Photo below; Aftermath of the 25 November 2025 attack on Rusanivka district.

Photos & text by French Photojournalist, Jean de Sousa. 

Kyiv - Portrait of a Capital at War.

War is an aggression against all the senses.

War creates charred ruins and obliterates the environment, assaulting sight. The thunderous bangs of explosions and the shrill noise of drones keep the ears on edge. Attacks produce a highly distinct range of menacing smells and tastes. As for physical integrity, of course, the primary purpose of kinetic warfare is to destroy it. Yet war does not only violate our traditional perception of the environment. Far from it. Not content with deteriorating ordinary human experiences, war perhaps more insidiously penetrates into the psyche of its victims, causing, often with diabolical success, irreparable wounds.

War in Kyiv struck me as an absurd reality layered upon apparent normalcy. Life goes on as normally as possible, but look closer and you will see the effects of conflict everywhere, expressed through anything from seemingly insignificant details to tragic disruptions. By traveling twice to Kyiv in 2025, I strove with my camera to capture this complexity and offer a portrait of Kyiv as a capital at war.

On April 27, 2025, I visited the site of a missile strike against a residential building in the district of Sviatoshyn, three days after the attack that claimed 13 lives and left 90 wounded. Over the course of four hours, I wandered among the smouldering ruins and observed a local community experiencing shock and grief, but also displaying extraordinary resilience and already working hard to alleviate the consequences of the attack. On November 25, 2025, I once again found myself at the site of another deadly attack. This time, it was a Shaheed drone that had exploded a few hours earlier inside a residential building in the neighbourhood of Rusanivka. Two people perished on the spot; many more were horribly wounded. Like in Sviatoshyn, I encountered deeply affected but also strong-willed and highly organized people, facing hardship with determination while refusing to let go of their dignity. Impact sites are not only places of death. Paradoxically, they are bustling with life. They are small microcosms representing Ukrainian society at war.

With my pictures, I hope to convey as faithfully as possible the essence of Kyiv wartime experience to those who will never witness it with their own eyes.

Photo below; Fire Fighters look on following an attack on the 25 November 2025, on Rusanivka district.

Photo below; The damage caused during the attack on the district of Rusanivka.

Photo below; A local citizen after the 25 November 2025 attack on Rusanivka district.

Photo below; Ruins of a residential building destroyed by the Russians, during the 31 July 2025 attack.

Photo below; Aftermath of the 24 April 2025 strike on Sviatoshyn district.

Photo below; Aftermath of the 24 April 2025 strike on Sviatoshyn district. Danylo Khudi mourns the death of her boyfriend, who was killed at this location during the missile strike.

Photo below; After the 24 April 2025 strike on Sviatoshyn district.

Photo below; A soldier waiting at Lybidska metro station.

Photo below; People seeking shelter underground during a missile alert.

Photo below; A lunch in the dark, the result of Russian strikes on power plants.

Photo below; A shop in Lukyanivka damaged by a recent drone strike.

Photo below; A woman mourns the death of a soldier.

Photo below; Wounded serviceman on Khreschatyk.

Photo below; Contributing to the war effort, one stripe at a time.

Photo below; A Shaheed drone exhibited in central Kyiv.

Biography:   
My name is Jean De Sousa. I am a French photographer based in Budapest, documenting modernist architecture and contemporary developments in Eastern Europe.

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