Welcome to this edition of What about Ukraine?, a newsletter that helps you keep updated about what has been said recently about Ukraine in Ukraine, and in the international media.

We take a step sideways for a week, out of the tumult of the news, to pause and observe pictures from Ukraine. In this edition, each of our Media network managers has looked for reports, exhibitions or books presenting images that have been shown or published in their respective countries. 

Have a look at an exhibition n-ost has helped bring to Germany and wider Europe, 'Next Station Ukraine', showing images of Ukrainians who found refuge in metro stations during Russian air raids over Ukrainian cities. Try and understand what is so stunning about this picture of the face of a terrified boy from Kharkiv, taken by a Hungarian photographer in the first months of the Russian full-scale invasion. Enter with an Italian journalist from La Republicca into the 'Prison of the defeated', a jail in Western Ukraine that detains Russian soldiers, mercenaries from the Wagner group and Ukrainians fighting against Ukraine, captured at the frontline.

Look at the work of Spanish photographer Emilio Morenatti, who has been covering Ukraine since the Maidan Revolution, and was recognised at the World Press Photo Awards in 2023. The same applies to French photographer Guillaume Herbaut's long-term work: for twenty years of reporting from Ukraine, he was awarded the prestigious World Press Photo prize in March 2022. Finally, discover the exhibition 'Ukrainian women in Bulgaria', featuring girls, elderly women and disabled women, where different generations face challenges with pride and dignity.

Also in this edition we focus on the award winning Ukrainian photographer Julia Kochetova, who just received a World Press Photo Global Award for her project War Is Personal. Read the interview the Europe-Ukraine Desk translated into English this week to discover her way of working and her strong and personal point of view of war photography.

Take a closer look!

Sarah-Lou Lepers
Editor of this week's edition

Since the very first days of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Ukrainian photographers have been covering the frontline and the home front. Most of them became war correspondents not by choice, but due to the circumstances. They accepted risk as part of their daily routine. Some were killed, like Max Levin, a photographer who started shooting war stories in spring 2014, and was killed in March 2024 in the Kyiv region, by Russian soldiers while he was on an assignment.

Despite the risks, many reporters keep documenting the war. Julia Kochetova is one of them. As a student, she started photographing the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014, then continued to work on the ground as Russians annexed the Crimean peninsula, and parts of the Donbas region. Over the years she released her first documentary 'See You Later' in 2016, dedicated to those who wait for their beloved ones to come back from the frontline. And she has created a massive amount of photo and video projects — all dedicated to Ukraine and its resistance against aggression.

This spring she received a World Press Photo Global Award for her project 'War Is Personal'. In an interview translated by n-ost this week, she summons her experience and explains her approach to the ethical challenges of the job, like shooting at funerals, as well as overcoming obstacles, such as the lack of access to some zones near the frontline.

When asked about a photo she would want to make but which would never be possible, she says: 

"Probably, that is a photo of our victory party where all of my close friends are alive, all of them in that blurred group portrait with bad composition, and slightly unfocused. I am absolutely sure there will be such a party, with a lot of silence. But not everyone will be in this photo. There won't be this photo; I will never take it. If I could exchange my whole archive for this single photo, I would like to shoot this group portrait. Maybe even a selfie. But this photo will never happen."

This interview was originally published by Ukrayinska Pravda, a major Ukrainian online media, which covers all aspects of life in Ukraine since 2000.

Translated by Olesia Storozhuk.

France

Ukraine Vision(s) is an exhibition presented at the Paris cultural place La Gaité Lyrique, in collaboration with PEN Ukraine, until 9 June 2024. Photographers from the French photo agency MYOP initiated a dialogue with six PEN Ukraine authors, an organisation that defends the work and creative freedom of Ukrainian writers, poets and playwrights. The texts and voices resonate with the images, which are themselves stories and testimonies. Words and photographs combine to invent a documentary and poetic art of resistance. (TV5 Monde)

Ukraine, Desired Land features Guillaume Herbaut's long-term work: twenty years of reporting from Ukraine, for which he was awarded the prestigious World Press Photo prize in March 2022. Guillaume Herbaut has witnessed the evolution of Ukraine from the Orange Revolution and the Maïdan Revolution, through the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the war in Donbas since 2014, right up to the Russian full-scale invasion. His work reflects an intimacy shaped by his many encounters, which he has kept track of in a travel diary. The series composes a book, and an exhibition that was presented at Le Havre University Library, ending on 27 May. (France Info)

French artist Émeric Lhuisset caught the attention this November with a picture of Ukrainian soldiers from the 131st battalion, recreating the prestigious painting of Ukrainian-born Ilya Repin: 'Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks'. The 19th century painting shows Ukrainian Cossacks answering the Ottoman sultan with a letter of insults. Lhuisset’s photo reconstruction from 2023 includes Roman Hrybov, the soldier from Snake Island who answered the Russian invaders with "Go Fuck yourself". The story of how the French photographer found and managed to convince the heroic soldier is told in an article. (Vanity Fair, shared before in our 21 December edition of What About Ukraine?)

Germany 

n-ost project ‘Next Station Ukraine’ displays images from Ukrainian subways, used as shelters during Russian attacks. Public space exhibitions shown in subway stations in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Prague help raise awareness about the war in Ukraine. Project manager Stefan Günther said the campaign aims "to make Berliners aware of the reality of war," in an interview with Berliner Zeitung. One picture shows the six-year-old Maria sleeping on a bench in a subway carriage: "Without knowing the context, it looks quite cosy," says Günther, "but then you read the caption and understand that people have been living there for weeks because they are simply afraid of being hit by a bomb above." (Berliner Zeitung) 

To document and preserve damaged or destroyed cultural assets, a German photo project has been initiated by the Bildarchiv Foto Marburg. Since October 2022, the project has deployed up to 20 local photographers to capture images of around 250 historically significant buildings in cities like Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolayiv and Zaporizhia. A wide array of cultural heritage sites are displayed in the project, including historic wooden churches around Lviv, partisan memorials, the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Kharkiv and the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa. (DW) 

A selection from the extensive collection of the Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography (MOKSOP), showcasing the artistic experimentation and anti-establishment stance of this movement since the late 1960s, was presented at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg until January 2024. It featured around 5,000 photographs and 70,000 negatives, offering an insight into a unique artistic expression, which emerged as a response to official Soviet photography. Originally intended to be displayed in Kharkiv, the exhibition was relocated to Wolfsburg because of the onset of the war against Ukraine in February 2022. (Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg)

Hungary

Many believe that Hungarian photo reporter Andras D. Hajdu took one of the most disturbing photos of 2022 from the war in Ukraine. In this picture there is no blood and no bodies. But the face of the terrified little boy from Kharkiv. It was shared by millions on social media. "It's important that as a photographer you try to find that narrow field where you can tell what is, however terrible it is - and get it out to people. Not to satisfy their curiosity, or to repulse and ultimately provoke disinterest, but to make people think," the photographer said in an interview. (Mandiner)

Correspondents of the Telex online portal spent nearly 50 days in war-torn Ukraine in 2022, in Kyiv, Odesa and the southern regions, and Kharkiv, besieged by the Russians for weeks. During this time, they produced photo reports and articles on the daily life of the war. Photographer István Huszti also won a major Hungarian press award for the pictures taken here. The Hégető Honorka Prize was given to him for "for faithfully showing the destruction and pain caused by the war in Ukraine in his photos." (Telex)

With 350 residents, but only ten staff members instead of 250, the Borodyanka Neuropsychiatric Home was occupied in February 2022 by the Russians. They mined the courtyard and anyone who would set foot outside was shot. Thirteen people died. The residents survived the terror without water and electricity, and were finally evacuated in mid-March. They spoke to reporter Szabolcs Vörös about the horrors they experienced in a powerful multimedia project. (Válaszonline)

Italy

Photojournalist Fabio Bucciarelli visited the 'Prison of the defeated', a jail that detains Russian soldiers, mercenaries from the Wagner group and Ukrainians fighting against Ukraine, who were captured at the frontline. This facility, in the west of Ukraine, is an old Soviet-era penitentiary, built in 1978, and previously used by detainees in the medium-security regime. In a longform piece in La Repubblica, Bucciarelli’s project 'Russian POWs in Ukraine' tells the story of the 37 year-old Timur: a Russian citizen, enlisted while in prison by Wagner, who was sent at the front with the promise to have his ten-year sentence cancelled and a high salary. (La Repubblica)

In the Kharkiv region, which was occupied by Russians, Ukrainian prosecutors found dozens of mass graves of tortured and murdered civilians. The evidence collected shows that the Russian army used cluster munitions and extremely powerful bombs in residential areas, but Moscow has always denied targeting civilians. Volunteers helped exhume the corpses, have them examined by forensic doctors who collected proof of crimes committed by the Russian army. Photojournalist Alessio Mamo’s project appeared in The Guardian. Mamo and Lorenzo Tondo, correspondent for the British newspaper, published 'Focalisation: Ukrainian diary', a book reporting the invasion with photographs and reports. (Contrasto Books)

How to photograph war? An interview with Italian photojournalist Alessio Romenzi reveals the risks photographers have to take and the ethical decisions they have to make in a country at war. (Podcast on Il Post, shared before in our 12 October edition of What About Ukraine?) Romenzi travelled several times to Ukraine and, among his recent projects, he reported on the use of cluster bombs by Russians in Donbas. These are unstable bombs, which mostly explode when they hit the ground, but others remain scattered and will only explode if someone touches them. (La Repubblica)

Spain

The tension of the days leading up to the full-scale invasion, the farewells, the first civilian casualties, the destruction of cities and towns, the mass graves, the daily life in the frontline, and the funerals are captured through the lens of Diego Herrera, a Spanish photoreporter, who has compiled in this photo essay the key moments of the first twelve months of the war. This work is to be awarded the King of Spain International Photography Prize on 3 June 2024. (5W)

A member of the AP team that received the Pulitzer in 2023 for its coverage of Ukraine, Emilio Morenatti, has also been recognised at the World Press Photo Awards for his story about amputees from the Russian invasion. The jury awarded his work with an honourable mention to highlight the long-lasting consequences of war. The Spanish photographer has been covering Ukraine since the Maidan revolution, after covering Afghanistan, where he lost one of his legs. (World Press Photo)

Ten years of his life: that's how long Manu Brabo, Spanish photojournalist and Pulitzer Prize winner for his work in Syria, has been covering the Russian-Ukrainian war. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Brabo has been working for The Wall Street Journal, teaming up with Ukrainian journalist Yaroslav Trofimov. In addition to his editorial work, he has presented the exhibition ‘Black Butterflies’ and a show that mixes photography and music called ‘Ukraina’. On his website you can find images from his coverage between 2014 and 2024. (ManuBrabo.org)

Bulgaria

Mothers, often alone, doing their best to raise their children in a foreign country. Girls, elderly women, disabled women. Different generations, facing important problems, with pride and dignity. It is difficult to describe in all its complexity the reality of the many Ukrainian women who, after the start of the full Russian invasion, had to flee from home and found refuge in Bulgaria. The exhibition ‘Ukrainian women in Bulgaria’ by photographer Petar Penkov tries to collect its many facets, to tell stories of loss, but also of resilience and courage. (Open Heart Fund)

"The exhibition is an occasion to look more globally at what is happening in Ukraine - that the war is undermining the entire European security architecture, but also that the war has a heavy impact on the psyche and perceptions of the lives of the youngest people," reads the summary for 'Solidarity with Ukraine', a photo exhibition by the Ukrainian photographer Oleksandr Baron, a member of the Bulgarian minority in Ukraine. His photos, collected at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, show the destruction caused by the Russian aggression on people's lives and infrastructure in Ukraine. (Besarabia)

93 photojournalists from 29 different countries, 366 photos accompanied by 38 short journalistic texts: this is the heart of the book 'Ukraine, war and crimes', edited by the Bulgarian photographer Svetlana Bahcevanova for the publishing house Zhanet 45. These include intimate stories, often painful, but always far from clichéd. This book also aims to offer hope: all profits from its sales are donated to projects linked to Ukraine. (BNR)

The Europe-Ukraine Desk curated this newsletter. This week's edition has been composed by our team all over Europe: Marika Ikonomu, Kornelia Kiss, Katarina Kukla, Sarah Lou Lepers, Oksana Mamchenkova, Francesco Martino, Antonina Rybka and Fermin Torrano.
Michael Bird was our proofreader. 

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