A year of war: Los Angeles Times photographers document the battle in Ukraine

Almost everyone in Ukraine can recall some vivid scrap of what they were feeling and doing last Feb. 24, the day Vladimir Putin’s army launched Europe’s biggest land war since 1945, seeking to subdue a country that the Russian president claims is not in fact a country.

In the early dark hours, as armored vehicles rumbled across the border and warplanes filled the skies, people were sleeping, bathing, making love, video-gaming, soothing a sick child. Later, as the invasion’s full scope sank in, there were frantic calls and messages to relatives and friends in harm’s way — a status that eventually came to include nearly every corner of Ukraine.

The cost of a year of warfare has been staggering: tens of thousands of people dead or maimed, millions driven from their homes, urban landscapes disfigured, desolate mass graves unearthed, the global economy jolted along with Europe’s entire security architecture.

A man walks away from a building that was just hit by Russian bombardment in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 25, 2022.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

After a Russian vehicle was destroyed in battle, Ukrainian soldiers salvage equipment near Sytnyaky, Ukraine, on March 3, 2022.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Ukrainian forces move through the town of Borodyanka on April 18, 2022. Borodyanka had been heavily damaged during occupation by Russian forces, who later retreated.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Residents cross the Irpin River to evacuate on March 6, 2022, as Russian forces advance and bomb the town of Irpin, Ukraine.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

At a front-line hospital in Severodonetsk, Ukraine, a patient is brought in with shrapnel wounds to the head on April 17, 2022.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Ukrainian volunteers remove a dead civilian as Russian forces continue to besiege a residential neighborhood of Irpin, Ukraine, on March 7, 2022.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

A woman wearing a headlamp returns to her apartment on April 19, 2022, to see what is left after the building was bombed in Irpin, Ukraine.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Artem, 42, who asked to be identified by only his first name for security reasons, shows his cupboard filled with weapons on June 4, 2022, near Piddubne, Ukraine.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

An evacuee waits for a convoy to leave Slovyansk, Ukraine, on April 14, 2022.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

As the sounds of battle draw closer to Irpin, Ukrainian civilians rush to board any train car that still has room on March 4, 2022.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The bodies of six people in a mass grave and three others a few yards away were found in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka on April 20, 2022. Ukrainian investigators documented evidence of war crimes before putting the remains into body bags.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Yards away from Russian positions, residents huddle together in a bomb shelter near Velyka Novosilka, Ukraine, on June 4, 2022.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Oksana Seychuk weeps as she watches over her husband, Vasil, who was wounded in Russian bombing. He was recovering slowly at a hospital in Brovary, Ukraine, on March 10, 2022.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

One of the refugees waiting for hours at the border crossing between Ukraine and Poland on March 19, 2022.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Ukrainian soldiers help a woman evacuate the besieged town of Irpin on March 13, 2022.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Andrei Kulik tries to comfort a dog who refused to move after the neighborhood in Irpin, Ukraine, was bombed by Russian forces on March 13, 2022.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Yryna Chebotok, 26, holds the cross that will mark the grave of her grandfather, Volodymyr Rubaylo, 71, on April 21, 2022, at the cemetery in Bucha, Ukraine. She said he was shot in the head by Russian soldiers when he left his house to buy cigarettes.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Anatolii Oliinyk, 38, with his 4-year-old daughter, Yana, buried his 90-year-old father in the garden after finding him shot and killed by Russian soldiers. The son said on Aprill 22, 2022, that he planned to give his father, also named Anatolii Oliinyk, a proper burial when he had the opportunity.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Ukrainians carry the casket of a fellow soldier during a funeral outside the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Lviv, Ukraine, on March 23, 2022.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Ukrainian soldiers carry the casket of Ivan Skrypnyk on March 17, 2022, at the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Lviv, Ukraine. Skrypnyk was killed with two others when a land mine exploded and destroyed their armored vehicle near Kyiv.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Ukrainian refugees watch and listen to a piano player near the border in Medyka, Poland, on March 11, 2022.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

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LA Times Today: Los Angeles Times photographer on capturing the war in Ukraine

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