Maksym Dondyuk on the tragedy in Ilovaisk: “The most important photos for me are those of the guys who died.”

In August 2014, one of the fiercest battles for the Ukrainian military in the war in the east took place near the city of Ilovaisk. The Ukrainian command decided to storm the city occupied by pro-Russian militants, located 43 km from Donetsk. Instead, the operation turned into a tragedy. The fighting lasted almost a month. About 400 Ukrainian servicemen died in the “Ilovai cauldron”, as many were wounded of varying severity, and about 300 were taken prisoner. The fighting for the city became a turning point in the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war: instead of the offensive, the Armed Forces switched to defense. Since then, August 29 has been the Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of Ukraine who died in the struggle for independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Photographer Maxim Dondyuk witnessed the events in Ilovaisk. He was on the front line and filmed key moments of the storming of the occupied city, the lives and deaths of Ukrainian servicemen.

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Battalion “Donbass”

In 2014, Maxim Dondyuk photographed the events of the Russian-Ukrainian war on both sides of the front. He shot in Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Luhansk and Donetsk, since then journalists and photographers crossed the line of fire without problems. “At that time, everyone was driving because there was chaos around. At the checkpoints, they simply checked the documents,” recalls Maxim Dondyuk. Soon he was captured by the “Strelka” group together with journalist Simon Ostrovsky. The boys were put bags on their heads and shot with blanks. “By voice, I understood that Strelkov interrogated us. In the morning we were all fired except Ostrovsky. Maybe they only wanted to arrest him, and I was just in the car with Simon. I had fake documents, there was a legend and I was eventually let go,” Dondyuk says.

Later, while shooting on the other side of the front, near Maryinka, he came under fire from the Ukrainian military. “I thought then that if I was killed on the side of the separatists, then they would be considered a traitor. It was important for me to take pictures, because on the other side of the front there were many Ukrainians, our citizens. At first everything was blurry, surreal and I tried to understand the situation,” says Maxim Dondyuk.

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In the summer of 2014, the press service of the ATO organized a press conference for journalists and photographers. “I remember, they brought different TV channels, and girls in pink shorts stood against the background of burning equipment and talked about the war. If you look at the map of hostilities, we were at least 20 kilometers from the front. I got tired of this situation and began to look for opportunities to work with the Ukrainian military, - says Maxim. “Friends shared with me the contacts of the commander of the battalion “Donbas” and he allowed us and my colleagues to come.” Thus Maxim Dondyuk, Oleksandr Hlyadelov, Max Levin and Markiyan Lyceiko witnessed the key events of Ilovaisk.

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Maxim Dondyuk went with the military to storm the city. “The military had little space in the cars and they said to pull matches for us. Sasha fell short, and the first time I went alone,” Maxim recalls. “The first assault, on August 10, was unsuccessful. On that day, four Ukrainian soldiers were killed. We had to turn back because the sabotage group was trying to blow up the aqueduct behind us and we would then be ambushed.”

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Back the Ukrainian military returned along the road along the landing. Their armored car was hit with RPG, and the guys who were there were evacuated, carried away on stretchers. “Our sniper eliminated the fighter with a grenade launcher and we moved on. We were moving along the landing, and the enemies were shooting at us. It was such a very unpleasant feeling for me — when you walk on the asphalt, you look at the landing and you do not understand what will happen next,” says Maxim.

Then there was another attempt to enter Ilovaisk. This time Maxim Dondyuk drove with Alexander Gladielov. “I remember that there was a breakthrough of the front on the part of the Russian Federation. We saw howitzers approaching and part of the troops leaving,” recalls Maxim Dondyuk. “We did not arrive, we spent the night in a kindergarten.”

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When there is always war around

On August 18, everything went well. In Ilovaisk itself there was not too strong resistance, the military came from the other side and entered the city. “We drove around the neighborhood through various small villages. All of them were destroyed, vehicles were burned everywhere along the road, bloated bodies of separatists lay — no one took them away,” the photographer says. Sometimes the Ukrainian military encountered “friendly fire”. The situation was tense and the fighters came at each other from different angles, shot, and then found out who was in front of them. “We went to Ilovaisk for a whole day, very slowly. In one of the villages they fell under a mortar duel. There were brief battles along the road when a grenade launcher was fired. Constantly it was necessary to lie down on the ground, then go again. Our troops captured several prisoners. I saw just killed enemies in front of me, who went out on the road and shot at us,” says Maxim. “In the evening, closer to darkness, we entered Ilovaisk. We were put in an armored car. The driver was shot by a sniper. We were lucky that the glass withstood two shots aimed directly at the head.”

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When the Ukrainian military entered Ilovaisk, civilians came out of the basements to meet them. People thought they had already been released and embraced by the military. They had a critical situation — they were left without medicine, food, water. The soldiers immediately began to help them. Maxim Dondyuk together with the military stayed at school. The fighters settled in the gym, in the classrooms. Civilians, mostly women with children, also lived there in the basements.

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“When you shoot in a very intense atmosphere, when there is a constant war around, then the subconscious starts to turn on. Like people who study oriental martial arts and act automatically during battle, because there is simply no time to reason,” says Maxim Dondyuk. “You have to run with the soldiers and take pictures. It is not always possible to get up and compose the desired composition. Everything is so fast that there is simply no way to think. It all depends on the background, experience and ability to work in such conditions.”

Maxim Dondyuk was in Ilovaisk together with photographer Alexander Gladielov. “I had no experience in combat and I was trying to run somewhere where I could die with one hundred percent probability. However, Sasha has always held me back, and I am very grateful to him for that. He said that let's see first, wait and we were saved by his endurance,” Maxim recalls. He adds that this is the problem of all young photographers, who seem to never be injured, much less die. “I received the first injury during the filming of the Revolution of Dignity, the second in 2022,” says Maxim Dondyuk. “I understand that the next injury may be more difficult than the previous one. I become more restrained, perhaps because of experience, because of age, or because of the understanding that in a war you have no control over anything.”

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Maxim Dondyuk recalls one of the mornings in Ilovaisk, when he and the fighters brewed coffee and went out into the courtyard of the school. “We stood with coffee, talked, someone smoked. And suddenly a whole series of shots from the AGS (automatic machine grenade launcher — N.B. ed.), right into the crowd. I stand with this cup of coffee, and something flies near me, part of the military falls, moans in pain, screams. I see that Sasha got a splinter in the leg,” says Maxim Dondyuk. “You realize that you were not hurt not because you are such a wonderful guy. It happened by chance, you just got lucky this time, and someone didn't. I began to realize that I had no control over the war situation at all. Only it seems that you can control it. Why did not a single fragment hit me, but in Sasha? Why didn't someone even get hurt, and someone got seriously injured or died? Who decides that?”

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Hot August

Maxim Dondyuk worked together with Alexander Gladielov for several days. Alexander was then evacuated with the other wounded and Maxim was left alone. “We were told that we would go with the military for one or two days. The fighters will quickly clear the city and we will return back to Kurakhove. I brought only a small tactical backpack and a sleeping bag. I didn't even take a charge for the technique. After all, there was still no electricity there, - recalls the photographer. “There were many arrivals at our school, and during one of them, when I was running with the camera, I was pressed against the wall and the lens crumbled. It was mechanical, I glued it with tape and continued to shoot. The camera is broken, the batteries sat down, there is almost no memory left on the flash drives. Every night I deleted photos and could shoot several frames per hour.”

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The school in Ilovaisk, where the Ukrainian military were, was constantly shelled with all possible weapons. Maxim recalls sitting in the basement of the school and thinking whether she would survive or not. After the first targeted attack, the military took away the women's mobile phones. The fighters realized that some of the women were definitely not on their side. After the massive shelling of the school, the military began to disperse the city and search for different accommodation and houses for the night. “It was a very hot August and I haven't washed in about a week. The military made a homemade shower in the field, to which they had to go during the shelling. You go and think about whether to wash or not to wash. It was scary, and when there were arrivals, I had to immediately run to the house with my heart,” says Dondyuk.

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At that time, a real tragedy unfolded behind Ilovaisk. The front “fell apart”, Russian troops approached and gradually cut off opportunities for retreat. At the same time, Kyiv was preparing for a military parade in honor of Independence Day. “When we had the Internet, Oleksandr Gladylov and I actively wrote on Facebook about the situation in Ilovaisk. We realized that we were surrounded and decided to give this situation publicity. We were the only photographers there,” says Maxim Dondyuk.

Maxim no longer had a camera working, batteries sat down, and he could not continue shooting. On August 23, the military put him in a car and said that they would be taken out with the wounded. The photographer recalls: “Before that, the same car left Ilovaisk and it was carried away by a direct hit from a tank. Weapons were taken from us, and the wounded soldier was given a pistol and a grenade. The guy had a broken spine, he was lying down, and I just supported him so that he did not shake too much in the potholes of the road. He told me that there would be no capture — if the car was seized, he would blow it up. So we broke through ten kilometers under mortar fire. The corridor did not completely close, and we drove through some kind of gap.”

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The most important photos

Maxim Dondyuk immediately after his return went to visit Alexander Gladielov hospital. “When Sasha was wounded, he was in an evacuation car. Then he was transferred to another car. It so happened that all his films were folded into one case and were lost during transplantation. Then a military man approached me and said that he had found the films,” recalls Maxim Dondyuk. “When I left Ilovaisk, in addition to my materials, he carried Sashin. I thought if I didn't choose, there would be no photos left, there would be no mention of what happened and how the guys fought.”

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Maxim attended Alexander in a hospital in Dnipro when Ukraine celebrated Independence Day. “I came to Sasha, brought him films. He was very betrayed and we decided to celebrate it. I went out to the store and heard the explosions — it was festive fireworks. I immediately jumped in the bush, lay on the ground. A week under shelling affected the psyche,” says Maxim Dondyuk.

“In Ilovaisk, we made friends with the guys, because we lived together, talked all the time. They were constantly trying to give us a vending machine so we could protect ourselves. We refused and said we had cameras. They joked that we are even more Ibanuts than they are. Our military very often had direct contact with the enemy,” Dondyuk recalls. “It seems to me that the most important photos are photos of the guys who died, who did not leave Ilovaysk.” Maxim recalls the fighters from the reconnaissance unit, with whom he constantly communicated. They drove off in a fire truck, which was burned by a direct hit of a shot from a tank. It's hard to look at these photos now.

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Maxim Dondyuk talks about a volunteer with the nickname “Franco”. He came from a wealthy family, lived in America and came to help the Ukrainian military. “I remember how he was wounded, how he was given first aid. He died in plain sight, with groans. He knew he was dying. It is very painful to realize that there is no longer a person with whom you joked yesterday,” says Maxim. The photographer adds that the military did not allow filming of their killed and wounded, so he and Alexander Gladielov helped to unload the bloodied bodies of the dead.

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A book with a broken sunflower

Photos of Maxim Dondyuk from Ilovaisk were actually not published anywhere. Several publications immediately offered to publish the material, but Maxim refused. The publication of the pictures could endanger the lives of Ukrainian servicemen who were captured. There were only a few exhibitions abroad with printed photographs. Nine months later, when all military personnel were released, the publication of pictures in the news media was no longer relevant.

Today it is freely availablebook about Ilovaiskwith photos of Maxim Dondyuk, Oleksandr Hlyadelov, Max Levin and Markian Lyseyk. On August 29 of each year, the photographers met with the military in the morning, and in the evening they gathered with their company. Somehow in the conversation they decided that it would be good to make a book about Ilovaisk. Before the outbreak of a full-scale war, Max Levin received a budget for the book from the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. The book had to be published by the end of 2022. “At the beginning of December, I came to Oleksandr Hlyadelov with hard drives, which contained photos of Max Levin, Markijan Lyseyk and mine. We could not find photos of Max for a long time, we did not manage to meet with Markian, - says Maxim Dondyuk. “I lived with Sasha for a month and we worked on the selection of photos, signatures and texts for the book. We had the talent to find a good designer who immediately understood our idea, and to negotiate with the printing house.” Maxim recalls that he spent the night with Alexander in a bedroom on the floor, as well as at school in the surrounding city, all day he looked at photographs from the war and often in the morning could not understand where he was — in Sasha's apartment or again in Ilovaisk.

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“We stayed alive where others died. We remember and cannot allow it to be forgotten,” reads the epigraph to the book about the Ilovaisk tragedy. Maxim adds: “This book for us is the memory of all those who died in Ilovaisk, and the memory of Max. I open the book and remember the boys, their names and callsigns, their jokes and smiles. It is important that the memory remains, that there is room for stories about the heroic deeds of our Ukrainian military.

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Material created with support The Free Word Foundation.

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The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Katya Moskalyuk
Bildeditor: Vyacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary Editor: Julia Foutei
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar