Guillaume Herbaut
Photographer Guillaume Herbaut has been working in Ukraine for over twenty years. This project has allowed him to be a first-hand witness of a decade of tensions and conflicts with its Russian neighbour, resulting from Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The photographer documents the beginnings of Russian’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, showing the organisation and preparation of Ukrainians face to the Russian threat.
Since the outbreak of the armed conflict throughout Ukraine, Herbaut bears witness to the diverse consequences of war on the daily lives of civilians: the massive damage in towns, the electricity cuts in winter, the tributes paid to soldiers killed at war. He also shows the extent of Russian propaganda through letters of support sent by students to soldiers.
Mykola Savchouk, 53, is a truck driver. He has always lived here, at 33 Oleksiy Mel Street.
On March 1rst, he was abducted by Russian soldiers along with two other people as he passed a checkpoint on his way home. The Russians tied his hands behind his back, blindfolded him and took him to a military camp in the forest where he was tortured. After a long blood test by a Russian military doctor, he fainted and was given up for dead. Mykola woke up 48 hours later among dead bodies. He was transported in an armoured vehicle to Belarus and then was sent by truck to Kursk prison in Russia, where he spent 20 days in a cell with nine other inmates.
On his return, he discovered his house destroyed after a Russian tank exploded in front of his house on March 11th at 8 a.m.
In December 2022, Guillaume Herbaut reported from Kiev on the daily life of Ukrainians who have not left the capital and who were suffering from the power cuts that Russia used as a weapon of war.
On December 9th 2022, Guillaume Herbaut and Ariane Chemin, a senior reporter at Le Monde, found a hundred letters sent by Russian students to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. These letters reveal the propaganda orchestrated by Moscow.
In February, the photographer visited a detention centre for Russian soldiers in the Lviv Oblast.
Gert Jochems
Standing in the conflict zone since the end of February, the photographer documents the scenes of daily life in wartime in several Ukrainian cities: Lviv, Mykolaïv, Kiev, Irpin, Boutcha, Odessa, and in the Donbass.
It shows, on the one hand, a constant threat and danger and massive destruction; on the other, civilians trying to stand against the offensive. Some of them block off houses, churches and art institutions to protect them from the bombing, while others set up self-defence training, or gather in a secret factory to produce Molotov cocktails (called “Bandera Smoothies” to avoid the Russian name).
Lâm Duc Hiên
From the very first days of the conflict, Lam Duc went to the city of Lviv to document the funerals, which have taken place almost on a daily basis since the beginning of the conflict, at the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
In April, Lam Duc documented the extent of the massacre caused by Russian troops in Kyiv oblast, in the small town of Borodyanka, then in Boutcha. The few buildings left standing burnt out; the town has been devastated. Since 6 April and the departure of the Russian troops, the Ukrainian security forces have been clearing the land in search of mines potentially laid by the invader. The emergency services have been looking for survivors.
At the same time, he highlighted the daily life of those who provide information at wartime: from television journalists to radio broadcasts and reporters on the spot.
Ismail Ferdous
In March, Ferdous travelled to Chop, Ukraine, and documented the daily life of the new military volunteers gathered in the city’s cultural centre.
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