KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainians have now lived with four years of war. They have lost limbs, loved ones, livelihoods and homes, but not hope. Here are some of their stories. All but one posed with photos taken by relatives or friends before Russia's full-scale invasion.
Khimion had practiced ballroom dancing since the age of 6. She became an international-level judge and taught children at her studio in the city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region.
Competitions, not conflict, shaped her routine.
“We believed that the world was beautiful and kind," she said.
Now she is a sniper in the Ukrainian army. Her white-blond curls spilled over an olive-green jacket as she posed in a forest on the outskirts of Kyiv. Her husband had enlisted right away and urged her to delay making the same decision, "but once I decide something, it’s very hard to turn me from that path.”
She trained in Europe and moved among several units before reaching a combat position. “Sniping is a very creative profession, and I’m a creative person," she said. “At the same time, it’s very mathematical, and I love math.”
The mother of two grown sons doesn’t want them to have to go to war too.
Osypenko and her husband, welder Oleksandr, had been raising a son, Davyd, in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv and dreaming of having another. Their son Hlib was born in 2020.
Oksana, a secondary schoolteacher, said it felt like a new beginning: “New breath of life, new plans, a fresh start." They saved money for a new apartment and dreamed about the future.
But on March 3, 2022, a Russian airstrike on Chernihiv killed dozens of people including Oleksandr, who was with the territorial defense. His family learned of his death more than two weeks later and struggled to believe it was true.
“I lived for about a year and a half with the feeling that he might walk through the door," Oksana said.
Hlib is now 5 and has lived longer without his father than he did with him. “He seems to be starting to understand that his father isn’t there anymore," his mother said.
Before the war, Liliia devoted herself to dance and theater. She met her boyfriend Bohdan in January 2019 on a dating app. “I didn’t think it would turn into anything really serious," she recalled.
Bohdan had voluntarily joined the Azov Brigade in 2015 to combat Russia’s aggression in eastern Ukraine. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, he was among the first to respond. Then he was captured.
At the end of last year, Bohdan was sentenced by a Russian court to 18 years in prison.
“It’s a constant fear for someone you love, for his life above all, and for his health, which is deteriorating every day in captivity, in inhumane conditions," said Liliia, who did not disclose her last name due to security concerns.
Every Sunday, she regularly attends rallies in support of prisoners of war in Kyiv.
“It’s hard for me to function and to give people beauty on stage while dancing in the theater when inside I feel empty,” she said.
Knysh was 16 when he stepped onto the balcony of his apartment in the city of Selydove in the Donetsk region at dawn on Feb. 24, 2022, as Russian forces began their full-scale invasion. He said the sky seemed dark and unsettling.
“I was feeling defenseless and powerless," he recalled.
Now 20, he is a veteran of the war. In February 2024 he applied to join Ukraine’s army, following tensions at home over his pro-Ukrainian views in a region where some residents have Russian sympathies.
He was wounded in the Kharkiv region in a drone attack last October, losing his arms and legs.
As he goes through rehabilitation and plans to travel to the United States for prostheses, he uses dark humor, quotes Ukrainian poets from memory and emphasizes the importance of historical awareness.
“There are moments when it really overwhelms you, when you start thinking about ending your life," he said. “But I realize that maybe fate has its own plans.”
Nehoda and his wife, Antonina, had tried for about 20 years to have a child. Their daughter, Adelina, was born healthy last April.
The family often gathered at the house built by Nehoda's grandfather after World War II in the village of Pohreby in the Kyiv region. The suburb seemed safer than the capital. And Nehoda knew his parents would help Antonina care for the baby.
A Russian Shahed drone struck the house early on Oct. 22. Nehoda's wife, their 6-month-old daughter and his niece were in the room that was hit. All three were killed.
“If it had hit half a meter to the side, they would all be alive,” said Nehoda, who had stayed in Kyiv that night.
Now he says he lives two lives — one of memories and another to build for the future. But it is difficult.
“I’m not in my twenties anymore,” he said.
Khmelnytskyi once handled customer calls for major postal services. On the morning of Feb. 24, 2022, he logged into the work system and saw that no one else was online. Explosions already had been heard near his town in the Kyiv region, but he had slept through them.
He soon attempted to enlist but was turned away because he lacked military training. Months later, a friend told him about an opening in the State Emergency Service.
Today, Khmelnytskyi is a sergeant in an emergency rescue unit, mostly responding to missile and drone strikes. He says the work has hardened him. At first, he was afraid to step onto unstable debris. Over time, fear gave way to experience.
He lives in constant readiness, sleeping with his phone under his pillow. Sometimes he sleeps in vehicles between shifts. Even on days off, he can be called up within an hour.
“The hardest thing is that this becomes normal," he said, adding: “No Ukrainian likes this. People are tired. Tired — but holding on.”
Shytik and her husband Viktor, 78, had built their lives in the city of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region. He worked in construction at a coal mine. She was an accountant.
On Feb. 24, 2022, Shytik was standing by her flower bed when a low-flying aircraft roared overhead. Soon, shelling began. Trees were torn from the ground. She and her husband sheltered in the basement for nearly a month before evacuating with only documents in a plastic bag. Their house was later burned.
The couple has moved nine times. One apartment in Kyiv was damaged in a missile strike in October 2022, and they and their daughter were injured by debris.
Now they are in social housing near Kyiv, where they have lived for two of the five years granted to them. They don’t know where to go after that.
“At first I couldn’t bear it,” Shytik said of their uprooting. She eventually forced herself to focus on her daughters and grandson.
“But we will live," she added, smiling. “We are not going to die.”
___
This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors. AP journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed from Kyiv.
