Ukraine’s photojournalists share stories of war

In the three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of photographers have documented the human impact of the war on the front line and in civilian areas.

Some of them have shared stories about their photos which have appeared in BBC coverage since February 2022.

Prior to the full-scale war, this husband and wife team worked as wedding and portrait photographers in the Black Sea port city of Odesa. They soon moved “from capturing love stories, to documenting Russian war crimes”, recalls Vlada.

She knows first-hand the risks in her work. An explosion on a visit to the Donetsk region in 2023 left her with shrapnel lodged deep in her side, which doctors decided could not be removed.

This powerful shot taken by Kostiantyn Liberov in the summer of 2024 was featured in Paul Adams’ report on the Ukrainian offensive over the Russian border in Kursk.

A soldier is seen consoling his desperate comrade after returning from an assault in which a fellow serviceman was killed.

For Liberov, the image mirrors some of the confusion within the military over the operation.

“To lose your friend in an attack inside Russia, rather than defending our country in Ukraine, is very difficult,” he said. “I took this photo because of the emotional impact it had on me. It says a lot about the situation and how hard it was for them.”

Photographing such deeply affecting scenes has taken its toll on local photojournalists. “It’s not something we talk about a lot with colleagues as it’s painful,” says Vlada. “You are in a very hard situation, and no-one quite understands what the solution can be.”

One 2023 photo of hers captures a member of Ukraine’s White Angels police unit after an unsuccessful attempt to convince one of the last remaining residents to leave the eastern city of Aviidvka before Russian forces sweep in.

The story was part of a BBC article on a devastating 24-hour Russian bombardment.

A man had asked the police unit to evacuate his brother from the basement of a burnt out building, and yet he still refused to leave.

“The next day we could not return because of hard shelling,” Vlada remembers. “The situation got much worse and…