DONETSK — photos from the front
Dublin-born documentary photographer and filmmaker Ross McDonnell gets unusually close to his subjects. On vigilante raids he’s in the truck, on joyrides he’s in the backseat. McDonnell’s lens finds intrigue in far less perilous places, too.
McDonnell is currently in the Ukraine, which he has crisscrossed during the past 18 months, photographing life in wartime. He was in Donetsk last summer as pro-Russian separatists seized its regional administration building, bringing Ukraine’s main eastern city into the centre of the insurgency.
McDonnell has watched the crisis develop as multinational companies move out, supermarkets close, the ATMs stop dispensing money, and the airport is shelled into oblivion. Fighting continues in Donetsk despite a nationwide ceasefire, with the city now at least nominally controlled by the pro-Russian, Donetsk People’s Republic.
But daily life goes on around the conflict in Donetsk. Rebel soldiers and the press corps mingle in downtown restaurants, says McDonnell — some with Kalashnikovs on the table, other with MacBooks, all having similar conversations. And as tanks roll in the streets, some rally in protest, others attend the opera. McDonnell wants to relay his sense of a city caught been between normalcy and all-out conflict.
“After the immediacy of covering the Maidan revolution, I have struggled to capture the essence of Eastern Ukraine, a region that has so much to depict,” he says. “You leave the region and the surreality of the scenes slowly dawn on you and you realise you have to go back, and keep scrabbling to figure out what this place is all about.”
McDonnell has put together a photo essay for us, from Donetsk and the surrounding province.
All images: Ross McDonnell
‘Mourners at the funeral of Aleksandr Politov, a former builder and pro-Russian rebel from Horlivka, killed in an ambush at a Ukrainian army checkpoint.’
‘Relaxing by the lake in Donetsk. In the conflict’s early stages many residents stayed in the city, though the war began to impact their daily lives more and more.’
‘The battle for Donetsk Airport. Groups of pro-Russian rebels, some of them veteran soldiers, began to attack the airport, taking heavy casualties but establishing fighting positions that would create front lines for the war’s most iconic battleground.’
‘An exhausted rebel fighter flees fire from a Ukrainian army helicopter near Donetsk airport.’
‘Fighting continued for six months before pro-Russian forces claimed victory. The airport has been completely destroyed.’
‘In Starovarvaroka, Donetsk province, the funeral procession of Lena Ott, 42, killed by Ukrainian Army forces. The family told me the village had no political alliances with either side.’
‘The funeral of Alexander Viktorvich, 61, killed by shrapnel as he walked through the grounds of his local church in Slavyansk, Donetsk province’
‘Pro-Russian Ukrainians hold a rally outside the occupied SBU or city council building.’
‘The Donetsk Concert Hall is closed due to damage from shelling. Its windows were blown out by the shockwave from a missile launched on a chemicals plant in the city by the Ukrainian Army.’
‘Russian V-Day commemorations, a mix of Soviet pomp and nostalgia and neo-Soviet celebration.’
‘Members of the Donbass Battalion secure administration buildings, threatening local officials to ensure the vote takes place ahead of 2014 Ukrainian Presidential elections.’
