In Vasylkiv, Kyiv region, 27-year-old Hanna Yefimenko was buried — a woman who died on the night of May 18 during a massive Russian drone attack. A direct hit on a residential building destroyed her home. At the moment of the strike, Hanna covered her 4-year-old son Mark with her body. The boy survived but suffered shrapnel wounds to his face — doctors are fighting to save his eyesight. Photojournalist Anton Shuka documented the tragedy of the Yefimenko family, which has become yet another great wound for Ukrainian society.

During the week of May 19-25, 2025, Ukraine suffered one of the largest waves of attacks from Russia. Missile and drone strikes hit dozens of cities, causing numerous casualties, injuries, and destruction of civilian infrastructure. Kyiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, and Khmelnytskyi were the most affected. The attack on the capital on the eve of Kyiv Day was particularly cynical.

On May 20, 2022, the withdrawal of Ukrainian defenders from Azovstal was completed, a symbol of invulnerability that held the defense in Mariupol surrounded by Russian troops for 86 days. Families of the defenders of “Azovstal” are still waiting for the return of their loved ones from Russian captivity. Today, the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers publishes footage of the photographer, at that time a soldier of the Azov regiment Dmitry (Orest) Kozatsky, taken on the territory of the plant during the defense, as well as a conversation with him — about photography, war, captivity and the right to pause.

Another metaphor I would like to avoid, but it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Ukrainian photographer Elizaveta Bukreeva told why she does not expect anything from photography, but continues to film the war close up, and why she chooses such complex emotional topics, although she considers herself too sensitive for this profession.

Ukrainian photographer Stanislav Ostrous spoke about shooting in the coastal areas of Kherson, which are attacked by drones every day, about the only resident of Portova Street, and about feeling at home in a city where fewer and fewer people remain.