In 2018, when I came to Japan for the first time - I could barely use English outside of Tokyo. In Kitakyushu and at Miyakojima even on the reception of the hotel I had to use Google Translate. But in 2019 it was much better with the knowledge of English. This year, 2023, I was shocked when I was able to use GooglePay! So Japan evolves and that is really awesome. With current level of technology it is not a big problem to use voice translation software.
Thank you! :) A lot of people moved out of Ukraine (around 5 million Ukrainians are now in EU, around 100k - in US and Canada, some decided to flee to russian territory, some, like me, moved to Turkey for the time being - its climate is close to Odessa and it also has the sea, like in Odessa, so it is pretty similar to home). Some people relocated inside Ukraine - western cities like Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk got a lot of people from eastern Ukraine. A lot of my friends from Kyiv (capital of Ukraine) moved to western Ukraine at first, but now returned back home, while there are still russian rockets flying - I personally don't really get it. But also a lot of people died on the war, unfortunately. Some of my friends were in armed forces of Ukraine and I have no contact with them now - officially they just went missing :( But let's hope that people you've met are safe.