Tsyrkuny, Ukraine, 2026

Tsyrkuny is a small village north of Kharkiv, only a few kilometres from the Russian border and the front line. In the first days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russian troops crossed the village on their way toward the city. Tsyrkuny was occupied for more than two months before being liberated on May 5, 2022. Since then, the war has never really left.
Once part of the rural outskirts of Kharkiv, the village had schools, factories and a growing community connected to the nearby city. Today, much of that life has disappeared. The school stands destroyed and looted, the hospital has been replaced by a temporary prefabricated clinic, and many houses remain damaged or abandoned. Children study online, several generations often share the same surviving rooms, and the elderly are among the few who refuse to leave.
Among them is Halyna, 87 years old, who still lives alone in her damaged house. She heats only one room during winter, walks with crutches and continues to clear the snow from her path by herself. Her story is not presented as exceptional, but as part of a wider condition shared by many residents of Tsyrkuny: people adapting to instability, rebuilding routines inside destruction, and holding on to ordinary life.
For those who stayed, the war is no longer an interruption of life, but the condition in which life continues.