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  • 27 sharp splinters to remind the war is not over. An exhibition honoring Ukrainian journalists opened in Vilnius

    Wars are now fought live. Satellites record troop movements. Drone cameras see the enemy. Radars warn of another bomber takeoff. But the main nerve, terror, and sometimes joy are still captured by journalists. Photos from Bucha, Kherson, and Dnipro often say more than thousands of texts. A photo exhibition organized by BAJ and the Lithuanian Union of Journalists opened in Vilnius on the anniversary of the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    A woman dies while the pho­to­graph of her receives world recog­ni­tion

    In the right wing of Vil­nius Rail­way Sta­tion, 27 pho­tographs tak­en in 2022 and 2023 in Ukraine are on dis­play. 27 reminders that the hor­rors are not over. 27 sharp splin­ters that can hurt, but make it impos­si­ble to look away. Behind each frame is a dra­ma that con­veys the mag­ni­tude of the tragedy through the per­son­al sto­ries of the char­ac­ters.

    «Two years and one day ago, I could­n’t even imag­ine a full-scale inva­sion,» said BAJ chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets at the exhi­bi­tion’s open­ing. «But I was cer­tain that jour­nal­ists would ful­fill their pro­fes­sion­al duty in the most chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances, even at the cost of their own lives. We see this war through the eyes of reporters. This exhi­bi­tion is a trib­ute to their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and a trib­ute to those who sac­ri­ficed them­selves or suf­fered dur­ing the ter­ri­ble events.”

    «The exhi­bi­tion is a dis­play of sol­i­dar­i­ty and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ists who work in dif­fi­cult con­di­tions,» said Ricar­do Gutier­rez, Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, who joined the cer­e­mo­ny by tele­phone. «Thanks to inter­na­tion­al sup­port, they can con­tin­ue their work.»

    He also thanked his Belaru­sian and Lithuan­ian col­leagues for orga­niz­ing the exhi­bi­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly BAJ chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets and his deputy Barys Haret­s­ki.

    «They under­stand from lived expe­ri­ence the impor­tance of sol­i­dar­i­ty dur­ing chal­leng­ing times,» stat­ed Ricar­do Gutier­rez.

    Evgeniy Mal­o­let­ka took one of the most famous pho­tos in Mar­i­upol dur­ing the city’s most ter­ri­ble days. The Asso­ci­at­ed Press pho­to­jour­nal­ist’s lens cap­tured a preg­nant woman injured in Russ­ian shelling of a mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal. The snap­shot was pub­lished by many world media out­lets. It became one of the most repli­cat­ed, and a year lat­er the World Press Pho­to jury named it the best. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the woman in the famous pho­to suf­fered a trag­ic fate. Iry­na Kalin­i­na’s son was still­born, and she passed away just half an hour after giv­ing birth. The child was named Myron in hon­or of peace [‘myr’ in Ukrain­ian].

    Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da attempt­ed to dis­cred­it evi­dence of Russ­ian army crimes by claim­ing that Iry­na Kalin­i­na sur­vived the shelling of the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal and was part of a staged event. But Russ­ian fraud­sters have not suc­ceed­ed. The reporters found the wom­an’s hus­band and got indis­putable evi­dence from three doc­tors.

    Evgeniy Mal­o­let­ka had to escape from the occu­pied city. This is a sep­a­rate sto­ry. When neigh­bor­ing build­ings were occu­pied by the ene­my, he spent the night with a col­league in the hos­pi­tal. The next morn­ing, Ukrain­ian spe­cial forces evac­u­at­ed him.

    «We left in some­one else’s car, we had a fam­i­ly with us who helped us. There were six peo­ple in the small Hyundai Accent. The car had no side win­dows, the wind­shield was cracked, vis­i­bil­i­ty was lim­it­ed, and the front line was crossed with lights off. It was extreme­ly dan­ger­ous,» Evgeniy Mal­o­let­ka rec­ol­lect­ed lat­er.

    «While now the most crucial thing is sitting in the trenches, in the future, people will learn about this reality from pictures»

    The Vil­nius exhi­bi­tion is unique in that it show­cas­es the pho­tog­ra­phers behind the poignant pho­tos, who are often over­looked. For exam­ple, Yan Dobronosov, who worked in the par­lia­ment press corps since 2014 and quick­ly switched to being a war cor­re­spon­dent.

    «I am tak­ing part in Ukraine’s fight for free­dom,» shares the pho­tog­ra­ph­er. «Some peo­ple believe that pho­tog­ra­phy is not a sig­nif­i­cant part of the strug­gle. How­ev­er, while now the most cru­cial thing is sit­ting in the trench­es, in the future, peo­ple will learn about this real­i­ty from pic­tures.»

    One of his pho­tographs became world famous. He pho­tographed a house in Dnipro bombed by the Russ­ian army. The rock­et shat­tered the wall of a high-rise apart­ment build­ing, expos­ing the inte­ri­or of an apart­ment. The scene was unset­tling: orange kitchen cab­i­nets, apples on the table, and chairs, all sur­round­ed by the after­math of crim­i­nal gun­fire. Mikhail Kora­novsky, an hon­ored box­ing coach of Ukraine, lived in this apart­ment. He died, leav­ing a wife and two daugh­ters.

    The next pho­to por­trait was tak­en by Ser­hii Nuzh­nenko from the Ukrain­ian chap­ter of RFE/RL. He stood on the infa­mous street in Bucha, where a col­umn of Russ­ian equip­ment had been destroyed. The Russ­ian army occu­pied the city a few days lat­er and com­mit­ted ter­ri­ble crimes.

    «On Feb­ru­ary 27, I saw a video on Telegram show­ing a destroyed col­umn of Russ­ian equip­ment in Bucha,» said the pho­to­jour­nal­ist about his trip. «My col­leagues informed me of pos­si­ble routes to the town, and on March 1st, we went there. Every­one was con­fused, no one under­stood what was hap­pen­ing or what to expect. It was two days before the occu­pa­tion of the town. I won­der if the peo­ple I urged to evac­u­ate are still alive. They assured me every­thing would be okay.»

    Чым не новы сімвал для гісторыі?

     

    That could be a new his­tor­i­cal sym­bol, could­n’t it?

    Efrem Lukatsky is a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist who has worked exten­sive­ly in hot spots well before the war in Ukraine. From the late 1980s, he head­ed the Asso­ci­at­ed Press’ local office pho­to ser­vice. He cap­tured the his­toric moment of bring­ing the nation­al flag to the Verk­hov­na Rada in 1991. Lat­er he worked as a war cor­re­spon­dent in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chech­nya, and Geor­gia. He now had to doc­u­ment such occur­rences in his home coun­try.

    The pho­to tak­en after the lib­er­a­tion of Kher­son cap­tures the emo­tions of the city’s res­i­dents. They are seen smil­ing, kiss­ing, and cel­e­brat­ing the arrival of the long-await­ed lib­er­a­tors. That could be a new his­tor­i­cal sym­bol, could­n’t it?

    Spous­es Kos­tiantyn and Vla­da Liberov took a series of impres­sive pho­tos from Kharkiv, Bakhmut, and Kher­son, signed Lik­bos. This is anoth­er indi­ca­tion of Russ­ian aggres­sion against Ukraini­ans. Before the war, the cou­ple was pro­fes­sion­al­ly engaged in pho­tograph­ing wed­dings. Now they cov­er the effects of the war. Their pic­tures are used on social media by Volodymyr Zelen­skyi, the Ukrain­ian Min­istry of Defense, and West­ern edi­to­ri­als. The mil­i­tary invit­ed the pho­tog­ra­phers to vis­it the dugouts and cap­ture their every­day lives. The Liberovs are still pho­tograph­ing wed­dings, but on spe­cial occa­sions only.

    «If a mil­i­tary man sends us a text say­ing ‘I’m get­ting mar­ried, come,’ we drop every­thing and go at our own expense. These are the only wed­dings we shoot. We’ve giv­en up on civil­ians for now,» Kos­tiantyn and Vla­da explain

    When going on anoth­er trip, they pre­pare for the pos­si­bil­i­ty that they will need to return, process the pho­tos, and share them with the world.

    Dur­ing the open­ing of the exhi­bi­tion, Vik­tor Hamot­skyi, the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Embassy of Ukraine in Lithua­nia, stat­ed the fol­low­ing:

    «I am grate­ful to those who came up with the idea for this exhib­it. In my opin­ion, it has three mis­sions. The first is to hon­or my coun­try, my peo­ple who are hero­ical­ly fight­ing for our com­mon free­dom. The sec­ond is to remind us that the war con­tin­ues. Third, to real­ize how impor­tant the role of pro­fes­sion­al and coura­geous jour­nal­ism is. Vic­to­ry over a com­mon ene­my will be a shared one!»

    Waist deep in water and under fire

    Work­ing in a war zone is a con­stant risk for jour­nal­ists. There is an opin­ion that the Russ­ian army is pur­pose­ful­ly hunt­ing media rep­re­sen­ta­tives. In 2023, two media work­ers (Bohdan Bitik and Arman Sol­din) died in Ukraine, accord­ing to Reporters With­out Bor­ders. How­ev­er, there could have been many more jour­nal­ist casu­al­ties.

    A case in point: reporters from the Swedish chan­nel TV4 were in east­ern Ukraine to cov­er the counter-offen­sive. They were get­ting out of their car when it was hit by a kamikaze drone. Reporter Johan Fredriks­son and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Daniel Zdolsek were unhurt, but local jour­nal­ist Olek­san­dr Pavlov, who was accom­pa­ny­ing his col­leagues, was slight­ly injured. He was giv­en med­ical atten­tion. He also took pic­tures of the blown-up crossover.

    How­ev­er, it is not only mines and mis­siles that pose a dan­ger to our col­leagues in Ukraine. It is no exag­ger­a­tion to say that after the destruc­tion of the Kakhov­ka Dam, jour­nal­ists had to work in water up to their waists. At that moment they were the eyes of the civ­i­lized world. It is no secret that open-source data often becomes evi­dence of crimes against human­i­ty.

    Sergiy Tamilenko, head of the Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists of Ukraine (NUJU), deliv­ered a speech to con­clude the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny. He lives in Kyiv, and his words seem par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant:

    «The thou­sands and thou­sands of peo­ple who will pass through the Vil­nius train sta­tion hall will be able to see the hor­rors of war and also reflect on the costs, risks, and dan­gers that jour­nal­ists in Ukraine face dai­ly. We are tired of war. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we can­not sim­ply turn off the ter­ri­ble news. Evil and aggres­sion await those who refuse to accept this unjust war. We can’t afford it…»

    The exhi­bi­tion «Ukraine: Jour­nal­ists in the War Zone» opened on Feb­ru­ary 24 and will run for two weeks. Admis­sion is free of charge. The expo­si­tion is locat­ed on the right wing of Vil­nius Rail­way Sta­tion.

    The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and the Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists invite col­leagues and com­pa­tri­ots to vis­it the exhi­bi­tion.

    Read more:

    Journalists in the War Zone: BAJ and LUJ will open an exhibition in Vilnius

    Fact-checking Rimas Bružas’ column on LRT: 2% real vs 50% claimed

    Malanka Media head’s case submitted to court

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