The pungent smell of chlorine fills the air at the Kiev Burn Center, along with the sound of nurses shuffling through the halls with their little carts of medicine. In the intensive care unit lined up against the 'wall like giant aquariums, the glasses-in rooms are occupied by soldiers badly wounded in the war in the eastern Ukraine, each one on his own slow road to recovery.

     Vadym, a 23-year-old from the Ukrainian Special Forces, lies in a bed in one of tbe5e rooms, watching a TV with a rabbit-ear antenna. He is resting between surgeries, having lost one arm 'and bottl tegs below the knee in the fighting. Beside him stands his father, a mechanic, who has made his weekly, seven-hour trip to the capital, Kiev, to be with his son. For all they've suffered, they are lucky- other families have fared far worse in this ongoing conflict. ·

    Since It began in 2014, the war between the Ukrainian and the Russian-backed separatist forces has taken more than 9,000 lives, about a quarter of them civilians, according to UN. Thousands of others have come back from the front with injuries that will never fully heal - chronic phantom pains from amputations, burns covering much of their bodies, extensive brain damage.

    These are the victims that an American photographer of Ukrainian descent has documented in hospitals 15 and rehabilitation centers around the country. It has often been depressing work, and he says he does it with the Ukrainian people in mind. It's important for them to understand the price of their independence.

SOAL SIMAK Ul - REFERENSI 2020

The purpose of the writer in telling this story is to ....