Winner of the 2023 Canon Female Photojournalist Grant

The project 5K From the Frontline focuses on everyday life in the war-torn region of Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Stepping outside mainstream representations of war, the work produced over the past six years by anthropologist and writer Alisa Sopova and photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind presents a nuanced view of the experience of life in the midst of military violence.

The war in Ukraine began in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea after Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity (the Maidan Revolution), and then backed a violent separatist movement in Donbas, cutting millions of citizens off from the rest of the country.

Landmines, attacks on infrastructure, difficult access to essential services, lawlessness, lost jobs, lost loved ones, painful memories, unhealed trauma, hopelessness, despair, political stigmatization – these have been the reality of life ever since.

Previously, the authors had spent years covering Ukraine; they launched this project in 2018, at a time when the war in eastern Ukraine was largely absent from headlines. They traveled regularly to Donbas where Alisa Sopova grew up, working with people who lived close to the frontline, sometimes only a few hundred meters from military positions. They strove to show what it means not only to survive but to live meaningful lives in areas where war and peace intertwine.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Alisa and Anastasia continued reporting on the situation in Donbas. Many of the towns and villages they worked in have now been occupied by Russian forces. In the everyday lives of the people, one story now looms larger than before: displacement.

Photographs by Anastasia Taylor-Lind, text by Alisa Sopova, local production by Dmytro Pashchenko. 5K From the Frontline is made with support from the National Geographic Society.