World Press Photo jury apologizes for pairing photos of Kharkiv girl and wounded “DPR” militant

Detector Media reported the information.

“We should not have presented these two photographs as a pair, as this implies that they should be viewed and understood only in dialogue with each other. This creates an overly simplistic and false equivalence and overshadows the story that each of them unfolds on its own,” said Lucy Conticello, chairman of the international jury.

The response noted that there are no plans to cancel the awards, but in the future, the organizers will enhance the rules and procedures for handling applications from photographers working for government agencies.

The organizers also addressed the statement made by Mikhail Tereshchenko, a war photographer for the state Russian news agency TASS, who referred to Russian occupation of Mariupol as a "liberation."

“World Press Photo does not agree with the phrase 'liberation of Mariupol', which was used in an interview with the winning photographer on March 27, 2025 to describe the occupation of this city by Russian troops,” the statement reads.

• The international organization World Press Photo has announced 42 regional winners of its annual documentary photography competition, including two Russians, a Belarusian and a German with projects from Ukraine.