Two years after he started documenting the effect of the Ukraine war on his pupils, Pavel Talankin reveals how it led to accolade – and exile from home

As Russian tanks advanced into Ukraine in February 2022, Vladimir Putin was waging a parallel battle on the home front – one fought not with weapons but with ideology, reaching deep into the nation’s classrooms.

In a high school in Karabash, a small industrial town in the Ural mountains, teacher Pavel Talankin knew he had to document it.