A Diary of
War & Hope

On Day 1 of the war in Ukraine, we at Fine Acts were paralyzed. On Day 2, we made a plan. On Day 3, we reached out to Mila Teshaieva, an incredible Ukrainian photographer residing in Berlin, and commissioned her for us a series of portraits of Ukrainians focusing on hope, strength and resilience. Mila packed her bags and left for Ukraine. In the three months that followed, Mila and we were in constant communication – us mainly anxiously fearing about her safety, and Mila just being her kind, brave, talented, and exceptional self.

This is Mila’s story.

In the small room of a local theatre, Oksana, a teacher at Lviv University and a professional sportswoman, spends her days weaving masking nets for the army.

I ask her: “Why is it important to maintain hope?”. She answers with a question:

“If we lose hope, how can we support the people who fight for our freedom?”

I met Yaroslav, a farmer, on a road checkpoint somewhere in the Zhytomyr Region. It was after midnight, and we were waiting for a police convoy to escort us safely to Zhytomyr during curfew hours. As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, he, along with a small group of farmers from a nearby village close to the checkpoint, armed themselves with their hunting guns, getting ready to defend their small piece of land. They guard every night, coming to a tiny trailer to warm themselves, and then resuming their post again.

Yaroslav got married just weeks before the invasion and started to build his own house for his new family.

“There is no other choice”, he says, “I can’t let the enemy pass through my village.”

Russian tanks are advancing towards Kyiv and the city is preparing for the fight. Barricades have been constructed on almost every corner. Gleb, a 22-year-old student from Kyiv University, fills bags with sand, together with other people of all ages and occupations. Their mood is full of optimism – they are confident in the power of resistance.

Petro proudly shows me the barricades. This 55-year-old engineer is supervising their construction. He never held a gun before in his life.

“We, Ukrainians, are born as free people. That’s what I hope – that my children can live in a free world, in a democratic world, that they will breathe the air of freedom. That’s why I am here”.

Dmitriy guards the bridge at the exit from Irpin. It is the only exit point from the city, with around 60,000 inhabitants. The Irpin bridge was blown up by the Ukrainian army during the first days of the war, to obstruct Russian tanks from gaining access to Kyiv. Now, the Russian army is at the border of the town. The situation becomes tense with thousands fleeing, but Dmitriy stays calm, as he helps people climb the bridge.

Sasha Morkuschin is the mayor of Irpin. Normally, he wears a suit and sits in his office, resolving the daily needs of the town. But the war has turned him into the head of territorial defense in the city, and so he is now known as “Commander Sasha”.

“At first we were all scared. But now we have organized ourselves and decided to be here. So it is like it is.”

“My name is Albert. To be precise, I am Albert Albertovich.” In the distance, I see the smoke rising from the side of the city – the explosions are getting closer. The smiling, blue-eyed soldier poses for me on the Irpin bridge with a handheld anti-missile system, while preparing to defend the city.

In the first days of March, thousands of people are trying to flee Kyiv. They stream into the Kyiv central train station, just to sit and wait. After spending 10 days in her cold basement, Carolina and her mother have made the difficult decision to leave the city with their birds. There is no train schedule, there are no tickets to buy, but people wait and hope that when the train arrives, they will be quick enough to get inside and reach safety.

Alina, a 20-year-old student from Kyiv, is trying to get on the train to go west with her mother and her dog Zara. She breaks into tears: “I don’t want to leave Kyiv, I don’t want to go anywhere. This is my home, this is my country, I don’t understand why this is happening to us?” She looks ashamed of her tears. She smiles quietly and tells me about her hope that the war will end soon.

The Kyiv train station is plunged into darkness, necessary to protect against air raids. Only some islands of light remain, coming from advertising light boxes, coffee machines and mobile phones, which illuminate individual faces. Yuriy is now living at the station. His house in Bucha was bombed and he doesn't have any other place to go. His wife and children left for western Ukraine and have found refuge in a village. Yuriy is ashamed to go there, but at the same time he doesn’t want to become a soldier. So for now he is here, living each day as it comes.

Maxim Ponomarenko, 44 years old, slowly walks down the hospital corridors. For many years now, he has been a surgeon at Ohmadet, the largest children’s hospital in Kyiv. These days the hospital has already evacuated critically ill children to the western part of Ukraine, as the first children – victims of the war – start arriving from Irpin and other places in the Kyiv region. "Gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries, I’ve never experienced anything like this. Yesterday, we saved a child’s life but his mother and sister were killed.”

Until two weeks ago, Vlad operated a chain of cafés that served the best coffee in Kyiv. When the war began, he found an old bunker under his office. Together with his friends, he spent five days cleaning the old underground space, while volunteers brought food, water and generators along with a router to set up WiFi. Now this bunker has around 300 residents.

“Hope dies last. How to live without it? We will win and rebuild our country. And our people will come back.”

Nastya has moved into an underground bunker, together with her mother. Since the start of the war, they spend their time in a room crowded with people, almost never going out to see the daylight. “I fear the sound of air strikes, I simply can’t stand it. But we’ve gotten used to living together and supporting each other with whatever we can.”

As I wander through the many rooms of the bunker, I see Vasyliy, a 72-year-old man, carrying a small radio in his hands, trying to get a signal. He is alone here – all his family has left Kyiv, and he tries to catch a quiet moment, away from the crowded rooms.

“Hope is needed for the Victory”, says Vasyliy, “and victory should be with those who are on the right side”.

It’s International Women’s Day and spring is in the air in Vasylkiv, a city in the Kyiv province. Members of the territorial defense of the town hand out flowers to women on the streets. Suddenly, amidst the war, there is a mood for celebration. Every day Katya goes with her best friend to cook in the kitchen of a school in support of the territorial defense in Vasylkiv. “Everyone does what is possible. We are in the moment of giving our life for the victory.” Katya smiles while walking home, holding a bunch of flowers in her hands.

Pavel smokes a cigarette in the backyard of the volunteers center. He is this special kind of man, soft and kind, whom you would never imagine to see with a gun in his hands. Pavel was a construction worker until the war started. Since the beginning of the war, there have been multiple air attacks to conquer the city, as Vasylkiv has a powerful military base. Now Pavel is guarding his town, hoping that one day he will return to his work and rebuild his nation.

I’ve never seen Lviv as crowded as it is now. It seems to have become a global hub, where everything and everyone is arriving and departing. The theater has been turned into a humanitarian center, where food, clothes, and children’s toys are arriving from all over the world. Natalka is a professor of Graphic Design at the Lviv Art Academy, but now she is here from morning to night, putting all her energy into the urgency of the current situation.

“I often ask myself these days: what is the aim of my life? To to be happy and well? Or to know that I have helped my country and my people to overcome the pain?”

At the very start of the war, Zhenya moved to Lviv and began to organize medicine supplies for the Kyiv region, collecting money donations from around the world. She runs around from morning till night – ordering, checking, and accepting deliveries. That morning I get a coffee with Zhenya in her flat in Lviv when she receives news from Kyiv. She checks her phone, only to find a photo of her house burning, struck by a Russian rocket earlier that morning. Zhenya doesn’t believe it – she calls her mother. “That’s it”, says her mother, “we don’t have a home anymore.” Zhenya needs some hours to get herself back together after the news. Then she stands up and goes about her day as usual. For her, there are more important things to think about at the moment. “People need medicine today, and I will think of my house tomorrow.”

Lviv, a city in Ukraine, functions like an association of autonomous cells, each of which takes care of its own community. In a fancy restaurant in Lviv, Maria, together with other volunteers, moves fast, making sandwiches for refugees who these days arrive by the thousands to the Lviv train station.

“When you see all the people who have escaped the war with their children, a cat, and maybe a small suitcase, you could lose hope quickly. But we need to keep the hope alive to support those who might need it right now.”

When the war started, Ivan was one of those young Kyiv hipsters, an actor and model, spending his nights making music and going to parties with friends. Now he spends his days delivering food and medicine to elderly people all around Kyiv, so they do not feel lonely or abandoned in the current situation. But in the evenings, he still gets together with his friends, most of whom are now volunteers.

As the air raid sirens begin to sound in Kyiv, Olga gets herself to the narrow entrance hall of her small flat, and stays there behind a thin wall. She places her hands together and prays. As she whispers the prayer, the siren wails on, and her whispers are mixed with silent tears. Olga is one of the many elderly people who have nowhere to go. For the last three weeks, she has not left her apartment.

“Hope will give us power – it will give us kind thoughts, and faith that in the end good will overcome evil.”

Tatyana, a volunteer at the Zoo Patrol in Kyiv, dedicates her days rescuing pets from flats, which have been abandoned. In the first days of war, as Kyiv was bombarded, many people fled in panic, believing it would just be for a couple of days. In the rush, they left their cats and dogs inside locked apartments. Now, the Zoo Patrol volunteers are opening doors and rescuing the animals.

We spent the evening with Nastya and her boyfriend Tolya in my flat in Kyiv. It was one of those precious evenings amidst the war, when you have wine – a rarity these days – among good company, and feel that you are not alone. Nastya, a young girl, works in a theatre in Odessa and comes to Kyiv only for the day to deliver a pile of life vests, whose production she has organized for the first time in her life. We talk about movies, love and hope. She says:

“I do not only hope, I am sure. I know peace will come, I only wish it comes sooner.”

One of the most famous night clubs in Kyiv is now also a resistance hub. Luba, a young artist, moved to live in the club and spends her days making Molotov cocktails. An ordinary young Kyiv girl-turned-fighter, she is unsure about her role in these difficult times, but she feels a need to participate and help. While it all haunts her, she realizes the extraordinary time she is living in.

In the northern outskirts of Kyiv, there is a bomb shelter, and every day a group of people comes to support the Ukrainian soldiers. Larisa sits in the basement and weaves masking nets for the army.

“I am a housewife and I am here because it’s really important at the moment to do this. I am here because this is our life at the moment. This is our country and our people, and this is giving us power. Our people will come back, this is my biggest hope.”

It is the first couple days since people can enter Bucha, the land of death. A city that was once calm and wealthy, now has its houses in ruins and its people lying dead in the streets. The survivors come out of their basements for the first time in 40 days, not believing that the horrors might be over for them. They speak to us about their experience under occupation. And break down into desperate tears, realizing what has actually happened to them.

As I arrive with volunteers to Bucha, I meet Oleksandr. He passes by and stops to talk to us. He survived the Russian occupation by hiding for more than a month – in different houses and underground.

“I am simply happy to be alive and happy to see people. I spent more than a month alone, in hiding. Today, I saw an old lady, who met people for the first time in a month. In the last days of the occupation, I didn’t know if this horror would ever end. But without hope it would not be possible to live through it. I survived only because I had hope.”

Myroslava warms her hands by the fire in the garden, while she talks about the Russian army coming to her village. Her father, the village mayor, was taken into captivity and tortured for several days before being finally released. “At that moment, I wished that the Ukrainian army would bomb our village. I would be ready to lose my house and my life, only to have the enemy destroyed. All this time, living with the enemy next door, I needed hope to continue forward. I am so grateful to everyone who is defending our country now, and who has the courage to take up arms.”

Lena comes to pick up a food package delivered to Vorsel. The deliveries are part of the very first visits from outside the town, including to bring food parcels. She remained in Vorsel during the whole occupation, mostly hiding from shelling in the underground basement of her house.

“I am an optimist, and always hope that life will get better day by day. Even when my house was burning, I still hoped that my home would survive. And even though it didn’t survive, I now believe it will be restored. That’s my power – hope.”

Yulia hasn't cried once during the occupation. There was no time for this. There was only her responsibility for others – around 100 people for whom she organized a makeshift shelter in an old pioneer camp in Vorsel. The shelter provided the elderly and sick people in the town with food and a warm place to stay.

With Yulia are also her 6-year-old daughter Lera, her mother and grandmother, whom she feels she needs to support emotionally. We spoke with Yulia during the whole day, hugging and walking, and at the end, she finally relaxed. It was the first time in six weeks that she felt she could say she survived the war.

Babushka Alla walks down the empty streets of Borodyanka. She passes by demolished homes, where hundreds of people remain buried under the debris following an air raid. Their bodies are still not recovered. “When I met the Russian soldiers here for the first time I asked why they came. Why did they come to bring us death and pain? They had nothing to answer.”

Alla gently smiles upon seeing us. She smiles because she is alive.