New Photobook Documents Russia’s War Against Ukraine Through Lens of Kharkiv Photographer

Independent publishing house Red Hook Editions will release Documentation of the War, a comprehensive photobook by Kharkiv-based photographer Vladyslav Krasnoshchok.

The publisher officially confirmed the release via Instagram on February 22.

Spanning the 2022–2025 period of the full-scale Russian invasion, the publication serves as a visual record of frontline realities, capturing the operations of military personnel, the efforts of volunteers, and the systematic destruction of Ukrainian urban centers.

“At the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, I shot everything that fell into my lens—the destruction in Kharkiv and destroyed equipment. Of course, I was not allowed to photograph everything, as it was necessary to obtain accreditation. Gradually, I moved from topic to topic: ruined buildings and people against their backdrop, animals, the work of the military, the dead... War has many faces.,” Krasnoshchok explained, speaking with the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers on February 23.

The book deliberately bypasses strict chronology. Instead, the sequencing is engineered to draw the viewer from an observational distance directly into the epicenter of the war.

“I aimed to build such a sequence of images in the photobook that even without a direct depiction of explosions or weapons, it would be clear: this is a story about the war,” the photographer stated.

Foregoing traditional captions, the bilingual publication integrates the author's personal notes and brief narratives in both Ukrainian and English. To ground the visual evidence in historical and geopolitical context, the book also provides concrete data regarding Russian aggression.

“In addition to my personal reflections, the book contains a reference insert with key facts of our history. This is dry, but necessary documentation: from the declaration of independence and the signing of the Budapest Memorandum to the beginning of the annexation of Crimea. Statistical data about the Russian-Ukrainian war is also recorded there. I added this data from open sources,” Krasnoshchok added.

The release of Krasnoshchok’s visual record aligns with broader international efforts to document Ukraine's cultural resilience against ongoing Russian aggression. In a parallel publishing development, The Guardian‘schief culture writer, Charlotte Higgins, is preparing to release Ukrainian Lessons, an examination of wartime resistance and artistic endurance.

Confirmed via the Penguin Random House platform, the forthcoming book investigates “the profound connections between war, art and life.” The publisher frames the work as a critical study of the risks artists undertake on the ground and the strategic necessity of defending cultural identity from systemic erasure.

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“In a war fuelled by the attempted erasure of Ukrainian culture—one that has killed countless artists and created countless more—art has become a matter of life and death. In times of war, art and literature are where difficulty and complexity survive: where the most painful, unspeakable truths can still be faced,” the description reads.

Earlier, on the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the photography exhibition Home: Perspectives opened at the Preus Museum, Norway’s national museum of photography.

The exhibition features works by photographers from various generations, presenting diverse interpretations of what “home” means.

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