Sabiha Çimen traveled to Ukraine twice last year, visiting Kyiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv, and Odesa, to gauge how cultural institutions were faring in the country’s second year at war. In these photographs, Çimen documents schools, churches, museums, and performance halls—some destroyed, others still standing—and the people she met there, who were all making do as best they could. Before a show at the Odesa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, an announcement informed spectators of where to go in the event of a missile strike. Then the curtain rose, and the ballet began.

One artist Çimen spent time with is Pavlo Aldoshyn, a Ukrainian actor who plays the protagonist in the film Sniper: The White Raven. Based in part on the life of its screenwriter Mykola Voronin, Sniper tells the story of a pacifist physics teacher who becomes a sniper during the 2014 conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region, avenging the death of his pregnant wife. Aldoshyn, who had no military background, spent months training with combat veterans and precision shooters to prepare for the role: camping and traveling through the forest at night, studying ballistics and orienteering.

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Aldoshyn enlisted in the Ukrainian Armed Forces—where he became a sniper. He has since fought in Irpin, Bucha, and Bakhmut, among other battlefronts. Prior to the film, Aldoshyn said, “My philosophy was: Don’t think about war and there will be no war. But this was a misguided perception of reality.” When the war ends, he plans to return to the screen.

Sabiha Çimen is a photographer based in Istanbul and New York City. She has received a World Press Photo award, a W. Eugene Smith grant, and a Paris Photo–Aperture First PhotoBook award.

A funeral procession for a Ukrainian soldier in Lviv

A soldier giving Aldoshyn a haircut as his wife looks on in Kyiv