Photoreports

With winter coming, Russia has been increasing its attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, leaving cities without essential services like heat, water, or electricity. Despite these harsh challenges, children’s clubs in Ukraine are adapting to the outages, utilizing charging stations and generators.

Families in the East of Ukraine lived through a war long before Russia’s 2022 invasion. In  5k from the Frontline , a digital platform and short film, British-Swedish photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind and Donetsk native Alisa Sopova captured the everyday lives of civilians in towns like Avdiivka and Toretsk before the Russian army wiped them off the map.

Ukrainians aged 18–24 do not have to serve, but many still walk into recruitment centers on their own. Through portraits and first-person stories, we capture what motivates them, and how a year in the army is reshaping who they are and who they hope to become.

Studying underground has become the reality for many Ukrainian children living in close proximity to the border with Russia and the frontline. We visited two kindergartens in Zaporizhzhia and Vilniansk, a city in the region, to see how the kids celebrate St. Nicholas Day underground.

The war turned Vladyslav Krasnoshchok, a Kharkiv surgeon and underground artist, into one of Ukraine’s most provocative war photographers. His language is raw, and his images even more so—together they capture a truth that goes beyond what the eye sees.

The power radiating from a person’s gaze can’t be replicated. Just five photos, ten eyes, and the boundless energy they hold. Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SOF)—whose work remains largely unseen—shape outcomes far greater than most realize, in a nation fighting for its survival.