“We were the only international journalists who hadn’t left Mariupol. For more than two weeks we were documenting its siege by Russian forces. We were making the report from the hospital when armed people appeared in the corridors. Surgeons gave us white coats to disguise. Suddenly at dawn a dozen of soldiers broke into the hospital: “Where are the journalists, goddamn...

I grew up in Kharkov - a Ukrainian city 30 km from the Russian border – and learnt how to use the weapon at school lessons. It made no sense to me. Ukraine was surrounded by friends, I thought. Since that time, I have been making reports on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Nagorno-Karabakh. But when this winter Americans and then Europeans evacuated their embassies from Kiev and while...

People started dying very fast. On 27 February we saw how the doctor was trying to rescue a little girl who was hit with shrapnel. She died. Then another child died. Then the third one. Ambulances stopped taking wounded people because there was no network connection and medical staff couldn’t be called as well as ambulances couldn’t get through bombed streets. Doctors begged us to...

Till this time, I had seen many deaths in the hospital, corpses on the streets, dozens of bodies thrown to the mass grave. I saw so many deaths that I was filming them not taking too close to my heart. Two airstrikes targeted plastic that was used as a protection for our van. I had noticed a fire ball just before the pain struck my inner ear, my skin and my face.We saw smoke rising above the...

If we hadn’t left this morning, we wouldn’t exist anymore. At least me, for sure. There were less and less people in our cellar hiding. They were leaving. Rumors had it that many of them managed to get out of this hell. But it was only rumors. Nobody could believe that. Our neighbors were disappearing one by one. As soon as somebody could find any fuel or friends driving a car....

Nazarko is that diminutive form of my name that still can be pleasant for a 29-year-old man to hear.  That’s how I was called by Oleh and Konstantin. Oleh, who was nicknamed Lom, always called me his personal photographer. Some of those shots that I made for him were really good and Oleh was really delighted with them. I met Lom in 2018. At that time his division was performing some...

"We arrived in the Makarovsky district on the evening of the 24th, 8 people, my father-in-law, mother-in-law, their daughter with a 1.5-year-old child, husband, and his sister, and 5 cats. We came to see friends - Liza's classmate and her parents. We drove through Irpin, already you were able to hear loud sounds of explosions from Gostomel and see enemy fighter jets overhead. We realized that...

I have a friend who is in the navy. He is fighting and trying to survive somewhere in Mariupol. I ask non-existing God to help him somehow. I always pray for him and his health. Why do I say “non-existing God”? Because his family is waiting for him at home, a small son expects him to come every day…and suddenly my friend finds some mobile network connection. To catch it, he...

This war has made us a true nation. I am proud to have a diagnose “Ukraine of a brain!” We are not afraid and we will fight for freedom. I saw what happened with Lugansk when Russians came there.. Normal life there was impossible, so I left it and went to Kiev. And propaganda lived there happily. Now there are so many Zombies there.. I finally understood what Z means.. Land of...

Warehouses with food around Kiev are one of targets of Russian army, along with civil houses, storages with fuel.. Probably that’s where main Nazi and bio labs are.. So now food is delivered to supermarkets as fast as possible and they try not to use warehouses.   I’ve never seen supermarkets so full with products, boxes standing everywhere in huge piles. But there is no...