For more than 18,000 aspiring Indian physicians—the most significant international contingent in Ukraine—the lure of affordable, quality medical education in Ukraine is quickly unraveling into a nightmare. Marooned by Russia’s invasion and a lack of med school space available for them in their home country, many now find their medical education journeys paused. Worse consequences may be on the way.

Amongst the enduring images taken during the Covid-19 global pandemic, few may ultimately match the simple, heartbreaking power of those shared from India over recent weeks. Car parks and small patches of urban land covered in funeral pyres, often fueled by wood cut down from nearby city parks. Raw and uncomplicated, they feel like moments from a pandemic long-past; scenes of an old world finding itself again, in the new.