ꦆI reached Ukraine on February 25, 2022, along with Marco Cremonesi and Francesco Maviglia—two young reporters like me. We were all freelancers and it was our first time in a warzone. We had gone there to cover the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. A bus, full of soldiers, took us from the border of Poland to Ukraine. The roads were packed with cars and people were fleeing from Ukraine.
🃏In the initial days of the war, everyone thought that Ukraine would be crushed by Russia in a week. But the territorial and civilian groups—which also had trained civilians in them—fought the Russians and managed to defend themselves. In the first months of 2022, it was difficult to take photographs because photojournalists were being mistaken for spies.
꧒Kherson Oblast, which was occupied by the Russian army at the beginning of the invasion, was liberated after six months. The Ukrainian army pushed the Russian army beyond the Dnieper River, and divided families were reunited. Kherson Oblast continues to be under Russian fire every day, people try to carry on with their daily lives, but get killed while going to the supermarket; children play with ammunition there. The Russians are on the other side, while the Ukrainian snipers control the riverbank.
💜In January-February, 2023, war in the Donbass region was centred in Bakhmut, a city that for reasons of political origin is disputed. The urban fighting there was extremely violent, over 100,000 people died as the surrounded city resisted for months. A few civilians still live in the city in spite of being caught in the most violent part of the war. When I was with them documenting the work of recovering bodies, my Ukrainian translator contact got stuck in a booby-trapped mine. We tried to help him until he got to safety. If he had pulled the wire of the mine, all of us would have exploded.
ไOver time, warfare has changed with the use of drones of all kinds, movement is more difficult.
ꦛKramatorsk is one of the last cities in Donbass still in Ukrainian territory. One night we returned home and a powerful bomb hit the city. We stepped out to check where the explosion had taken place and reached a residential area. A Russian ballistic missile had destroyed three buildings with people inside them. People were searching for survivors and helping the injured. The next day, the Russians launched two artillery shells in the same neighbourhood as the night before where they destroyed three residential buildings.
Text & Photographs by Carlo Cozzoli/Memora
The Ukraine Army Mortar Team
Scenes of Destruction:✱ A woman walks out with her baby in her arms after a Russian drone crashed into her home on Christmas eve
🧜A woman looks at the building where she lived, which was destroyed after Russian bombing. She lost her home and everything she owned
A destroyed hospital
𓆏A children’s hospital that was hit by Russian artillery
Painful Stories:൩ A civilian sustained injuries in his leg after a Russian bombing hit his home
ꦦThe drone team formed in 2023 by former journalists coordinates with artillery to provide information and targets
𓃲A wounded man behind the curtain after his house was hit by a Russian missile
ꦇKramatorsk village was completely destroyed by the war
