War and a bit of peace
In a Kyiv apartment block, in a stolen moment between two deployments to the front, a 19-year-old woman holds her boyfriend’s hand. Sophia is a combat medic; her boyfriend, who only wants to be identified by his radio call sign “Echo,” serves in an assault brigade. They met in 2023, in the midst of war — a relationship that might never have existed in peacetime.
These are the kinds of stories photographer Vic Bakin depicts. He doesn't focus on the front line, but rather on the quiet hours grabbed between missions. His photographic essay “Hell Was Full” portrays a young generation of Ukrainian soldiers in these rare private moments.
Bakin, who spent more than a year working on the project, says: “There is nothing heroic about war. It destroys lives, often in ways that can never be repaired.” His perspective frames the subjects of his photographs — and how he depicts. There are no posed shots with weapons, no uniforms as symbols of strength; instead, he homes in on faces, gestures, silence.
There is Yevhen, call sign “Wild,” commander of a mortar unit, who describes how he was under artillery fire in the morning and found himself that same evening with his girlfriend in a hotel room overlooking the Dnipro River. There is the reconnaissance soldier Zgura, who suffered multiple concussions, was briefly declared clinically dead, and nevertheless remained in service — because returning to civilian life has become unimaginable to him. And there is Vovchyk, a platoon leader, lying on a sofa with his eyes closed, who says that he does not truly believe this war will end anytime soon.
These images aim to reveal things beyond the visible wounds — the amputations, or the scars — but those that remain invisible. Trauma, psychological injuries, and complete exhaustion, all war-time realities that are hard to capture in photographs.
Rebekah, a combat medic and instructor, came to Ukraine from Denver in 2022 to support the country. One of her patches bore the words: “Hell was full, so I came back” — a phrase that later gave Vic Bakin’s photographic project its title.
Alex, a sergeant and drone pilot, says that in some ways soldiers were better off than Ukrainian civilians. While households in Kyiv had to endure hours without electricity or heating during the winter because of shelling, both were available almost non-stop at the front.
Yevhen, call sign “Wild,” is from Donetsk and started fighting Russian troops in the Donbas in 2015. After the war, there is one thing he wants above all else: to be able to go for a walk without constantly having to look up at the sky.
In Vovchyk’s apartment stands a captured Russian Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone — initially kept as an ironic trophy. Later on, they rebuilt it using Ukrainian components and deployed it again, this time in the defense of Ukraine.
Vovchyk: a platoon leader in the Ukrainian army. For him, the war is a permanent state between extremes. When asked about his future, he responds cautiously: he does not believe this war will end anytime soon.
Zgura, 26, a sergeant and reconnaissance soldier, was briefly declared clinically dead after a combat injury — and survived. Returning to civilian life remains difficult for him to this day: he struggles with anger and a sense of not being understood.
Sophia, a 19-year-old combat medic, documents her daily life in service on social media — injuries, evacuations, and the state of emergency at the front. To avoid her accounts being shadowbanned, she tags her posts with hashtags such as #fakeblood.
Beside the rifle on the bedside table lies the memoir of Holocaust survivor and psychologist Edith Eger. Its central message is that retaining dignity and hope is a personal decision even under the most extreme conditions.