Clifford Jago speaks to the Kyiv Angels, a youth collective supplying care to locals in need

In 2018, Clifford Jago, the studio created by two anonymous photographers who operate under the pseudonym, travelled to Ukraine to document Clifford Jago & The Sunflower Children; one of several outlandish trips to European cities Clifford has documented over the past few years. While in Kyiv, Clifford met a group of friends who were photographed for the series. Four years later, Clifford has been in touch with these friends again, under extraordinarily different circumstances. When Putin declared war on Ukraine, the friends started a collective called the Kyiv Angels, a local youth group that provide care and supplies for people in Kyiv and surrounding cities. Clifford spoke to members of the Kyiv Angels again recently, who shared their story in their own words.

When the invasion of Ukraine began, the Kyiv Angels made the conscious decision to not “join a grotesque organisation with complex schemes and structures,” the group told Clifford. “We just wanted to organise ourself so we can directly help ordinary people suffering from this war, left alone without savings, medicine and food, mostly the elderly, families with children, people below the poverty line.” While the angels first began helping locals and distributing supplies in Kyiv, they quickly widened their reach. “Most of the victims of the war are in nearby cities,” they explain, “so we also try to coordinate with those who are evacuated, to transfer their supplies and medicine.”

The remit of the Kyiv Angels is broad, as help often looks different for each individual who needs it. At its core, the collective organises drop offs of food, medicine, and supplies to Kyiv locals. But the group also helps people who have evacuated to the west find housing, get support and find temporary work. At first, members of the Angels funded all the help from their own expenses, “until they ran out”, says the group, “so now we are collecting donations and it helps us to continue our work!” The Kyiv Angels accepts donations via Paypal; you can also follow the collective’s diary via Instagram.

“It all started just with a bunch of friends who just wanted to help somehow,” summarise the Angels. “But over time, more and more other people began to connect with us, even some neighbours with whom we had not communicated before started knocking on our doors with an offer to help. After all, we all have one goal – to protect our land from the enemy and this has just united us like never before. At the moment, we already have about 50 people who help us in Ukraine and abroad. It’s very inspiring and motivates us to keep going. The Angels of Kyiv will not stop until the enemy disappears and peace comes!”

Reflecting on arriving in Ukraine in 2018, Clifford says: “I was not sure what to expect or how they would react to me and my project. But I quickly found myself amongst some of the most warm and kind people on the planet. Despite the history of political uncertainty in the country the youth managed to pull together as a community and produce some of the most amazing creative things. It is this pulling together that continues today as the people have found themselves in the middle of a war zone. My adventure would not have been possible without the warmth and kindness of everyone I met.”