Images of Ukraine’s fierce battle against Russian invasion have flooded out of the besieged nation since rocket attacks on the capital city Kyiv last week gave the first indication that Vladimir Putin had given the order for a full-scale assault.
From volunteers signing up to defend the country on the frontline, to residents sheltering in metro stations to escape Russian shells, the conflict has been marked by the resilience of the Ukrainian people, embodied by their President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Below ground, above ground, there’s remarkable resistance,” said BBC international correspondent Lyse Doucet in The New Statesman. “In an existential war unleashed by a Russian leader who believes their country shouldn’t exist, Ukrainians have become ever-more Ukrainian.”
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Warning: this photo gallery contains graphic images which some readers may find disturbing.
23 February: Ukraine’s Independence Monument in central Kyiv at sunrise one day before Vladimir Putin gave the order for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine
(Image credit: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images)
23 February: Anton Lytvyn, 28, packs his military equipment at his house in Kyiv after President Volodymyr Zelensky called the country’s army reservists in specialist fields to active duty, and declared a state of emergency
(Image credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
24 February: Traffic jams form as citizens flee Kyiv following pre-offensive missile strikes by Russian armed forces
(Image credit: Pierre Crom/Getty Images)
24 February: A woman wounded following a Russian air strike on an apartment complex outside Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city
(Image credit: Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
24 February: Ukrainian firefighters arrive to rescue civilians after an air strike on an apartment complex outside Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city
(Image credit: Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
24 February: Ukrainian servicemen prepare to respond to a Russian attack in the Lugansk region
(Image credit: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images)
25 February: People gather outside an apartment block in a Kyiv suburb hit by a Russian shell
(Image credit: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images)
26 February: Ukrainian servicemen search for unexploded ordnance following clashes with Russian troops on the outskirts of Kyiv
(Image credit: Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)
26 February: Thousands wait for trains to Poland in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv
(Image credit: Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP via Getty Images)
26 February: A group of volunteers make Molotov cocktails in a Kyiv bomb shelter
(Image credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
26 February: Svyatoslav Yurash, 26, a lawmaker from President Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, patrols the streets of Kyiv amid rumours that Russian “saboteur” groups had breached the city
(Image credit: Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images)
27 February: Vladimir Putin meets with his Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov at the Kremlin
(Image credit: Alexei Nikolsky/TASS via Getty Images)
28 February: An empty road running out of Kyiv during a morning curfew in the capital
(Image credit: Pierre Crom/Getty Images)
28 February: Children being treated in the basement of a Kyiv hospital in an effort to keep them safe from Russian shelling
(Image credit: Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images)
28 February: President Zelensky flanked by members of his cabinet after signing an application for “immediate membership” of the EU
(Image credit: Ukrainian presidency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
28 February: A man says goodbye to his daughter before she boards an evacuation train at Kyiv Central station
(Image credit: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)
1 March: The aftermath of Russian shelling on Kharkiv’s city hall
(Image credit: Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)
2 March: Emergency service workers remove the body of a man killed after Russia shelled Kyiv’s main television tower
(Image credit: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)
2 March: President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen rises to her feet during a standing ovation following an address by President Zelensky
(Image credit: John Thys/AFP via Getty Images)
2 March: Families shelter in a Kyiv metro station amid renewed Russian bombardment of the capital
(Image credit: Aris Messinis/STF/AFP via Getty Images)
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