What good is a documentary about war without showing the destruction?
That was the question I wrestled with while filming Yogis of Ukraine.
At first, I filmed every ruined building I saw, capturing what felt like an important record of devastation.
But then… something shifted.
💭 Why did I need to document this? Who was I filming for? Where is the line between witnessing and voyeurism?
The Overwhelming Scale of Destruction
At first, I felt like a witness to history, filming each wrecked building as proof of what had happened there.
But after the first fifteen to twenty buildings, I became more selective.
📌 That building isn’t destroyed enough to film.
📌 I’ll wait—three buildings from now, I’ll find one that’s worse.
How horrifying is that logic?
💡 The reality is that there is THAT much destruction in Ukraine.
Everywhere I went—apartment buildings, houses, schools, playgrounds, bridges, universities—entire lives had been erased.
And yet, even when a building wasn’t "destroyed enough" to film, I knew that inside those walls, someone had lost everything.
The Shattered Dreams of Ukraine’s Students
One of the most devastating sights I witnessed was the destroyed universities.
📌 Blocks of classrooms—gone.
📌 Dorm rooms where students once lived—reduced to rubble.
📌 The dreams of an entire generation—obliterated.
Many of those students are now on the front lines, fighting for their country instead of finishing their education.
The loss isn’t just physical—it’s the loss of a future.
The Unmistakable Presence of Death
From a distance, destruction can feel abstract. But some buildings had a presence—a heavy, sickening weight that told me:
💭 People died here.
I remember walking up to one particular building—a 20-story structure where the middle had collapsed in on itself.
📌 The top floors had pancaked down into the basement.
📌 There was no way anyone inside that section survived.
📌 They were buried alive.
I stood there, wondering if I should film it.
Would it honor the dead—or feel like exploitation?
💡 I decided to film. But oddly, that footage never made it into the film—because there were “better” images to use.
That thought still haunts me.
The ethics of filming Inside Ukraine’s Ruins: Going Inside People's Destroyed Homes: Was It Proper to Film?
Eventually, I started entering the destroyed buildings.
A Ukrainian man I met took me inside one of the shells.
Inside, floor after floor, I saw the shattered remains of people’s lives:
📌 Photographs, coffee cups, diapers, children's toys, clothes, bed sheets.
📌 Everything they left behind when they ran—never to return.
I struggled with a deep ethical question:
💭 Should I film inside these homes?
I had to decide quickly.
🚀 Ultimately, I did film.
🚀 But I always asked “permission.”
🛑 Who exactly I was asking, I don’t know.
Sometimes, I felt a silent permission to document what remained. Other times, the answer was no, and I put my camera away. That was partly how I navigated the ethics of filming Inside Ukraine’s Ruins.
Safety vs. Documentation: The Risks of Entering War Ruins
The Ukrainian yogis who drove me around worried about my safety.
📌 "These buildings aren’t structurally sound," they warned me.
📌 "It’s dangerous to go inside."
💡 Most of the time, I listened. Sometimes, I didn’t.
Looking back, I wish I had filmed more inside the ruins.
Because what I captured—those fragments of lives left behind—was some of the most powerful footage I shot in Ukraine.
The Shattering of Lives, Beyond the Camera
This wasn’t just about filming destruction.
This was about bearing witness—to:
✔ The loss of homes, dreams, and futures.
✔ The devastation of entire families and generations.
✔ The resilience of a people who refuse to be broken.
I still struggle with what I should have filmed vs. what I left out.
But one thing is clear:
💡 Ukraine’s destruction is not just about buildings—it’s about people.
And those people deserve to be remembered.