A blind Ukrainian veteran turns pottery into a business and mentors others

VINNYTSIA, Ukraine (AP) — The two burly men stare straight ahead, hands intertwined on a pottery wheel, fingers buried in the clay. They sense each other’s presence through touch alone.

One is a veteran who lost his sight in combat and now teaches other blind veterans. Slowly, a piece resembling a cup takes form.

The instructor, Ivan Shostak, 37, said he has made more than 1,000 such pieces but has never seen a single one. The craft came into his life only after he lost his sight during one of Ukraine’s bloodiest and longest battles.

Making plates, cups, mugs, candle holders and other objects helped him find new meaning in a life upended by trauma. What began as a rehabilitation exercise has grown into a business and a mentoring practice for veterans and others.

“I have two kids I have to help through life and show by my own example that you have to fight for your life,” Shostak said.

Shostak rejoined the army in the early years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, not joining right away since he wanted to be there for his second son’s birth. He previously fought in eastern Ukraine after the conflict broke out in 2014.

His second tour lasted a few months. While fighting in the battle of Bakhmut in March 2023, a rocket-propelled grenade exploded just above his head. The blast destroyed his eyes.

Besides blindness, he also had a concussion, a traumatic brain injury and displaced vertebrae in the neck.

He said the real ordeal began at home. His wife at the time could not endure it. She left him alone with his new challenges.

“There was a family, and after the injury there was no family,” Shostak said. But his parents stayed close, supporting him.

He spent half a year bedridden, dulling the pain with medication. The despair was harder to manage. No pills could ease that.

A fellow soldier home on leave came to his aid, taking him to a local rehabilitation center for people who had lost their sight. Within a month, staff taught him to use a phone and a cane and to handle daily life.

“It turned out you could live even in total darkness,” Shostak said.

One day, he and others from the center were invited to visit a pottery workshop, where he made his first plate. “And after that came the thrill that I could still do something,” he recalled.

He began attending classes regularly and later sold his work. He became an instructor after the first “Pottery in the Dark” project, supported by Sweden and the U.N. Development Program, in Vinnytsia in central Ukraine. The program helps veterans who lost their sight, including in the war.

Then he launched his business.

Shostak has three others on his team who help him sell his pottery, mostly through his Instagram page. He keeps no strict schedule, working according to his mood in a workshop that his older brother, also a soldier, set up for him in his apartment.

“Clay is that kind of material, and pottery is that kind of work, where if you feel bad, there’s nothing to do here. It won’t come out at all. Everything breaks, comes out crooked,” he said. “Only when you feel good, you sit down, you work, and it all turns out great.”

The later stages happen in another workshop, where he gets help with firing and glazing. But he chooses every color himself, guided by his imagination.

Each piece bears the emblem of the air assault forces he served in — a dome, wings and a sword — with the motto “Nobody but us” and his name on the side.

Roman Shtohryn, director of the Podillia rehabilitation center in Vinnytsia, said six of the 11 project participants who completed the pottery training already earn an income from it. All but one are veterans.

“We planned all this so it would turn into a business,” Shtohryn said.

Pottery serves multiple functions, he said. The first is psychological: A person concentrates on something, stops thinking about problems and stays in a kind of flow, in the moment. Second, working with clay yields an immediate result.

At the rehabilitation center, Shostak works with fellow veteran Viacheslav Sadovskyi, 47.

“All good? Hands working?” Shostak asked, laughing, before reaching for Sadovskyi's hands. He guided them toward the wheel.

“There, I can feel it,” said Sadovskyi, who had served in the military since the start of Russia's invasion. In 2024, a drone exploded near him, damaging the left side of his face and forcing him to undergo five surgeries.

Shostak directed him, telling him how to press the clay and from which side, his hands never leaving Sadovskyi's.

“It matters that a veteran teaches a veteran,” the director Shtohryn said. “We’re equals. We understand and support each other.”

Clay cups decorated with Ukrainian triangle are seen inside apartments of blind Ukrainian war veteran Ivan Shostak in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ivan Shostak, a blind Ukrainian war veteran makes a clay plate on a pottery wheel at his apartment in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ivan Shostak, left, a blind Ukrainian war veteran and Anastasia Lanina, community development officer of UNDP walk on a street in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ivan Shostak, a blind Ukrainian war veteran trains his blind comrade Viacheslav Sadovskyi to make a clay plate on a pottery wheel in a workshop at a rehabilitation center in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ivan Shostak, left, a blind Ukrainian war veteran trains his blind comrade Viacheslav Sadovskyi, right, to make a clay plate on a pottery wheel in a workshop at a rehabilitation center in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

At least three tornadoes battered communities outside Chicago on Thursday, leveling homes and ripping down trees and power poles, while storms grounded flights for some and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands in the Midwest and Northeast.

As a large column of air descended on Merrillville, Indiana, a town about 33 miles (53 kilometers) southeast of Chicago, the city’s police warned residents to take cover. By the evening, downed trees and power lines blocked the streets, homes were torn up and part of a high school's roof was ripped off.

Meanwhile, emergency crews were in the nearby manufacturing and farm city of Streator, Illinois, as the community reeled from tornado damage. A reunification center for displaced residents was set up in its city hall and the Red Cross opened a shelter.

Streator Mayor Tara Bedei said there were no reported deaths. “We are incredibly grateful for the safety of our residents and the quick action of emergency personnel,” she said in a statement.

Strong storms delayed or halted flights at airports in some cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia and New York on Thursday. Parts of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic also strained under high heat and humidity.

The tornadoes came after severe storms swept through the Midwest Wednesday, knocking out power, damaging buildings and canceling flights.

In Des Moines, Iowa, a 54-year-old man died at a homeless encampment in a park Wednesday after being hit by a tree that “broke apart and fell during strong storms,” police said in a statement. There were no immediate reports of other deaths or injuries from the storms.

Tornado warnings were also in place in Chicago and in parts of Indiana and Michigan Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. In Chicago, a series finale between the White Sox and the Atlanta Braves was postponed due to rain.

Jennifer Hall was in her garage in Elkhart, Indiana, as the winds and rain picked up Thursday evening. Suddenly, she said, she heard a loud crash and discovered a tree limb had gone through the roof of her rental home. She used buckets to catch the rain coming in from the hole.

“I’m just nervous because it’s just been one thing after another,” said Hall, explaining she just had surgery and her husband is out of town.

Shane Tipton stepped out of his truck in Unionville, Missouri, Wednesday afternoon to find a twister bearing down, said his daughter, Kylie Rouse. He rushed to get his 87-year-old dad out of his mobile home.

They made it back to the truck, drove just far enough away and watched as the tornado obliterated the home. Shattered cabinets, furniture and appliances littered the ground. Clothes hung in trees. They believe they lost one of their hunting dogs, who has been missing since it struck.

“Everything's destroyed,” Rouse told The Associated Press in a phone interview Thursday. “It was scattered clear for miles. If my grandpa would have been in there, there's no way that he would be alive.”

Residents of Springfield, Illinois, believe a tornado touched down in their area late Wednesday. Two buildings at the Animal Protective League shelter in Springfield were heavily damaged, but none of the nearly 150 cats and 28 dogs housed there were injured, said Deana Corbin, the group's executive director.

“It pretty much wiped out our shelter facility, took the roofs off both of our buildings,” Corbin said. “It’s a miracle. We were so blessed to not have any injuries of either people or animals.”

The community pitched in to take in all the cats and dogs temporarily, including a local animal control center, veterinarians and residents, she said.

Damage also was reported at Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield.

Weather service meteorologist Frank Pereira said the system that produced the storms, including high winds and hail, was moving eastward Thursday, fueled by cool air from Canada clashing with warm, humid air from the South.

Potentially dangerous heat and high humidity arrived Thursday and was expected to continue Friday for a swath of the East Coast from the mid-Atlantic to the Northeast, where daily high record temperatures could be broken in numerous places, the weather service said. Temperatures in the mid-90s Fahrenheit (mid-30s Celsius) were expected, but with the humidity it could feel like 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) or more, the service said.

Philadelphia declared a heat health emergency for Thursday and Friday, activating cooling centers, home visits by field teams, outreach to people experiencing homelessness and other services. New York City officials were also urging residents to take precautions, including drinking plenty of water and finding a cool place to stay if they do not have air conditioning.

At various points Wednesday and Thursday, ground stops were issued at Chicago's O’Hare International and Midway International airports, and at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

The Pittsburgh International Airport experienced a temporary power outage after a storm produced an “extraordinary” power surge, the airport said.

More than 1,000 flights going into and out of Chicago had been delayed or canceled, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website.

Commonwealth Edison Company, which provides electric service across northern Illinois, said the storms had downed poles and wires. On X, it wrote that it expected “80% restoration” by late Saturday.

Associated Press reporters Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, and Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed.

This frame grab from video shows a downed tree after storms struck Amherst, Ohio, west of Cleveland on Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Courtesy WEWS/NEWS5) TELEVISION OUT

Grounds crew remove water from the field after severe thunderstorms came through the Chicago area before a baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the Atlanta Braves, Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)

This frame grab from aerial video shows a building in Stickney, Illinois, after its roof was damaged by the severe storms that struck the Chicago area on Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Courtesy WMAQ-TV in Chicago) TELEVISION OUT