Ukraine: a year of war in ten images

February 25, 2023

For nearly a year since Russia attacked Ukraine, each day brings its flood of images of destroyed buildings, families in distress, civilians holed up in cellars or soldiers in the mud of trenches. AFP has chosen ten, emblematic of this first major European conflict of the 21st century.

– February 24, 2022: Olena, the shock

With her face injured in the bombardment of her home, Olena Kourilo, photographed leaving a hospital in Chuguiv – about fifty kilometers from the Russian border – reflects the shock of those first hours.

Many then think that kyiv will fall in a few days.

“Never, under any condition, will I submit to Putin, I prefer to die,” said this teacher to AFP that day. This image went around the world. From February 26, she was projected in support of the Ukrainians, during a British Premier League match.

– March 7, 2022: The exodus

In this shot taken at Odessa station, a father says goodbye to his daughter, his hand on the window of an evacuation train that will take her to a less exposed region.

The fighting has since moved away from Odessa, but the war has caused the largest displacement of people since 1945: the UN puts the Ukrainian population at nearly eight million who have left for the rest of Europe, and at 6.5 million the number of displaced people in Ukraine itself.

– April 2, 2022: Boutcha, massacre under Russian occupation

The Russians withdrew from the kyiv region at the end of March without having been able to take the Ukrainian capital.

Two days later, AFP journalists – including photographer Ronaldo Schemidt, author of the photo – are among the first international journalists to enter Boutcha, a once peaceful suburb west of Kiev, where the fighting was particularly fierce .

In a residential street, 20 bodies of civilians, their hands sometimes tied behind their backs, lie on the ground. The indignation aroused by this discovery marks a turning point in the war, but also the beginning of an international investigation: it brought to light the assassination of at least 441 civilians between the start of the conflict and April 6, in the regions of Kiev, Cherniguiv, further north, and Sumy, further east, indicated in mid-December the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, qualifying them as “probable war crimes”.

– April 12, 2022: Mariupol, martyred city

The battle of Mariupol, a major port on the Sea of Azov which had some 400,000 inhabitants before the war, remains, in terms of number of civilian losses, the bloodiest of the war to date.

On March 16, the bombardment of the theater of the besieged city, where hundreds of people had taken refuge, caused carnage.

On April 21, Moscow claimed the capture of the city, but the fighting continued with the Ukrainian defenders entrenched in the gigantic steelworks Azovstal, who would not surrender until a month later.

A representative of the Ukrainian government estimated in June that at least 22,000 civilians had died in Mariupol.

The city was 90% destroyed, according to the UN. This photo was taken by Alexander Nemenov, AFP photographer in Moscow, during a visit organized by the Russian army on April 12.

– June 15, 2022: On the Donbass front

After the Russian withdrawal from the kyiv region, the fighting is concentrated in eastern and southern Ukraine, dominated by artillery.

The Ukrainian authorities are asking for more powerful and longer-range guns from their Western allies.

In particular, they obtained French-made Caesar cannons, here captured in action by photographer Aris Messinis near Kurakhove, in the Donetsk region.

– October 8, 2022: Explosion on the Crimean Bridge

Flames and smoke rise from the bridge linking Crimea to Russia, built at great expense by Vladimir Putin after the annexation of the peninsula in 2014, never recognized by Westerners. The cause: a truck bomb attack.

This is a new setback for Moscow, which had already seen the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet sunk in April.

The photo was taken by an amateur photographer from Kerch, a Crimean town very close to the bridge. He asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

– October 17, 2022: Drone strikes on Kyiv

After several weeks of respite, Russian strikes on kyiv resumed on October 10.

On the 17th, the capital wakes up to the sound of explosions preceded by buzzing noises and the overflight of a small white wing: explosive drones. People shout while raising their eyes to the sky, police try, knee to the ground, to target the machines before they fall.

These strikes marked the beginning of a resurgence of Russian attacks, mainly targeting energy infrastructure. “I just saw the drone pass over my head, it exploded a hundred meters from me,” said photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba.

– November 13, 2022: The Russians abandon Kherson

This city near Crimea, on the banks of the Dnieper, had been occupied by Russian forces since the beginning of March.

On November 9, the Russian Minister of Defense ordered their withdrawal, allowing the return of the Ukrainian army.

In this photo, the joy of the inhabitants is captured by photographer Bülent Kilic. The euphoria will be short-lived: the Ukrainian police quickly put in place strict controls intended to flush out the “collaborators”, and Kherson is now regularly the target of Russian strikes.

– December 21, 2022: Zelensky received a standing ovation in the US Congress

Since the start of the war, President Volodymyr Zelensky has tirelessly pleaded with Westerners to support Ukraine militarily.

Not a Western Parliament to which he did not address from kyiv, by videoconference. On December 22, it’s a surprise: he is in person in Washington, in Congress.

“Ukraine will never surrender,” he proclaimed to the cheers of elected officials. Most recently, he was in person in London, Paris and Brussels, guest of honor at a European summit.

– February 1, 2023: Trench warfare in Bakhmout

Images of soldiers buried in mud and snow, reminiscent of the First World War, are among the unexpected photos of this 21st century conflict.

This photo of Yasuyoshi Chiba was taken near Bakhmout, which since the summer has become the deadliest battle of this war. Since January, Russian forces, supported by units of the paramilitary group Wagner, seem close to seizing it.