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Ukraine Crisis

From the Archives: World Press Photo contest 2022

A decapitated statue of Lenin stands in Cheminots Park, Kotovsk, Ukraine, on 19 December 2013. The statue was destroyed by ultra-nationalists on the night of 8-9 December.

Photographed over 2013-2021, this project looks at the longer-term context leading to the 2022 war in Ukraine. Tensions between the east and west of Ukraine were exacerbated in 2014 when Kremlin-backed forces occupied the Crimean peninsula and separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk established self-proclaimed people's republics, a status not officially recognized by most of the international community.

Tensions continued and, in April 2021, Russia began i...

EUR-LTP-WIN-01
Image and text © World Press Photo, 2022