"I want to forget it and get back to normal life,” says one resident from the city of Bucha, Ukraine. "I can't remember these terrible things anymore. I feel like everything is burning inside me,” says another. "I've told it so many times, but every time I feel pain,” a third resident adds.
“Residents of Bucha who survived the occupation and witnessed the crimes of the Russian military are deeply traumatised. It’s difficult for them to talk about all these horrible things,” says photographer Kateryna Moskalyuk. “But most people say it's even harder to keep quiet. Violence likes silence. Bucha is still recovering from the occupation—burned apartments, destroyed houses and holes from shell fragments on fences, through which you can see blooming flowers.”
Kateryna Moskalyuk is a journalist and documentary photographer from Lviv, Ukraine. Her work has been published in a number of different publications including Bird in Flight, The Ukrainians, Kunsht and Focus. Her photography has also been included in a variety of international exhibitions including the Pokrova Photo Vernissage, Life Press Photo, and the Sony World Photography Awards.
Prior to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, she worked on a variety of sensitive topics including photographing and recording the stories of families raising children with disabilities, communicating with visually impaired people and creating photo stories about supported housing. Now, she is documenting the consequences of the war—the flow of people at the stations; the life of internally displaced people in container towns and numerous shelters in Lviv; volunteers who make camouflage nets for Ukrainian soldiers, prepare free lunches, deliver humanitarian aid and provide shelter to homeless animals, as well as preserve the stories of people who survived the occupation in Bucha, Borodyanka, Hostomel.