Generation of War

National-patriotic education camps acroos Ukraine are places where childhood and war exist side by side.

Across Ukraine, national-patriotic education camps have quietly entered the everyday landscape of adolescence. In these official and volunteer spaces, military training, civic education, and collective ritual merge into a single rhythm. Teenagers learn how to hold weapons, move in formation, put on gas masks, and endure physical strain - often in the same places where they laugh, rest, and play. These are places where childhood and war exist side by side.

Growing up in Ukraine means learning how to live in a state of permanent alert. Readiness becomes part of the body before it becomes a choice. This series looks at how war reshapes childhood not only through loss and trauma, but through routine, repetition, and embodied knowledge. Through gestures and details, it traces a generation whose coming of age unfolds in parallel with ongoing conflict.

The photographs observe a quiet transformation: the gradual normalisation of military language in teenage life, the early absorption of responsibility, discipline, and collective duty. Patriotism here is not declared - it is practiced. It is learned through touch and fatigue, through proximity to others, through the slow accumulation of drills that begin to resemble everyday life.