A Ukrainian Photographer on the Horror—and the Normality—of Covering a War at Home

On the evening of Feb. 23, 2022, I packed a bag and went to bed fully clothed. Tension was in the air. A few hours later, loud explosions broke the winter night silence in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv where I was working.

Russia had invaded and the war had begun. The next few days, I was busy ensuring that my family and friends remained safe. Then, I picked up my camera.

I have wanted to be a photojournalist since 2014, when I was 18. But I’ve never wanted to be a war photographer. Then, Russia invaded, and my privilege of choosing a career path disappeared. Since then, I have been documenting war. Civilians hiding in a subway station. Refugees escaping Russian bombs. Soldiers holding the front line. Medics saving soldiers’ lives. People greeting soldiers in liberated territories. Torture chambers and mass graves.

The scary part is how quickly I got used to all of it. As Susan Sontag once wrote: “We can’t imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is; and how normal it becomes.”

I’ve photographed so many destroyed tanks and bodies that now I barely feel something when I see another one. When a movie is interrupted by an air attack, my wife and I are disappointed that we won’t see the ending—not by the fact that dozens of deadly pieces of metal are approaching our home.

Still, every struggle I see in Ukraine feels personal. That’s my wife being forced to leave our Kyiv apartment and escape to Western Ukraine. That’s my parents trapped under Russian occupation since 2014. That’s my hometown I can no longer visit. Cities I loved have become ruins. People I know joined the army to fight against Russian evil. Some of them were injured. Some were killed.

My hope, my dream, is that in the not-too-distant future, I will photograph peaceful (and even boring) stories from a postwar Ukraine. The news from my home won’t be about war, but will be about economics or weather or sports.

That is my dream, anyway. For now, I come home and throw my armored vest, helmet and medical kit on the shelf and unpack the go bag I carry with me everywhere. That dream of a peaceful life will surely happen one day. But for now, there is a war to document.

Serhii Korovayny is a Ukranian photojournalist currently covering the Russian-Ukranian war. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.