War Is Personal project — based on a true story / julia kochetova

WAR IS PERSONAL.

Recruit of the 68th Jaeger Brigade during training in the Donetsk region near the front line. This unit liberated the village of Blagodatne - one of the very first settlements retaken during the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

I wish these photos never exist.
But war will start again and again, and we all are searching for the antidote.

Why to remember something we always need a scar? But if you never lost how could you understand the value of life?
We are highlighting scars, making a document. We are serving people in need, people in action and people in war –
pain, loss, horror, hope and victory of life – is extremely important to remember.

Let’s leave here one chat – just to remember.

1. A teenager in the village of Zelene in the Kharkiv region.
2. Portrait of the young fallen soldier on the Mars field near Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv on 17 August 2022.

Instead of self-presentation and business cards – I'll tell you about professional female mourners, or "mutes", so gently described in religious texts or ancient Greek culture. War existed even then.
This shrapnel fragment – it's not yours.
I cynically call my photos a properly monetized neurosis.

We all cry about something our own.
How close can you photograph a widow?
How close can you photograph a severed limb?
How close can you photograph a friend in the coffin?
I am a lost kid glove on the roadside.
I hope the war ends before my heart does.
How many awards can be given to "liberals" whose hands are in blood? If you tolerate blood, one day you will choke on it.

– How are you? 13m

– In between hospitals and funerals.
I am looking at the floor in the underground parking lot, where I slept during the shelling of the city a year ago.
A dear granny from the first floor, probably the only person who always waits for me. "I haven't seen you for a long time."
A year ago, I was bringing her groceries, bread, and water – there was no one in the house block anymore. She was treating me with candies instead.
"I have something to comfort you in these uncertain times of war," –
she says and gifts me a chocolate bar.
I come home and think how good that this shrapnel fragment is not yours.
The city falls asleep after 5 alarms,
and we all cry about something our own. 3m

The bodies of three Russian soldiers found in the village of Vilkhivka after it was retaken
by Ukrainian Armed Forces, in Kharkiv region, May 9, 2022.

*press sign for my car

1. An elderly woman hides under a blanket as she is evacuated from Irpin, Ukraine on 8 March, 2022.
2. Girls are posing in the bomb shelter during air raid alarm in Voznesensk, Mykolaiv region on 26 September, 2023.
3. A soldier protects a woman in an underground parking lot near a drone strike in Kyiv on 17 October, 2022.

1. The damaged building in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region on 16 April, 2023.
2. Panzerhaubitze 2000 operates in the Donetsk region on 23 July, 2022.
3. A sunflower on the field near a Panzerhaubitze 2000 tank position in the Donetsk region on 21 July, 2022.
4. A killed woman in Kherson yard after the city was retaken by Ukrainian army on 18 November, 2022.

The world looks at our history in action from the drone view.
Someone is trading tanks or oil.

We are no longer on the front page, until people are smashed under the rubble.

How easy from the drone view don't notice a person.

The dying one.

Only bad news came from the east. I send you words like bullets.
They have different calibers and don't fit your magazines.
There is always silence after the shot.

Remember I gifted socks?
Same as cigarettes, such a typical currency in the war zone. On the pack, it was written: "Born by revolution, hardened by war".
I should tell you before, or at least leave this inscription on my face.

Where the towing truck took me in the summer – death is creeping now.
As a result of shelling, trees become amputees.
The fields are littered with hands and feet. I would like to say "of enemies", but not only.

I remember this driver, hot asphalt, he escaped from Siversk, the battle for Lyman was going on.
On the door of his car the inscription in Italic: "We serve the light, so interfere with the darkness."
You should have said it in the very beginning or written it instead of all your tattoos.

Journalists will call it a “new brutal phase” of war.

"War tickets" are going to be booked for February.

Feels like a bloody reality show.

Someone is trading for tanks or oil.
Tell me that you are alive
tell me that you
tell me

1. Mortar crew “Volat” during the assault in Bakhmut battle on 5 November, 2022.
2. Ashes in the burnt school in the freshly liberated Kherson region on 22 October, 2022.

you say that our home is staying thanks to specific people.
on Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Kupyansk, Robotyno directions.
home is still staying on hundreds of meters of land.
there is blood on this helmet.

there is blood on this soil.
there is blood in this home.

I don't know how to stop seeing it.
there is blood in the calm of peaceful cities.
14 days without air raids – it costs blood.

there is also blood on the Kyiv-Helm-Warsaw ticket.

it's impossible to feel so much all the time.
it's impossible not to sleep at home for so long.
home – bergamot and vetiver.
home is a charred body.
home – anxiety, the threat of the UAVs attack.
home – leather and jasmine sambac, amber, moss, and patchouli.
home is a very specific caliber.
home is the last cigarette on the last day on earth.
home – broken windows, executed neighbors.
home is worth life and worth death.
home is sometimes a very specific point on the map, right?

somewhere between two birthmarks on the neck.

I so badly want us
to come back home.

*8-years old Sonya Ogneva from Bakhmut, made this picture of me,
my colleagues Ben and Adam and her, with a heart sign on her dress.

1. A volunteer medic is assisting at the stabilization point in Bakhmut on 30 October, 2022.
2. Tetyana Medynska receives a posthumous award on behalf of her husband, Maksym Medynskyi on 6 June, 2022
3. Iryna Kostenko, a combat medic instructor, originally from Luhansk region, during the training for soldiers on 6 April, 2022 in Kyiv.
4. Stigmata in Odesa Cathedral, on 1 March, 2022.

Hold my hand.

There is a chilling picture of a murdered person with a yellow-blue bracelet.
I don't know how to forget this image and I don't want to tell you about it.

The land is mined. The land is mine.
That's something I always carry with me.

I've just missed the train in Berlin, and hear Russians talking behind my back.
Freely. Laughing. Waiting for a ride. Behind my back.
The worst to hear on your street – my brains started to send signals "unsafe". I will not tell you about it.
Here in the museum covers of "LIFE" magazine are exhibited.
There are so many men in khaki helmets on the covers.
Why do we put the war on the cover?
The photos are black and white, but I know what color they have. The ground is also this color in autumn. The land is also this color in wartime.
The volunteers are digging out the bodies. Hundreds of them.

Hold my hand.
Hold my hand.
Hold my hand right now I beg you.

"Our house is on fire", says a social ad about the climate.
Bike riders are passing by, a subway passes, and a time we will no longer have.
Now it's so deeply dark that I don't want to tell.
I'm alive, all good.

Hold my hand.

1. Bakhmut stabilisation point on 30 October, 2022.
2. A military funeral in Kyiv crematorium on 14 October, 2022.
3. The night evacuation near Avdiivka, on 28 October, 2022.
4. Fixing the drop on a Vampire drone during a night mission with the Code 9.2 unit at the front line near Bakhmut, on 28 October, 2023.

"Danger! Danger! Danger!", – the roadside is screaming.
"There is no work here. The only work is war."
"If you scream – it means alive".

We consist of concussions and musculoskeletal injuries.
Of several mental disorders, insomnia, and panic attacks.
We already run out of tears.
The main thing is not to run out of screams.

Our cities consist of groceries, military, and tire shops.
All our conversations are polytrauma.
The doctor at the stabilization point highlights that polytrauma is the most dangerous.

"Danger! Danger! Danger!"

He looks at me with a bit of fear – he is a little over 20. Illia says he didn't like being photographed before.
"Now come on. If anything happens, there will be a photo as a memory."
Tomorrow his work is an assault.

Every step and every mission, every trauma, and every saved life on the battlefield – have a name.

War is personal, and it's mine.
And if anything happens...
There will be a photo as a memory.

1. The missile hit in Druzhkivka, Donetsk region on 20 June, 2022.
2. A soldier at the stabilization point near Bakhmut of the 5th assault brigade and 77th brigade on 9 July, 2023.

*my portrait, made by soldier in the undeground basement during the shelling near Izium, Kharkiv region.

1. Burnt wheat field in Donetsk region on 23 July, 2022.
2. Flowers wilt in a vase next to a damaged florist in Irpin on March 13, 2022.
3. The damaged memorial for fallen soldiers in Irpin, Kyiv region on 6 February, 2023.

Self-portrait in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, 25 February, 2022.

Delete?

^* this will close the chat with war

*bullets, gifted by soldiers

illustrations based on my photos - Oleksandr Komiakhov, before war - the Ukrainian artist, now - a soldier
music - Daria Kolomiec, before war - DJ, now - a cultural activist and storyteller

2014 - war is not over

JULIA KOCHETOVA

WAR IS PERSONAL.