Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, beginning a devastating war that has left untold numbers of civilians dead and prompted millions of people to flee the country.

Associated Press photographers have captured the conflict, showing both the suffering and destruction the war has wrought as well as the ways people find to cope when their lives are upended. The images have helped the world understand the war and its horrors.

The Shot is a monthly series showcasing top photojournalism from staff photographers at The Associated Press. Each month, AP photographers will share the stories behind some of their iconic imagery.

Produced by AP News staff. The sponsor was not involved in the creation of this content.

Emilio Morenatti

Two weeks before the war started, in the streets of Kiev, the atmosphere was of total normality. Everything changed on the morning of Feb. 24, when the first sirens sounded. The chaos began. Thousands of desperate people were fleeing without knowing where to go. I could see almost apocalyptic scenes of people fighting to get on the trains and buses and leave Kiev, dragging their few things and many holding their babies above the crowd.

The things that struck me the most were the emotional farewells where men said goodbye to their wives and children so they could stay behind to defend their country. As I photographed it all, my own tears blurred the viewfinder of my camera. At times I embraced some of those men who collapsed and broke down in disconsolate weeping as the crowded trains pulled away to uncertain destinations.

**Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee crossing the Irpin river in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)**
Model: Sony ILCE-9M2 | Lens: Sony 70-200mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 111mm | F-Stop: 2.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/640 | ISO: 400

**A couple says good-bye on a train bound for Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3. 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 50mm F1.2 | Focal Length: 50mm | F-Stop: 1.2 | Shutter Speed: 1/1250 | ISO: 500

Aleksander, 41, presses his palms against the window as he says goodbye to his daughter Anna, 5, on a train to Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, Friday, March 4. 2022. Aleksander has to stay behind to fight in the war while his family leaves the country to seek refuge in a neighbouring country. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 50mm F1.2 | Focal Length: 50mm | F-Stop: 5.6 | Shutter Speed: 1/250 | ISO: 640

Evgeniy Maloletka

Mstyslav Chernov and I were the only journalists left in Mariupol, and as the city was razed to the ground, we felt like our lives were hanging by a thread. Worse than the destruction itself was that the locals begin not to live but merely survive. The dead are buried either in a common grave or an improvised cemetery in front of their houses. Hospitals and shelters with children are bombed by aircraft, tanks and artillery. Russians are bombing Russian-speaking cities in eastern Ukraine.

We saw how children and adults who became hostages of the war were killed. This is beyond words. How can you not show this to the world?

**An apartment building explodes after a Russian army tank fires in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 24-70mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 70mm | F-Stop: 3.2 | Shutter Speed: 1/400 | ISO: 2500

**The children of medical workers warm themselves in a blanket as they wait for their relatives in a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.4 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 1.4 | Shutter Speed: 1/13 | ISO: 6400

Anastasia Erashova cries as she hugs her child in a corridor of a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine on March 11, 2022. Anastasia's other child was killed during shelling in Mariupol. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 24mm F1.4 | Focal Length: 24mm | F-Stop: 1.4 | Shutter Speed: 1/400 | ISO: 4000

Vadim Ghirda

I’d seen death from wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, but the scenes of so many fatalities in Bucha, a northern suburb of the Ukrainian capital, deeply affected me. I guess I had hoped things like that could never again happen.

Walking around with a camera, photographing the survivors falling apart after identifying yet another deceased relative, it's hard not to feel like you’re adding to the suffering. At least the fact I could shoot without making a sound reduced the impact of my presence.

Every day I was in awe of the Ukrainians’ ability to cope with such traumatic events, the solidarity and the will to not leave anyone behind – not just people but pets, from the smallest bird or hamster to huge dogs. Sometimes too traumatized by the noise of shelling to walk, pets were carried in extremely difficult circumstances to safety.

Every photographer takes photos in a war zone hoping to help stop or limit the horrors. Yet the mission of correctly informing people is becoming more and more difficult every day.

A Ukrainian serviceman walks by a building which was hit by a large caliber mortar shell in the frontline village of Krymske, Luhansk region, in eastern Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 16-35mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 3.5 | Shutter Speed: 1/1600 | ISO: 200

**Bogdana, 17 years-old rubs noses with her boyfriend Ivan, 19 years-old in Brovary, Ukraine, Sunday, March 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 70-200mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 200mm | F-Stop: 2.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/250 | ISO: 400

**A resident looks for belongings in an apartment building destroyed during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in Borodyanka, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 16-35mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 5.6 | Shutter Speed: 1/1000 | ISO: 200

Nariman El-Mofty

Lviv in western Ukraine is distant from the frontlines of the war. It is the hub and transit point for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine. A place where millions took refuge and feel some sense of safety with a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.

Restaurants, shops, cafes only stop serving when air sirens blast throughout the city.

In my photograph that was taken inside the home of Ivan Kilgan, the head of the regional agricultural association, in Luky village. His wife and daughter-in-law made a traditional breakfast for guests –‘Kalganivka’ liquor, bacon, cheese, olives, freshly cut vegetables, and bread.

Everyone had just left the table.

The violence is far away from but it’s hard to ignore the fact that this reality can change in a single moment.

Julia, 16, from Dnipro, who is traveling alone, holds her pet rabbit Baby after arriving to the Lviv main station, western Ukraine, March 24, 2022. She was on her way to join her mother and then go on to Poland or Germany. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 16-35mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 23mm | F-Stop: 11 | Shutter Speed: 1/125 | ISO: 400

**Volodymyr Ilnytskyi, 55, a retired policeman, prays before ringing the bell of the Latin Cathedral in Lviv, western Ukraine, March 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 16-35mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 20mm | F-Stop: 8 | Shutter Speed: 1/125 | ISO: 100

**People shelter underground following explosions in Lviv, western Ukraine, March 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 16-35mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 17mm | F-Stop: 2.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/80 | ISO: 3200

Rodrigo Abd

The days spent photographing in Bucha will be difficult to forget. Going to sleep listening to sirens. From the hotel balcony, seeing the fire and smoke, the houses that were destroyed followed by the faces full of sadness and desolation.

The conviction that our work is essential for the historical record keeps us going. We remain focused on documenting the conflict in Ukraine in the most professional and humane way possible.

Relatives mourn the dead of Oleksandr Mozheiko, 31, territorial defense soldier who was killed by Russian army on March 5, during his funeral in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 55mm F1.8 | Focal Length: 55mm | F-Stop: 7.1 | Shutter Speed: 1/250 | ISO: 200

**A soldier comforts Larysa Kolesnyk, 82, after being evacuated from Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 | Focal Length: 333mm | F-Stop: 5.6 | Shutter Speed: 1/250 | ISO: 250

**Irina Zubchenko walks with her dog Max amid the destruction caused after a bombing in a shopping in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.8 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 8 | Shutter Speed: 1/1250 | ISO: 100

Efrem Lukatsky

War has come to my country. Many of my colleagues have quit journalism to take up arms and defend their values. I choose instead to tell the stories of the people, the executed civilians, the burned houses and tears. I look at the dead Russian soldiers too and try to guess who they were and how they lived.

What can I do as a photographer to make the war shorter, even if only for a minute? I fall asleep and wake up with this thought.

A woman holds her newborn child in the basement of a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward and used as a bomb shelter, during an air raid alert in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 24-105mm | Focal Length: 42mm | F-Stop: 4 | Shutter Speed: 1/100 | ISO: 8000

Local residents pass at a damaged Russian tank in the town of Trostsyanets, some 400km (250 miles) east of capital Kyiv, Ukraine, March 28, 2022. The monument to Second World War is seen in background. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 28.0 mm f/2.8 | Focal Length: 10mm | F-Stop: 7.1 | Shutter Speed: 1/40 | ISO: 100

**People examine the damage after the shelling of a shopping center, in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 21, 2022. At least eight people were killed in the attack. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 | Focal Length: 400mm | F-Stop: 11 | Shutter Speed: 1/800 | ISO: 1600

Bernat Armangue

Within the madness of war, people need moments of silence, comfort, and even joy to digest or forget their new reality.

A child about to leave her country plays with snowflakes. A man leans next to a piano thinking about his old life. Two actors embrace each other. A displaced child puts together a puzzle. And, every night, a father reads a story to his children, who are far away since the start of the war.

The noise disappears and they connect with themselves once again.

**A girl catches snowflakes as she waits with others to board a train to Poland, at Lviv railway station, Feb. 27, 2022, in Lviv, west Ukraine. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.8 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 1.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/1250 | ISO: 250

Ukrainian entrepreneur Yevhen Potoplyak, 42, reads a story to his sons Ostab and Denys via videoconference in Lviv, western Ukraine, March 17, 2022. Yevhen's two sons and his wife Maria left for Poland on Feb. 26. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.8 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 3.2 | Shutter Speed: 1/80 | ISO: 3200

An elderly woman cries during the funeral procession of Ukrainian military servicemen Roman Rak and Mykola Mykytiuk in Starychi, western Ukraine, Wednesday, March 16, 2022. Rak and Mykytiu were killed during Sunday's Russian missile strike on a military training base in Yavoriv. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 55mm F1.8 | Focal Length: 55mm | F-Stop: 1.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/1250 | ISO: 100

Felipe Dana

I’ve been to Ukraine several times in the past few years and saw the rise in tensions in the country’s east. Even so, I never expected to see an invasion like this, with Russian troops reaching the capital so fast. When I arrived back in Kyiv, hundreds of civilians were trying to flee the outskirts towns of Irpin and Bucha every day. The destroyed bridge separating them from the capital became the new entry point and start of a journey for those trying to reach safety in other countries. But many could not flee. I remember walking down into basements for shelter and finding entire families, especially elderly women, living with no electricity and no water, staying underground as their homes got bombarded above them.

When Russian troops moved back, I saw horrific scenes there. Incredible destruction, streets full of burned tanks, bodies of civilians still lying on the streets, inside homes, in shelters. Scenes hard to imagine, but even harder to forget.

**Ukrainian soldiers take cover from incoming artillery fire in Irpin, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, March 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.4 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 2.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/160 | ISO: 100

**Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee crossing the Irpin river in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.4 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 2 | Shutter Speed: 1/400 | ISO: 100

**A man rides his bike past flames and smoke rising from a fire following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.4 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 5.6 | Shutter Speed: 1/2500 | ISO: 100

Petros Giannakouris

Even in the ruins and horror of war, you can find life.

On the last day of March I visited the town of Bashtanka, in the Mykolaiv district. Suddenly, a bombing alert drove everyone to take refuge at a shelter in the basement of a nearby church. I saw women and children in devastating conditions. Some women were crying. Most looked scared.

A few minutes after this picture was shot, a guitarist appeared and starting playing. Almost everybody started singing. I felt that something pure and magical was happening. Even for a moment, all the problems had faded.

When the alert ended hours later, the artist told me that he was playing the guitar to keep everybody busy and, most importantly, to make sure they were not listening to the shelling outside.

Sofia Boiko, 90, sits inside a damaged bus after her arrival at the Ukrainian Red Cross center in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, on March 28, 2022. Boiko who is traveling alone and other people evacuated from regions that have been attacked by the Russian army in Mykolaiv district .(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.4 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 1.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/500 | ISO: 200

Vlad, 27, second left, and Vlad, 25, right, say goodbye to their girlfriends Elizabet, 23, left, and Sofia, 25, at the train station in Odesa, southern Ukraine, on April 2, 2022. Elisabet and Sofia are fleeing the war in Ukraine to Poland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 35mm F1.4 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 2.2 | Shutter Speed: 1/800 | ISO: 800

**A elderly woman walks as smoke rises on in the air after Russian army shelling in Odesa, Ukraine, on Sunday, April 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 24mm F1.4 | Focal Length: 24mm | F-Stop: 2.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/1000 | ISO: 400

Sergei Grits

The war changed millions of lives in an instant. I could capture only moments of the panic and pain. Every day I struggled to hold back tears watching the refugees stream through Ukraine, into Moldova and Poland. Lives contained in one or two suitcases. Pet owners trying to save their animals as if they were children.

Our cameras won't be out of work any time soon.

**Ukrainian refugees walk along vehicles lining-up to cross the border from Ukraine into Moldova, at Mayaky-Udobne crossing border in Ukraine, Feb. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 | Focal Length: 312mm | F-Stop: 5.6 | Shutter Speed: 1/2500 | ISO: 1250

**Damaged radar arrays and other equipment is seen at Ukrainian military facility outside Mariupol, Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 16-35mm F2.8 | Focal Length: 35mm | F-Stop: 4.5 | Shutter Speed: 1/4000 | ISO: 2000

**Refugees wait in a queue, after fleeing the war from neighboring Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, southeastern Poland, March 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)**
Model: Sony ILCE-1 | Lens: Sony 24-105mm | Focal Length: 43mm | F-Stop: 4.5 | Shutter Speed: 1/1250 | ISO: 640

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