The Ukraine-Russian Conflict As Seen Through Photographs
The year 2022 is when people decided to move forward from Covid-19. The world is going back to its ‘normal’ roots, switching back to working from offices, reopening schools and allowing social gatherings. Happiness is in everyone’s mind. But the sudden war conditions between Russia and Ukraine are enough to reduce this joy.
The beginning of the Ukraine-Russia conflict has made everyone restless, including me. I, as a traveller and photographer, am very much affected by news reports, social media posts and photographs of the current situation of the two countries. Let me take you through it.
The conflict between Ukraine and Russia started in 2014. Presently, the war began on February 24, 2022, after the separation of two pro-Russian states when Russia declared an invasion against Ukraine. People, cultural infrastructure, traditions and land are being bombarded and destroyed for the sake of war.
From the beginning itself, I have seen social media posts and photographs of Ukrainian citizens preparing for the war. Soldiers and non-soldiers assembled to fight. I saw videos of people getting emotional while leaving their closed ones before the war. In fact, I also read a post on a website about how people are making sentimental videos of Ukrainian family separations because of the war on the famous app Tik Tok.
This has also managed to grab my attention and make me feel sentimental. Staying away from your family members and fighting for your country, with all the possibilities of negative consequences, require a lot of courage. It is quite brave of people to have a great sense of patriotism for the country and fight for it. I feel a lot more for the humans who are suffering because of regional, political and cultural issues.
Moving forward, I want to discuss the pictures of tools and weapons being used in this destruction. I witnessed pictures of bombing Ukrainian cities. It created havoc inside me. It is unimaginable for a photographer to click pictures of such mass destruction or the situation of journalists covering the war. This takes us to the issue of the people crossing borders and their struggles.
It’s been 14 days since the beginning of this warfare. I read an article about fake border crossings where a person built a fake border and was charging Ukrainian citizens with a large amount of money to cross the fake borders. I feel pity for the people stuck in the war area. Their weaknesses are being taken advantage of and money is being earned from their struggles.
I also saw photographers by many journalists and photographers of the injured or dead soldiers, people striving to ask for help, crossing borders because of desperate circumstances, losing their property, home, assets etc. The border-crossing stories are capable of affecting you mentally. The war is not a great deed to think about, but it can always ghost you.
I salute the leaders of both countries — Vladimir Putin (Russian President) for being a powerful decision-maker and Volodymyr Zelensky (Ukraine President) for being a motivational leader for the citizens who has himself stepped into the war field.
I saw photographs of humanity robbing humanity but I also got to know about the incidents where humanity favoured humanity via photographs. I feel any kind of war is hazardous to humanity and I am not in favour of any particular country because I believe in peace and discussion for any issue.
I have learned a lot from the picture stories about the conflict and this is my perspective about the Ukraine-Russia war. Let me know your opinions in the comments section below.
