A young boy looks out the bus window after leaving the Kharkiv metro station on May 22, 2022, after seeking shelter there for three months following Russians invasion of Ukraine of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

“When I first arrived in Ukraine at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, it was completely foreign to me. I was thrown into the breaking news of covering war, drawn instinctively to the humanitarian moments that seemed most undeserved. I had a semi-broken camera, an age-old computer, and defaulting hard drives in my bag – no conflict experience, no editorial contacts, and a small amount of borrowed money in my pocket.

Never had I seen such grief, violence, and death.

This past year has allowed for a deeper perspective, an integration of everyday moments that seem to provide relief from the never-ending tragedy. As a Russian orphan around the collapse of the Soviet Union adopted into a Ukrainian-descending American family, the history of Russia and Ukraine has always been a personal story.

The message now feels more abstract than just what war looks like – it is what surviving a war feels like” – Svet Jacqueline