Olena Blizniakova

“Are you excited?” a kid-reporter asks NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. One of the youngest of the 2000 journalists to cover the NATO Summit in The Hague, he patiently waited on the doorsteps to ask his question. “I’m excited, but to a level where I can still control it,” Rutte replied, returning a smile. A few hours later, the NATO leaders' meeting would begin.

A group of men draped in blue and yellow flags steps off the bus into a crowd. “Welcome back! Thank you, guys!” echoes from all sides. Moments later, a woman runs in to embrace one of them. This is one of the places Ukraine’s former prisoners of war are brought after exchanges, with more defenders returning from Russian captivity on June 19.

“Pavlo, can you hear me? Don’t touch your face.” In a Lviv hospital, a doctor reassures his patient just moments after surgery. Pavlo lies on a gurney, barely awake from anesthesia, instinctively reaching to feel what he now looks like. His procedure was one of 26 performed this week by US and Ukrainian surgeons as part of the “Face to Face” medical mission.