https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2024/sep/18/ukraine-war-zone-byron-smith-in-pictures
Byron Smith spent six months travelling across the battle-torn nation, meeting injured civilians, amateur bomb-makers and daredevil swimmers
Main image: ‘Tenacious spirit’ … a civilian rides his bike past a destroyed vehicle outside the Ukranian city of Kupiansk. Photograph: Byron SmithWed 18 Sep 2024 07.00 BST
Smith’s portraits and documentary pictures are no less redolent of struggle and defiance. Kupiansk was one of the first cities to fall in the invasion, on 24 February 2022. Over that summer the city became the logistical hub of the Russian advance into Ukraine, but a counteroffensive in September restored Ukrainian authority, which in turn prompted a devastating wave of Russian shelling that killed dozens of civilians. Smith’s images capture all that trauma at a human level: “I made the pictures,” he has said, “to show the strength, dignity, resilience and courage of a population who didn’t ask to bear this burden but who still believe they are doing it so… other democratic nations will not have to.”
Testament ’22 is published by Verlag Kettler