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A Ukrainian Photographer Documents the Invasion of His Country

5 minute read
Simon Shuster | Photographs by Maxim Dondyuk

In the seconds before impact, mortars whistle as they fall, making a loud and almost plaintive sound Maxim Dondyuk will never forget. He will not forget the sting of their shrapnel, which felt like a hot knife in his arm, or the sight of the women and children he photographed during the shelling near Kyiv on March 6. He hopes the people who see his photos will not be able to forget them either. “I don’t stay here and do this because I am a masochist,” Dondyuk, who is Ukrainian, says by phone from the center of Kyiv. “I do it because sometimes a photo can change people, change societies.” With luck, he says, it might help stop a war.

The Agony of Ukraine Maxim Time Magazine cover
Photograph by Maxim Dondyuk

When this war started in late February, Dondyuk was in Kyiv as Russian forces rushed to encircle the city, dropping bombs and firing artillery while tanks advanced from the north. Civilians tried to flee or take shelter in the subway system. At the city’s main hospital for children, Dondyuk found the patients crowded into the basement while the doctors waited for the wounded to arrive.

The first one was a young boy, no older than 7, whose parents and sister had just been killed. Emergency workers carried him into the ward and told the doctors that the family’s car had been riddled with bullets near the heart of the Ukrainian capital. The boy was the only survivor. The emergency workers did not know his name, they said, because his documents were probably in the wreckage. The doctors registered him as “Unknown No. 1,” and performed emergency surgery.

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Pacing the ward outside the child’s room, Dondyuk found the head physician and asked for permission to photograph the boy. “I told him that the Russian people need to see this,” Dondyuk recalls. “When we show them the children killed by Russian bombs, they will imagine their own children. Our children are the same. Our cities look the same. They will see themselves in us. They will feel it.” The doctors relented, and that night Dondyuk took a photo of the boy, whose name, reporters later learned, was Semyon. He was still in critical condition at the time. He died soon after.

The first patient to arrive at the main children’s hospital in Kyiv after the Russian invasion was a young boy named Semyon on Feb. 28. His family’s car had come under heavy fire, killing his parents and his sister. The boy later died
The first patient to arrive at the main children’s hospital in Kyiv after the Russian invasion was a young boy named Semyon, photographed on Feb. 28. His family’s car had come under heavy fire, killing his parents and his sister. The boy later diedMaxim Dondyuk

It was one of the moments when Dondyuk broke down. Over the past eight years, he has photographed many aspects of the war between Russia and Ukraine. He has seen and documented it from both sides of the front. For Dondyuk, 38, the story was always personal, but never more than over the past few weeks. His mother has been forced to flee the nation as a refugee. His father lives in a town under Russian military occupation. “My city, where I lived for years, is being destroyed,” Dondyuk says of Kyiv. “I’m not coming at this from afar. This is my pain. This is my country.”

By the second week of the war, he says, the initial phase of panic in the capital subsided. Trenches and checkpoints appeared in residential neighborhoods, next to schools and playgrounds, as Ukrainians prepared to fight the Russian troops from street to street. Many people fled, but many others stayed to help, transforming the city into a wartime metropolis—far emptier, more somber, but full of purpose and resolve. Those who could not volunteer to fight have spent their time helping those who did, cooking meals, filling sandbags, tending bonfires, delivering supplies.

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The worst of the carnage has so far been confined to the city’s northern suburbs, which is where Dondyuk was wounded on March 6. That morning he set out by car to the suburb of Irpin, along with two other photographers. To stall the Russian advance, Ukrainian forces had blown up a bridge that leads south from that town into Kyiv, leaving only a small walkway over a river, just wide enough for one or two people to cross at a time.

UKRAINE. Irpin February 6, 2022.Ukrainian soldiers near Irpin.Ukrainian civilians from the town of Irpin, north of Kyiv, are crossing the bridge over the Irpin River.
Ukrainian photographer Maxim Dondyuk after he was injured by shrapnel on March 6Jerome Sessini—Magnum Photos

As the photographers arrived, they saw a couple of vans near the bridge, waiting to take civilians to safety as they made it over. Many of those crossing were elderly. Others had babies in strollers and pets under their arms. A group of Ukrainian soldiers stood nearby. Dondyuk had stopped to take their photographs when they heard the first mortar incoming. It was the start of an assault that would last for around two hours, targeting the only pathway for civilians to flee Irpin.

The soldiers at the bridge fell back as the bombing continued. But Dondyuk and his two colleagues stayed to document the scene, retreating only after a piece of shrapnel hit him in the shoulder, ripping away a piece of flesh. Scores of civilians were injured or killed in the attack. Yet they kept streaming across the bridge even as the bombs were falling. “They could see the mortars ahead of them. They could see the bodies,” says Dondyuk. “But whatever they were running away from, it must have been worse.”

—With reporting by Nik Popli

Many people are forced to live permanently in the subway, which is now a bomb shelter, they afraid to go outside, many have lived there since the beginning of the war. 02.03.2022, Kyiv
A woman seeks shelter from Russian artillery and aerial bombardment in Kyiv’s subway system on March 2. Thousands like her have retreated underground, and some have not left the tunnels since the fighting beganMaxim Dondyuk
The Kiev maternity unit was forced to move completely to the basement of their hospital, after the destruction of the house next to them. 02.03.2022, Kyiv
A maternity unit moved to the basement of their hospital in Kyiv on March 2 after a bombing nearbyMaxim Dondyuk
Evacuation of civilians from Irpin town, through a bridge destroyed by shelling. The bridge was destroyed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to prevent the enemy from reaching Kyiv. On this day at 10 am women, children and the elderly were supposed to be evacuated from the town by trains, but the enemy blew up the railroad tracks, and so people were asked to move to another place, from where they should be picked up by buses for transportation to the Kyiv railway station. Irpin town, Kyiv region, Ukraine, 05.03.2022
Civilians cross the Irpin river, near Kyiv, on March 5, where a bridge was destroyed by the Ukrainian army to stop Russian forces from advancingMaxim Dondyuk
Evacuation of civilians from Irpin town, through a bridge destroyed by shelling. The bridge was destroyed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to prevent the enemy from reaching Kyiv. On this day at 10 am women, children and the elderly were supposed to be evacuated from the town by trains, but the enemy blew up the railroad tracks, and so people were asked to move to another place, from where they should be picked up by buses for transportation to the Kyiv railway station. Irpin town, Kyiv region, Ukraine, 05.03.2022
The evacuation of civilians waiting to cross the Irpin river, on March 5Maxim Dondyuk
Civilians hide from shelling. During the evacuation of civilians from the city of Irpin, the Russian troops started the mortar and artillery shelling on them. Irpin town, Kyiv region, Ukraine, 06.03.2022
Ukrainian civilians run for cover from incoming Russian mortar and artillery fire in the town of Irpin, near Kyiv 0n March 6Maxim Dondyuk
Dead bodies of civilians who died during the evacuation from the city of Irpin. During the evacuation of the civilian population from the city of Irpin, Russian troops opened mortar and artillery fire on them. Irpin town, Kyiv region, Ukraine, 06.03.2022
The bodies of civilians killed by a Russian mortar attack while fleeing Irpin, near Kyiv, on March 6. A volunteer humanitarian aid van parked beside the scene had the words "God is with us" painted yellow on topMaxim Dondyuk
The military and volunteers help elderly people cross the blown-up bridge across the Irin River, through which residents are being evacuated to the city of Kyiv. Irpin city, Kyiv region, 12.03.2022
Civilians flee Russian forces on March 12 while under heavy bombardment in Irpin, northwest of Kyiv. Ukrainian troops had blown up a bridge into the capital to impede the advance of Russian tanks, leaving only a narrow walkway for people to escapeMaxim Dondyuk
Apartment building destroyed after the rocket attack by Russia, Pozniaky district, Kyiv, Ukraine.
An apartment building destroyed by a Russian rocket attack in the Pozniaky district of Kyiv on Feb. 25Maxim Dondyuk
A woman salvages what remains in her apartment, after a Russian rocket damaged her building in Kyiv
A woman salvages what remains in her apartment on Feb. 26, after a Russian rocket damaged her building in KyivMaxim Dondyuk
Debris litters the streets of Brovary, days after a deadly Russian rocket attack on Ukrainian military units left vehicles and buildings gutted and destroyed
Debris litters the streets of Brovary on March 1, days after a deadly Russian rocket attack on Ukrainian military units left vehicles and buildings gutted and destroyedMaxim Dondyuk
Vsevlad, 22, territory defence and Olexander, territory defence, 31, worker that installs windows. The wounded fighters of the territorial defense who fell under the aircraft and other bombing of the military unit are in the treatment of Brovary City Hospital. 01.03.2022, Brovary, Kyiv district
At a hospital in Brovary on March 1, two volunteer fighters recover from wounds sustained while helping defend the city from a Russian assaultMaxim Dondyuk
Yaroslav , 31, reanimation, territory defence. The wounded fighters of the territorial defense who fell under the aircraft and other bombing of the military unit are in the treatment of Brovary City Hospital. 01.03.2022, Brovary, Kyiv district
A critically wounded territorial defense fighter at a hospital in Brovary on March 1Maxim Dondyuk
A child boards a train in Kyiv on March 2, where long lines of people are evacuating the city
A child boards a train in Kyiv on March 2, where long lines of people are evacuating the cityMaxim Dondyuk
A fire destroys a warehouse after a missile strike near Kyiv on March 3
A fire destroys a warehouse after a missile strike near Kyiv on March 3Maxim Dondyuk
Smoke in the aftermath of a missile strike damaged a warehouse on the outskirts of Kyiv, on March 3
Smoke in the aftermath of a missile strike damaged a warehouse on the outskirts of Kyiv on March 3Maxim Dondyuk
Locals in one of the basements in the city of Irpin, hide from the shelling by Russian troops. Here are grandmothers who hardly go. Therefore, from the very first day they have never come out on the street, it is difficult for them to walk and scary to get under the shelling. They have no light, and there are no candles. They live in complete darkness. The room next door they use as a toilet. Irpin city, Kyiv region, 11.03.2022.
Tea brewed under the light of a cell phone inside a basement being used as a shelter in Irpin on March 11. Elderly residents hide from the shelling by Russian troops and hardly come outside because it's difficult for them to walk in fear of another shelling.Maxim Dondyuk
Soldiers of the Ukrainian Army are returning after the battle in the city of Irpin. Kyiv region, 12.03.2022
Ukrainian soldiers returning to Kyiv after battle in Irpin on March 12Maxim Dondyuk
The destroyed cabin of a combat vehicle on the streets in Irpin on March 12
The destroyed cabin of a combat vehicle on the streets in Irpin on March 12Maxim Dondyuk
A Ukrainian soldier watches the street through binoculars in the city of Irpin on March 12
A Ukrainian soldier watches the street through binoculars in the city of Irpin on March 12Maxim Dondyuk
A Russian soldier lies dead on a railroad track in Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, on March 12. Ukrainian forces have repelled wave after wave of Russian attacks on the town, a gateway to the capital
A Russian soldier lies dead on a railroad track in Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, on March 12. Ukrainian forces have repelled wave after wave of Russian attacks on the town, a gateway to the capitalMaxim Dondyuk

 

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