Mariupol, 24 February 2022. The first day of Russia's full-scale invasion brought smoke, damaged homes and the sudden collapse of normal life. These frames record the moment a familiar city became a battlefield.

Mariupol, 23-24 February 2022. A military vehicle passed through the city; by morning, smoke rose near homes and residents moved through streets already altered by war. These frames mark the hours when an ordinary city crossed into full-scale invasion.

Mariupol, 23 February 2022. I photographed a report at the city's oldest school and sent it to the media. It was never published. The next morning, Russia launched its full-scale invasion and the story was overtaken by history.

Spring 2021 along the contact line in eastern Ukraine: markets, homes and cemeteries existed beside checkpoints, mines and military positions. These quiet scenes show how a prolonged war entered ordinary spaces long before Europe began paying full attention in February 2022.

A suspected Russian cruise missile crashed overnight near Tarnawa-Kolonia in eastern Poland, leaving a large crater in a field. Polish authorities are investigating the incident; no casualties were reported. TVP Info / framegrab

Reporting from a war zone is never a solitary act. Local journalists, fixers and camera crews provide knowledge, language and access that make responsible work possible. In eastern Ukraine in 2021, these relationships were essential to understanding life beyond the headlines.

In spring 2021, I was allowed to photograph Ukrainian positions in the trenches of Marinka under strict secrecy. The city had stood on the contact line since 2014 and remained one of the most contested places near Donetsk. Only now can I identify where these images were made.

In Avdiivka, war was present not only at military positions but in streets, markets, cemeteries and apartment blocks. These photographs from 2021 show a city where ordinary life continued beside visible evidence of a conflict Europe still treated as distant.

Bohorodychne was among the most devastated places I visited in Ukraine. Homes, roads, infrastructure and the village church were destroyed. Photographing these ruins also preserves evidence that a community existed here before violence tried to erase it.

When I photographed eastern Ukraine in 2021, communities along the contact line already lived with shelling, mines and permanent uncertainty. The full-scale invasion changed the scale dramatically, but civilians had already been living through war for years.

After his tractor hit an anti-tank mine, farmer Alexander Nebera lost a leg. He later returned to the fields. His story is not simply about heroism. It is about necessity, land and livelihood - and how war reaches into work that should be completely ordinary.

At Easter 2021 in Avdiivka, children performed inside a school near mined ground and the front line. Outside, parents waited and children played. War does not erase ordinary life; it forces people to rebuild it every day under conditions that should never become normal.

Liubov “Baba Liuba” Sorokina was 75 when I met her in Avdiivka. She was the last resident on her street after years of shelling. “I don’t want to run from war anymore,” she told us. Her words spoke of exhaustion, not indifference.

War is often photographed at the moment of impact. I am equally interested in what it does to ordinary life: kitchens, gardens, schools and the decision to remain at home. Photographed near the front line in Avdiivka, 2021.