This is stated in a message on the competition website.
Maloletka became one of the winners in the Europe category. The Ukrainian photographer was honored for a series of photographs entitled The Siege of Mariupol. The website of the World Press Photo award emphasized that Maloletka was one of the few photographers who documented the events in Mariupol at the time.
"This story depicts the reality of the Russian attacks on Mariupol directly, without resorting to tragedy or other visual effects. The series is full of rare and historical images from different angles that convey the price civilians pay for war.
Each image made a special impression on the jury. They were impressed by the way a Ukrainian photographer risked his life to get access to visual images of Russian militants and make these images available to the world. This story will stand as a collection of striking, iconic images of an ongoing war," the World Press Photo jury said in its commentary.
In addition to Evgeniy Maloletka, four other photographers received awards in the Europe category, two of them presented photographs from the war in Ukraine. These are Yana and Victor by Alkis Konstantinidis, where a woman cries over the body of her murdered father after the Russian shelling of Kharkiv, and War Wounds by Emilio Morenatti, which shows people who have suffered amputations as a result of Russian aggression.
In total, 24 winners of the World Press Photo award were selected by an independent jury from more than 60,000 entries from 3,752 photographers from 127 countries.
Evgeniy Maloletka also became the best photographer of 2022 according to The Guardian.