of the standoff.

But that’s one reason the coming weeks could prove so important.

Mr. Xi, recently elected to a third term, has more power than any leader since Mao Zedong. He has built his ascent on a narrative of a “Chinese century” in which his country will displace America’s post-World War II dominance in world affairs. The appearance of compromise and conciliation with Washington could risk seeming like a retreat.

Chad Fish/AP

A fighter jet flies past the remnants of a large balloon after it was shot down above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina near Myrtle Beach, Feb. 4, 2023.

Mr. Biden’s toughened policy toward Beijing has enjoyed something almost unheard of in today’s Washington: bipartisan backing. But as the 2024 election comes closer, efforts to find common ground with China could invite Republican accusations of weakness.

Adding to the sense of urgency is the delicate juncture of current relations.

Barely five months ago, the two leaders did meet, at last November’s G-20 summit in Bali. And both leaders committed themselves to an effort to improve relations, starting with a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing.

But hours before he was due to set off, the U.S. identified a Chinese surveillance balloon over the Midwest, postponing the trip and eventually shooting down the balloon. The lack of communication between the countries’ military was seen as a barrier to prospects of deescalating the incident before it got to that stage.

Since then, the Beijing visit – like the proposed call between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi – has been on hold.

Mr. Blinken said this week efforts are continuing to reschedule it, and President Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, cited “near-term” plans to resume the countries’ climate-change talks.

They, like Mr. Biden, see such steps as critical not only for U.S.-China ties, but also as a steadying factor in an increasingly unstable world. That was a point Ms. Yellen made by quoting President Biden’s view that both major powers “share a responsibility ... to prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict.”

And that’s especially true, she made clear, because America and China aren’t just dating. With “decoupling” not realistically on the agenda, they’re fated, in some sense, to remain partners.

In other words, if nothing else, they have to think of the kids.

Octavio Jones/Reuters/File

Walt Disney World has filed suit against the state of Florida, arguing political retaliation. Above, the Magic Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, shown July 30, 2022.

It may call its theme park the Magic Kingdom, but the Walt Disney World resort in central Florida is not a monarchy. The Constitution rules over the property, as it does the rest of the United States – and that is why the company is suing the state of Florida and its governor, Ron DeSantis.

Continuing a yearlong battle between the Republican politician – and possible presidential candidate – and the global entertainment behemoth, the lawsuit raises several financial and contractual issues. But the case also examines and idea that strikes at the heart of American freedom: the right to criticize the government.

It’s been understood for decades that corporations, like individuals, have a constitutional right to free speech. In some areas, like political campaign finance, that has been controversial. But what has never been controversial (legally, at least) is the idea that you can’t be punished by the government for expressing a political viewpoint, whether you’re a person or a corporation.

Florida argues that the case isn’t about Disney’s political views at all, but about a special tax status the company enjoys. Governor DeSantis has dismissed the lawsuit as “political,” saying last week, “we’re very confident on the law.” The litigation could be resolved in various ways, including a settlement, and without addressing the First Amendment question. 

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/AP

A slide summarizes the resolution that invalidated Disney's agreement with the old Reedy Creek Improvement District, April 26, 2023. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis handpicked the new board in an ongoing dispute with Disney.

But Disney isn’t the only company to claim government retaliation for political expression. The trend arguably began in 2019 when Republicans rode to the defense of Chick-fil-A being kicked out of a Texas airport. And the stakes for freedom of expression should be made clear.

“The government can’t offer a benefit and make the price of the benefit that you sacrifice your constitutional rights,” says Gregory Magarian, a professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

If Florida defeats Disney’s lawsuit, he adds, “it really would have far-reaching consequences for not just the free speech of corporations, but the free speech of everyone.”

Florida vs. its largest employer

The controversy began last year when Governor DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education Act, part of which prohibits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools. That law was expanded by the DeSantis administration this year to cover all the way through 12th grade.

The same day, Disney released a statement saying that its goal “as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.” The day after, Governor DeSantis said the company “crossed the line,” adding that the state was “going to make sure we’re fighting back.” 

In particular, he criticized what he described as the state’s preferential treatment of Disney compared to other businesses. Disney is the largest single-site employer in Florida. Since construction of the resort began in 1967, a special tax district created by the state has effectively run the approximately 25,000-acre area as its own municipality.

Octavio Jones/Reuters

Students walk out of Hillsborough High School in Tampa, Florida, April 21, 2023, protesting Florida education officials banning classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in all public school grades.

This year, Governor DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature replaced the board of that district with handpicked successors. Last week, that new board voided Disney-friendly contracts agreed upon by the previous board. The governor has mused about opening a prison near the theme parks.

Disney’s 73-page complaint raises numerous issues. Florida has violated its contract with the company, it argues, and the state engaged in “a targeted campaign of government retaliation – orchestrated at every step by Governor DeSantis.”

“In America,” Disney’s complaint concludes, “government cannot punish you for speaking your mind.”

Why the Ku Klux Klan can adopt a highway

The U.S. Supreme Court has held for decades that the First Amendment protects against government retaliation. The court has even ruled that a state can’t exclude the Ku Klux Klan from its Adopt-A-Highway program.

“Viewpoint neutrality is so deep and so important in First Amendment law it won’t prevent the Klan from participating,” says Don Herzog, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

In 1996, the court ruled that a Kansas county violated the Constitution when it fired a trash hauler because he frequently criticized its county commissioners. That same year they found for an Illinois tow truck driver who lost a contract after backing the opponent of the mayor. As recently as 2016, the justices said a New Jersey city couldn’t demote a police officer because it thought he was supporting the opponent of the mayor.

Disney is only the latest corporation to be threatened with government retaliation. Chick-fil-A won its dispute with San Antonio after the city council voted to ban the restaurant from its airport because of its donations to anti-LGBTQ groups. Delta Airlines and Major League Baseball faced threats from Republican lawmakers in 2021 after speaking out against a restrictive Georgia voting law. Rep. Kevin McCarthy warned, on legally dubious grounds, that tech and telecommunications companies could “los[e] their ability to operate in the United States” if they complied with a request from the Jan. 6 committee to preserve certain records.

Florida argues that its recent actions around Disney’s contracts stem from a decision to no longer give the company special benefits. Governor DeSantis has said that Disney is free to oppose the classroom regulation law but “they are not free to force all of us to subsidize their activism.” 

Brian Snyder/Reuters

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, shown in Manchester, New Hampshire, April 14, 2023, says that the state is “confident in the law” about its stripping Walt Disney World of its special status.

The state may benefit from judicial convention in that regard. In First Amendment cases courts “are usually reluctant to attribute a bad purpose to the government,” says Professor Herzog. 

But in this case, he adds, “the government [has been] going out of its way to announce over and over again that it has a bad purpose.”

If the Disney lawsuit does reach a courtroom (a big “if”), the company really should win, scholars say. Conservative writer David French concurred in a New York Times Op-Ed: “A Disney defeat would represent a dangerous reversal in First Amendment jurisprudence and cast a pall of fear over private expression.” 

Corporate speech rights may differ, in certain contexts, from individual rights. But the protection against government retaliation is – or at least should be – universal, according to Professor Magarian.

“Corporations don’t have autonomy, they don’t have consciences, let’s assume that’s true,” he says. “There’s still something undesirable and problematic about the government retaliating against speech, wherever that speech is coming from.”

“Any time the government retaliates against any speaker,” he adds, “that’s right at the heart of what we don’t want the government to do.”

The day I can’t get a strange dog to warm up to me is the day I’ll tender my resignation as an interspecies ambassador. Dogs, cows, horses, goats, hens, roosters, and (a few) cats: I’ll meet them for the first time and, most often by the end of the encounter, we’ll be solid friends. I have had one or two negotiations break down before an alliance finally took root.

I know enough to give a hesitant or suspicious animal space and time. They have their reasons for holding back. I think of the stray hound who appeared, starving, at the milk house door on our farm in Indiana one day. I provided a bowl of warm milk, and then, day by day, solid meals. He never would come into the house, instead making himself comfortable in a roofed shelter of hay bales just outside the back door. 

For more than a month, I couldn’t touch him. Then one day, as I walked toward the barn, he got up on his hind legs and put his front paws on my shoulders. 

My biggest challenge in the past year, since moving into an apartment near Basel, Switzerland, took the form of a massive Bernese Mountain Dog. He accompanied an elderly woman on her daily strolls along the stream behind my home. His owner uses two canes to steady herself. Since I enjoy the same footpath almost every day, our encounters were frequent. The dog was not leashed but walked closely by his partner like a bodyguard or ever-ready prop against falls.

I’d admired the beautiful Bernese without approaching. He seemed to be part cherished pet, part support animal. My policy is not to touch anyone’s dog without asking permission or sensing a clear invitation to do so, such as muddy paws on my pant legs.

This fellow’s owner would always offer a cheerful smile and pleasant word or two in the local Swiss dialect, little of which I understood fully at first. My inquiry of “Sprechen Sie English?” seemed to amuse her no end. And so we’d just smile and pass as the dog eyed me warily, usually with a sharp warning bark. 

As this went on, week after week, I began to wonder if I’d lost my touch. I came at least to know their names: Etti and Rocky, pronounced with a deeply rolled “R” and long “o.”

You can’t force love. I knew not to press. And sure enough, over time the sharp bark morphed into an almost welcoming woof, and the conversations with Etti lengthened into several sentences, mutually understood despite my nonnative accent. 

Finally, one day, Rocky presented his massive head below my hand, as if allowing me to bestow on him his entitled and long-overdue knighthood. 

So granted. 

With the ice broken, I’ve since gained Rocky’s trust. Seeing me coming along the path, he seems to have to work to not bound forward, taking a few steps my way as the distance between us closes. He woofs in real greeting, presents himself for a pat, and then returns faithfully to Etti’s side. 

The crowning moment came just the other day. Rocky thrust his head at me so enthusiastically in his greeting that he nearly upset my balance. Startled, I gasped. Etti leaned into her canes with a deep laugh.

And so I retain my illustrious title.

Reuters

Spectators in Portstewart, Northern Ireland, watch a rugby match on a big screen.

Over the past quarter century, when many of the world’s troublespots have moved toward peace, their leaders often looked to Northern Ireland as a model. A 1998 accord there ended decades of violence between the Catholic and Protestant communities. Yet a formal peace has not led to an informal melting of hearts. Housing is still largely segregated along sectarian lines. Politics remains deeply divided. The communities coexist more than commingle.

Yet in one model of palpable peace – sports – Northern Ireland shines. More children across the religious boundaries are playing the type of sports long associated with the other side – Protestants playing Gaelic football and Catholics playing rugby. Wearing the wrong jersey in the wrong place no longer gets you in trouble. A survey in 2015 found 86% of people said sports was a good way to break down social barriers. And if there’s one sport that really evokes universal joy, it is football (or soccer).

Last month, the region’s efforts at sports-oriented peace building took a big leap when the five main political parties backed a bid by the United Kingdom and Ireland to host the Euro 2028 football championship. The widespread political support “sends a message of reconciliation, generosity and that sport can unite us,” Paul McErlean, a former star in Gaelic football, told The Financial Times.

To help host the games, Northern Ireland must fix up Casement Park, an old stadium not used since 2013 in a largely Catholic part of the capital, Belfast. If the money can be found for a costly rehab of the 34,500-seat venue and Euro matches are held there, Casement Park would become “the emblem of a new Northern Ireland,” said Joe Brolly, a sports commentator. For their part, the leading politicians said the region would enjoy “an inclusive and unforgettable celebration of football.”

The blending power of sports is important for Northern Ireland because it has not gone through a formal reconciliation process to heal the scars of past violence. The region also faces the ultimate question of whether it might one day reunite with Ireland after being split off by Britain in 1921. For now, it is young sports fans, whose identity transcends old conflicts, that are driving a new direction for Northern Ireland. They prefer watching the pitch, not pitching bombs.