The Leica Camera Oskar Barnack Award 2026 international photo contest has unveiled its shortlist, which includes "Open Wounds," a series of photographs by Russian photographer Valery Melnikov depicting life in occupied Mariupol.

Valery Melnikov, an employee of the Russian media group MIA "Rossiya Segodnya," has previously attempted to gain acclaim through the war in Ukraine: in 2017 and 2018, he received awards from the World Press Photo international contest for projects filmed during three years of working in the Donbas. All of his projects concerning the Russian-Ukrainian war share common traits: the blurring and substitution of concepts, the absence of a clear stance regarding the subject and object of military aggression, and the "genocide of the Donbas" narrative, all of which are fully exploited by Russian propaganda for its own purposes.

The Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers has previously written about this photographer in an article detailing how Russia utilizes photo contests as a tool for spreading propaganda.

This time, acting as the sole source of visual information about Mariupol—occupied and destroyed by Russians—since international media do not have access to the city, Melnikov is making another attempt to gain notice from the broader international community.

The prestigious international Leica Camera Oskar Barnack Award, established in 1979, honors professional photographers "whose unmistakable observation captures and expresses the relationship between humanity and the environment."

The Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers considers this definition insufficient, as without specifying context, any photograph—even the most successful one—risks becoming a weapon of manipulative technology. Aspiring to the attention of a wide audience worldwide, nominees for such a prestigious photo award must tell the truth rather than mislead. We urge the competition jury and the international community of photographers to more closely examine the contextual connections of the photo projects participating in the contest.

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