Andrii Smolensky met Alina one evening in 2018, when they found each other sitting on the side of a fountain in Kyiv. They stayed up until dawn. “We talked about philosophy, about our pasts, our hobbies, and at the end of the night he gave me his vest to keep me warm,” Alina said. “It was a secret move, to catch her,” Andrii added. He proposed three months later, on a sailboat on the Dnieper River.
They built a life and home in Kyiv, Alina working in sales and Andrii as a consultant. Like so many Ukrainians, they were incredulous when bombs began to fall two years ago. Andrii joined the military, eventually heading east for deployment.
In May 2023, Andrii was in a trench in the Zaporizhzhia region, attempting to stand to reach for a drone, when a mortar exploded at close range. The next thing he remembered was waking up in a hospital bed. “I opened my eyes and thought, ‘Oh, that was just a dream. … Why is it so dark?’” He had lost his eyes and both hands, and sustained many other injuries. Despite the darkness, he knew Alina was near him.
Since Russia’s invasion began, Ukrainian lives have been transformed — by violence, by loss and by the fight for a free land. The story of conflict is often told in battles and the cold numbers of the dead, in anecdotes of horror and lists of weapons. These photos attempt to pay homage to the personal fabric that weaves this reality together: the bonds of love that every soldier is fighting for; the knowledge that it may cost them their lives; the terror of losing who they love most.
For the past two years, I have been photographing the invasion and the nightmare it has brought to Ukraine. But as I traveled the country, I kept seeing the way love was holding people up, making it possible for them to defend their country when the world thought it would fall in days. The love stories I’ve witnessed are bright spots in the darkest of times. They speak to the cost of war in universal terms.
Anastasia Kucher and Yevgen Cherepnya
Last summer, I met Anastasia Kucher and Yevgen Cherepnya in Kostiantynivka, a village just west of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donbas. Anastasia was making coffee in the kitchen of a small house surrounded by overgrown flower gardens. They were enjoying a brief respite from the front lines.
When the invasion began, Anastasia was a journalist living in Kyiv. But she was determined to do more for her country. She signed up to become a combat medic, but struggled to get an assignment at the front, where she felt she could be most useful. That’s when she wrote to Yevgen, an activist from the Maidan Revolution who had become a soldier in the 93rd Brigade, and asked for his help. “She didn’t say: ‘I want to become a combat medic.’ She said, ‘I will, whether you help me or not.’ I was impressed by the strength of her character,” he said.
Anastasia joined the 93rd Brigade, working in the field hospitals while Yevgen took part in combat missions. As their courtship began, he fought in Bakhmut while she saved lives at the nearest evacuation point. Separated for months, she dreaded seeing him brought to her on a stretcher, often waking up in the middle of the night to text to ask if he was okay.
The couple were married in a small ceremony in Kyiv during a brief break at Christmas. Shortly afterward, they returned to the front, separated again. “Sometimes he says that if he had known we’d fall in love, it might have been better if I [had] stayed in Kyiv,” Anastasia laughs. “But the hard times make you grow closer,” Yevgen adds.
Maria Petrovska was playing the bandura, a traditional Ukrainian instrument, to soldiers, trying to boost morale on the front lines, when she met and fell in love with another musician. Since then, the couple has moved on, separated by the distance like so many Ukrainians,
“We took advantage of the moments we have, even if it’s just five minutes when we’re changing cars between performances.”
On his boyfriend’s birthday, Andri slept by his grave.
Andri fell in love with Alexii at first sight. “Our first date was only an hour and a half, and then he had to return to base,” said Andri, a nickname he uses for privacy reasons. “When he left, I was shaking. I had never felt this before.”
They had met on a dating app. On their second date, they told each other everything — even exchanging passwords, credit card numbers and family contacts, just in case something happened to one of them. They spent four more blissful nights together, any time Alexii could get away from the fighting.
Andri worried about Alexii, thinking he could be severely injured. But he was prepared to be with him forever, even if he lost a limb. One day, the dreaded moment came: Alexii stopped responding to Andri’s messages. He had been killed in combat.
Now, he visits the grave alone. Alexii had not told his family he was in love with a man, and Andri keeps his secret.
Olga Prokopenko left her job as a nanny to help defend her country. She is a combat medic in the 53rd Brigade. During a training session, she fell in love with a soldier. “He had so many questions for me about how to tie a tourniquet. Eventually, when they would sound the alarms, we would run together. Soon we were sharing a tent.
“Now, he trains only 120 kilometers [75 miles] away, so we feel lucky. He sometimes drives hours just to bring me flowers and then turns around to drive back to his base.”
Zoya Boychenko and Yevgen
The first time Zoya Boychenko saw Yevgen, he was staring off in the distance in a field. In that moment, she saw something strong and vulnerable, and she felt something for him. Zoya works for the Ukrainian National Institute of Memory. He was fighting on the front lines.
They fell in love and six months later, on a June day in the pouring rain, Yevgen, whose last name has been withheld for security reasons, surprised Zoya with a proposal. They married in Kholodnyi Yar after he had been in combat for a year. The soldiers from Yevgen’s unit said it gave them hope, and several other romances emerged from the celebrations.
Zoya moved to Slovyansk to be as close to her husband as possible, as he continues to lead a group of assault soldiers. They live with a cat, Plush, that Yevgen rescued from the occupied territories, and Zoya now volunteers to help the war effort, gathering and distributing supplies for displaced people.
They talk about their future in a conflict-free Ukraine, and dream of opening a rehabilitation center together when it’s all over.
Andrii Smolensky and Alina Smolenska
Andrii embraced Alina outside the hospital after his fifth surgery.
“I needed to be with him. I didn’t cry. I decided that I should be strong and I shouldn’t cry near Andrii because he feels everything, and he shouldn’t feel that.” His recovery will be slow and arduous, but for Alina, “all that matters is that my Andrii is alive.”
Artem Hutorov dreams of being a tractor operator and studying in Kharkiv, the embattled city known for its great universities and young Ukrainian artists. In September of 2022, he was kidnapped from his technical school in Kupyansk and taken to Russia.
It took months for his mother, Natalia, to secure his release with the help of Save Ukraine, a Ukrainian organization specializing in aiding stolen children and bringing them home from Russia. But in captivity, Artem met Nina, another Ukrainian abductee. They fell in love, bonding over their shared desire to go home.
When they were freed, Artem and Nina spent four precious days together. Artem recalled riding the elevator up and down at their lodging in Kyiv in wonder. Today, they’re separated again. Artem has returned to his family’s farm in Husynka and Nina to her home in Kherson, just a few miles from the front.
These photos were taken with the support of the International Women’s Media Foundation and the Aperture Creator Labs Photo Fund. Rita Burkovska contributed to this report. Hanna Kyriienko provided additional translation and production support.