Photojournalist Jelle Krings joined youngsters training to become Ukraine’s next generation of soldiers at a military school in Kyiv. The recruits spend two years studying academic topics as well as learning how to fight – all under the threat of Russian airstrikes
At a boarding school in Kyiv, cadets are training to become Ukraine’s youngest soldiers – and help defend their country against Russia’s devastating invasion. The Ivan Bohun military high school – one of three such establishments in Ukraine – is home to 600 teenagers.
The lives of the cadets, who stay at the facility for two years before they turn 18, are strictly choreographed, according to Dmytro Yermolenko, the deputy head. He says the teenagers are given systematic military training and learn strict discipline.
