The Ukrainian city of Izyum has been splintered by Russian bombs – but 21-year-old Violetta Dezhyna’s job is to find beauty in those broken places and help keep the city alive, even as Russia advances once more. In dusty streets teeming with men in camouflage and scattered with wrecked military vehicles she scours for scenes of normality to post on the city social media pages.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Pruned flowerbeds stand in front of gutted and mangled apartment blocks. “Here the buildings are destroyed, not pretty. Here, it seems, there’s a fountain, but on the other side there’s a ruined building,” said Dezhyna, who works for the local admimistration. “I try to find angles where those things aren’t visible.” Russia’s army captured Izyum, the gateway to Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region – a key target for Russian President Vladimir Putin – at the start of its 2022 invasion, occupying it for six months before Ukraine retook control. The majority of Izyum’s pre-invasion population of 45,000 came back after Russian troops were pushed back some 60 kilometres (36 miles) in a lightning Ukrainian counter-offensive in autumn 2022. Dezhyna, then a teenager, returned with her family to help “rebuild” the wounded city. But the battles have left deep scars on Izyum and its residents – both physical and psychological. Months of grinding advances have brought the Russian troops to within 30 kilometres (18 miles) of Izyum again.