What They Left Behind

When fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014 thousands were forced to flee their homes. Believing this civil unrest would only last a handful of days, personal belongings, family pets, and entire communities were temporarily deserted. However, the fighting only intensified – trapping the echos of peacetime life in the crossfire. Today hundreds of towns remain annexed by the conflict, carving a 300km long scar into the eastern state of Donbas. Six years of firefights, heavy shelling military occupation having reduced these once lively villages into ghost towns, haunting relics of peacetime life strewn about the rubble. This series is a collection of places and scenes I came across while working in the conflict zone.