1 story · 3 interviews · more to come
The written record of the project: the story of my journey, drawn from my travel journal, and the long interviews I conducted on the ground.
This article retraces my experience, based on my travel journal: a 21-year-old French student, I went alone to Ukraine to discover a war zone for the first time in my life.
“War, nobody forces you to go there, you have no business here, you’re a young man, don’t waste your life on things like this.”
Stefan, soldier · first night in Lviv
This war taught me who I am.Misha · Kyiv
If you’re not resilient, you die.Yaroslava · Odesa
In Kharkiv, after an explosion, people order another coffee.Azad Safarov · Kyiv
In Bucha, you cannot guess the atrocities if you only look at the setting.The story · Bucha
They have stolen five years of my life, and our children’s childhood.Yaroslava · Odesa
For seven months, I was beaten morning and night as they tried to extract information from me. [...] I lost twenty kilogrammes.Misha · Mariupol
Interviews
A soldier, the director of the Alliance Française, a television producer: three lives turned upside down by the war, told in their own words.
Misha · Drone operator · Kyiv · 18.05.2026
“This war taught me who I am.”
A philosophy graduate, captured at Mariupol, seven months in detention, twenty kilos lost. Then he went back to the front. For revenge, and to find himself.
Yaroslava · Director of the Alliance Française of Odesa · Odesa · 26.05.2026
“If you’re not resilient, you die.”
The evening before, a ballistic missile had struck the port, one kilometre from the café terraces. The next day, she explained how school carries on in the shelters, and why a whole generation of young people is leaving.
Azad Safarov · Chief producer for Sky News in Ukraine, co-founder of the Voices of Children foundation · Kyiv · 22.05.2026
“Without the reporting on Bucha, Germany would have sent us blankets, not weapons.”
First at the scene of the MH17 crash, he has covered the front since 2014. One day, a Russian oligarch offered him money. His answer came down to two words.
More articles will be published here as the project continues.
