Varvara Tupkalenko, 30, walks with her sons Maksym Tupkalenko, 6, and Andrii Tupkalenko, 8, two of the last children left in their frontline village, as they hold nerf guns, their favorite toys, in Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, April 11, 2025. In late March, when Reuters first visited the Tupkalenkos, the boys were among the six remaining children in shrapnel-marked Kalynove, whose landscape of wide-open fields and gently rolling hills bears the scars of fighting from early in Russia's February 2022 invasion. Now, their mother said, they are the last two. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
Brothers Andrii Tupkalenko (left), 8, and Maksym Tupkalenko, 6, two of the last children left in their frontline village, pose for a photo with toy guns, their favorite toys, in Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, April 11, 2025. Instead of scampering across playgrounds, the brothers climb through abandoned trenches and charred shells of armoured vehicles that sit on the outskirts of the village, playing soldiers and setting up make-believe checkpoints to vet fellow villagers. "They're kids afflicted by war," said their mother Varvara Tupkalenko, 30. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
Maksym Tupkalenko, 6, one of the last children left in his frontline village, plays with a toy tank on his bed in Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, April 11, 2025. Instead of scampering across playgrounds, Maksym and his brother Andrii, 8, climb through abandoned trenches and charred shells of armoured vehicles that sit on the outskirts of the village, playing soldiers and setting up make-believe checkpoints to vet fellow villagers. "They're kids afflicted by war," said their mother Varvara Tupkalenko, 30.REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
Maksym Tupkalenko, 6, one of the last children left in his frontline village, looks around inside his family's bomb shelter, which used to be a vegetable storage basement, in Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, March 22, 2025. Maksym's mother, Varvara Tupkalenko, 30, is forced to make stark choices for the sake of her children, whose father Yurii was killed on the front line in 2023. When fighting intensifies, she takes them back to the family's apartment in nearby Kharkiv, but the city is a major target, and the swarms of drones that pound it at night terrify the boys. "The kids keep crying, asking to come back to the village," she told Reuters during one of two visits to Kalynove. "There are spaces here to play, to walk, to ride bikes. There are no chances for that in the city." REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
Andrii Tupkalenko, 8, one of the last children left in his frontline village, shows to the camera pieces of a spent hand grenade, which were found around his home in Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, April 11, 2025. Andrii's mother, Varvara Tupkalenko, 30, is forced to make stark choices for the sake of her children, whose father Yurii was killed on the front line in 2023. When fighting intensifies, she takes them back to the family's apartment in nearby Kharkiv, but the city is a major target, and the swarms of drones that pound it at night terrify the boys. "The kids keep crying, asking to come back to the village," she told Reuters during one of two visits to Kalynove. "There are spaces here to play, to walk, to ride bikes. There are no chances for that in the city." REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
Andrii Tupkalenko, 8, one of the last children left in his frontline village, sits by himself on a trampolin after a quarrel with his older brother Maksym Tupkalenko, 6, at home in Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, March 22, 2025. Andrii's mother, Varvara Tupkalenko, 30, is forced to make stark choices for the sake of her children, whose father Yurii was killed on the front line in 2023. When fighting intensifies, she takes them back to the family’s apartment in nearby Kharkiv, but the city is a major target, and the swarms of drones that pound it at night terrify the boys. "The kids keep crying, asking to come back to the village," she told Reuters during one of two visits to Kalynove. "There are spaces here to play, to walk, to ride bikes. There are no chances for that in the city." REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
A view shows houses through the damaged wall of the village council house, which was struck by shelling in Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, April 11, 2025. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
Volodymyr Tkachenko, 66, plays with his grandson Maksym Tupkalenko, 6, one of the last children left in their frontline village, on the charred carcass of a military vehicle, in the outskirts of Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, April 11, 2025. Instead of scampering across playgrounds, Maksym and his brother Andrii, 8, climb through abandoned trenches and charred shells of armoured vehicles that sit on the outskirts of the village, playing soldiers and setting up make-believe checkpoints to vet fellow villagers. "They're kids afflicted by war," said their mother Varvara Tupkalenko, 30. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
Religious iconography is seen in front of the shattered window of Maksym Tupkalenko, 6, one of the last children left in the frontline village of Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, March 22, 2025. Maksym's mother, Varvara Tupkalenko, 30, is forced to make stark choices for the sake of her children, whose father Yurii was killed on the front line in 2023. When fighting intensifies, she takes them back to the family's apartment in nearby Kharkiv, but the city is a major target, and the swarms of drones that pound it at night terrify the boys. "The kids keep crying, asking to come back to the village", she told Reuters during one of two visits to Kalynove. "There are spaces here to play, to walk, to ride bikes. There are no chances for that in the city." REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
Andrii Tupkalenko, 8, one of the last children left in his frontline village, imitates the movement and sound of automatic fire to describe the death of his father Yurii Tupkalenko, 28, a Ukrainian soldier killed during a Russian assault in the area of Klishchiivka, which Andrii showed on the map hanging over his bed, in Kalynove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, March 22, 2025. Like many Ukrainian adults who have suffered horrors in the war, one emotion the Tupkalenko boys express clearly is their anger at the Russians whose invasion their father died fighting. "If he hadn't gone on the assault, he wouldn't have died," said Andrii. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Photo: VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/REUTERS
