The Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers continues to work on the rubric “Is it really?”, where it checks the authenticity of certain manipulations of information, referring to the original source.
Ilovaisk is a city in the east of the country, whose name is forever associated with tragic events in the history of Ukraine. The operation of the Ukrainian military in Ilovaisk from 18 to 29 August, known as the fighting for Ilovaisk, was intended to cut off a strategic direction for the terrorists, but ended fatally. Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded. At the exit through the proposed “green corridor”, the columns with the Ukrainian military were shot. The Ukrainian offensive has stopped. The Minsk agreements were signed in Belarus.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, 366 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the fighting for Ilovaisk, 429 were wounded of varying severity, more than 300 were captured, more than 500 people were missing.
Identifying and countering Russian fakes at the very beginning of the war was quite difficult. Among the narratives imposed by propaganda in order to justify the invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territories, a “civil war” against the “Nazi” Ukrainian authorities was common in Ukraine.
“The Russian side categorically denies any participation in the conflict in the Donbas. According to the leadership of the Russian Federation, the death of hundreds of Ukrainian security forces caused Kiev's refusal to pass along the route of the provided humanitarian corridor on the proposed conditions. There is information that they left the “boiler” with weapons,” — Russian newspaper “Ukraine.ru”.
British media The Guardian in an article for 2014 “Russian soldier: “You better not know, because the truth is terrible”gives evidence of the presence of the Russian army in Ilovaisk against the background of the “inevitable defeat of the rebels”.
Journalists of the British media met the military, who broke out of the encirclement, in the city of Komsomolske (Kalmiuske). They were “bloodied” and “dirty,” “with broken or crushed legs, with fragments in their arms, legs, bodies, teeth knocked out and noses broken.”
28-year-old Taras Samchuk, a soldier of the 51st Brigade, who fell into the ring, in an interview with journalists called the Russian army the reason for the encirclement.
“Instead of fighting a ragtag bunch of rebels, the Ukrainians suddenly found themselves fighting the regular Russian army.
Samchuk said that together with his brothers he rescued a Russian on armored vehicles, which they destroyed near the city. “He told us that he served in the 8th Chechen Brigade (possibly the 8th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade, which is based in Chechnya) and claimed that they were sent here for training,” Samchuk said, adding that the soldier was now being treated at a hospital in Kiev.
The Russian side concealed both its participation in the war and the number of Russian military casualties.
“Packages from dry rations of the Russian army and “green men” without identification marks, similar to those who participated in the annexation of Crimea, as well as satellite images that, according to NATO, show Russian armored vehicles in Ukraine have been seen repeatedly.
A video posted on YouTube this week shows a huge armored column, similar to a Russian one, moving inside Ukrainian territory.”
The article mentions the investigation of one Pskov politician, Lev Schlossberg, who received recordings of conversations of Russian soldiers of the 76th Pskov Airborne Division returning from Ukraine. The transcript contains the story of the soldiers that almost the entire company was destroyed by the Ukrainians.
He told The Guardianthat the military leadership of the Russian Federation is putting pressure on the relatives of servicemen who are in Ukraine, so it cannot reveal the source of the information.
The human rights organization “Committee of Soldiers' Mothers” of Russia claims that up to 15,000 soldiers have been sent across the border in recent weeks.
Also The Guardianshared her own investigation on the Internet, finding on the social network “VKontakte” the page of a soldier who is probably fighting in Ukraine. In the post, he said that he remains to fight out of a sense of duty in the face of dead comrades, of which every day there are more and more. “He seems frustrated by the mystery surrounding his mission, and his close friends don't even suspect what's going on.”
“You won't see it on TV, you won't hear it on the radio, you won't read it in the newspapers. You won't find anything on the internet that explains what's really going on where we are right now. To be honest, you better not know, because the truth is terrible,” Zdrok wrote in a post dated August 26,” — quotes The Guardian.
Hostile fakes aimed at discrediting Ukrainian volunteers are traced in the events in Ilovaisk. The Ukrainian military is portrayed as brutal war criminals who ruthlessly kill civilians.
In particular “Ukraine.ru”calls “the brutality of the militias, with which they killed the Ukrainian security forces captured in the ring, revenge for the fact that Ilovaisk suffered the last month and a half before the “cauldron””.
In the words of propaganda political scientist Oleksandr Asafov, the Ukrainian military heavily shelled the city with artillery, “grassed with phosphorus”, “captured local residents” who were “kept in iron boxes without food, sleep and water, committed torture and “sexual violence”.
More than that, “Ukraine.ru”believes that the Ukrainian military should bear responsibility for atrocities against the civilian population.
“The Ukrainian side is finding out who is to blame for the deaths of hundreds of soldiers. At the same time, it seems that no one at a high level cares who should bear responsibility for the death and suffering of the civilians of Ilovaisk.
Almost all the “heroes” of these crimes (committed by Ukrainian security forces) are either at liberty or convicted on other cases unrelated to the atrocities against the civilian population of Donbas that took place in August 2014 in the Ilovaisk area,” Oleksandr Asafov stated.
The events of the Russian-Ukrainian war consist of puzzles of victories and tragedies, personal stories and photo materials. The work of Ukrainian documentary filmmakers is difficult to overestimate in the face of constant danger to life. By capturing the war on film, they help to rethink the meaning of certain events.
Oleksandr Hlyadelov, Maksym Dondyuk, Maksym Levin and Markian Lyseiko are Ukrainian photographers whose photos forever imprinted those who went through the hell of Ilovaisk.
Ukrainian news media ReportersOn August 17, 2021, Alexander Gladielov told how, together with the fighters of the battalion “Donbass”, he drove to Ilovaisk. As on the fourth day of his stay in Ilovaisk, he was wounded by a fragment in the leg and evacuated along with the films taken. Then, on the way, one film was lost forever.
“I still can't stop thinking about that lost film — I know that it contains pictures that I really miss, because there are recorded people who died breaking out of Ilovaisk,— Alexander said in an interview Reporters. ---- Last year, Captain Apis, who threatened to destroy my films, told us, photographers, on Mikhailovskaya Square a phrase that touched me a lot: “Thank you guys. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be there. And now we're there forever.”.
Maxim Dondyuk's working trip to Ilovaisk turned into two weeks surrounded.
“On the outskirts we met locals who had just emerged from the basements. They had a critical situation — they were left without medicine, food, water. The fighters immediately began to help them, and later to the civilians who were hiding in the cellars of school No. 14, where Donbas stayed.
Those people didn't go out at all. They either sat in the basement of the school, or at most they could get up and walk inside the building. I remember there were children among them: when it subsided, they drove through the corridors and played with wooden pistols found at school. And there was another interesting couple - a fighter of 18 years old and a girl, maybe 16 years old. Almost their peers, they quickly became friends and, when they could, tried to be together. He came here to defend the country, she lived in Ilovaisk and sat in the basement,” the photographer recalls in an interview.
In January 2023, the photo book “Ilovaisk” with photos of Alexander Gladielov, Maxim Dondyuk, Maxim Levin and Markiyan Lyseyk was released for free access.
The latter left Ilovaisk together with the military on August 29. Their car was the only one that survived the firing of a column by the Russian army. Everything they saw, experienced and recorded on film turned into a documentary multimedia project “Afterilovaisk”.
Thanks to the courage and professionalism of Ukrainian photojournalists, Ilovaisk — a bloodstain on the map of Ukraine — are first-hand stories, photos filled with patriotism and heroic struggle for the Motherland.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Yana Yevmenova
Bildeditor: Vyacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary Editor: Julia Futei
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
The Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers continues to work on the rubric “Is it really?”, where it checks the authenticity of certain manipulations of information, referring to the original source.
Ilovaisk is a city in the east of the country, whose name is forever associated with tragic events in the history of Ukraine. The operation of the Ukrainian military in Ilovaisk from 18 to 29 August, known as the fighting for Ilovaisk, was intended to cut off a strategic direction for the terrorists, but ended fatally. Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded. At the exit through the proposed “green corridor”, the columns with the Ukrainian military were shot. The Ukrainian offensive has stopped. The Minsk agreements were signed in Belarus.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, 366 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the fighting for Ilovaisk, 429 were wounded of varying severity, more than 300 were captured, more than 500 people were missing.
Identifying and countering Russian fakes at the very beginning of the war was quite difficult. Among the narratives imposed by propaganda in order to justify the invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territories, a “civil war” against the “Nazi” Ukrainian authorities was common in Ukraine.
“The Russian side categorically denies any participation in the conflict in the Donbas. According to the leadership of the Russian Federation, the death of hundreds of Ukrainian security forces caused Kiev's refusal to pass along the route of the provided humanitarian corridor on the proposed conditions. There is information that they left the “boiler” with weapons,” — Russian newspaper “Ukraine.ru”.
British media The Guardian in an article for 2014 “Russian soldier: “You better not know, because the truth is terrible”gives evidence of the presence of the Russian army in Ilovaisk against the background of the “inevitable defeat of the rebels”.
Journalists of the British media met the military, who broke out of the encirclement, in the city of Komsomolske (Kalmiuske). They were “bloodied” and “dirty,” “with broken or crushed legs, with fragments in their arms, legs, bodies, teeth knocked out and noses broken.”
28-year-old Taras Samchuk, a soldier of the 51st Brigade, who fell into the ring, in an interview with journalists called the Russian army the reason for the encirclement.
“Instead of fighting a ragtag bunch of rebels, the Ukrainians suddenly found themselves fighting the regular Russian army.
Samchuk said that together with his brothers he rescued a Russian on armored vehicles, which they destroyed near the city. “He told us that he served in the 8th Chechen Brigade (possibly the 8th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade, which is based in Chechnya) and claimed that they were sent here for training,” Samchuk said, adding that the soldier was now being treated at a hospital in Kiev.
The Russian side concealed both its participation in the war and the number of Russian military casualties.
“Packages from dry rations of the Russian army and “green men” without identification marks, similar to those who participated in the annexation of Crimea, as well as satellite images that, according to NATO, show Russian armored vehicles in Ukraine have been seen repeatedly.
A video posted on YouTube this week shows a huge armored column, similar to a Russian one, moving inside Ukrainian territory.”
The article mentions the investigation of one Pskov politician, Lev Schlossberg, who received recordings of conversations of Russian soldiers of the 76th Pskov Airborne Division returning from Ukraine. The transcript contains the story of the soldiers that almost the entire company was destroyed by the Ukrainians.
He told The Guardianthat the military leadership of the Russian Federation is putting pressure on the relatives of servicemen who are in Ukraine, so it cannot reveal the source of the information.
The human rights organization “Committee of Soldiers' Mothers” of Russia claims that up to 15,000 soldiers have been sent across the border in recent weeks.
Also The Guardianshared her own investigation on the Internet, finding on the social network “VKontakte” the page of a soldier who is probably fighting in Ukraine. In the post, he said that he remains to fight out of a sense of duty in the face of dead comrades, of which every day there are more and more. “He seems frustrated by the mystery surrounding his mission, and his close friends don't even suspect what's going on.”
“You won't see it on TV, you won't hear it on the radio, you won't read it in the newspapers. You won't find anything on the internet that explains what's really going on where we are right now. To be honest, you better not know, because the truth is terrible,” Zdrok wrote in a post dated August 26,” — quotes The Guardian.
Hostile fakes aimed at discrediting Ukrainian volunteers are traced in the events in Ilovaisk. The Ukrainian military is portrayed as brutal war criminals who ruthlessly kill civilians.
In particular “Ukraine.ru”calls “the brutality of the militias, with which they killed the Ukrainian security forces captured in the ring, revenge for the fact that Ilovaisk suffered the last month and a half before the “cauldron””.
In the words of propaganda political scientist Oleksandr Asafov, the Ukrainian military heavily shelled the city with artillery, “grassed with phosphorus”, “captured local residents” who were “kept in iron boxes without food, sleep and water, committed torture and “sexual violence”.
More than that, “Ukraine.ru”believes that the Ukrainian military should bear responsibility for atrocities against the civilian population.
“The Ukrainian side is finding out who is to blame for the deaths of hundreds of soldiers. At the same time, it seems that no one at a high level cares who should bear responsibility for the death and suffering of the civilians of Ilovaisk.
Almost all the “heroes” of these crimes (committed by Ukrainian security forces) are either at liberty or convicted on other cases unrelated to the atrocities against the civilian population of Donbas that took place in August 2014 in the Ilovaisk area,” Oleksandr Asafov stated.
The events of the Russian-Ukrainian war consist of puzzles of victories and tragedies, personal stories and photo materials. The work of Ukrainian documentary filmmakers is difficult to overestimate in the face of constant danger to life. By capturing the war on film, they help to rethink the meaning of certain events.
Oleksandr Hlyadelov, Maksym Dondyuk, Maksym Levin and Markian Lyseiko are Ukrainian photographers whose photos forever imprinted those who went through the hell of Ilovaisk.
Ukrainian news media ReportersOn August 17, 2021, Alexander Gladielov told how, together with the fighters of the battalion “Donbass”, he drove to Ilovaisk. As on the fourth day of his stay in Ilovaisk, he was wounded by a fragment in the leg and evacuated along with the films taken. Then, on the way, one film was lost forever.
“I still can't stop thinking about that lost film — I know that it contains pictures that I really miss, because there are recorded people who died breaking out of Ilovaisk,— Alexander said in an interview Reporters. ---- Last year, Captain Apis, who threatened to destroy my films, told us, photographers, on Mikhailovskaya Square a phrase that touched me a lot: “Thank you guys. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be there. And now we're there forever.”.
Maxim Dondyuk's working trip to Ilovaisk turned into two weeks surrounded.
“On the outskirts we met locals who had just emerged from the basements. They had a critical situation — they were left without medicine, food, water. The fighters immediately began to help them, and later to the civilians who were hiding in the cellars of school No. 14, where Donbas stayed.
Those people didn't go out at all. They either sat in the basement of the school, or at most they could get up and walk inside the building. I remember there were children among them: when it subsided, they drove through the corridors and played with wooden pistols found at school. And there was another interesting couple - a fighter of 18 years old and a girl, maybe 16 years old. Almost their peers, they quickly became friends and, when they could, tried to be together. He came here to defend the country, she lived in Ilovaisk and sat in the basement,” the photographer recalls in an interview.
In January 2023, the photo book “Ilovaisk” with photos of Alexander Gladielov, Maxim Dondyuk, Maxim Levin and Markiyan Lyseyk was released for free access.
The latter left Ilovaisk together with the military on August 29. Their car was the only one that survived the firing of a column by the Russian army. Everything they saw, experienced and recorded on film turned into a documentary multimedia project “Afterilovaisk”.
Thanks to the courage and professionalism of Ukrainian photojournalists, Ilovaisk — a bloodstain on the map of Ukraine — are first-hand stories, photos filled with patriotism and heroic struggle for the Motherland.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Yana Yevmenova
Bildeditor: Vyacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary Editor: Julia Futei
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
UAPP is an independent association of professional Ukrainian photographers, designed to protect their interests, support, develop and promote Ukrainian photography as an important element of national culture.
UAPP's activities span educational, social, research and cultural initiatives, as well as book publishing.
UAPP represents Ukrainian professional photography in the international photographic community and is an official member of the Federation of European Photographers (FEP) — an international organization representing more than 50,000 professional photographers in Europe and other countries around the world.
