Pictures of the Ukraine war: great horror and small moments of happiness
Created: 12/22/2022, 4:23 p.m
By: Matthias Udwardi
Nothing in Ukraine has been the same since the beginning of the war.
The conflict with Russia keeps the country and its people trapped.
Images of destruction and brief moments of humanity.
1 / 17The war began at the end of February with Russia attacking numerous cities in Ukraine.
Early on, the troops from Moscow also fired on Kyiv, the country's capital.
One of the Russian missiles was placed in front of the National Museum of Military History as part of an exhibition.
According to curator Pavlo Netesov, by exhibiting the destroyed equipment, he wanted to remind the residents of Kiev of the street fights that raged in other Ukrainian cities, from which the capital was spared.
© Sergei Supinsky/afp
2 / 17One of these cities was Donetsk.
In May 2022, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj visited the former metropolis of millions and listened to the report of soldiers at the front.
The war between Russia and Ukraine has been raging in Donetsk since 2014. Since then, a regime installed by Moscow, which calls itself the Donetsk People's Republic, has ruled there.
After a few temporary truce agreements, the city in the southeast is now the site of fierce fighting again.
© Uncredited/dpa
3 / 17It is primarily the civilian population, like these two children and elderly women in Lysychansk, who are suffering from the Ukraine war.
The city is in the middle of the Donbass, the most heavily fought-over region in Ukraine since the outbreak of war.
Residents who were unable or unable to flee now have to seek shelter from artillery fire on a regular basis.
© Aris Messinis/afp
4 / 17Not far from Lysychansk is the small town of Chasiv Yar.
There, workers are clearing the rubble of a house hit by a Russian "Hurricane" missile.
In July 2022, Russia celebrated military successes, especially in the Donbass region.
Numerous towns and communities were conquered.
Vladimir Putin's troops appeared to be taking Ukraine by storm.
© Anatolii Stepanov/afp
5 / 17This man in military uniform is in a burning wheat field in the Zaporizhia region as Russian troops shell fields to prevent local farmers from harvesting grain.
Starving Ukraine and stealing crops was part of Russia's strategy from the start © Uncredited/dpa
6 / 17The six month anniversary of the UKraine war in August was a sad period in the Russian invasion.
But the Ukrainian armed forces continued to resist with heart and soul and celebrated their nation, as here with a drone and a Ukrainian flag over the "Monument of the Motherland" in Kyiv.
© Dimitar Dilkoff/afp
7 / 17In September, Vladimir Putin's troops began shelling the infrastructure of Ukrainian cities.
In the city of Kupiansk, Kharkiv region, Moscow bombed a bridge.
In many other cities, Russian forces tried to disrupt the power supply.
© Yasuyoshi Chiba/afp
8 / 17Because there were no successes in the Ukraine, the Russian troops needed more and more recruits for the front.
President Vladimir Putin therefore announced a partial mobilization in his own country.
Like this man, thousands of young men in the city of Kineshma had to say goodbye to their mothers and go to war in Ukraine.
© Vladimir Smirnov/imago
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9 / 17In the east of Ukraine Vladimir Putin created facts at the end of September.
Four regions of the country that had previously declared independence were annexed.
On the occasion of the territorial gains, Putin addressed the population of Russia in a TV speech.
At least on Red Square in Moscow, Putin's speech was enthusiastically applauded.
© Alexander Nemenov/afp
10 / 17Following the explosion of a truck near Kerch on October 8, 2022, black smoke rises from a fire on the Kerch bridge.
It is the only land connection between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Russia promised to find the culprits without immediately blaming Ukraine.
© Uncredited/afp
11 / 17Also in October Ukraine succeeds in advancing on many sectors of the front.
The armed forces are able to do this primarily thanks to support from the West, which is supplying more and more heavy equipment to the conflict.
Here, Ukrainian artillerymen fire a 152mm towed howitzer (D20) at a frontline position near the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.
© Dimitar Dilkoff/afp
12 / 17In mid-November, the Ukrainian troops achieve a great success.
You can retake the port city of Kherson in the south-east of the country.
In addition to its high strategic value, the metropolis also has symbolic value in the fight against Russia.
A resident celebrates the liberation with a thumbs up in the center of the city.
© Celestino Arce Lavin/dpa
13 / 17The world held its breath on that day: An aerial photo shows the spot where two men were killed by a rocket hit on November 15, 2022 in the eastern Polish village of Przewodow, near the border with war-torn Ukraine.
Russia attacked Ukraine with a massive attack on civilian infrastructure, leaving millions of homes without power.
Immediately after the incident, there were fears that the conflict could escalate again, but on November 16, 2022, Poland announced that the missile probably came from Ukrainian air defenses.
This theory was then confirmed by Washington.
© Wojtek Radwanski/Damien Simonart/afp
14 / 17Banksy also visited Ukraine in the midst of the war.
A photo taken on Nov. 17, 2022 shows a work by the British street artist on a snow-covered anti-tank structure in Kyiv's Independence Square.
By this time it was already clear that Ukraine would have to prepare for a winter of war.
© Sergei Supinsky/afp
15 / 17Further hard attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.
Even nuclear power plants are being targeted by Russian missiles.
Rosenergoatom employee Dmitry Shevchenko inspects a tank of distilled water to ensure the operation of the fourth unit of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which was damaged by shelling in Enerhodar during the Russian military operation in Ukraine.
© Alexey Kudenko/imago
16 / 17Small moments of happiness in the madness of war: A woman plays a guitar in a pub during a power outage in Lviv December 2, 2022, as the city is hit by a planned blackout following the recent massive Russian airstrikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
© Yuriy Dyachyshyn/afp
17 / 17For a moment this girl can just be a kid.
Here she meets Saint Mykola (Saint Nicholas) on December 19, 2022 in Kherson, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine © Dimitar Dilkoff/afp
