DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv on April 1, 2022. View of DVRZ, from Anna friend’s top floor apartment. While Russian troops have just left the Kyiv region and the Ukrainian army announces the resumption of around twenty localities, people are staying at home. Until this date, curfews are frequent in the capital city. This building is particularly watched because many Ukrainian soldiers live there.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine on April 3, 2022. Lelik, Anna and Gena’s son, looks out of the window of their appartment on the first floor. Suffering from autistic disorders, very worried, he spends a lot of time observing the outside world. Lelik is particularly sensitive to sound and is attentive to surrounding noises. While the Kyiv suburbs have been liberated for a few days, bombings are no longer heard.
DVRZ, on the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 3, 2022. A car trap in the yard of Yulya, a friend of the couple, volunteering for the Ukrainian army. At the beginning of March, while Russian troops are at the gates of Kyiv, Anna’s friends start making traps and molotov cocktails in anticipation of Russian troops arriving in this part of the city.
DVRZ, on the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 3, 2022. Lelik and his older brother Gleb are resting at home. Daytime curfews are regular in the capital. They have been taking online classes since the early days of the invasion.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, on March 30, 2022. Gena does a Ukrainian soldier’s hair at a territorial defense base. As a trained barber, he offered from the first days of the invasion to do hair cut for Ukrainian soldiers. Thus, since February 24, he has been going to the DVRZ base several times a week.
DVRZ, eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, 17 November 2022. “The forest. This forest is not far from where we live. We used to love walking here, breathing in the fresh air, smelling the flowers and pine needles, having picnics and swimming in the nearby lake. But now the land has been mined, and this threat is taking that opportunity away from us.”
DVRZ, on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 1, 2022. Anna hugs her son Lelik for reassurance. Lelik, who has autism, is very anxious. The brutal changes of the past few weeks have disturbed him, he often asks to be hugged. He is also worried about the situation of his grandparents. Indeed, Anna’s parents live in Artemivsk, a city regularly bombed in the Luhansk region, in territory occupied since 2014. Her father, injured in 2016 by shrapnel, has serious consequences.
DVRZ, eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, 21 November 2023. Anna reassures her son Ivan. Ivan, who is at school, has to go with the other pupils in his class to an air-raid shelter inside the school as soon as the warning sirens sound.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 25, 2022. Since October 10, Russian strikes have targeted energy infrastructure across the country and deprived – like millions of Ukrainians – Anna and her family of electricity.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 16, 2022. Anna is cooking at home amid frequent power cuts. Anna does not rule out leaving her country with her minor children. The hardest thing for her is the constant uncertainty.
DVRZ, eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, 16 November 2022. “It’s pitch black. A torch. And music, which inspires and distracts us from the war. This is when my son Ivan learnt to play the guitar. Music helps him to forget the reality of war.”
DVRZ, eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, 26 November 2022. Anna pensively in the kitchen of her house. She explains: “All the people who live here are traumatised, most of them have already fled the separatist regions once. There’s a certain understanding between us, and to go elsewhere is to flee that understanding, to see that life is normal. “
DVRZ, eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, 15 November 2022. Gleb and Xsenia are watching the news on their phone while an air alert is in progress. That day, numerous Russian strikes targeted the capital. In the evening, a strike landed in the Polish village of Przewodow, near the border with Ukraine, killing two Polish citizens.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 20, 2022.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, November 20, 2022. Gena is preparing to go on a humanitarian mission in the Sloviansk region with members of Kyiv’s Vineyard Church. Before leaving, he visits his friend Dyma to pick up his helmet and bulletproof vest. Dyma, a military chaplain, regularly travels to the east of the country, near the front line, to deliver basic necessities to civilians.
DVRZ, eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, 21 November 2022. Anna and Gena talk before Gena leaves for the Donbass. Gena is preparing to leave on a humanitarian mission in the Sloviansk region of the Donbass with the Vineyard church in Kyiv.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 17, 2022.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 17, 2022.
DVRZ, eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, 24 November 2022. As Gena returns from the Donbass, where he spent a few days bringing humanitarian aid, he shows videos of the ravaged town of Lyman to Anna and her children, who are also from that region.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 26, 2022. Anna, Gena and their son Lelik having dinner at home without electricity with a couple of old friends, Yana and Roman. They are from Antratsyt, in Luhansk Oblast and under Russian control since 2014. After difficult years – propaganda, unemployment, repeated threats – Roman decided to leave his town on January 15, 2022. Yana, his wife, meanwhile left in an emergency on February 24 to join him in Lviv. The couple now live in Kyiv.
DVRZ, in the eastern suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 19, 2022. Since October 10, Russian strikes have targeted energy infrastructure across the country and deprived – like millions of Ukrainians – Anna and her family of electricity.