A trio of AP visual journalists bears witness to the civilian victims of Russia’s merciless shelling.
As Russian shelling increased on the partially blockaded northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, photographer Felipe Dana, video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and producer Vasilisa Stepanenko promptly delivered arresting images documenting the horrors of war, telling victims’ stories with sensitivity and offering a glimpse into how war tears apart innocent lives. They also witnessed Ukrainian security personnel arresting people suspected of collaborating with Russian forces.
The AP team was on the scene moments after a shelling as one family echoed the tragic experience of so many Ukrainians. “Please open your eyes, my bunny. Please,” Nina Shevchenko pleaded as she stroked the lifeless face of her son Artem, 15. “Let me see him! My baby! My golden sunshine!” the boy’s grandmother cried as workers zipped up the body bag. “Why should I live, if you are gone?”
Working tirelessly, often at great personal risk, they captured many such scenes in Kharkiv, including medics tending to the severely wounded in the street after one strike. “You’re a strong man. You can make it,” a rescuer tells one of the wounded. The journalists also witnessed Ukrainian security personnel arresting people suspected of collaborating with Russian forces.
Firefighters work outside the window of a destroyed apartment after a Russian attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine, April 12, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) servicemen enter a building during an operation to arrest suspected Russian collaborators in Kharkiv, April 14, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A woman reacts as Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) servicemen enter a building during an operation to arrest suspected Russian collaborators in Kharkiv, April 14, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) servicemen enter a building during an operation to arrest suspected Russian collaborators in Kharkiv, April 18, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A man suspected of being a Russian collaborator is detained during an operation by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kharkiv, April 18, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A man suspected of being a Russian collaborator is detained during an operation by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kharkiv, April 14, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Firefighters work to extinguish multiple fires after a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 16, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
People stand in the hallway of their apartment building as Russian attacks continued in Kharkiv, April 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
The body of a boy who died in a Russian attack is placed in a body bag in Kharkiv, April 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Embers smolder on a bed in a house burning after a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Nina Shevchenko, right, mourns beside the body of her 15-year-old son Artem, who was killed in a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 15, 2022. Nine civilians died and more than 50 people were wounded in the attack on a residential area, the Ukrainian president’s office reported.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A woman reacts next to the body of 15-year-old boy Artem Shevchenko, killed in a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Nina Shevchenko, left, mourns beside the body of her 15-year-old son Artem, who was killed in a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A man closes the eyes of 15-year-old Artem Shevchenko, who was killed in a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A man comforts Oksana as the woman waits for an ambulance after being injured in a public park during a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 15, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A woman injured in a Russian attack is treated by emergency workers in Kharkiv, April 16, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Emergency workers help injured civilians during a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 17, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Ukrainian servicemen run for cover in downtown Kharkiv as explosions are heard during a Russian attack. April 17, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
The body of a man killed during a Russian attack lies on a residential street in Kharkiv, April 19, 2022. Russia was ratcheting up its battle for control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland on Tuesday, intensifying assaults on cities and towns along a front hundreds of miles long in what officials on both sides described as a new phase of the war.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A woman cries beside the body of her father after a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 18, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Emergency workers remove the body of an elderly man killed in a Russian attack on Kharkiv, April 18, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
People remove the body of an elderly woman killed in downtown Kharkiv during a Russian attack, April 17, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
The body of a woman killed in a Russian attack lies on a sidewalk in downtown Kharkiv, April 17, 2022.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
In another building’s hallway, a young girl broke down in tears as she recounted the horror of the attack and how she was saved only when “some woman, God bless her, covered me with her body.” “Don’t cry, my little one,” her mother reassured her. “Everything is over.”
For riveting, revealing and compassionate coverage of one city’s agony, the team of Dana, Chernov and Stepanenko earns AP Best of the Week — Second Winner honors.
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