Almost everyone in Ukraine can remember what they felt and did last February 24, the day Vladimir Putin’s army launched Europe’s biggest ground war since 1945, seeking to subjugate a country that the Russian president pretends to be in fact not a country. .
In the early dark hours, as armored vehicles crossed the border and warplanes filled the sky, people slept, bathed, made love, played video games, soothed a sick child. Later, as the invasion reached its full extent, there were frantic calls and messages to relatives and friends in danger – a status that came to include almost every corner of Ukraine.
The cost of a year of war has been staggering: tens of thousands of people have died or been maimed, millions have been driven from their homes, cityscapes disfigured, desolate mass graves have been uncovered, the global economy has been shaken as well as the whole security architecture of Europe.
A man walks away from a building that was just hit by a Russian bombardment in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 25, 2022.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
After a Russian vehicle is destroyed in combat, Ukrainian soldiers recover equipment near Sytnyaky, Ukraine, March 3, 2022.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
Ukrainian forces pass through the town of Borodyanka on April 18, 2022. Borodyanka had been heavily damaged during the occupation by Russian forces, which later retreated.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Residents cross the Irpin River to evacuate on March 6, 2022, as Russian forces advance and shell the town of Irpin, Ukraine.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
At a frontline hospital in Severodonetsk, Ukraine, a patient is brought in with shrapnel to the head on April 17, 2022.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Ukrainian volunteers pull out a dead civilian as Russian forces continue to besiege a residential area in Irpin, Ukraine, March 7, 2022.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
A woman wearing a headlamp returns to her apartment on April 19, 2022 to see what remains after the building was bombed in Irpin, Ukraine.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Artem, 42, who asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons, shows his closet full of weapons on June 4, 2022, near Piddubne, Ukraine.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
An evacuee waits for a convoy to leave Sloviansk, Ukraine, April 14, 2022.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
As the sounds of battle close in on Irpin, Ukrainian civilians rush to board any train carriage that still has space on March 4, 2022.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
The bodies of six people in a mass grave and three others a few meters away were found in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka on April 20, 2022. Ukrainian investigators documented evidence of war crimes before putting the remains in body bags.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
A few meters from the Russian positions, residents gather in an air-raid shelter near Velyka Novosilka, Ukraine, June 4, 2022.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
Oksana Seychuk cries as she watches over her husband, Vasil, who was injured in a Russian bombardment. He was slowly recovering in a hospital in Brovary, Ukraine on March 10, 2022.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
One of the refugees waits for hours at the border crossing between Ukraine and Poland on March 19, 2022.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
Ukrainian soldiers help a woman evacuate the besieged town of Irpin on March 13, 2022.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
Andrei Kulik tries to comfort a dog that refused to move after the Irpin neighborhood in Ukraine was shelled by Russian forces on March 13, 2022.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
Yryna Chebotok, 26, holds the cross that will mark the grave of her grandfather, Volodymyr Rubaylo, 71, on April 21, 2022, at the cemetery in Bucha, Ukraine. She said he was shot in the head by Russian soldiers as he left his house to buy cigarettes.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Anatolii Oliinyk, 38, with his 4-year-old daughter, Yana, buried his 90-year-old father in the garden after finding him shot dead by Russian soldiers. The son said on April 22, 2022 that he plans to give his father, also named Anatolii Oliinyk, a proper burial when he gets the chance.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Ukrainians carry the coffin of a fellow soldier during a funeral outside the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Lviv, Ukraine, March 23, 2022.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
Ukrainian soldiers carry the coffin of Ivan Skrypnyk on March 17, 2022 at St. Peter and Paul Church in Lviv, Ukraine. Skrypnyk was killed along with two others when a landmine exploded and destroyed their armored vehicle near kyiv.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
Ukrainian refugees watch and listen to a pianist near the border in Medyka, Poland, March 11, 2022.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles Times
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