The top AP photos from Ukraine in 2025 show its grief and grit in another year of war

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Associated Press’ most powerful images from Ukraine in 2025 show a nation defined by both unending violence and determined survival.

Captured in cities, villages, front lines and shelters, the images document a year of turbulence — death-filled front lines, diplomatic uncertainty and the relentless pounding of the country’s infrastructure.

Photographers witnessed profound loss: two mothers weeping over the coffins of their 15-year-old children. Survivors, dazed and dust-covered, led away from residential buildings torn open by airstrikes, their faces marked by shock, grief and exhaustion.

Young residents — one in black platform heels — step through the rubble-strewn remains of a gutted housing block and across a children’s playground, its slide and climbing frame improbably left intact.

On front lines and training grounds, soldiers bear the weight of a grinding war. A veteran missing both arms and a leg grips a rifle with prosthetics, his gaze unwavering in drills. In a freezing trench, soldiers rest among gear bags and equipment, scrolling through news on their phones.

Sacrifice was matched by defiance: The images reveal a landscape where mourning and persistence coexist.

Ukraine struck deeper into Russia and held back waves of attacks. Children studied in underground shelters and ordinary Ukrainians made the most of rare breaks from the war. Women in embroidered dresses dance in midsummer sunlight. Young people crowded into a Halloween party.

And in a moment of unguarded joy, a woman clutches a returning soldier in a flag-draped embrace following a prisoner exchange, in a crowd of women holding up photos of their loved ones.

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Photo editing by Benjamin Snyder and Enric Marti.