The Carpathian Civil Society Platform is gathering energy for change in the borderlands that connect Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. These remote mountainous areas have similar characteristics and face similar challenges, such as increasing poverty and social exclusion.

With war moving closer to Western Ukraine, the platform’s work to connect civil society actors in the Carpathian mountains has taken on renewed significance. Report by Sándor Köles, Chair of Carpathian Foundation-Hungary.

War is moving closer to Western Ukraine. The south-eastern gateway to the Carpathians – Ivano-Frankivsk (180 km from the Romanian border) and Lviv (70 km from the Polish border) – has been bombed by Russian forces. It is impossible to know when a stray missile or drone will hit one of the NATO member countries with unforeseeable consequences.