Amid the frozen landscape of war-torn Donbas, photojournalist Albert Lores and Chistian-Zsolt Varga visited the Ukrainian soldiers near the Bakhmut frontline shortly before Christmas. The exhausted but resilient fighters shared their personal wishes and reflections on the holiday season

At the crossroad leading to Klishchiivka on the Kostiantynivka-Bakhmut highway, a village liberated by the Ukrainian army after weeks of heavy fighting in last September, a richly decorated Christmas tree defiantly towers into the sky. All around, white fields of snow dazzle the eye, with burnt-out car wrecks, trampled trees and the remains of destroyed houses. In the distance, the muffled detonations of artillery fire can be heard again and again.

“This is the closest tree to the Russians and Bakhmut. Every Ukrainian soldier who goes to the front here sees it.”, says one of the servicemen who put it up here a few days ago. “And we believe that this is the most important Christmas tree in the country right now.”

Ukrainian soldier who goes by the name Fox looks at a small Christmas tree sent by his wife, bathed in the soft glow of the Light of Peace, a candle whose flame originated in Bethlehem and was brought by volunteers