Photographer Stanislav Senyk told Reuters he wanted to capture the “very important story” of about 40 students graduating from schools in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine after seeing the horrors of war there. “I saw the kids there and it was like some kind of surrealism was happening,” Senik said. “I realized that I could write a very important story at that time, about students graduating and who had seen the war, and because of that their graduation, their dance, their everything, just broke,” he said. “It was very important to capture that memory.” One of the photos shows a group of students crammed into a tank. Another includes a group of girls in a bombed-out building, with others staring down at the broken floors above. The students described the experience as difficult – but important. “We wanted to show that we live in such realities,” Olha Babynets, 17, told Reuters. “We wanted to show our pain, which exists and has never subsided. It was emotionally difficult, but we tried to hold on. And I think we did it. “ In a separate set of photos taken by Abdullah Unver for the Anadolu agency, Ukrainian students were forced to skip a dance they posed in their dance clothes on the ruins of their bombed-out school in Kharkov. KHARKIV, UKRAINE – JUNE 7: A schoolgirl wearing her dance dress poses for a photo among the ruins of her school destroyed in a Russian bombing on February 27 in Kharkov, Ukraine on June 7, 2022. Teenagers dressed in they had dressed for their dance and organized a graduation ceremony at their ruined school. (Photo by Abdullah Unver / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) (Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) KHARKIV, UKRAINE – JUNE 7: A schoolgirl wearing her dance dress poses for a photo among the ruins of her school destroyed in a Russian bombing on February 27 in Kharkov, Ukraine on June 7, 2022. Teenagers dressed in they had dressed for their dance and organized a graduation ceremony at their ruined school. (Photo by Abdullah Unver / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) (Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) The story goes on This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
