'Two truths of war': World Press Photo jury awards images of Kharkiv girl, wounded 'DPR' fighter

This is reported on the website of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers.

Among the winners of the World Press Photo annual contest are two Russian photographers. One of them is Mikhail Tereshchenko, a photojournalist for the Russian state propaganda news agency TASS, who won in the Stories category for his series Protests in Georgia. The series documents mass anti-Russian protests in Tbilisi against the suspension of negotiations on Georgia’s EU accession.

Another award went to Alyona Kardash, a Russian living in Germany. Her project It Smells of Smoke at Home won in the Long-Term Projects category. In it, she explores the psychological detachment of modern Russia from reality, where the war is referred to as a “special military operation.”

In the Single Photographs category for Europe, two works were recognized that depict the war in Ukraine from different perspectives. The jury called them a “visual pair” conveying both the physical and psychological dimensions of the war.

German photographer Florian Bachmeier won for a photo of six-year-old Angelina from the Kharkiv region, who suffers from panic attacks after fleeing shelling. His work, Beyond the Trenches, was described as the emotional core of European selection.

Magnum Photos photographer Nanna Heitmann, working for The New York Times, presented the photo Underground Field Hospital, which shows a wounded “DPR” militant who fought on the side of the Russian army.

“Winning images are the ones that make us stop — or at least pause — and reflect, not just scroll past. Many of these go beyond the moment they were taken — they’ve become symbols of something socially, politically, or historically significant,” said Finbarr O’Reilly, head of the European jury.

Also, in the Southeast Asia and Oceania category, Belarusian photographer Tatsiana Chypsanova won for her project dedicated to the ancestors of the Ngāi Tahu Māori tribe in New Zealand.

In total, World Press Photo announced 42 regional winners of its annual documentary photography competition. This year, the contest received 59,320 photos from 3,778 photographers across 141 countries.

Reaction from Ukrainian photographers

Yulia Kochetova, winner of World Press Photo 2024 and author of the project War is Personal, criticized this year’s jury choices.

“Obviously, I’m surprised to see so much attention to the narrative of the ‘Russian soul’ among this year’s regional winners. I can’t imagine how Georgian photographers feel knowing that their protests against Russian influence were shown through images by a photographer from a Russian state agency. It’s a personal responsibility — how this war will be told about in years to come. It’s important to continue witnessing and documenting,” she emphasized.

The Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPP) also expressed surprise at the competition’s results:

“By awarding Russian photographers who represent the ideological narrative of the Russian state, the contest makes the aggressor’s position visible and thus contributes to a distortion of meaning: instead of condemning the aggressor, it shifts focus toward sympathizing with them. In our view, such awards do not align with the contest’s stated goal — to connect the world through important stories, especially amid the ongoing war of aggression that Russia has waged against Ukraine for 11 years,” the UAPP stated.

Last year, the UAPP officially opposed the inclusion of Russian Maria Gelman on the World Press Photo 2024 jury. Her presence in the five-member European judging panel — which also evaluated Ukrainian works — was called an illogical step that could compromise the contest’s objectivity. The UAPP also highlighted that having a representative from Russia during the country’s military aggression against Ukraine raises serious ethical concerns.