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Ukraine: Wild Fields

41 images Created 30 Apr 2014

The Ukrainian soldiers had been sent to secure control of the eastern provinces bordering neighbouring Russia. But now, these young men sat powerless and confused atop their armoured vehicles, contemplating the group of unarmed civilians that had halted their convoy. Determined men and women from the local community had surrounded the army unit, preventing any movement forward.
The servicemen sat there for hours, until eventually their commander ordered them to dismantle their weapons, following negotiations with local representatives. The tired young soldiers were tearful as they realised that here, they were the enemy; it was all ending in defeat. From the crowd suddenly emerged a sinister handful of "little green men" (as they were colloquially known), sporting military attire and balaclavas, and they escorted the soldiers away.
At this point in 2014, Ukraine was still getting to grips with a tumultuous change of power in Kiev. Months of violent protests had culminated in the ousting of the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, in favour of a western-minded, pro-European government.
Moscow had swiftly annexed the Crimean peninsula. From the east of the country echoed the thunder of rebellion. In Donetsk, pro-Russian separatists seized the regional administration building, plunging Ukraine's main eastern city into the centre of the insurgency.
An unprepared Ukrainian military was now witnessing the dawn of a tumultuous new era where an ethnic Russian majority — supported by foreign militiamen, and with arms supplied from over the border — would proclaim the creation of separatist states in the historical region of Donbass. Ukraine was effectively losing the east, her population caught in a struggle between Moscow and the newly appointed government.
In the months that followed, the insurgency evolved into an enduring conflict where thousands perished, victims to the heavy fighting. Some 1.5 million people were displaced, and vital infrastructure of a once-prominent region was destroyed in a continuous battle over territorial dominance.
This work charts events leading from the early days of the popular revolt, to the moment Ukraine was officially considered at war.
It bears witness to the protests on the shores of the Black Sea supporting the Crimean annexation, and the occupation of government buildings in Donetsk by rebel militants. These photographs explore the status referendums which attempted to create legitimacy to the establishment of People's Republics in Donetsk and Luhansk, and they examine the forged alliances between workers' unions, police forces, and separatists. Entwined in this web is the aftermath of the tragic downing of MH17 Flight over Grabovo, and the suffering of innocent families as their lives are shattered in the crossfire of unpredictable battles.
Wild Fields intends to depict the trauma of war inflicted on a society divided by language and historical affinities, amidst a backdrop of a global struggle for power.

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  • A soldier awaits orders as local activists block his convoy from passing through Kramatorsk.
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  • The reflection of a Lenin statue in a puddle in Slavyansk main square.
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  • A Ukrainian policeman stands guard during V-Day commemorations in Donetsk.
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  • An army convoy is prevented from passing through Kramatorsk by a group of local pro-Russia activists.
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  • Tree leaves fall to the ground outside a bombed hospital in Donetsk.
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  • The funeral of Elena Ott, a 42 year old woman shot dead by the army near Starovarvarovka.
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  • Coal miners show support for separatists occupying the Donbass regional government building in Donetsk.
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  • Ethnic Russians gather in Odessa to demonstrate support for the Crimean status referendum.
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  • A separatist mans barricades surrounding the regional government building in Donetsk.
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  • Separatists celebrate after they repaired the engine of an APC, abandoned by the Ukrainian army in Mariupol.
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  • A father and son wander through the rubble of a WWII memorial complex near the Russian border, in Snizhne.
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  • A portrait of Lenin sits atop a barricade surrounding a besieged government building in Donetsk.
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  • Separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko arrives at a press conference after donating blood in a Donetsk hospital.
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  • A Second World War veteran attends V-Day commemorations in Donetsk.
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  • A man kisses the Donbass flag raised outside a military airbase near Kramatorsk.
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  • People displaced by the war share a cup of tea at the entrance to a bomb shelter in Petrovskiy district, Donetsk.
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  • An elderly woman votes in a referendum about secession from Ukraine, in central Donetsk.
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  • A child in a temporary room of a bomb shelter outside Donetsk.
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  • Local volunteers clean a school gymnasium damaged by shell-fire in Donetsk
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  • Donetsk Concert Hall, damaged by the shockwave from a missile launched on chemical plant by the Ukrainian army.
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  • The sun sets over a crop field used as a battlefield near Petrovskiy, a small village close to the Russian border.
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  • A military uniform lays among destroyed crops days after a battle near Petrovskiy.
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  • A road to Donetsk, blocked by a bombed railway bridge and a train.
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  • Burning debris outside a government building after clashes in Mariupol.
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  • An elderly woman takes shelter in the basement of a former factory in Donetsk.
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  • People in Odessa pray in protest against the Russian annexation of Crimea.
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  • A local man examines an unexploded missile lodged among the rubble of his garden shed, close to Donetsk Airport.
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  • A local woman stands beside her belongings in a coal mine used as a bomb shelter outside Donetsk.
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  • A single desk lamp illuminates a room of one of the many bomb shelters around Donetsk.
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  • Left: Portrait of an elderly woman living for several months in the basement of a bombed hospital in Donetsk's Kievsky district.<br />
<br />
Right: Portrait of woman in a coal mine used as a bomb shelter in Petrovskiy district, outside Donetsk.
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  • Pro-Russia Ukrainians wave Soviet Union flags during V-Day commemorations in Donetsk.
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  • A dog stands outside the besieged police station in Slavyansk.
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  • Locals block the advance of a Ukrainian army convoy in Kramatorsk.
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  • A religious ceremony taking place at the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash site in Grabovo.
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  • Wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 rests on a field in Grabovo.
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  • A separatist mans the barricades surrounding a government building in Donetsk.
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  • Meals are served inside a tent housing a Ukrainian self-defence group near the Crimean border in Kherson.
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  • Separatist fighters on patrol in Savur-Mohyla, a Second World War monument close to the Russian border, near Snizhne.
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  • A funeral procession in Starovarvarovka.
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  • Tears run down a soldier’s face as his battalion is forced to surrender to a group of local activists, preventing them from passing through Kramatorsk.
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  • Locals cross the Dnieper river by boat in Kherson, a region bordering Crimea.
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Paulo Nunes dos Santos

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