Along a bustling street in a western Ukrainian town, Denys Abdulin takes his first independent steps since he was badly injured and blinded while fighting invading Russian forces more than a year ago.

The 34-year-old ex-soldier, wearing dark glasses and a white cane to guide himself, steps onto a busier stretch of sidewalk. His movements become tentative and tense. He accidentally blocks the path of a woman approaching an ATM to withdraw cash.

Like many other pedestrians, she responds with a sympathetic smile and politely steps to the side. Little by little, Abdulin covers 600 meters, guided by a trainer who walks in front of him with a bracelet of metal bells.

Five other Ukrainian military veterans overcame similar challenges while attending a rehabilitation camp for ex-soldiers who lost their sight in combat. Over the course of several weeks, the men would learn to navigate the city of Rivne, prepare their own meals, and use public transportation on their own.

Daily tasks that used to be performed without thinking now require concentration, strength and dedication.

“Everyone pays a price for freedom in Ukraine,” said Abdulin, who spent months confined to a hospital bed and rarely took off his dark glasses.

The war that broke out in Ukraine after the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022 has left tens of thousands of fighters dead on both sides. Countless more, both Ukrainian military and civilians who took up arms to defend their country, have been maimed or suffered other irreversible life-changing injuries.

There are no statistics at this time on how many service members have lost their sight due to injuries sustained in the war, according to Olesia Perepechenko, executive director of Modern Sight, the non-governmental organization that runs the camp. But demand for the show is growing as the war approaches the one-and-a-half-year mark.

For several weeks, the veterans, accompanied by their families, reside in a rehabilitation center on the outskirts of Rivne. Most receive their first walking sticks here, take their first walks through urban and natural environments without assistance, and learn to operate sound-based programs to use cell phones and computers.

“Our goal is not to retrain them, not to change them, but just to give them a chance to become independent and self-sufficient,” said Perepechenko, who is also blind.

Abdulin voluntarily joined the military when Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 18 months ago. Completing the 600-meter walk marked a new phase in his recovery after injuries sustained when a mine exploded a few meters behind him in Sieverodontesk, a town in eastern Ukraine now occupied by the Russians.

“I felt a flame coming out of my eyes,” he said of that day in May 2022. “I immediately realized that I had lost my eyes.”

“Of course, I expected everything, but to go blind, I could not even imagine,” continued Abdulin. “I thought I might lose an arm or a leg, and I didn’t want to die at all. I never thought I would go blind. So it was very difficult at first.”

In 2014, when Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula and armed conflict broke out in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Perepechenko longed to be on the front lines to help in some way. His application to join the army was rejected, so he decided to undertake a new mission: help soldiers who lost their sight to regain a sense of autonomy.

Modern Sight held its first rehab camp in 2019, and has organized about 10 more since then. However, only two camps have taken place during the war. Although there is a waiting list of 30 people for the next session, the main obstacle for the non-profit organization is financing: each camp costs about 15,000 euros.

Abdulin spent nearly a year undergoing treatment for his injuries, which included a shrapnel-shattered jaw that also robbed him of his vision and left him with balance and breathing problems. His wife, Olesia Abdulina, returned with her two children from Lithuania, where the three sought refuge after the Russian invasion.

“His eyes were still very swollen, with bandages covered with cotton pads,” Abdulina said of reuniting with her husband at the hospital for the first time after months of separation. “The main thing is that you’re alive,” she said she responded when he informed her that she would never see him again.

For the next several months, she spoon-fed him and rarely left his side. At the Modern Sight camp, the two learned how to integrate his disability into their family life.

While Denys attended physiotherapy or cooking classes, Abdulina and other women with husbands or boyfriends on the show go through their own training exercises. One of the purposes of the camp is to remind couples that they are not “nannies” but life partners to their men, Perepechenko said.

During one such session, Abdulina is blindfolded and given a long cane. She tentatively feels the ground as another participant takes her hand. The purpose of the exercise is to help women better understand what their partners experience and need.

“We are still the same people. We have the same capabilities,” said Ivan Soroka, 27, who joined the Ukrainian army the day Russia invaded, and was attending the camp for the second time. “We need to stand up, take control, and work to improve ourselves.”

A shell wounded Soroka near Bakhmut in August 2022, as the longest battle of the war to date was just beginning. Russian forces eventually took the eastern Ukrainian city in May after more than eight months of heavy fighting.

“I lost my sight immediately, thrown by the shock wave. I felt like I was dying,” Soroka said. “I just lay there for like two minutes. Then I realized no, someone’s not letting me go there.” Recalling those moments, he implies that his fiancée Vlada, now sitting next to him, was the one who kept him alive.

The couple met when Soroka was participating in the defense of the kyiv region in the spring of last year. Their love blossomed rapidly in the context of the war. Before Soroka was posted to the Donetsk region in the summer, he proposed to Vlada. She agreed to marry him.

But soon after, the two of them were spending days and nights in a hospital instead of preparing for a wedding. The happy celebration that was postponed due to Soroka’s injury is now scheduled for early September. After months of rehabilitation, he feels physically and psychologically strong.

“I’ve found that unless I get up on my own and start doing something, nothing will change,” he said.

The men and their partners spend camp breaks and nights in a garden pavilion on the grounds of the rehab center. An atmosphere of tranquility prevails, punctuated occasionally by laughter and jokes from their time as soldiers.

When they leave the center, the men will know they have the tools to navigate the city, and they will have gained something equally crucial: a sense of community forged through shared experiences and common trauma.

One afternoon, after the day’s activities, the camp participants gathered in a courtyard to celebrate Oleksandr Zhylchenko’s birthday. He lost his sight late last year, though he did not share details about how it happened.

“I am drawing you into a circle, your family circle. There are about 50 of us here,” Perepechenko said, handing Zhylchenko a heart-shaped balloon in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian national flag. “This is our collective heart.”

The trainers and trainees stood in a circle and one by one shared their happy birthday wishes to the man of the hour. Carefree days. A bright future. Patience, trust, loyalty. A calm sky. The last wish was “victory for all of us and for Ukraine.”

Moved, Zhylchenko held the balloon a moment longer and silently evoked his own wish. Then he released it, not seeing it ascend rapidly into the sky.