A formidable all-formats team tells the stories of internally displaced Ukrainian families in a single Lviv apartment block.
Through the lens of a single apartment building in western Ukraine, an all-formats AP team gave the world a deeply personal glimpse into the lives of the millions of people being displaced by war.
“I want my normal life,” said Nazar Kopan, a 6-year-old boy whose parents are doctors and wanted to stay in the country to help. Though he knows better, he sometimes asks to return home to Kyiv.
London-based news director Susie Blann wanted to tell the story of how the city of Lviv had welcomed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who had been driven from their homes by war but had chosen to remain in their country.
Driver/fixer Yevhen Potoplyak was among those who had given up his home to house another family and described countless others who had done the same. It seemed to Blann that the best way to tell the larger story was to look behind the doors of one apartment block, to see who was now living there and how they had come to do so.
Getting enough people in one block to talk proved difficult. Working with Potoplyak, they chased numerous contacts — and contacts of contacts — trying to find families that felt comfortable enough telling their stories and letting the AP into their temporary homes.
Iryna and her husband Volodymyr lean on each other, April 3, 2022, in a stairwell near the Lviv, Ukraine, apartment in which they took refuge with four other internally displaced adults from Irpin. The couple was trapped for days between Ukrainian and Russian forces and quickly learned to distinguish between incoming and outgoing fire. They took shelter in a basement and whenever the shelling eased, they climbed out, shouting to their neighbors to see if they were still alive.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Iryna and her husband Volodymyr smoke, April 3, 2022, outside the Lviv apartment building in which they took refuge with four other adults, all internally displaced from Irpin.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Iryna and Volodymyr, internally displaced from Irpin, lean on each other, April 3, 2022, near the apartment they took refuge in with four other adults, in Lviv, western Ukraine.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Snow coats he ground, April 3, 2022, outside a Lviv apartment building that holds families from some of Ukraine’s most devastated cities. On the surface Lviv appears calm, but the city is currently home to many internally displaced Ukrainians fleeing the worst of the Russian invasion.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
On April 3, 2022, Dr. Marta Kopan, 38 weeks pregnant, weeps in a Lviv apartment loaned by a cousin, beside her husband, Dr. Maxim Motsya, and their 3-year-old son Makar, as she recalls fleeing from their home in Kyiv, leaving almost everything behind.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Makar, 3, and his 6-year-old brother Nazar play at an apartment in Lviv, April 2, 2022, where their family took refuge after fleeing their home in Kyiv. The family wants to stay in Ukraine but they have no long-term plan.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Iryna Kopan, right, internally displaced with her family from Kyiv, plays with her grandsons 3-year-old Makar, left, and his brother Nazar, 6, in Lviv, western Ukraine, April 3, 2022.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Iryna Kopan, plays with her 6-year-old grandson Nazar, April 3, 2022, at an apartment loaned to them by a family member after fleeing their home in Kyiv. For years, Iryna, an architect, has poured her money and talent into building her daughter's new home in Bucha, just outside the capital. “The job of my life,” Iryna says. Her work, like almost everything else, was left behind; the family doesn’t know if the house is still intact after the Russia’s violent occupation of Bucha.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Internally displaced from Kyiv, Dr. Marta Kopan has her pregnant belly kissed by her 6-year-old son Nazar, April 3, 2022, at a Lviv apartment loaned by a cousin, as her husband, Dr. Maxim Motsya, handles boxes filled with medical aid to be sent to Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines. Makar, 3, stands at right.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Internally displaced from Kharkiv, 8-year-old Zlata-Maria, right, plays with Sophia, 9, a new friend she made at an apartment the family is renting in Lviv, western Ukraine, April 3, 2022.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Olha Salivonchuk, head of the local association of apartment owners, sits with her daughter Solomiya,13, in their apartment in Lviv, western Ukraine, April 3, 2022. Olha has never considered leaving, even when a Russian airstrike on Lviv made their building shake.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Olha Salivonchuk, head of the local association of apartment owners, carries her pet bird in her Lviv apartment, April 3, 2022. Many of her new neighbors are internally displaced Ukrainians who fled to the relative safety of Lviv.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Olha Salivonchuk, head of the local association of apartment owners, shows her packed “go bag” with clothes, medicine, food and documents, beside her daughter Solomiya, 13, at their apartment, in Lviv, western Ukraine, April 3, 2022.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
A Soviet-era apartment building on Trylovskoho Boulevard in Lviv is a temporary home to as many as 50 displaced Ukrainians. Most just want to return home, if their home still stands.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Clothes hang to dry in the apartment where the Shlapak family, who fled Kharkiv, took refuge, in Lviv, western Ukraine, April 3, 2022. On the first day of Russia's invasion, the family left to seek safety in a subway, leaving them homeless for a week, along with hundreds of other residents.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Zlata-Maria Shlapak sits inside a bathtub with her puppy Letti at an apartment the family is renting, as a warning siren sounds in Lviv, western Ukraine, April 2, 2022. Zlata didn't see much fighting in Kharkiv, but “when she hears loud noises, she tries to hide,” her mother said.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Zlata-Maria Shlapak, left, plays with new friend Sophia, April 2, 2022. in a Lviv apartment her family is renting after fleeing Kharkiv.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Olya Shlapak, husband Sasha Olexandre, daughter Zlata-Maria, 8, and their 9-month-old puppy Letti sit for a photograph, April 3, 2022, in the Lviv apartment they are renting since fleeing fighting in Kharkiv.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Internally displaced from Kharkiv, Sasha Olexandre gets up to talk to his 8-year-old daughter Zlata-Maria, in the apartment are renting in Lviv, western Ukraine, April 3, 2022.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Olya Shlapak, center, and husband Sasha Olexandre stand in a corridor and bathroom, staying away from glass windows as a warning siren sounds, April 2, 2022, in the apartment building where they are living since fleeing fighting in Kharkiv. At right is their friend, Olha Salivonchuk, head of the local association of apartment owners.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Their last contact was at the block on Trylovskoho Boulevard. They'd heard about families there from Irpin, Kyiv and Kharkiv but needed to spend time with them to build trust.
Blann and photographer Nariman El-Mofty initially met each of the families featured in the final story. Then, after briefing videographer Renata Brito and text reporter Cara Anna through about they'd learned and how the final piece might work, they returned as a group to get interviews on camera.
As soon as the women returned from reporting, El-Mofty set up a call with digital storyteller Natalie Castañeda to discuss the digital presentation.
El-Mofty and Brito waded through the hours of stills and video they’d shot, and Brito worked with another fixer, Hanna Arhirova, on translations for the video edit, while Anna laid down the first draft of her text. Castañeda packaged it all in a remarkable presentation, complemented by a social media plan.
For their tireless, resourceful work in demanding circumstances, the team of Blann, Anna, El-Mofty, Brito and Castañeda is the AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
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