Six months ago, peace was shattered in Ukraine and overnight the ordinary lives of millions turned into an ongoing race for survival.
The war began under the cover of darkness on a freezing winter's morning, but it rages on under the hot summer sun.
Already there have been at least 13,000 civilian casualties. Cities, towns and villages have been flattened.
The United Nations estimates at least 12 million people have been forced from their homes.
Taras Rodtsevych woke up in the early chill of February 24 to a phone full of messages from friends and family who were warning him: "War is here."
Just hours earlier he had been signing up for Ukraine's army reserves in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
"Of course I'm worried, for my sons, my wife, my whole country," he told the ABC on February 23 outside the Territorial Defence Office.
"That's why I'm here."
Not long after Taras rose on February 24, the images of Russian soldiers invading by air, land and sea were being broadcast around the world.
Just before 8am, air raid sirens sounded across his city, and he knew life was about to change forever.
"I'm not that kind of guy who goes and fights for nothing. I am fighting for our freedom, fighting for our dignity and our way of life," he said later that day.
By now, he was dressed in army greens and was organising supplies at his local defence base, using the knowledge he gained in the military as a young man.
His comfortable life as an IT manager and father-of-two was coming to an end — he was preparing to become a soldier again.
"We are fighting against the Russian way of life, for our country's survival, for our kids to grow up in the Ukraine we know," he said.
He left behind his family, his home, his job, and since April has been fighting on the front lines in the country's eastern Donbas region.
"You miss the family and everything else from your life," he tells the ABC six months since the war began, from his base in the Donetsk district.
He looks different to the man who signed up to join the fight in the winter. His head is shaved, he is 20 kilograms lighter, and his skin browned from time spent outside in the elements.
But, half a year into this war, he is as determined as he was on that first day to fight for his country.
"We have to resolve this problem once and for all, and we don't want to just postpone it to kick the can down the road and leave it to our kids and our grandchildren," he said.
"We are taking every precaution possible to protect our lives, but when the rocket comes, I mean, there is very little you can do about it.
"We had some losses in our unit … close to us, there has been some casualties, but I mean, this is part of war."
Millions of Ukrainians forced to flee are grieving for their homeland
After six months, Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces are in control of about 20 per cent of the country's territory, with fierce fighting still taking place across the country's east and south.
It is estimated the damage bill could be as high as $155 billion, according to the Kyiv School of Economics.
Parts of the country have been left in an uninhabitable state and experts warn the impacts could be felt for generations.
"Even if the war was stopped today, Ukraine will be dealing with the legacy for a long time," Eoghan Darbyshire, from the Conflict and Environment Observatory, said.
"Health effects will be felt in both the short-term and long-term because they've been exposed to toxic smoke or missed clean water or maybe other pollutants.
"Some cities are more or less totally destroyed. This debris is full of asbestos and probably countless other hazardous substances, and may not be dealt with in a safe and appropriate way.
"Another challenge is dealing with unexploded ordnance, things like landmines … that will probably take decades to clear and as it lays in the fields it will be polluting the soil, posing a problem for agriculture in Ukraine."
Iryna Stepanova fled Ukraine in the first days of the invasion and wonders what type of country she might return to.
She is one of the 6.7 million Ukrainian refugees the UN has recorded across Europe. More than 7 million are thought to be displaced internally.
"I never [imagined] that I [would] be a refugee, that I [would] have to beg for food on a border," she told the ABC.
Her eyes well with tears, and her voice shakes as she reflects on the last six months of her life from a park bench in south-west London.
"Every day you're afraid about your relatives. It's been six months of fear, of pain, of big war, of nothing — this is no way to live your life," she said.
The 31-year-old fled Ukraine with her mother and cousin, in a treacherous journey across the vast country.
"The first two days we spent in the basement hiding in Kyiv and then we escaped with our neighbours to the west of Ukraine," she says.
"We spent 28 hours in car … we saw three bombs drop in front of us in the field and we [realised] that we [couldn't] go to the city we had planned.
"We had not a lot of gas in our car and we spent one night out in a field where no-one slept at all."
It took several more days before they eventually found themselves on a packed bus travelling to safety in Poland.
Iryna is thankful for the peace and safety she finds herself in now, but she mourns everything she left behind.
Her husband stayed in Ukraine to fight for his country. This month marks their first wedding anniversary.
"We were just married, and in our plan, it was try to have babies this spring. Now I feel like war took this chance," she says.
Iryna's mother, Oksana Borysenko says the war has changed their family forever.
"It took our future, our chance to be together in our country. It my child's future, and it took my child's chance to have her own children," she said.
The pair are being sponsored by a family in London who have opened their home for at least six months, but they're not sure what will come next.
One of the most difficult parts of this war for Iryna is letting go of the dreams she had for her life.
"Now all I hope for is to return home and about freedom for Ukraine," she said.
"All I do is dream of our victory, for peace in the world."
