Photo Essay

Simple wooden crosses with numbers mark graves in Pishchanske cemetery on Shakespeare Street in Izyum’s outskirts, where Russians buried most of the residents who died during the occupation. © Danil Pavlov

Ukraine: “I Want My Mother to Have a Grave”

Painful wait for Izyum residents as war crimes investigators collect evidence to identify the dead.

29 Nov 22

The Manasyan brothers - Vigen, 46, and Arthur, 38 - get ready for the harvest. Most of their arable lands fell under Azerbaijani control in 2020, but they retain a small wheatfield near their house and tend vineyards for an owner who too scared to go there due to the proximity of Azerbaijan’s military posts. © Siranush Sargsyan/IWPR

A Fearful Harvest in Karabakh’s Vineyards

Villagers in the Amaras valley vineyards pick grapes a few yards away from Azerbaijan’s military posts.

23 Nov 22

The sign of Isfara, a town in northern Tajikistan, on the border with Kyrgyzstan. The town lies in the homonymous valley which is crossed by the Isfara river. Media reported that the clashes in September broke out along the frontier between Tajikistan's Sughd and Kyrgyzstan's southern Batken provinces because of a dispute over a reservoir and pump, claimed by both sides, on the Isfara river. © IWPR

“We Don’t Want War,” Say Kyrgyz and Tajik Citizens

Over 100 people died in renewed violence along the border in September 2022 as long-standing issues remain unresolved.

24 Oct 22

A resident ventures out of his apartment block in north Saltivka. (April 2022) © Oleksandr Magula

Kharkiv’s Ghost District

Saltivka was home to a third of the city’s population; Russian attacks turned it into a wasteland.

11 Aug 22

The troupe of the Drama Theater of Mariupol at the end of the play. © Sergey Hudak

Mariupol Theatre’s Actors Interpret the Cry of a Nation

Although the iconic cultural centre lies in ruins, those who kept it alive for decades are trying to revive its legacy.

21 Jul 22

Vasyl leaves the battlefield after being wounded. He lost his son, a soldier, in early March. © Anatoliy Stepanov

Ukraine: The Fight for the “Dead Cities”

In eastern Ukraine, Zelensky calls for long-range weapons to contain the Russian advantage in artillery and airpower.

15 Jun 22

Stela Gevorgyan, 37, and her mother lived with a relative when the earthquake hit. The extended family was made homeless, but Gevorgyan’s mother managed to move into the shelter. Her mother died in late 2021 and the daughter still lives there alone. © Armine Avetisyan

Armenia: Three Decades in Temporary Accommodation

Families left homeless by the 1988 earthquake are still living in tiny, makeshift shelters.

8 Jun 22

Women, children and elderly people make up the vast majority of those heading abroad, as men between 18 and 60 years of age are barred from leaving Ukraine. © Oleksandr Solonenko

Lviv, a City at the Crossroads of Ukraine’s Refugee Crisis

Hundreds of thousands arrive every day as they flee Russia’s invasion.

28 Mar 22

Kartli was built in Soviet times as a sanatorium for patients with heart conditions. As hundreds of thousands of Georgians fled Abkhazia at the end of the conflict in late 1993, authorities allocated about 200 families housing there in what was supposed to be a temporary measure. Thirty years on, 130 are still there. © David Mdzinarishvili

Georgian Displaced Still Long for a Home

The death of an IDP has reopened the debate on the dire conditions people originally from Abkhazia have been enduring for decades.

16 Mar 22

A woman stands in the centre of Tiraspol, holding a No War sign. Public opinion about the war remains divided: there are between 100,000 and 120,000 Ukrainians living in the region, but ties with Russia are strong. © Alexander Udodov

Ukrainians Seek Refuge in Transnistria

With ties to both Russia and Ukraine, Tiraspol commits to support those fleeing conflict while neither endorsing nor condemning the war.

15 Mar 22

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