Photo Of The Week: Our Second Gallery On The War In Ukraine

Our feature, Photo of the Week, usually presents each week, a new picture by a local photographer. We invite local photographers to share their photographs here.   Please include a description/caption and an indication of who is to be credited.

The War In Ukraine
The war in Ukraine is now six weeks old and for the second month in a row we are devoting our end-of-the-month photo gallery to the war. (To see our first gallery on the Ukraine War, look here.) As the war has progressed, the Russian invaders have turned increasingly to attacks on civilian infrastructure (hospitals, schools, public works) and homes as well as murderous assaults on civilians themselves. Accusations of rape and looting by Russian soldiers have appeared in western news sources .  Thursday’s New York Times attempts to document the war on Ukrainian civilians. While chronicling the extent of the devastation in a war zone poses no small challenge, the photos, and the horrific stories of survivors and refugees (current estimates suggest that 4 million Ukrainians have fled the country of 40 million with a total of 10 million refugees anticipated) leave no doubt that several of Ukraine’s cities have been reduced to rubble and that Russia is engaged in a campaign of terror against the citizens of Ukraine.  We post access to these graphic and poignant photos and the stories they tell so we do not forget that as we tend to our daily affairs, a genocidal war is being waged elsewhere on the planet and its reverberations will inevitably be felt across the globe.

The photos in these selected galleries are subject to copyright so we can’t reproduce them here.  But you can access them directly with the links provided. We have selected galleries that are not behind paywalls

Advisory: graphic content

Photo Essay:  Russia’s Attacks On Civilians Have Obliterated Everyday Life In Ukraine.  by Keith Collins, Danielle Ivory, Joh Huang, Cierra S. Queen, Jess Ruderman, Kristine White and Bonnie G. Wong. (3/31/22)  In the weeks since Russia began its invasion, at least 1500 civilian buildings, structures and vehicles in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed. More than 953 civilians have been killed including at least 78 children, acccordsing to the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, who notdd that the real toll was likely to be considerably higher. (New York Times)

Photo Essay: On The Ground, Ukraine Under Attack  by the New York Times (originally published 2/24/22, updated 3/31/22). When the unimaginable became the unforgettable, with Russian forces sweeping into their smaller neighbor intent on bringing it to bear, many Ukrainians found they had choices to make. For weeks, the threat of invasion had loomed. But now came the boom of missile explosions and air attacks, and the talk of battles in which civilians and soldiers alike had been killed. In parts of Ukraine, people cleaned out grocery stores. They rushed to A.T.M.s to get their savings while they could. Many thousands waited in impossible lines for bus tickets or sat in their cars in monstrous traffic jams, seeking to head west, to NATO-protected lands.Others took up arms in volunteer militias, vowing to fight the intruders, despite their overwhelming might. Some donated blood to their fellow citizens. And then they waited. They waited to see what would happen as Ukrainian forces battled for Kyiv, the capital, as well as for Kharkiv and other major cities. They waited to see what might come of Western sanctions against Russia and the sputtering diplomacy. And as word of major civilian casualties trickled out from besieged areas of Ukraine, they waited to see whether it would be their turn next. For the past five weeks, photographers with The New York Times and other news organizations throughout Ukraine have chronicled that ordeal. (New York Times)

Photo Gallery: Russian Forces Keep Up Attacks In Kharkiv And Kyiv, As Many Are Displaced by Grace Widyatmadja, Emma Bowman, Catie Dull And Marco Storel (3/31/22). As Russians continue to carry out strikes on Ukrainian cities, the country’s residents are evacuating their homes and taking cover in subway cars, basements and bomb shelters.The displacement of millions across Ukraine a little over a month into the invasion is evident in photos of sliced-open apartment buildings, dogs in arms and children’s belongings left behind. Here is what it looks like on the ground in Ukraine and bordering countries: (NPR)

Photo Gallery:  The Mariupol Theater Aftermath by Dylan Bourscher and Wire Services/Bay Area Group (3/17/22). Survivors emerged from the rubble of a theater in Mariupoil as rescure workers continued searching Thursday after it was blown apart in a Russian air strike.  Hundreds of civilians had taken shelter in the grand, columned theater in Mariupol afdter their homes were destroyed in three weeks of fighting in the southern port city of 430,000. (Mercury News)

Photo Gallery:  Echoes Of History. Ukraine War Photos Mirror Scenes From World War II. by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (3/23/22).  Photos from World War II highlight striking visual similarities with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Radio Free Europe)

Photo Gallery:  Before And After: 20 Devastating Images From Ukraine That Show How Quickly War Destroys Everything by Rokas Laurinavicius and Denis Tymulis (3/3/22). Russia has ramped up its assaults and continues to advance before the second round of talks between the two countries is set to take place on Thursday. As more cities are shelled and Putin piles unimaginable suffering on civilians, as details of war crimes emerge, and as allies try to find the best ways to respond, photos from the battles paint a devastating picture of how the conflict is transforming this once-peaceful corner of the world. (Bored Panda)

Essay: How Journalists Decide Which Images From Ukraine Are Too Awful To Publish by Paul Farhi (3/9/22). (Washington Post)