Ukrainian Women – Power & Resilience

A book by Oksana Lytvynenko
Available now for pre-order (below)

From the author:

“This book is the most personal work I have ever created. Over the last two years I’ve sat with one hundred Ukrainian women, some in kitchens, some in community halls, some still trembling from what they left behind, and I listened. I listened to their journeys from war to safety, from familiarity to uncertainty, from everything they knew to a country where they had to begin again.

Every portrait in this book is shot in black and white. No colour to soften anything. What you see is what I saw, strength, exhaustion, dignity, loss, hope. Some women smiled bravely, others held back tears, but all of them showed a resilience you can feel when you look into their eyes.

Alongside each photograph is their story in their own words: how they escaped, what they had to leave, who they still think of every night. Some lost homes. Some lost partners. Some lost a version of themselves they are slowly rebuilding here in the UK, in Swindon, Wiltshire, and beyond. Yet every story is also full of survival, humour, stubbornness, motherhood, rebuilding, and a love for Ukraine that distance cannot weaken.

This book isn’t about war. It’s about women who kept going. Women who protect, who create, who carry families and memories and grief and still wake up and live. Their resilience is quiet but unbreakable.

If you choose to pre-order this book, you are helping keep their voices heard. You are saying their stories matter, not just in headlines, but in real life, where ordinary people become extraordinary because they had no other choice.”

Pre-order below and be one of the first to receive a copy when it launches.