As the war is in its second year and men are starting to be scarce, there are, at the rear of the front line, those who continue to live trying to maintain a semblance of normality. Women waiting for their men, youth on whom looms the threat of conscription and who are living their adolescence with even more frustration, anger, revolt, and even hatred than they do in peacetime; babushkas and dedushkas who are helping mothers take care of their children; those who are not wearing the uniform because their role in civil society is too important; those who hide; and those who simply are inapt.

As I went to Ukraine, it’s on those people—rarely talked about in the media—that I decided to focus. To show that life, however strange, is continuing during this conflict that traumatizes the country.