In Kyiv, along the Dnieper River, Soviet monuments have been torn down and graffiti artists have covered walls along the walkways. The American Javelin anti-tank missile has become a popular icon of resistance, appearing on posters and stickers throughout the country. The US has sent over 10,000 to Ukraine giving them one of the few advantages they have against the overwhelming size of Russian mechanized forces. © 2023 Benjamin Busch
Under an elementary school, beneath local volunteers weaving strips of donated clothing into camouflage netting, is a dim basement used as a bomb shelter. This old portrait hung by one nail, its tips just touching the frame of my photograph, another abstract conversation between two rectangles. It’s of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian pioneer in rocket science which led to the Soviet space program. Here he was, 89 years after his death, the only face in a damp concrete room where schoolchildren hid from Russian rockets and missiles he had only imagined for exploration. © 2023 Benjamin Busch