Yana, 24, lives in Kyiv and is a student at the Ukrainian Leadership Academy (ULA). Her uncle raised her and quickly joined a volunteer battalion after February 24, 2022. The battalion was secretly sent to Mariupol. The family had no information until the commander called Yana's grandmother to inform her that her uncle had died there on May 3, 2022. She now wants to work in the army. Everyone who has lost someone wants to scream their grief and show the world what's happening here. If we don't testify and fight, there's no hope for our future.
Marta, 22, lives in Lviv where she was born. She studied philosophy and psychology. Her grandfather was a Crimean Tatar deported by the Soviet regime to Siberia. We are not just statistics. We are all different stories. Supporting Ukraine means defending every voice that was almost silenced, and every future still worth fighting for.
Bohdan, 6, and Taras, 8, are from Zymna Voda, a village in the Lviv region. In February 2022, their 34-year-old father decided to enlist in the army. He is still serving and takes part in missions in the east of the country.
Olesya and her three daughters left the Zaporizhzhia region during the Russian invasion to take refuge in Lviv. Her husband Anton joined the army five months after the invasion. As a father of three, he could have avoided conscription. He rarely comes home and keeps in touch with his wife and daughters by phone.
Baby Tereza and her mother. The husband has been fighting in the Ukrainian army since 2014. He now leads a drone unit. He goes on missions every month and manages to get regular leave to return home.
Svitlana, 65, was born in Polohy. Her son, a paratrooper in 2014, died after the Russian invasion. She often communicates with her in-laws but never meets them. Her dream is that the Ukrainian government won’t forget the families of soldiers. She regularly takes part in commemorations for fallen soldiers.
Oleksandra (Sasha), 27, was born and raised in Kharkiv, where she still lives. She is a philologist by training and worked for a long time as a translator. Her husband served in the army from 2022 to 2024 in aerial reconnaissance. He now works as a drone instructor.
Maryna from Dnipro. Her father is a soldier in an infantry combat unit. He was mobilized after the February 2022 invasion. Her mother volunteers with an organization that helps frontline soldiers. The father only rarely returns to see his family.
Hanna, 32, was born in the Sumy region (15 km from the Russian border), moved to Kharkiv for her studies and still lives there. She went to Donetsk and Luhansk to take photos and volunteer starting in 2014. In 2016, she met her future husband, Heorhiy Tarasenko, in Kharkiv. He died in 2022 during the counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region. He became the first military volunteer after the invasion to receive the title of 'Hero of Ukraine.' Two streets in Kharkiv now bear his name. Personally, victory in this war will never be complete because of the immense losses and the loved ones I will never share it with. Now more than ever, I understand the saying: 'Enjoy the war, the peace will be terrible.'
