In August 2014, one of the fiercest battles for Ukrainian forces unfolded near the town of Ilovaisk during the war in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian command decided to storm the city, which was occupied by pro-Russian militants and located 43 kilometers from Donetsk. However, the operation turned into a tragedy. The fighting lasted nearly a month, with about 400 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the "Ilovaisk pocket," another 400 wounded, and approximately 300 captured. The battle marked a turning point in the Russo-Ukrainian war, as the Ukrainian Armed Forces shifted from an offensive to a defensive position. Since then, August 29 has been commemorated as the Day of Remembrance for Ukrainian defenders who died fighting for the country's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
Photographer Maksym Dondyuk witnessed the events in Ilovaisk. He was on the front lines, capturing key moments of the assault on the occupied city, as well as the lives and deaths of Ukrainian soldiers.
In 2014, Maksym Dondyuk documented the Russo-Ukrainian war on both sides of the front. He photographed in Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Luhansk, and Donetsk, as journalists and photographers could freely cross the front lines at the time. "Back then, everyone was traveling because there was chaos. At checkpoints, they would just check your documents," Dondyuk recalls.
Soon, he and journalist Simon Ostrovsky were captured by a group led by "Strelkov." They were blindfolded and subjected to mock executions with blank rounds. "From the voice, I realized it was Strelkov interrogating us. In the morning, we were all released except Ostrovsky. They probably wanted to arrest him, and I just happened to be in the car with him. I had fake documents and a cover story, and in the end, they let me go," Dondyuk recounts.
Later, while photographing on the other side of the front near Maryinka, Dondyuk came under fire from Ukrainian forces. "I thought if they kill me on the separatist side, they’ll consider me a traitor. It was important for me to photograph because many Ukrainians, our citizens, ended up on the other side. Initially, everything was blurry and surreal, and I was trying to make sense of the situation," says Maksym Dondyuk.
In the summer of 2014, the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) organized press tours for journalists and photographers. "I remember they brought various TV channels, and girls in pink shorts stood in front of burning equipment, reporting on the war. But if you looked at the combat map, we were at least 20 kilometers from the front lines. I got tired of this situation and started looking for opportunities to work with the Ukrainian military," Maksym recalls. "Friends shared the contacts of the commander of the 'Donbas' battalion, and he allowed us to come." As a result, Maksym Dondyuk, Oleksandr Glyadyelov, Maks Levin, and Markiyan Liseiko witnessed the key events of Ilovaisk.
Maksym Dondiuk went with the military to storm the city. "There was little room in the military vehicles, and they told us to bring matches. Sasha got a short one, so I went alone for the first time," recalls Maksym. "The first assault on August 10 was unsuccessful. Four Ukrainian soldiers were killed that day. We had to turn back because a sabotage group was trying to blow up an aqueduct behind us, and we would have been caught in an ambush."
The Ukrainian soldiers returned along the path beside the overgrowth. Their armored vehicle was hit by an RPG, and the men inside were evacuated and carried out on stretchers. "Our sniper took out a fighter with a grenade launcher, and we moved on. We advanced along the overgrowth while the enemies were shooting at us. It was a very unsettling feeling—walking on asphalt, looking at the overgrowth, and not knowing what would come next," says Maksym.
Then there was another attempt to enter Ilovaisk. This time, Maksym Dondiuk went with Oleksandr Hlyadielov. "I remember there was a breakthrough in the front from the Russian side. We saw how artillery was approaching and part of the troops moving in," recalls Maksym Dondyuk. "We didn’t make it; we spent the night in some kindergarten."
On August 18, everything seemed to be going well. There was not too much resistance in Ilovaisk itself; the military entered the city from the other side. “We came in through the outskirts, passing through various small villages. They were all destroyed, with burned-out vehicles on the road and bloated bodies of separatists lying around—no one had picked them up,” recalls the photographer. Sometimes, Ukrainian soldiers encountered “friendly fire.” The situation was tense, with fighters encountering each other from different angles, firing, and then figuring out who was who. “We spent an entire day making our way to Ilovaisk, very slowly. In one of the villages, we came under a mortar attack. There were short battles along the road, with grenade fire. We constantly had to lie on the ground and then get up and move again. Our troops captured a few prisoners. I saw freshly killed enemies who had come out onto the road and were shooting at us,” says Maksym Dondiuk. “By evening, as darkness approached, we entered Ilovaisk. We were put in an armored vehicle. The driver was shot by a sniper. Luckily, the glass withstood two shots aimed directly at his head.”
When the Ukrainian military entered Ilovaisk, civilians emerged from the basements to greet them. The people believed they had been liberated and embraced the soldiers. They were in a critical situation—without medical supplies, food, or water. The soldiers immediately began assisting them. Maksym Dondiuk, along with the military, settled in a school. The soldiers took positions in the gym and classrooms. There were also civilians living in the basements, mostly women with children.
“When you’re shooting in a very intense atmosphere, where the war is constant, your subconscious starts to take over. It’s like for people who practice Eastern martial arts and act automatically during a fight because there’s simply no time to think,” says Maksym Dondiuk. “You have to run alongside the soldiers and take photos. It’s not always possible to stand up and compose the right shot. Everything happens so quickly that there’s no time to think. It all depends on your background, experience, and ability to work in such conditions.”
Maksym Dondiuk was in Ilovaisk with photographer Oleksandr Hliadielov. “I didn’t yet have experience working in combat conditions, and I was trying to run to places where I could have been killed with a hundred percent probability. However, Sasha always held me back, and I’m very grateful to him for that. He said we should first observe and wait, and his composure saved us,” Maksym recalls. He adds that this is a common issue for young photographers who think they will never be injured, let alone killed. “I got my first injury during the Euromaidan protests, the second one in 2022,” says Maksym Dondiuk. “I understand that the next injury might be more severe than the previous one. I’m becoming more cautious, possibly due to experience, age, or understanding that in war, you control nothing.”
Maksym Dondiuk recalls one morning in Ilovaisk when he and the soldiers brewed coffee and went out to the schoolyard. “We were standing with our coffee, talking, and some people were smoking. Suddenly, a whole series of shots from an AGS (automatic grenade launcher) landed right in the crowd. I was standing there with my coffee, and something flew by me; part of the soldiers fell, groaning in pain and shouting. I saw that Sasha got a shrapnel wound in his leg,” Maksym Dondiuk says. “You realize that you weren’t injured not because you’re some amazing guy. It just happened by chance; you were lucky this time, while someone else wasn’t. I started to understand that I have no control over the situation in war. It only seems like you can control it. Why did no shrapnel hit me, while it hit Sasha? Why did some people not get hurt at all, while others received severe injuries or died? Who decides that?”
Maksym Dondiuk worked alongside Oleksandr Hliadielov for a few days. Then Oleksandr was evacuated with other wounded, and Maksym was left alone. “We were told we would go with the soldiers for one or two days. The troops would quickly clear the city, and we’d return to Kurakhove. I only took a small tactical backpack and a sleeping bag. I didn’t even bring a charger for my equipment. After all, there was no electricity anyway,” the photographer recalls. “There were many shellings at our school, and during one of them, while I was running with the camera, I was pressed against a wall, and the lens broke. It was mechanical, so I taped it together with duct tape and continued shooting. The camera was damaged, the batteries were dead, and there was almost no memory left on the flash drives. Every evening I deleted photos and could only take a few shots per hour.”
The school in Ilovaisk, where Ukrainian soldiers were stationed, was constantly shelled with every possible type of weapon. Maksym Dondiuk recalls sitting in the school's basement, wondering if it would hold up. After the first targeted shelling, the soldiers confiscated mobile phones from the women. The soldiers realized that someone among the women was definitely not on their side. Following the heavy bombardments of the school, the soldiers began dispersing throughout the city, searching for various accommodations and houses for the night.
“It was an extremely hot August, and I hadn’t washed for about a week. The soldiers set up a makeshift shower in the field, which I had to use during the shellings. You would go and think about whether to wash or not. It was terrifying, and when there were explosions, you had to immediately run back to the house from the shower,” Dondiuk explains.
During that time, a real tragedy was unfolding beyond Ilovaisk. The front line was "collapsing," Russian troops were approaching, and gradually cutting off the possibilities for retreat. Meanwhile, preparations for a military parade in Kyiv for Independence Day were underway. "When we had internet access, Olexandr Hliadelov and I were actively posting about the situation in Ilovaisk on Facebook. We realized we were encircled and decided to bring attention to this situation. We were the only photographers there," says Maksym Dondiuk.
Maksym's camera had stopped working, the batteries had died, and he could no longer continue taking photos. On August 23, the military put him in a vehicle and said they would evacuate him along with the wounded. The photographer recalls: "Before this, a similar vehicle had left Ilovaisk and was destroyed by a direct tank hit. We had our weapons taken away, and a wounded soldier was given a pistol and a grenade. The guy had a severed spine, he was lying there, and I was just trying to keep him steady so the bumps on the road wouldn’t shake him too much. He told me there would be no captivity — if the vehicle was captured, he would blow it up. That's how we broke through ten kilometers under mortar fire. The corridor was not fully closed, and we managed to pass through a gap."
Immediately after returning, Maksym Dondiuk went to visit Oleksandr Hliadielov in the hospital. “When Sashko was injured, he ended up in an evacuation vehicle. Then he was transferred to another vehicle. It happened that all his film rolls were packed into one case, and they got lost during the transfer. Later, a soldier came up to me and said he had found the films,” recalls Maksym Dondiuk. “When I was leaving Ilovaisk, I carried not only my own materials but also Sashko’s. I thought that if I didn’t make it out, there would be no photos left, no record of what happened and how the guys fought.”
Maksym visited Oleksandr Hliadielov in the hospital in Dnipro during Ukraine's Independence Day celebrations. “I went to see Sashko and brought him the film rolls. He was thrilled, and we decided to celebrate. I went out to a store and heard explosions — it was a festive fireworks display. I immediately jumped into the bushes and lay on the ground. A week of shelling had affected my psyche,” Maksym Dondiuk recounts.
“In Ilovaisk, we bonded with the guys since we lived together and were constantly communicating. They always tried to give us a weapon for protection. We declined, saying we had cameras. They joked that we were even crazier than they were. Our soldiers often had direct contact with the enemy,” Dondiuk recalls. “I believe the most important photos are those of the guys who died, who didn’t make it out of Ilovaisk.” Maksym remembers the reconnaissance unit he interacted with regularly. They had used a fire truck that was destroyed by a direct hit from a tank shell. It’s very difficult now to look at those photos.
Maksym Dondiuk recalls a volunteer with the call sign "Franco." He came from a well-off family, lived in America, and came to assist the Ukrainian troops. “I remember when he was wounded, when first aid was administered to him. He was dying right before our eyes, groaning. He knew he was dying. It’s incredibly painful to realize that the person you were joking with just yesterday is no longer there,” Maksym says. He adds that the soldiers did not allow the photographing of their dead and wounded, so he and Oleksandr Hliadielov helped to unload the bloodied bodies of the fallen.
Maksym Dondiuk's photographs from Ilovaisk were largely unpublished. Several publications immediately offered to publish the material, but Maksym declined. Publishing the photos could have endangered the lives of Ukrainian soldiers who were captured. There were only a few exhibitions abroad with printed photographs. After nine months, when all the soldiers were released, publishing the photos in the news media was no longer relevant.
Today, a book about Ilovaisk featuring photographs by Maksym Dondiuk, Oleksandr Hliadielov, Max Levin, and Markian Lysenko is available. Every August 29th, the photographers would meet with the soldiers in the morning and gather together in the evening. At one point, they decided it would be good to create a book about Ilovaisk. Before the full-scale war began, Max Levin received funding for the book from the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. The book was to be published by the end of 2022.
“In early December, I went to Oleksandr Hliadielov’s with hard drives containing photographs by Max Levin, Markian Lysenko, and me. We struggled to find Max’s photos, and it was difficult to meet with Markian,” Maksym recalls. “I spent a month living with Sashko, working on selecting photos, captions, and texts for the book. We were fortunate to find a great designer who immediately understood our concept and to arrange with the printing house.” Maksym remembers spending nights in Sashko’s apartment, sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag, just as he did in the surrounded city, spending entire days reviewing war photographs, and often in the morning not being able to tell if he was in Sashko’s apartment or back in Ilovaisk.
"We survived where others perished. We remember and cannot let it be forgotten," reads the epigraph of the book about the Ilovaisk tragedy. Maksym adds, "This book is for us a tribute to all who died in Ilovaisk, and a memory of Maks. I open the book and recall the guys, their names and call signs, their jokes and smiles. It’s important that the memory endures, that there is a place for stories about the heroic deeds of our Ukrainian soldiers."
The material was worked on:
Topic researcher and text author: Katya Moskalyuk
Photo editor: Vyacheslav Ratynsky
Literary editor: Yulia Futei
Website manager: Vladislav Kukhar
In August 2014, one of the fiercest battles for Ukrainian forces unfolded near the town of Ilovaisk during the war in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian command decided to storm the city, which was occupied by pro-Russian militants and located 43 kilometers from Donetsk. However, the operation turned into a tragedy. The fighting lasted nearly a month, with about 400 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the "Ilovaisk pocket," another 400 wounded, and approximately 300 captured. The battle marked a turning point in the Russo-Ukrainian war, as the Ukrainian Armed Forces shifted from an offensive to a defensive position. Since then, August 29 has been commemorated as the Day of Remembrance for Ukrainian defenders who died fighting for the country's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
Photographer Maksym Dondyuk witnessed the events in Ilovaisk. He was on the front lines, capturing key moments of the assault on the occupied city, as well as the lives and deaths of Ukrainian soldiers.
In 2014, Maksym Dondyuk documented the Russo-Ukrainian war on both sides of the front. He photographed in Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Luhansk, and Donetsk, as journalists and photographers could freely cross the front lines at the time. "Back then, everyone was traveling because there was chaos. At checkpoints, they would just check your documents," Dondyuk recalls.
Soon, he and journalist Simon Ostrovsky were captured by a group led by "Strelkov." They were blindfolded and subjected to mock executions with blank rounds. "From the voice, I realized it was Strelkov interrogating us. In the morning, we were all released except Ostrovsky. They probably wanted to arrest him, and I just happened to be in the car with him. I had fake documents and a cover story, and in the end, they let me go," Dondyuk recounts.
Later, while photographing on the other side of the front near Maryinka, Dondyuk came under fire from Ukrainian forces. "I thought if they kill me on the separatist side, they’ll consider me a traitor. It was important for me to photograph because many Ukrainians, our citizens, ended up on the other side. Initially, everything was blurry and surreal, and I was trying to make sense of the situation," says Maksym Dondyuk.
In the summer of 2014, the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) organized press tours for journalists and photographers. "I remember they brought various TV channels, and girls in pink shorts stood in front of burning equipment, reporting on the war. But if you looked at the combat map, we were at least 20 kilometers from the front lines. I got tired of this situation and started looking for opportunities to work with the Ukrainian military," Maksym recalls. "Friends shared the contacts of the commander of the 'Donbas' battalion, and he allowed us to come." As a result, Maksym Dondyuk, Oleksandr Glyadyelov, Maks Levin, and Markiyan Liseiko witnessed the key events of Ilovaisk.
Maksym Dondiuk went with the military to storm the city. "There was little room in the military vehicles, and they told us to bring matches. Sasha got a short one, so I went alone for the first time," recalls Maksym. "The first assault on August 10 was unsuccessful. Four Ukrainian soldiers were killed that day. We had to turn back because a sabotage group was trying to blow up an aqueduct behind us, and we would have been caught in an ambush."
The Ukrainian soldiers returned along the path beside the overgrowth. Their armored vehicle was hit by an RPG, and the men inside were evacuated and carried out on stretchers. "Our sniper took out a fighter with a grenade launcher, and we moved on. We advanced along the overgrowth while the enemies were shooting at us. It was a very unsettling feeling—walking on asphalt, looking at the overgrowth, and not knowing what would come next," says Maksym.
Then there was another attempt to enter Ilovaisk. This time, Maksym Dondiuk went with Oleksandr Hlyadielov. "I remember there was a breakthrough in the front from the Russian side. We saw how artillery was approaching and part of the troops moving in," recalls Maksym Dondyuk. "We didn’t make it; we spent the night in some kindergarten."
On August 18, everything seemed to be going well. There was not too much resistance in Ilovaisk itself; the military entered the city from the other side. “We came in through the outskirts, passing through various small villages. They were all destroyed, with burned-out vehicles on the road and bloated bodies of separatists lying around—no one had picked them up,” recalls the photographer. Sometimes, Ukrainian soldiers encountered “friendly fire.” The situation was tense, with fighters encountering each other from different angles, firing, and then figuring out who was who. “We spent an entire day making our way to Ilovaisk, very slowly. In one of the villages, we came under a mortar attack. There were short battles along the road, with grenade fire. We constantly had to lie on the ground and then get up and move again. Our troops captured a few prisoners. I saw freshly killed enemies who had come out onto the road and were shooting at us,” says Maksym Dondiuk. “By evening, as darkness approached, we entered Ilovaisk. We were put in an armored vehicle. The driver was shot by a sniper. Luckily, the glass withstood two shots aimed directly at his head.”
When the Ukrainian military entered Ilovaisk, civilians emerged from the basements to greet them. The people believed they had been liberated and embraced the soldiers. They were in a critical situation—without medical supplies, food, or water. The soldiers immediately began assisting them. Maksym Dondiuk, along with the military, settled in a school. The soldiers took positions in the gym and classrooms. There were also civilians living in the basements, mostly women with children.
“When you’re shooting in a very intense atmosphere, where the war is constant, your subconscious starts to take over. It’s like for people who practice Eastern martial arts and act automatically during a fight because there’s simply no time to think,” says Maksym Dondiuk. “You have to run alongside the soldiers and take photos. It’s not always possible to stand up and compose the right shot. Everything happens so quickly that there’s no time to think. It all depends on your background, experience, and ability to work in such conditions.”
Maksym Dondiuk was in Ilovaisk with photographer Oleksandr Hliadielov. “I didn’t yet have experience working in combat conditions, and I was trying to run to places where I could have been killed with a hundred percent probability. However, Sasha always held me back, and I’m very grateful to him for that. He said we should first observe and wait, and his composure saved us,” Maksym recalls. He adds that this is a common issue for young photographers who think they will never be injured, let alone killed. “I got my first injury during the Euromaidan protests, the second one in 2022,” says Maksym Dondiuk. “I understand that the next injury might be more severe than the previous one. I’m becoming more cautious, possibly due to experience, age, or understanding that in war, you control nothing.”
Maksym Dondiuk recalls one morning in Ilovaisk when he and the soldiers brewed coffee and went out to the schoolyard. “We were standing with our coffee, talking, and some people were smoking. Suddenly, a whole series of shots from an AGS (automatic grenade launcher) landed right in the crowd. I was standing there with my coffee, and something flew by me; part of the soldiers fell, groaning in pain and shouting. I saw that Sasha got a shrapnel wound in his leg,” Maksym Dondiuk says. “You realize that you weren’t injured not because you’re some amazing guy. It just happened by chance; you were lucky this time, while someone else wasn’t. I started to understand that I have no control over the situation in war. It only seems like you can control it. Why did no shrapnel hit me, while it hit Sasha? Why did some people not get hurt at all, while others received severe injuries or died? Who decides that?”
Maksym Dondiuk worked alongside Oleksandr Hliadielov for a few days. Then Oleksandr was evacuated with other wounded, and Maksym was left alone. “We were told we would go with the soldiers for one or two days. The troops would quickly clear the city, and we’d return to Kurakhove. I only took a small tactical backpack and a sleeping bag. I didn’t even bring a charger for my equipment. After all, there was no electricity anyway,” the photographer recalls. “There were many shellings at our school, and during one of them, while I was running with the camera, I was pressed against a wall, and the lens broke. It was mechanical, so I taped it together with duct tape and continued shooting. The camera was damaged, the batteries were dead, and there was almost no memory left on the flash drives. Every evening I deleted photos and could only take a few shots per hour.”
The school in Ilovaisk, where Ukrainian soldiers were stationed, was constantly shelled with every possible type of weapon. Maksym Dondiuk recalls sitting in the school's basement, wondering if it would hold up. After the first targeted shelling, the soldiers confiscated mobile phones from the women. The soldiers realized that someone among the women was definitely not on their side. Following the heavy bombardments of the school, the soldiers began dispersing throughout the city, searching for various accommodations and houses for the night.
“It was an extremely hot August, and I hadn’t washed for about a week. The soldiers set up a makeshift shower in the field, which I had to use during the shellings. You would go and think about whether to wash or not. It was terrifying, and when there were explosions, you had to immediately run back to the house from the shower,” Dondiuk explains.
During that time, a real tragedy was unfolding beyond Ilovaisk. The front line was "collapsing," Russian troops were approaching, and gradually cutting off the possibilities for retreat. Meanwhile, preparations for a military parade in Kyiv for Independence Day were underway. "When we had internet access, Olexandr Hliadelov and I were actively posting about the situation in Ilovaisk on Facebook. We realized we were encircled and decided to bring attention to this situation. We were the only photographers there," says Maksym Dondiuk.
Maksym's camera had stopped working, the batteries had died, and he could no longer continue taking photos. On August 23, the military put him in a vehicle and said they would evacuate him along with the wounded. The photographer recalls: "Before this, a similar vehicle had left Ilovaisk and was destroyed by a direct tank hit. We had our weapons taken away, and a wounded soldier was given a pistol and a grenade. The guy had a severed spine, he was lying there, and I was just trying to keep him steady so the bumps on the road wouldn’t shake him too much. He told me there would be no captivity — if the vehicle was captured, he would blow it up. That's how we broke through ten kilometers under mortar fire. The corridor was not fully closed, and we managed to pass through a gap."
Immediately after returning, Maksym Dondiuk went to visit Oleksandr Hliadielov in the hospital. “When Sashko was injured, he ended up in an evacuation vehicle. Then he was transferred to another vehicle. It happened that all his film rolls were packed into one case, and they got lost during the transfer. Later, a soldier came up to me and said he had found the films,” recalls Maksym Dondiuk. “When I was leaving Ilovaisk, I carried not only my own materials but also Sashko’s. I thought that if I didn’t make it out, there would be no photos left, no record of what happened and how the guys fought.”
Maksym visited Oleksandr Hliadielov in the hospital in Dnipro during Ukraine's Independence Day celebrations. “I went to see Sashko and brought him the film rolls. He was thrilled, and we decided to celebrate. I went out to a store and heard explosions — it was a festive fireworks display. I immediately jumped into the bushes and lay on the ground. A week of shelling had affected my psyche,” Maksym Dondiuk recounts.
“In Ilovaisk, we bonded with the guys since we lived together and were constantly communicating. They always tried to give us a weapon for protection. We declined, saying we had cameras. They joked that we were even crazier than they were. Our soldiers often had direct contact with the enemy,” Dondiuk recalls. “I believe the most important photos are those of the guys who died, who didn’t make it out of Ilovaisk.” Maksym remembers the reconnaissance unit he interacted with regularly. They had used a fire truck that was destroyed by a direct hit from a tank shell. It’s very difficult now to look at those photos.
Maksym Dondiuk recalls a volunteer with the call sign "Franco." He came from a well-off family, lived in America, and came to assist the Ukrainian troops. “I remember when he was wounded, when first aid was administered to him. He was dying right before our eyes, groaning. He knew he was dying. It’s incredibly painful to realize that the person you were joking with just yesterday is no longer there,” Maksym says. He adds that the soldiers did not allow the photographing of their dead and wounded, so he and Oleksandr Hliadielov helped to unload the bloodied bodies of the fallen.
Maksym Dondiuk's photographs from Ilovaisk were largely unpublished. Several publications immediately offered to publish the material, but Maksym declined. Publishing the photos could have endangered the lives of Ukrainian soldiers who were captured. There were only a few exhibitions abroad with printed photographs. After nine months, when all the soldiers were released, publishing the photos in the news media was no longer relevant.
Today, a book about Ilovaisk featuring photographs by Maksym Dondiuk, Oleksandr Hliadielov, Max Levin, and Markian Lysenko is available. Every August 29th, the photographers would meet with the soldiers in the morning and gather together in the evening. At one point, they decided it would be good to create a book about Ilovaisk. Before the full-scale war began, Max Levin received funding for the book from the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. The book was to be published by the end of 2022.
“In early December, I went to Oleksandr Hliadielov’s with hard drives containing photographs by Max Levin, Markian Lysenko, and me. We struggled to find Max’s photos, and it was difficult to meet with Markian,” Maksym recalls. “I spent a month living with Sashko, working on selecting photos, captions, and texts for the book. We were fortunate to find a great designer who immediately understood our concept and to arrange with the printing house.” Maksym remembers spending nights in Sashko’s apartment, sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag, just as he did in the surrounded city, spending entire days reviewing war photographs, and often in the morning not being able to tell if he was in Sashko’s apartment or back in Ilovaisk.
"We survived where others perished. We remember and cannot let it be forgotten," reads the epigraph of the book about the Ilovaisk tragedy. Maksym adds, "This book is for us a tribute to all who died in Ilovaisk, and a memory of Maks. I open the book and recall the guys, their names and call signs, their jokes and smiles. It’s important that the memory endures, that there is a place for stories about the heroic deeds of our Ukrainian soldiers."
The material was worked on:
Topic researcher and text author: Katya Moskalyuk
Photo editor: Vyacheslav Ratynsky
Literary editor: Yulia Futei
Website manager: Vladislav Kukhar
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.
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