Ukrainian Love Letters

Dates

2022 - Ongoing
Author

Natalie Keyssar
Recognition

Collective Show at PhMuseum Days 2023 - PhMuseum Days 2023 Open Call

Since the full scale Russian invasion began, the story of Ukraine has become synonymous with violence, tragedy, and courage. While working there throughout last year from the front lines to the borders, I struggled with the limits of photography to communicate beyond the horrors of the immediate violence and suffering. Ukrainian friends and collaborators have taught me so much about generosity and courage in the midst of so much darkness. I’ve seen the the worst and the best humans can do, during my first time in the country where my great grandparents were born, looking into faces that feel familiar although I’m also a total foreigner there. Ukrainian Love Letters is the result of my desire to share these inspiring, painful, urgent, stories in a way that draws us all into that experience.

In my years covering violence and its fallout, I’ve learned that images of conflict simultaneously rivet and alienate. It’s difficult to imagine how fast a life can crumble until its yours. It’s human to subconsciously think of horror as other. There’s a fine line between sympathy, and empathy, and its our responsibility as documentarians to evoke the latter. While criss crossing Ukraine, I noticed impossibly bittersweet love stories unfolding in the midst of the war, and found their unique details and omnipresence to contain a universal language, a space through which this terrible history can be recorded through vignettes that are as poignant and relatable as love songs.

I’ve begun collecting portraits of Ukrainians in love, contextualized by traditional reportage. From Viktor and Luba, two 90 year olds who survived a direct rocket strike while home in bed, to Natalia and Anton, who fell in love fighting side by side in Donbas and now dream of victory so they can have children, to Yevheniia, who’s boyfriend went missing, presumed dead, in March of 22, but she refuses to stop waiting for him. Ukrainian Love Letters tells the story of the war through tender, powerful, personal narratives.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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April 1, 2022. Bucha, Ukraine. After a month of occupation by Russian invaders, during which time civilians were subjected to murder, torture and rape by the occupiers as well as terrorizing shelling and constant fighting, loss of electricity, water and access to food, on April first, the Mayor of Irpin Oleksandr Markushyn, road into central Bucha with the military and NGO the World Central Kitchen which came to deliver food to the newly liberated town. Civilians came out of hiding for the first time in a month, to thank the soldiers and volunteers who were the first non-russians they had seen in weeks. The people wept with shock and gratitude as they realized their nightmare was finally over, and received food aid from the NGO.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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March 10 2022 Lviv Ukraine. Sofia, 13, of Luhansk, poses for a portrait at the Women’s shelter. She and her mother had fled shelling but also bitter cold and food shortages after electricity and supply lines were cut off to their home. Her mother doesn’t want to leave Ukraine and hopes to stay in the west for now while it is relatively safe with her family.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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April 4, 2022. Bucha, Ukraine. Gala and her daughter Veronika hid at home throughout the occupation. Gala (blue hair) said that the soldiers would come into her home twice a day threatening to kill them and terrorizing the neighborhood. After a month of occupation by Russian invaders, during which time civilians were subjected to murder, torture and rape by the occupiers as well as terrorizing shelling and constant fighting, loss of electricity, water and access to food, residents of Irpin and Bucha, suburbs of Kyiv, picked through the rubble as soldiers and paramedics cleaned up explosives and bodies. With the Russian forces gone, evidence of probably war crimes emerged, including the discovery of many bodies of civilians who appeared to have been executed and left on streets, in private homes, and in mass graves.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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Left: Glass and apricots on the ground outside a blast site in Serhiivka. Right : Natalie, a 15 year old girl who's mother narrowly survived a rocket attack which destroyed the family's apartment in Serhiivka, a village outside Odesa, listens as her mother discusses the walls caving in on them and miraculously stopping before she and her son were crushed.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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July 16, Odesa Ukraine. Smoke over a factory which was hit by a Russian missile early that morning in Odesa. Missile strikes to the city have increased recently. As the war in Ukraine continues, with an escalation in the country’s south, Ukrainian farmers are on the front lines of not only Russia’s invasion of their country, but a race against time to export grains and other food supplies that feed the entire world. For the farmer’s of Odesa and Mykolaiv Oblasts, their wheat, sunflower oil, barley, and other grains are their livelihood and way of life. For the rest of the world, they represent an important percentage of the global food supply. On Friday, Turkey and the UN seemed to have brokered a deal with Russia for the invading country to unblock Odesa’s Black Sea ports, but only 24 hours later Ukraine’s worst suspicions were confirmed when Russia launched 4 Kaliber missiles at the port, two of which were intercepted and 2 hit, clearly signaling that the deal and its intended relief to the world are in grave doubt. For the farmers on the ground, the work goes on, as they store their grains hoping the exports will resume, and farm amid barrages of rockets and total uncertainty of what the future will bring as Russia seems to set its sights on pushing towards Odesa, and Ukraine plans a counterattack in Kherson. (Natalie Keyssar)

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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March 4, 2022. Przemysl, Poland. Bert Wilhaus of Holland waited for a train to enter Ukraine to go help fight the Russians. A soldier himself, though not Ukrainian, he said he was crying inside when he saw the news and wanted to put his fighting skills to use to help the country. He didn’t know where he would end up but he would take the train to Lviv and offer his help. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, over a million refugees are estimated to have fled the country, with more pouring into neighboring countries every day. The vast majority are women and children, most of whom have traveled for days with minimal luggage. As they arrive at the border of Poland they search for transportation to their destinations by train, bus, volunteer or friends coming to pick them up. Aid stations have been set up in border towns to distribute donated supplies and help coordinate. (Natalie Keyssar )

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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December 4, 2022. Borodyanka, Ukraine. A little girl sleds among destroyed buildings. 8 months after the Russian invaders were pushed out of Borodyanka, one of the the northern suburbs of Kyiv that was among the hardest hit by the fighting and occupation there, citizens attended church on Sunday morning, and continue to attempt to rebuild and move on. Some who have lost their homes are living in temporary housing built with funding from Poland. Recently famed street artist Banksy put up art works on the remains of bombed out buildings in the town. (Natalie Keyssar )

© Natalie Keyssar - Children play in a bomb shelter Kyiv while it was encircled by Russian forces.

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Children play in a bomb shelter Kyiv while it was encircled by Russian forces.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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December 2022. Sloviansk Ukraine. Luybov Lada, 91 and Víctor Lada, 90, are great grandparents who have been living together in Sloviansk for 70 years. They have weathered Russian attacks since 2014, and never considered fleeing their home, until one night they were in bed and Luybov heard the shelling getting close. She suggested to Victor that they go down to the bomb shelter, but he said they should stay in bed. Then a missile struck directly under their bedroom window, destroying the front of their home and covering them with glass and shrapnel. Victor was injured while digging her out but she remained unscathed. The two have now moved down the street to one of their grandson’s homes while they wait to repair theirs and for the invasion to end. Across Ukraine, Russia’s invasion has caused havoc in the lives of Ukrainian civilians and armed forces, separating families, destroying homes and lives, and killing a still unknown number of civilians and fighters. Amidst this dark hour, many Ukrainians have remarkable stories of love and resilience in the face of so much terror. Young couples fall in love, older couples stick together, parents raise their children, partners of the missing hold on to hope, and soldiers fall in love. These portraits of couples and parts of couples were made across Ukraine in December 22. (Natalie Keyssar )

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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March 7, 2022. Lviv, Ukraine. Women cut strips for camp nets at a Library in Lviv. Women make up a powerful contingent of the volunteers, weaving camouflage nets, sewing flak jackets, cooking and housing refugees, and finding every other possible way to help their people and country. On Sunday morning, many women boarded the train from Przemysl, Poland, to Lviv Ukraine. For many of them, it was the first leg of a journey to besieged areas like Kyiv and Donetsk, where several women were racing to get back to their children. Among them, Natalia, Oksana and Anna, heading for Kyiv, and Donetsk, made friends in line and stuck together as they began a days long journey to be close to their children as danger encircled them.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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Dec 15, 2022. The road entering Bakhmut is covered in smoke as rockets strike the area. The city has been the focal point of the war and the site of a horrific battle for months destroying much of the city. This road, the last supply and evacuation route for Ukrainians, has come under heavy attack recently as Russians seek to control it.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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March 11, 2022. Lviv, Ukraine. A funeral was held at the Church of the Most Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Lviv, Ukraine on March 11, 2022, for 3 Ukrainian soldiers Taras Didukh, Dmytro Kabakov and Andrea Stefanyshyn who were killed in the Russian invasion.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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March 8, 2022. Lviv, Ukraine. On Wednesday morning, the Lviv train station was packed with lines stretching in wide circles around the nearby plaza with people trying to get out of Ukraine. In a womens’ room upstairs in the station designated as a shelter for women and children, many took a moment to sleep and rest after harrowing escapes. At the rail station in Lviv, the line to get on outgoing trains was in the hundreds of people huddled in the cold. One woman, a maternity ward doctor, waited on a nearly empty platform for the train to return to Odessa to get back to work, just as shells began to hit her city. In Lviv, so far Russian shells and troops have not alive, but the city is bustling with volunteers helping to support the front lines even as refugees fill the city to its seams, often joining the volunteer effort as well. Women make up a powerful contingent of the volunteers, weaving camouflage nets, sewing flak jackets, cooking and housing refugees, and finding every other possible way to help their people and country. On Sunday morning, many women boarded the train from Przemysl, Poland, to Lviv Ukraine. For many of them, it was the first leg of a journey to besieged areas like Kyiv and Donetsk, where several women were racing to get back to their children. Among them, Natalia, Oksana and Anna, heading for Kyiv, and Donetsk, made friends in line and stuck together as they began a days long journey to be close to their children as danger encircled them. As an estimated 2 million people have fled Ukraine in the past 10 days since Russia invaded, each day trains, cars and buses are filled with thousands of Ukrainians fleeing across borders and to the more peaceful Western side of the country, as fighters head to the front lines. But amid these massive movements are women returning from abroad, or dropping off kids to safety and then heading back to conflicted areas, very often to be with their children or elderly relatives. (Natalie Keyssar)

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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July 16, Odesa Ukraine. Left, female military Chaplain poses with her pistol in her lap for a photo in Odessa while on a break for serving in July. Right: A factory which was hit by a Russian missile early that morning in Odesa. Missile strikes to the city have increased recently. As the war in Ukraine continues, with an escalation in the country’s south, Ukrainian farmers are on the front lines of not only Russia’s invasion of their country, but a race against time to export grains and other food supplies that feed the entire world. For the farmer’s of Odesa and Mykolaiv Oblasts, their wheat, sunflower oil, barley, and other grains are their livelihood and way of life. For the rest of the world, they represent an important percentage of the global food supply. On Friday, Turkey and the UN seemed to have brokered a deal with Russia for the invading country to unblock Odesa’s Black Sea ports, but only 24 hours later Ukraine’s worst suspicions were confirmed when Russia launched 4 Kaliber missiles at the port, two of which were intercepted and 2 hit, clearly signaling that the deal and its intended relief to the world are in grave doubt. For the farmers on the ground, the work goes on, as they store their grains hoping the exports will resume, and farm amid barrages of rockets and total uncertainty of what the future will bring as Russia seems to set its sights on pushing towards Odesa, and Ukraine plans a counterattack in Kherson. (Natalie Keyssar)

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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A building in Kyiv damaged by a rocket strike. Right: A boy in a bomb shelter in Kyiv when it was encircled by Russian forces.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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April 3, 2022. Bucha, Ukraine. A man who lives near the street of destroyed tanks shows his home where he and his elderly father rode out the month in their home despite constant shelling. After a month of occupation by Russian invaders, during which time civilians were subjected to murder, torture and rape by the occupiers as well as terrorizing shelling and constant fighting, loss of electricity, water and access to food, residents of Irpin and Bucha, suburbs of Kyiv, picked through the rubble as soldiers and paramedics cleaned up explosives and bodies. With the Russian forces gone, evidence of probably war crimes emerged, including the discovery of many bodies of civilians who appeared to have been executed and left on streets, in private homes, and in mass graves. (Natalie Keyssar)

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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December 2022. Kyiv Ukraine. Ivan Fedko , 19 and Ruslana Fylymonova, 19, were in high school together and had crushes on each other, but it wasn’t until the war broke out that they got together. They fell in love and then Ivan joined the armed forces and went to fight at the front line in the same unit as Ruslana’s parents, and Ruslana endured torturous months worrying for her boyfriend and entire family. They kept in touch with letters and telegram messages and calls when they could and are now happily reunited in Kyiv while Ivan is on a break rotation awaiting future assignments. Across Ukraine, Russia’s invasion has caused havoc in the lives of Ukrainian civilians and armed forces, separating families, destroying homes and lives, and killing a still unknown number of civilians and fighters. Amidst this dark hour, many Ukrainians have remarkable stories of love and resilience in the face of so much terror. Young couples fall in love, older couples stick together, parents raise their children, partners of the missing hold on to hope, and soldiers fall in love. These portraits of couples and parts of couples were made across Ukraine in December 22. (Natalie Keyssar)

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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March 9, 2022. Lviv, Ukraine. At Lviv’s railroad station, women came to bid farewell to young soldiers as they headed off on trains to fight in the East of Ukraine.

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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December 2022. Kyiv, Ukraine. Andrii Freel Shalimov, and his wife, Oleksandra Darmohrai, became parents to twins 3 months ago, soon after Russian forces withdrew from the area surrounding their home city of Kyiv. Andrii is a well known rapper and activist who was very active in the Euro Maidan uprisings, and he is now using his notoriety to raise money and gather supplies for civilians and the armed forces. Oleksandra (Sasha) is carefully trying to give her son and daughter a healthy safe upbringing. They live on the 20th floor of an apartment building which is now frequently without power due to Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, which makes bringing the babies 20 floors down to a shelter during air raid alerts, let alone going up and down the stairs with a stroller, extremely difficult. Sasha worries about the children’s development in the dark so she rigged Christmas lights to their mobile. Andrii (who goes by rap name Freel) started prepping for power outages and food shortages before they came, calculating the lengths Russia would go to to hurt the people if they could not take Kyiv. He’s built home made heating devices from flower pots and camping stoves. Across Ukraine, Russia’s invasion has caused havoc in the lives of Ukrainian civilians and armed forces, separating families, destroying homes and lives, and killing a still unknown number of civilians and fighters. Amidst this dark hour, many Ukrainians have remarkable stories of love and resilience in the face of so much terror. Young couples fall in love, older couples stick together, parents raise their children, partners of the missing hold on to hope, and soldiers fall in love. These portraits of couples and parts of couples were made across Ukraine in December 22. (Natalie Keyssar)

© Natalie Keyssar - Image from the Ukrainian Love Letters photography project

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December 2022. Kharkiv, Ukraine. Maria Kulieva is a fashion designer based in Kharkiv. When bombs started to fall on her city, her best friend and roommate, Deena Shaheen had to flea to evacuate her family and many of their friends also left the city, but Maria stayed and began to volunteer trying to support the armed forces in any way she knew how. She began to make plate carriers for the military and created special side plate pockets using her design and sewing skills in the ones she made for added protection. One day while dropping off supplies, she met and fell in love with a soldier. A couple of months later, she had a terrible feeling, she hadn’t heard from him in a day or two and felt in her gut that something was wrong. When she finally did hear from him, she was right, he had been injured in a blast, but the side plates she had put in his vest had saved his life. She is now living in Kharkiv, where the Russians were driven away a couple of months ago, but they are still only 40km from the Russian border. She is working on her spring collection while continuing to volunteer and make gear for the Armed Forces. He man, who she cant name because of his military service, visits when she can, and she and her best friend Deena who has returned, take care of his cat; Bes, which means devil. HAVE AN EXTENDED INTERVIEW WITH THESE GUYS TO PULL QUOTES FROM Across Ukraine, Russia’s invasion has caused havoc in the lives of Ukrainian civilians and armed forces, separating families, destroying homes and lives, and killing a still unknown number of civilians and fighters. Amidst this dark hour, many Ukrainians have remarkable stories of love and resilience in the face of so much terror. Young couples fall in love, older couples stick together, parents raise their children, partners of the missing hold on to hope, and soldiers fall in love. These portraits of couples and parts of couples were made across Ukraine in December 22.