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Honourable mention2025 · Photo Essay · 14 frames

Frontlines of Dignity, Shredded Skies and Other Love Stories

A photo essay by Marylise Vigneau

Set in war-torn Ukraine, this project explores the intimate and human dimensions of the full- scale Russian invasion, tracing grief, loss, and the profound ways war alters identity, memory, and the texture of daily life

Looking beyond the headlines and with a tender lens, it turns to the unfolding aftermath to preserve its memory. Through portraits of love, both enduring and broken, as well as fleeting moments of joy and resilience, it reflects the suffering and resilience of those caught in the conflict, offering an inward gaze into these dark times.

Amidst the noise of war, it captures a longing that endures, stronger than violence, for justice, truth, love, and peace. It also aims to serve as a body of evidence.

01 / 14Tatarin stands with his partner Angelika at the Kyiv War Museum. He fled Crimea and joined Ukraine’s Territorial Defence in 2022 as a drone operator. Angelika fled Donetsk bombings. Exile united them.
02 / 14Vania met Vladislava online in April 2022. After weeks of conversations, they met during his leave and became engaged. Near Bakhmut, he stepped on a mine and lost his sight. They married soon after and are now raising a son.
03 / 14The hands of Vladislava and Vania meet over his prosthetic eyes, a gesture of love and resilience. Vania defended Kyiv and later stepped on a mine near Bakhmut, losing his sight.
04 / 14Olena Fokova’s husband Serhii disappeared after the 2022 invasion. In 2024, she learned he was captive in Russia, alive but tortured. Olena finds solace as an art therapist for adolescents with mental disabilities.
05 / 14Nikita sent Anna daily messages from the front, always "Hello, sunshine." On Nov 30, she got a call: "Nikita 200" — code for killed in action. She wears his jacket, holds his roses and gloves.
06 / 14Vladislav and Valeria met just before the invasion. Vlad joined the army and was blinded by a mine in 2022. He proposed in hospital with flowers and meringues, proudly wearing his prosthetic “Tiger Eyes.”
07 / 14Illia Vasiliev, 29, walked Kharkiv’s centre for New Year gifts. Shot in the leg at Pokrovsk, he got a prosthetic from “Superhuman” in Lviv. He hesitated to be photographed because his mustache was untended.
08 / 14Annia, 18, is an art student living in a small dormitory in Kyiv. Raised in Zaporizhzhia, she practised dance and theatre and began drawing young. Fleeing shelling, she moved to Kyiv to study art. Her work explores displacement and the body in wartime.
09 / 14In front of Chernihiv General Hospital, a man wrapped in a banner bearing his son’s portrait, held in Russian captivity, waits. After attending exchanges for two years, he was disappointed again.
10 / 14Between two air raid sirens, a woman sits in a Kyiv bar, her face caught in the window, the city reflected around her, a moment of normalcy among the noise of war.
11 / 14Portrait of soldier Vitalii Lykhobytsky with his daughter Kira. In May 2023, in the trenches of Luhansk, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, Vitalii Lykhobytsky was scanning enemy lines through a thermal camera. He was wearing a helmet fitted with advanced headphones. Then, a Russian sniper fired. The bullet shattered the camera and pierced one of his eyes. When it happened, his first thought was for his children: Will I ever see them again? And even if he did survive, he feared his injuries might frighten them. It took nearly two years and several surgeries for his face to begin resembling what it once was. Today, Vitalii has returned to civilian life and works for a construction company, contributing to rebuilding a country still at war.
12 / 14Odesa, Ukraine, May 2023. Arseniia Terzi is a dancer and a model. On that day, amid the war imposed on Ukraine by Putin's Russia, she poses for a Moldavian clothing brand on a beach in Odesa. Behind her, the Black Sea seems so calm, yet death can appear anytime in the form of a missile fired from a Russian warship.
13 / 14Kyiv, Ukraine, April 10, 2025. In 2008, Olga and her best friend built a small house in the Carpathian Mountains near Ivano-Frankivsk. There, she met Roman, a local with whom she immediately formed a deep bond. They soon began living together and married. They later moved to Kyiv for work. Sharing a love for flowers, they started growing roses seven years ago and nurtured ambitious plans for their business, dreams that were abruptly interrupted when the war began. When Roman said he wanted to enlist, Olga stood by him despite her fears. From the first days of the war, he fought with the 24th Brigade in Bucha and Irpin, serving in the artillery before later being deployed to Kherson. On September 5, 2022, he was killed while liberating the city. A soldier came to deliver the official notice of his death. Olga says she is grateful that his body was recovered. A fellow soldier told her Roman had thrown himself onto a grenade, saving six lives. Olga remains deeply proud of his courage.
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