Since February 24, 2022, Le Monde has sent a dozen photojournalists to Ukraine. Together with our reporters, they took turns documenting the war at the gates of Europe. Traveling to Ukraine is a journey in itself: most of them reached the country by train via Poland. Others crossed the borders of Moldova or Romania on foot or by car. They went to the front, near the fighting, but also to the towns and villages just liberated from the Russian army, to Mariupol, to Odessa, of course to Kiev, where life goes on in an atmosphere of tension.
On the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we asked them to explain their work, choose a photo that they found most striking and tell us its story.
Lorenzo Meloni: “When the war started, I was asleep”
A Russian attack on a Ukrainian air defense position in Mariupol, February 24, 2022. LORENZO MELONI / MAGNUM FOR DIE WELT
7:46 am First day of Russian invasion of Ukraine.
When the war started I was sleeping. At the sound of the first cracking rocket, I decided to stay in bed. I didn’t want to believe it was the start of a new war.
As a photographer, I’ve been non-stop documenting wars, traveling from one conflict to another, waiting for the day when I can finally start photographing something else.
When Le Monde asked me to go to Ukraine, I went with the idea of documenting “the day before”. All the newspapers spoke of an impending war, but I didn’t really believe it. During my first days in Ukraine I wondered what Dresden, Sarajevo or Baghdad looked like the day before the war started. Were the faces tense, betraying palpable fear, or was life going on as normal? I wanted to create a kind of diary of this endless day, which unfortunately ended there after a fortnight on February 24th.
Every conflict has its specificities and geopolitical contexts, but all wars are fundamentally the same. Every war seems to be the last until another, bigger and more important one comes along. People die in the rubble, flee into the snow or the desert, the fighters look the same, they carry the same weapons. I’ve taken hundreds of pictures of burning buildings and I always wonder what drives me to take more. We are tired of war.
That morning of February 24, I wanted to go back to sleep. I didn’t want to see guns being loaded, I didn’t want to hear that lullaby of war again, the Ninna nanna della guerra: “The sighs and groans of men cutting their throats for a madman who commands. »
You still have 89.02% of this article to read. The following is for subscribers only.