Most of the people in the photographs have their faces covered. “The ‘We Were Here’ project aims to shine a light on the people who are on the one hand modern-day heroes of Ukrainian society and on the other, are being ignored by most of their compatriots,” Shebetko said. The pictures were taken by Anton Shebetko, a Ukrainian artist and photographer who lives in Amsterdam. This is what motivated We Were Here, a Kyiv-born photography project featuring members of Ukraine forces from diverse gender and sexual orientations. ‘We were here’Īround 330,000 Ukrainians have taken part in the Ukraine government’s military operation against Russia-led militants in the east of the country since 2014, but there is no public information about how many of them are members of the LGBTQ+ community. Here’s how came it about, together with the stories of two other soldiers from LGBTIQ+ community that the union has helped to support. The idea for the union came after he attended a life-changing exhibition. In 2018, Viktor Pylypenko, an openly gay veteran of the Donbas Volunteer Battalion, decided to change that by forming LGBT Military, a union of military, veterans and volunteers fighting for equal rights.
LGBTIQ+ representatives within the Ukrainian army are rarely portrayed.
