Two Years of War, Illustrated

I remember it like it was yesterday; the TV news broadcasting the first time Ukrainian air raid sirens have been used in years, the hundreds of videos showing Russian troop formations advancing on the capital, the valiant efforts of Ukrainian partisans against Russian occupiers, it all felt surreal. Never in my life did I think I would live through such a confusing and fearful time for our globe, and yet there I was. It was a curious sight, the thousands of people who took to the streets worldwide to show solidarity with a people and country they had zero connections with, a genuinely beautiful show of humanity across whole populations and not just in a handful. But where did all that go? Today, you rarely even hear mention of Ukraine or the fact it was and still is at war. Western governments were ready to supply Ukraine’s arsenals in a heartbeat, but such a move has faced fierce opposition with time. It just slipped from everyone's mind, a brutal war that continues to claim the lives of an innumerable many on the daily.

Ukraine’s fall from grace to the public eye wasn’t anything surprising. If we look at the Israel-Hamas war, a conflict of equal importance that began only four months ago, we can see that it already suffered the same fate of falling into obscurity. For many, knowing that war is usually confined to some other continent and in a country whose culture and language are entirely different from ours is the reason why. It’s easy to feel alienated from something that isn’t right in your face, and even more so to disregard it by the next day. But that same reasoning is exactly what makes these pictures so valuable. Because most of us reside comfortably in our homes and behind our screens, we could never come close to understanding the suffering these people have endured, not through words at least. These pictures are only a mere droplet in the ocean of photographs that bring to life like never before the incomprehensible loss, devastation, and brutality of war.