Today, on World Photography Day, we want to reflect on how Ukrainian documentary photography has changed the way the world sees Ukraine—and the Russian-Ukrainian war in particular—and how documenting events influences both how we are perceived and regarded around the world and real legal cases and political decisions. We also want to remember that, thanks to photographers’ daily work in wartime, despite every restriction and risk, it not only shapes the image of a country as it takes its place in European history, but also affects the lives of real people.

Mykhailo Markovych is a well‑known local historian from Zakarpattia, a researcher of history and ethnography. The main focus of his scholarly interests is the visual history of Zakarpattia from the late 19th to the first half of the 20th century. For many years, Markovych has been searching for, collecting, and systematizing old original and rare photographs of the region. A special place in his collection is occupied by images taken by foreign travelers, ethnographers, and photojournalists who documented the everyday life of Zakarpattia residents, folk traditions, architecture, and nature of the region. His historical‑ethnographic book *“Vatra in the Carpathians. Reports from the Past”* immerses the reader in the interwar period, when Zakarpattia was part of the First Czechoslovak Republic. This era is often described as a time of modernization, social change, and cultural flourishing of the region.

At the end of April 2026, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art opened the exhibition “Ukrainian Dreamers,” dedicated to the Kharkiv School of Photography and organized by the Museum of the Kharkiv School of Photography (MOKSOP). The work of generations of Kharkiv photographers has entered the global canon of contemporary art. Boris Mikhailov’s works are in the collection of New York’s MoMA, while many authors of the School are represented in Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou. The significance of the photographs of several generations of Kharkiv photographers goes far beyond the city and photography itself. Serhii Lebedynskyi, director of the Museum of the Kharkiv School of Photography and one of the curators of the “Ukrainian Dreamers” exhibition, explained what surprises the works of Kharkiv photographers today, the connections between several generations of the Kharkiv School of Photography, and named the photographers the world must get to know.

Over the course of the week, Russia targeted Ukraine’s railways, logistics hubs, energy and oil-and-gas facilities, as well as the residential sector. The railway was shelled 41 times: 11 locomotives were damaged, 350 passenger evacuations were carried out, six railway workers were killed and 17 injured. Kyiv region and Kyiv suffered heavy strikes: a ballistic attack destroyed dozens of logistics facilities and killed company employees; eight more people died at the Kvitneva railway station, and a drone strike on a private house killed a three‑year‑old child and two other family members. The enemy also carried out massive attacks on Odesa and destroyed infrastructure in Kramatorsk.

During the last week of July, Russian forces carried out a series of targeted deadly attacks on Ukraine’s civilian population: in Chernihiv, a strike drone hit a supermarket full of visitors; a missile strike on Lviv partially destroyed two apartment buildings; in Kryvyi Rih, a ballistic strike completely demolished a private house and killed a large family; in Kyiv, victims of a ballistic attack included residents heading to shelters and those who rushed first to help the wounded. Frontline and border communities, as well as port infrastructure, remain under constant fire from glide bombs, drones, and artillery.