A Ukrainian soldier gives a flicker of a smile amid the exhaustion of the war with Russia.

Carefully holding his rifle, Yevgen Shulga is among the civilians who have taken up arms in what was once a ‘forgotten war’ in the distance of the world’s gaze.

The soldier, who serves with the 53rd Independent Rifles Battalion, is among those whose stories represent ‘the path of Ukraine’ over the past eight years.

His call of duty stems back to the pro-European Revolution of Dignity in 2014, which focused on Independence Square in Kyiv, when he was wounded by the Berkut special police.

In February, the 35-year-old, whose eyes show the toll of frontline duty, was among the first to volunteer when Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  

The portrait was taken by internationally-renowned photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind and features in a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) North in Manchester.  

Entitled Ukraine: Photographs from the Frontline, the display features 17 pictures from her collection, taken in the country between 2014 and June 2022, when she returned from her latest visit.  

Ms Taylor-Lind told Metro.co.uk: One of the things I wanted to highlight was that the war we are seeing today started after the Maidan Revolution in 2014.

‘In the narrative of the exhibition, I cover the Revolution of Dignity and those eight long years of conflict in Donbas up to the full-blown Russian invasion in the present day.  

‘Between then and now, I have been working on the frontline of what had become known as the forgotten war as the attention of much of the world’s media turned elsewhere.  

‘The exhibition shows excerpts from many of my projects in Ukraine over the years but I hope it gives a bit more tenderness towards the people I have photographed.’  

Ukraine’s indomitable spirit is also shown in a photograph showing activists gathered by a monstrous pall of smoke at a landmark monument in Kyiv’s Independence Square.  

Five years on, a more intimate moment is captured with Anna Dedova shown resting her head on a wooden grave marker for her son in the eastern Donbas region.

An excavation of bodies from a mass grave is another of the cruel realities of war that has been framed by Ms Taylor-Lind during her spells in Ukraine. Natalia Lukyanenko, whose son was killed when Russian forces occupied Bucha, near Kyiv, holds a hand to her head as she looks on.