‘The world will remember this war not through reportage but through art’: the creatives on Ukraine’s frontline

Clockwise from top left: a rehearsal for the Theatre of Veterans event in Podil; painter Vladyslav Melnyk; poet Yaryna Chornohuz; a book signing; materials in Melnyk’s studio in Kyiv; soldier and poet Seraphim Hordienko at the military motorcycle club Memoria in Kyiv. All photographs by Julia Kochetova for the Observer Photograph: Julia Kochetova

Yaryna Chornohuz is a poised, thoughtful young woman with a sweep of long hair, elegantly manicured nails, and a military uniform. In 2019, she joined a volunteer unit as a combat medic, and is now a soldier of the 140th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion. At 29, she is also fast becoming one of Ukraine’s most celebrated poets.

From the perspective of a country unthreatened by direct military aggression, it is hard to grasp the extent to which the 10-year-long Russian war against Ukraine, which so brutally escalated on 24 February 2022, has consumed the nation’s young – not just those conscripted through a recent tightening of mobilisation laws, but the many motivated to volunteer, like Chornohuz. It’s a cruel twist of history for this generation of Ukrainians that war has cast its shadow over their lives. Chornohuz tells me that she likes being a soldier, but also has ambitions to study for a PhD at some point. “I feel it would be also very natural for me to teach literature,” she says. “If Russia hadn’t attacked us I am not sure I would be in the military.”