Outside a small gated building in Kyiv, men wearing military fatigues smoke cigarettes in silence. With just two words, they have the power to change the lives of Ukrainians forever: “Documents, please.” These are Ukraine’s territorial recruitment officers, tasked with rounding up men to fight in the war against Russia — arguably the most hated branch of the country’s military.

It had been running for three days straight, far longer than it was designed to, powering emergency heating stations for residents whose homes have gone cold during Ukraine’s harshest winter in more than a decade. When the machine stalls, even briefly, the lights flicker and the heat falters.KYIV—The roar of a generator bellows through a snow-covered courtyard in the city’s Troieshchyna neighborhood, drowning out conversation inside the six military-green tents pitched in a courtyard outside of...

At 6:30am, the school day at Ivan Bohun High School in Kyiv begins. Students at the boarding school for boys and girls aged 15 to 17 wake up, make their beds, brush their teeth. At 7am, they go for a 20-minute run, followed by their first breakfast; they pour into a large cafeteria and eat eggs and toast quietly. At 8:20am, they stand in a line for roll-call, ready for their first lessons of the day. Ivan Bohun is a regular high school in some ways, with regular subjects, but the children are al...

The two men had been hiking through the Carpathian mountains for two days when a storm began to rain down on them. It was September, and they had planned for the summer heat typical in Ukraine at this time of year, not for ten hours of pouring rain. ​The men, Danylo and his friend Andriy, were each carrying backpacks weighing more than 17kg, filled with food, equipment and medication. The previous day, they had been forced to leave behind the third member of their group, Ihor, who could not keep up with their pace. Danylo is 23 — too young for conscription into Ukraine’s armed forces, which takes place from age 25 — but Andriy is 34. Turning back was not an option.​

In the back room of a morgue on the outskirts of Kyiv, the stench of rotten flesh hangs heavy in the air, its source a large white bag lying on a metal table. The mortician opens it, and inside is a smaller black bag containing a pair of mud-covered military boots, a mummified body, and a skull. This is all that is left of a Ukrainian soldier returned from captivity in Russia. Now begins the grueling work of finding out who he was. Since Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine began three and a ha...

The gentle hum of hair dryers and the blare of techno music fills Kozir barbershop on a busy Wednesday afternoon. Outside, air raid sirens have just begun to bellow through the streets of Kramatorsk, a city just 23 kilometres from the front lines in eastern Ukraine, but inside, no one pays heed to the warnings. The stylists here have grown accustomed to the thunder-like roar of incoming missiles, and the men in their chairs are all off-duty soldiers who are stationed in nearby positions.In Ukrai...

AS THE WAR in Ukraine rages on, the effects are omnipresent in the country. Even in the capital city of Kyiv, considered one of the “safe spots,” rockets zoom past buildings and drones are visible overhead. Yet Ukraine’s top athletes remain hell-bent on competing in this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris—the nation’s first Olympics since the February 2022 Russian invasion. In the months leading up to the event, Men’s Health reports on the ground to find out how—amid so much uncertainty and adversi...

Volodymyr the machine gunner slowly traces a halo around his head and shoulders with a 40-pound plate. He's alone in the small, dimly lit gym, save for pop music playing in the backgroundAs a Ukrainian soldier, he's been near death and watched friends die on the frontlines ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine and launched a full-scale attack on Feb. 22, 2022. But today, the 39-year-old isn't fighting. He's strengthening his arms and back...

A white neon sign and gold string lights draw in passers-by on the edge of a war zone. Down a set of stairs and past a small entryway with wall of a mirrors lies the Slot Games casino.It is dimly lit, windowless and has an open floor plan and the lights of more than 20 slot machines and an electronic roulette table glint glinting off the mirror tiles on the ceiling.Here about twenty men aged 30 to 50 sit silent and alone, three of them at slot machines marked “VIP” — for guests who visit and los...

The firefighters were exhausted after spending three hours taming an inferno at a publishing house attacked by Russian missiles. They were covered in ash, soot, and blood from the bodies they had hauled from the flames. And they were not expecting much of a rest.It was Thursday in Kharkiv. For almost a fortnight Russia had been piling pressure on the citizens of Ukraine’s second city, mounting a rapid offensive through the surrounding countryside while maintaining a daily bombardment of the city...

The soldiers had spent almost a fortnight digging trenches day and night to deter Russian forces from crossing the border north of Kharkiv, but at about two o’clock on Friday morning the enemy came crashing through. Russia’s new assault on Ukraine’s second city had begun.“It was silent at first, and then it was hell,” said platoon commander Nikita a few hours later, speaking from his mother’s home in Kharkiv. “We held the artillery. That’s it. We stood watching it all.”For the next 12 hours, he...

Kherson was the first major city to fall to Russian forces in the days after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began. Few people had time to flee before the city fell to the Russians, including members of Kherson’s government, who remained trapped under occupation with a target on their backs.Now, Kherson is once again a frontline town where attacks happen most days. With no new aid from the U.S. and a low supply of weapons, the authorities who remain fear the return of fighting on...

The sound of bombs pounding Kharkiv was the first thing Polina Chub heard on the day Russia invaded Ukraine.It was February 24, 2022, and Chub, then 16, was asleep in her bed. There had been rumors that Russia would invade, but like many Ukrainians, Chub had not taken them too seriously. At first she thought the roaring sound outside her bedroom window was fireworks, but soon realized the war had actually begun. Chub hid under the covers and covered her ears while thinking, No, this is not happe...

KYIV—A Russian soldier was pointing a gun at her head from behind the television camera. The film crew had come from one of Moscow’s state-owned TV stations and Olena Yahupova had no choice but to tell them exactly what they wanted to hear. The footage of Yahupova saying that she was an extremist who had helped the Ukrainian military try to fight the occupation of her town, Kamianka Dniprovska, was broadcast across Russia by RIA Novosti as supposed proof of the nefarious means of the Ukrainian

Russia’s military is recruiting children and teens in occupied territories of Ukraine into its Young Army program. This seeks to brainwash, militarize, and even force them into contributing to the Russian war effort against their own country, according to non-governmental organizations monitoring the group’s activities. Through social media posts and sources on the ground in occupied regions, the NGOs have tracked the formation of the militarized children’s program, which they fear is intended

KUPIANSK, Ukraine—In an old garage workshop outside Kupiansk, a unit of soldiers is turning to the past in their search for weapons to fight off Russian soldiers. One inventive unit is modernizing old Soviet-era KS 19 anti-aircraft guns and turning the antiquated machines into fast-moving weapons of destruction that can be used to target dozens of Russian soldiers at a time. With an ingenious act of improvisation and some commercially available tech, they are turning the Kremlin’s history agains

As the dancers make their way to rehearsal, air-raid sirens blare throughout Kharkiv. When the city first came under siege, the alarms would have sent them rushing to the nearest underground shelter, where they'd wait out the shelling. Now, more than 500 days later, the dancers have learned to ignore the sirens. The wails have become part of their soundtrack as they prepare for showtime in Ukraine's easternmost major city, only 15 miles from the Russian border. By mid-afternoon, nine women have

BERLIN, Germany—The mother of Veronika Trubitsyna, 13, and Anastasiia Trubitsyna, 15, died one hour before Russian police forced the sisters to pack their few belongings and move into a nearby orphanage. Without any legal guardians in Russia, they were told they would become wards of the state. For nine months, the sisters were trapped in a system that sought to feed them pro-war propaganda and encourage them to become Russian citizens. Now out of Russia’s grasp, Veronika spoke with The Daily B

VELYKA NOVOSILKA—Residents who have remained in the small village of Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine are living in an underground commune and refusing to leave, despite pleas from the police. The village was once home to around 4,700 Ukrainians, according to Olya Semibratova, one of the volunteers who regularly deliver aid to the communes. But Russia’s attacks have turned it into a ghost town, where the remaining 304 citizens risk death by setting foot outside. In the early da