Since 2014, the French photographer Guillaume Herbaut has been going to Ukraine several times a year to cover the war in a country divided between those turned toward Europe and those drawn to Russia.
A Ukrainian soldier walks in a trench in the former Zenit military airbase. The base has become one of the Ukrainian army’s positions on the frontline
The frontline in the Donbas region has been more or less settled from Luhansk to Mariupol and the Black Sea since the Minsk II agreements in 2015. Though the conflict never ended, it had given way to an ongoing war of attrition, relying on trenches and shelling. But since the end of 2021, the words of Vladimir Putin and the movement of more than 120,000 Russian troops to the border have raised fears of an escalation of the conflict.
Ukrainian soldiers walk through the former Zenit military airbase
Ukrainian soldiers in an underground position in the city of Avdiivka
Having witnessed the evolution of the conflict year after year, Herbaut noticed during his last trip, from 17 to 23 January, a stark change compared with the previous eight years, and even compared with his last visit in November: the daily exchange of gunfire, the targeted bombings, the threat of snipers and the attacks from drones equipped with grenades had decreased, and life in the trenches was disturbingly calm for the soldiers on the frontline. Like the calm before the storm.
A Ukrainian soldier at a frontline position near the village of Opitne, opposite the Donetsk airport occupied by Russian-backed separatist forces, on 21 January
According to the Ukrainian government there have already been more than 14,000 casualties from the war, and this number is sure to rise if the fighting intensifies. With a landscape and population already left in ruins by the fighting, more than 2 million Ukrainians have fled their homes.
A Ukrainian soldier in a military position in the former Zenit military airbase
This long-lasting conflict has always been volatile, but the uncertainty of the coming weeks has engrossed politicians and activists globally.
Soldiers of the Ukrainian army in an underground shelter on the frontline near the town of Niu York. In the centre is Lt Maj Alexander, 24, from Zhytomyr
After years of constant noise, the quiet worries those who fear what may happen when the silence breaks.
A destroyed building in the village of Opytne
