In October 2018 I had been privileged to support the Invictus Games here in Sydney and also managed to invite five participants from Invictus Games Team Ukraine to come to my studio and to share their stories with pictures and words with the rest of the world.

The only femail participant from the Team Ukraine 2018, Maiia spent three years at the war with Russia which began for her in 2014 when she was 25. She has seen a lot and her major disappointment was the concussion that caused a temporary loss of hearing and backbone injury that made her participation impossible. She was so weak she could not even lift a machine-gun.

Instead of waving the Ukrainian flag atop the territories liberated from the Russian troops, Maiia has raised it here, in Sydney where she earned gold medal in archery. For Maiia sport is a way to get back to civil life to rehabilitate. As she says she was damaged physically and mentally, depressed and felt it was unfair for her to be alive without seeing the end of the war until she realised -- it was not her choice whether to be killed or not but is is her responsibility on deciding to how move forward helping others, returning from war to re-integrate back.

Serhii was a sniper and having to spend long hours, 12-16 on average, in the ambush had contributed for him to fall a victim of a rare syndrome where the immune system fights its own nervous. He was paralised head down for 18 months and his chances to ever move again were slim. Step by step he got back. His first independent walk took him 26 minutes to cross 50 metres.

Even today he has to use a walking stick and prosthetic braces. Archery allowed him to restore his elbows and rid the braces. Cycling is a matter of staying in the shape for him so he can keep walking.

Sasha lost both legs to a 120 kgs mine within first few months of the war for which he volunteered soon after it erupted. Being double amputee he faced a lots of challenges to learn of how to walk again - back at his village, watching American videotapes which were created to singular amputees.

A big problem is balancing since not having a native limb it is very and very hard to stay straight since your brain does not have a feedback from your feet. That relaxed smirk of a smile you can see is actually hiding a tremendous effort not to fall down.

Sasha is the first sportsman in Ukraine to take the hand bike. He is a successful businessman manufacturing bio-fuel pellets from the agricultural waste. With his example he wants to show that no matter what, no matter how damaged one can come back from the war the life does not end and can be filled with purpose.

After a head on with a Russian tank that killed two of his squad soldiers just before driving over him, Oleksandr lost his left arm and experienced lots of damage to his body - damaged pelvis, broken ribs and legs, multiple tears and scalds. A trench he fell into saved his life. If that wasn't enough, the tank decided to make a second pass over him however stuck and could not move falling a victim itself to the Ukrainian counter-attack. Oleksandr spend more than an hour under the tank, in January where the temperatures were seriously sub zero. Bleeding, broken, in full consciousness.

The road to recovery was long, hard and painful. Sport is the way for him to live past the injuries to keep his body in a good shape. Oleksandr participated in Cycling, Swimming and Archery competition during the Games.

Andrii was a victim of a massive shelling during his first month at war where Russian GRAD complex would fire non-stop for several days. Andrii amongst 50 other injured soldiers was in a field hospital with not chance of evacuation due to the shelling that forced the doctors to amputate his injured leg. Just one day before they would leave a GRAD missile went through the tent and fell next to him. Luckily it did not explode and Andrii took it as a sign from God that there was another purpose for him.

He underwent more than 20 surgeries to reconstruct his arm and jaw. He sees his purpose as helping the returning warriors to rehabilitate and he considers the mental health of of the most important aspects of such. Currently he's pursuing a degree in psychology to make his purpose a reality.