The [UKRAINE PROJECT] documents a generation, of Ukraine’s 2014 volunteer soldiers of the conflict in eastern Ukraine (the Donbas), mostly young men and women who, of their own free will, without obligation to the government and many without military training, deployed into a war-zone to fight against Russian-backed insurgents, risking everything to protect their homeland or vision for a life free of government corruption. Since early 2018, I've photographed and conducted oral history recordings with these volunteers, some as veterans in Kyiv and embedded with those who are still serving in the Donbas, where since 2014, over 360,000 soldiers (documented) have fought and returned home to what they have labeled the “peace-life,” a mere train ride or sometimes only kilometers away from the frontline. When I deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, we fought in another land and could escape the proximity of combat after our rotations, to a place where we could address the physical and mental trauma of our experience. But Ukraine’s soldiers and veterans face an inescapable reality, fighting a war on their own land, making a transition to the “peace-life” nearly impossible with the uncertainty of another invasion and no end to the war in sight. Click on a Volunteer to hear their story, or click [FRONTLINE–PEACE LIFE] for a photo essay as they move from the frontline to the peace life.