I spent nearly four years living in Ukraine as a journalist before leaving in January 2022. Now, I was back. When I was preparing to leave the country, Kyiv was filled with speculation: Would Russia attack or wouldn’t it? Now, here I was, with a war-weary 12-year-old named Polyna.
Ukrainian volunteers are making low-cost DIY camouflage nets that are being used to safeguard soldiers and conceal expensive weapon systems. Many of them learned the craft from Olesia Koryahina, one of the founders who popularized the movement. For nearly a decade, she has helped lead a web of predominantly female volunteers dedicated to masking Ukrainian forces from Russian reconnaissance. The women claim to have woven tens of thousands of square meters of the protective netting for soldiers on the front line.