Inside occupied Ukraine: A photographer’s firsthand account

The call in July came on a Sunday. Pack your bags, they told me. You’re going to Russian-occupied Ukraine in two days. As a Moscow-based photographer covering the war, I’d heard about these surreal press tours of Russian-seized Ukrainian towns run by the Defense Ministry. I knew these trips came with a healthy dose of Kremlin propaganda, but I was eager to photograph parts of the region few journalists could access. It was one of the only possibilities I had to see what life was like in places virtually cut off from the world.

The first tour lasted three long days. Russian security forces escorted me and other media – a few western journalists and many pro-Russian bloggers – from site to site. They kept the visits short and closely monitored the conversations we had with locals. We slept in Donetsk, a city on the front line that has been controlled by Russia and Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Explosions punctuated the night. Donetsk is one of the only places in the occupied east with some infrastructure left.

I had been there two weeks before the war started. It was quite empty then, but in July it felt like a ghost town. All the stores were closed. There were few cars on the street. A nearby factory had been shelled, and the city smelled like ammonia. “Russia is here forever,” one billboard said.

In other cities, where few people remained, the destruction was more apparent. We visited Lysychansk, which Russia seized in early July. Captured Ukrainian tanks and American javelin missiles were on display. The purpose of the show? “To prove that Ukrainian fascists have killed civilians and destroyed infrastructure,” said Capt. Ivan Filiponenko of the Luhansk People’s Republic, a separatist government recognized by Moscow. “It’s also about reassuring the population by showing that this is all long over, that those who used these weapons against them have left.”

But surrounding this display of victory was utter ruin. Lysychansk was at the center of heavy fighting for more than four months before it fell to Moscow on July 3. Buildings were blackened and windowless. Residents – mostly elderly – lined up for food packages distributed by the Russian military.

I managed to sneak away from my military escorts. That’s when I met Anatoly, 31. I asked him why he thought Russia came here. “To liberate us,” he said. “From whom?” I pressed. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he replied cautiously. “Like you, we had a normal life before. It’s hard to look at the destruction.”

In Mariupol, a port city brutally besieged and bombarded before falling to Russia, the smell of death was in the air. Houses were not accessible, we were told. There were still bodies inside. The city was cut off from running water, electricity and gas. Interviews with residents could only be conducted in front of minders.

In Melitopol, a city captured early in the war, Russia-fication was well underway.

Rubles had been in circulation for months, and about 20 Russian passports were being issued each day, officials said. At these citizenship ceremonies, the Russian national anthem blared in the background as people recited excerpts from the Russian constitution. A portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin hung above.

For some older people in the city, the Russian passports represented a return to a bygone era. “Russia has come, and everything will be quiet as in Soviet times,” a woman named Valentina told me. “We have been waiting for this for a long time.” There is also a strong resistance movement in areas newly occupied by Russia. From Kherson to Melitopol, many are refusing to comply with Russian rule.

Less than a month later, I returned for another tour. It was a nearly identical experience to my last visit. Trips like these are well rehearsed.

But I saw glimpses of what had happened since mid-July. Officials brought us to Olenivka, where a military strike on July 29 killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war. Both Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attack.

They also took us to a movie theater. Some spectators were dressed in military fatigues. Others were in civilian clothing. They had gathered to watch a Russian film called “Match” about one of history’s most infamous soccer games. In 1942, prisoners of war in Nazi-occupied Kyiv defeated a team of German soldiers despite orders to lose. Ukraine banned the film in 2014 amid criticisms that it portrayed Ukrainians as Nazi sympathizers.

The showing was an apt prop for the war that Putin is now waging. The Russian president has justified the invasion as an effort to “denazify” Ukraine. But nothing inside the theater felt real. I had a sense that everyone had been brought there not for the movie, but to perform – for us.

While the time there was too short, and free reporting wasn’t possible, it still gave me a glimpse into the back-to-the-future reality of Russian occupation: people standing in Soviet-style lines everywhere, waiting for food or water; infrastructure crumbling; civilians depending on occupiers; Russian colors painted over Ukrainian ones; hryvnya replaced with rubles. Here, time is ticking according to Moscow’s clocks.

Editor’s note: The Washington Post is not naming the photographer who took these images during two Russian-led media tours to protect them as they continue covering the war in Ukraine. They recounted their experience to Post reporter Ruby Mellen.