ZEKE Magazine: Spring 2023.2

Young To Fight” focuses on the
“Too
lives of Ukrainian children since
Russia invaded Ukraine on February
24, 2022. The stories are heartbreaking.
I first arrived a week after the
invasion started. I was thrown into the worst
parts of this conflict. I spent my mornings
at funerals, my afternoons watching fathers
say a tearful goodbye to their families
boarding trains, and my nights in bunkers
listening to the echoes of artillery fire.
I have now spent over five months
documenting this cruel and unnecessary
attack on Ukraine—and democracy. The
landscape of this war changes daily. As
of September 2022, over 1,000 children
had been killed in Ukraine—some have
been tortured and their bodies burned.
Others have sustained injuries from shelling
and are spending birthdays and holidays
in hospitals getting fitted for prosthetics.
Thousands are accepting a new life of living
underground dreaming of a day when they
can go back to school—or just to dance
class. The rest—those who account for the
over five million refugees who were forced
to flee since the war started—are doing
their best to assimilate in places that will
never feel like home.
The beautiful thing about children is the
joy they find in the most unlikely of circumstances.
They embody the Ukrainian spirit
in its purest form. They run, play, and laugh
in the face of the evil that has become their
reality.
As they grow older, some of them will
be drafted into the war as young adults.
Some will help raise the siblings that their
parents died to protect and some will never
return to their childhood homes or cities
again. I will continue to photograph their
stories—the ones that capture the innocence
that war destroys. As the world starts to turn
away from the headlines from the war, I ask
that we recognize that the shadows of this
period in history will follow us, reflected
through the eyes and stories of Ukrainian
children as they find a more permanent
identity.
Too Young
to Fight
Photos by
Ukraine
Svet Jacqueline
A family takes a train toward Lviv as
violence increases in Eastern Ukraine
on April 25, 2022. The displacement
of over four million refugees has
been recorded since the start of the
Russian invasion.
38 / ZEKE SPRING 2023