“If we go back for two years, when this full invasion started, I was in such a moment of my life when I already was burnt out as a professional … But after [the] evacuation of my family to Warsaw, I stayed here alone.” …
“I remember, I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know how can I help in this situation, what my role is in all this mess. And photography and journalism helped me to find the reason to continue and even being. I absolutely was lost and didn’t have any sense of what a small human can do in this crazy war.”
“It was difficult. … For me, it was my country, my people, my war.” …
“The biggest impression I have had, it’s about Sister Lucia of the Order of Saint Basil the Great, in Zaporizhzhia.” …
“She drove this minibus with all humanitarian aid to this place and spoke with soldiers.” …
“I know this place. It’s really close to the front lines. Very dangerous. Not many journalists go in there. It’s full of armies and shells and it’s Orikhiv, it’s on the south front. And she organized, you know, some small community of volunteers, local volunteers.” …
“And during our trip, she made just great jokes and at the same time prayed during driving, and all these landscapes around full of destroyed buildings.
“And it gives you some other perspective, you know. … I was in some kind of shock, I would say, that it’s possible to keep [going] … And I asked her, ‘Are you, you’re not afraid to go there? How do you actually deal with this?’
“And she said, ‘God helps me.’ And it was so strong. She said, ‘I am in the hands of God. It will be his decision.’ ”