Karina Piliuhina

She is a Ukrainian photographer, producer and director with a degree in journalism. She studied at Serhiy Bukovsky's documentary film directing workshop.

Since 2017, she has been working in documentary filmmaking. Previously, it was anthropological topics, but now she focuses exclusively on war. Since 2021, she has been working in the genre of documentary photography and reportage.

She is the author of the documentary series about the Ukrainian army units called “Victory Units”. She documents the war in the combat zone. Some of her photographs have been published in books: “Ukraine: War crime”, ‘Ukraine: Love and War’, ‘What will we call this war?’, ‘De-occupation’.

“Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, photography has saved my sanity, and now it is my tool for research and knowledge of pain, death, and at the same time the power of the human spirit and its capabilities. As long as I am not holding a weapon, I am making every effort to record and preserve as many facts and stories of our nation's struggle as possible. Photographs hardly change history, but they certainly preserve it for future generations. And perhaps, in the distant future, the memories of our struggle will nourish the next generations of Ukrainians, just as the fire of the fighters of the UPR, UPA and other military formations who gave their lives for the freedom that was unimaginable at the time, keeps us going.

My focus today is on the army and the personnel stories of the military. The most painful thing is to receive the news that the heroes of your photos and materials have died. But it makes me even more fierce to continue documenting, disseminating and preserving, because time is running out.”