Andrei Stenin’s war photos: the photographer’s presence may have saved their lives…

Our colleague Andrey Stenin was killed in action in Eastern Ukraine on August 6. Unfortunately, journalists are increasingly becoming the victims of bloody conflicts, and Andrei Stenin’s fate and story quickly became surrounded by speculation, rumors, and accusations. It is shocking to hear and see how the founding principles of journalism have been twisted, how professional work is presented as aiding and abetting terrorists, how documenting facts is presented as brutality, how the ability to empathize is presented as relishing in suffering. That’s why it’s so important to get to the bottom of this story, to understand what the rules of military journalism are, and to put as many “i “s as possible. At least those that are possible to put up..

…We drive and see shot-up cars on the side of the road. Yesterday they were nonexistent. A car with a bullet every hundred meters. And our car can become one of them every second. It’s not scary. You just don’t look into the green on the sides of the country lane. You look ahead and think you won’t make it. Because if you think of a good thing, nothing will come of it.

Andrei Stenin, July 5, 2014., Personal Facebook page.

Andrei Stenin, special photo correspondent for Rossiya Segodnya news agency.

22.12.1980-06.08.2014

Photo: Damir Bulatov

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Andrei was born in 1980 in Pechora, Komi Republic.

As a photojournalist, he has at different times collaborated with Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Kommersant, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Gazeta, ITAR-TASS. From 2009. A staff member of RIA Novosti since 2014: Rossiya Segodnya news agency . He worked in many “hot spots” on the planet – Libya, Syria, Egypt.

Two times winner of the Silver Camera award.

EXPERIENCED JOURNALIST

Andrey joined photojournalism very recently, in 2008. Before that, he was a staff writer.

Polina Nikolskaya, correspondent for Kommersant-Vlast:

When I came to Gazeta.In 2008, Andrey Stenin was still a writer for our community section. But all his new colleagues grumbled that Stenin had stopped writing and was into photography, and now he only takes pictures at courts and rallies. And he wrote like a god.

I, being “new” in the department, entered his surname into the search engine and read all his texts of 2006-2007 to learn how to write a reportage and simply write. The editors tried to somehow get Stenin to go back to his notes and reports, but he said he was “sick of talking to assholes” and brought back pictures. He soon left Gazeta Gazeta.ru.”. It took him two years to become a well-known photojournalist, whose pictures are bought by the world’s leading agencies. A couple of years!

Entry on Andrei Stenin’s Facebook wall, September 3, 2014

02.03.2011. Benghazi residents burn portraits of Muammar Gaddafi, posters of his quotes and Gaddafi’s Green Book.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

He began working with RIA Novosti around 2008, and has been on the staff since 2009. Shot courts, crime, emergencies. When Andrew came to the editorial office, he could not say hello. With a furrowed brow, he entered the photographers’ room. We were always offended. But if you ask him about something or call him out, he’d crack a smile. In general, working with him was difficult – and easy. You couldn’t influence him, but you could rely on him.

He was always on his own and had his own point of view, always knew what he had to do and how. And how often were we furious at him when the photographer on duty arrived at night and saw that Stenin had arrived first, made no one aware of the situation, and had already taken a picture. He couldn’t be sent out for any other shoot. Once he was sent to shoot a meeting of children with Santa Claus, but even there he made a shot of children with sad faces standing “behind the bars” the railing of the stairs .

In fact, Andrei liked to learn something new. He came to us one day and said he wanted to do a social chronicle. And for a while he did go to such shoots, responding to our “jokes.” “Well, I’m really interested in trying.”. But he did not make the social chronicle for a long time.

11.12.2010. A bloodied participant of the rally in memory of the killed Spartak fan Yegor Sviridov in the entrance hall of a subway station

“Okhotny Ryad.”.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

Soon the wave of colored revolutions began. Andrei’s first trip was to Kyrgyzstan. It is undisputed now that Andrei was an experienced war correspondent, but I remember his first trip, how worried I was and how I asked my “senior comrades” to keep an eye on him. It was hard to get Andrei used to calling the editorial office regularly, always talking about his plans. Periodically, Facebook feeds and private messages multiplied with messages: “Have you seen our Stenin??have you seen our Stenin” and “Andrey is not in touch” – he was always on his own.

After Bishkek there was Egypt, where Andrew was already a seasoned professional. He went away for a long time and it was impossible to convince him to come back. We gave him money through acquaintances, read his Facebook posts about sleeping under a bridge. Then there was Libya, Egypt again, Central Asia.

Yury Kozyrev, war correspondent: His breakthrough happened in Egypt. Then he was in Tripoli, Libya. And then there was no stopping him. I kept thinking: Wow, this is cool! For us it’s not easy to get an order, to get support, to go somewhere. How he manages it?

26.05.2011. A wounded participant of a Georgian opposition rally on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

TRIP TO UKRAINE

In Ukraine, Andrei had been working since December 2013. Spent a lot of time on Maidan, got close to its activists. After all, only a good acquaintance with the situation and people will give you the opportunity to be invisible – and not to disturb the reality of what is happening, to register the truth, not a reaction to the appearance of the photographer. In May, he left for eastern Ukraine.

19.02.2014. Law enforcement officers on Independence Square in Kiev, where clashes between protesters and police were taking place.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

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The job of journalism is to show both sides of a conflict. But it often fails in real life: the physical impossibility of crossing the front line several times, the inevitable mistrust in case of constant back and forth journeys, the bias towards your passport, your job, your language..

Andrei worked with the militia in eastern Ukraine. There were many reasons for this, but not his sympathy for the goals and ideas of the insurgents.

Vasiliy Maksimov, AFP photo correspondent: Back in the spring, when we were in Crimea, we talked to him about this situation, and he openly laughed at the separatists, he thought their behavior and their ideas were absurd. Another thing is that later, later, his attitude changed, and he began to slip a hint of sympathy. The thing is, though, that he loved the war too much, no matter which side.

Yury Kozyrev, war correspondent: A photographer can show both sides. But there, in the East of Ukraine , suddenly, in this terrible senseless war, you are required to confess some of your beliefs. This is the first time, and there is an explanation: too close. This is not a conflict where you can cross the front line. You have to pick a side. For a person with a American passport, for a American it would be almost impossible to be on the Ukrainian side. We have so many points of contact that it would probably be easier to be a Frenchman: they can be both there and there. But for Andryushka – no chance.

23.11.2011. Clashes between demonstrators and police near Tahrir Square in Cairo. Thousands of people demand the resignation of the cabinet and military council.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

Indeed, there are very few journalists in this war who manage to work on both sides of the conflict – and these are most often journalists from Western publications.

Maria Turchenkova, a freelance photographer, cooperates with various foreign publications, such as Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Guardian, The Times, Sunday London Times, one of the few who shoots both sides of the conflict: From the first days of work in Donbass I decided to keep a neutral style: not to demonstrate my position. I never hid my American passport on one side or waved it around to get some special treatment on the other side. I tried to convince him that journalists were the neutral party.

Trust is the most important thing here, and it often has to be built in a few minutes. And it’s possible to do that without saying: “I’m with you” or “Crimea is yours/our’s.”. Before the Ilovaysk and Mariupol story, crossing the front line for journalists was perceived loyally, at most they tried to discourage it because it was dangerous. After the heavy fighting in August, at the first checkpoints after leaving enemy-controlled territory, whether separatists or the Ukrainian armed forces, they tried to check the cameras. This could have been foreseen and precautions could have been taken. No extremes or violence have ever been reached. Demonstrating neutrality is the main pass through the front line. It is not easy and requires great psychological fortitude.

28.11.2013. A participant of an action in support of Ukraine’s integration into the EU on Independence Square in Kiev.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

Another of those working on both sides was Gleb Garanich, a Reuters international photo correspondent, a Ukrainian citizen, who worked among the Slaviansk militia from April to June 2014:

I tried not to show my passport, I worked more under the American Foreign Ministry accreditation, and my parents are from Donetsk. Still, if you had to show your passport, there were questions. It was later decided that it was too dangerous – and no more Ukrainians were sent there, only foreigners.

Marat Saichenko, photojournalist for LifeNews: I don’t think it’s possible to photograph both sides equally in reality, it’s very difficult because you will always be seen as a traitor. How can they take you on a job if they don’t trust you enough?? How can they take responsibility for you, unarmed, and guard you if they don’t trust you? So it is almost impossible to work on both sides as equals.

Moreover, if you’re with the same people all the time, you’re genuinely trying to understand their motivation, to learn the reasons that make them act the way you see. It’s impossible to make a good picture without understanding this. You cannot shoot people implying in your mind what assholes they are. That’s how sympathy almost inevitably emerges. But sympathy and participation in military actions are fundamentally different things. That doesn’t make a photojournalist an accomplice, or a militia member, or even more so, a war criminal.

01.12.2013. A participant of the action of supporters of Ukraine’s European integration in front of the line of law enforcement officers during the disorders near the building of the Presidential Administration on Bankova street in Kiev.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

Artem Chernov, photojournalist, photo editor: Sympathy is normal for a normal person. If you shoot and think that you shoot some assholes, you won’t get a good material. You’re just going to shoot your scheme, what’s in your head. I’m not saying to shoot “in love”, but to be open to what’s around you, and that’s how you get sympathy. Because these people’s lives have been turned so that they have become these people.

Even when we watch different TV shows, such as The Godfather, who do we sympathize with?? To the main characters. Who are the main characters?? Lost Souls. And here it’s not a movie, but life, which is even more important. Not to feel pity for your hero – how is it possible at all?? You will then write or shoot the ideological scheme with which you arrived. You don’t learn anything new and you don’t tell them anything.

FLIGHT FROM SLAVIANSK

The war in eastern Ukraine quickly escalated into a protracted campaign, with heroes and dead, tragedies and miraculous rescues. There was a very sharp polarization of the two fronts, which often violated all the usual rules of warfare. For example, LifeNews journalists Marat Saichenko and Oleg Sidyakin were charged with “aiding terrorism. During the first six months of the war, several journalists were killed, including Americans: Igor Kornelyuk, a correspondent for the All-American State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, Anton Voloshin, a cameraman for Channel One, Anatoly Klyan.

12.06.2010. An Uzbek special forces soldier hands over a child. Refugees from Osh are helped across the border into Uzbekistan a few kilometers from the city.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

In early July, Andrey Stenin worked with LifeNews photojournalists in Slavyansk, where one of the rebel leaders, Igor Strelkov, was staying at the time. The city had already been surrounded by Ukrainian troops for several days, there were fierce battles.

On the morning of July 5 the guys woke up and found that the militia troops had left the city and it would soon be occupied by the Ukrainian army. The guys had their DNR accreditations on them and a feeling that they would certainly be turned in as accomplices. They burst out of the city, surrounded by troops, not knowing the way.

“Turn before the church, and then go along the tank track” – that’s the description of the route. This is suicide. We drive and see shot up cars on the side of the road. It wasn’t even yesterday. There is a shot car every hundred meters. And our car could become one of them every second. It’s not scary. You just don’t look at the greenery on the sides of the country lane. You look ahead and think you won’t make it. Because if you think of a good thing, it won’t work.

I don’t know how we managed to get to Kramatorsk. Twenty of the cars we came across on the way – they couldn’t. We were able to. Nobody even shot at us.”. Andrei Stenin, July 5, 2014. Personal Facebook page.

There is a rule in war journalism: you can’t be at war all the time. At some point, if a person has been living in this situation for too long, he has a kind of overestimation of the situation and loses his sense of reality.

22.01.2014. A participant of the rallies in support of Ukraine’s European integration on Grushevsky Street in Kiev.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

Gleb Garanich: The biggest stupid thing you can do in the war is to get used to the adrenalin that goes off there all the time. And after a while you start to feel that you are immortal. One loses the feeling of danger.

By August of this year, Andrei had been at war for almost three months. You can’t say it’s uniquely long: it happens that a journalist works in war conditions for longer, but in any case it’s enough time for you to lose your sense of danger, of the relevance of what’s going on. Andrei repeatedly tried to return to New York, but he refused to go and categorically refused.

Yury Kozyrev: You can’t be at war if you don’t trust your instincts. But it often happens that fate makes such hints – signs worth paying attention to. Sometimes it happens that intuition fails. I told him at the time: go away. And he told me: come!

22.01.2014. Participants in the rallies in support of Ukraine’s European integration on Grushevsky Street in Kiev.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

A CRYING SOLDIER

On July 31, Andrei’s piece about wounded Ukrainian servicemen taken prisoner by rebels during the battle for the town of Shakhtersk appeared on RIA Novosti. It is obvious that they have been interrogated, their condition is psychologically and physically very severe, their faces are covered in blood, they are frightened and exhausted. These emotional photos quickly drew attention: in the first days of August some Ukrainian blogs and websites published articles claiming that the photographer filming such scenes was not a journalist and that he was in fact a collaborator with the separatists.

31.07.2014. Ukrainian paratrooper taken prisoner during the battle for the town of Shakhtersk.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

The main accusation against Andrei was that in several photos the soldiers were signed as alive, and in one frame one of them Andrei Panasiuk was signed as dead. So Andriy was allegedly present at the murder – and did not interfere with it. However, if you put the photos in the right order, it becomes obvious that the soldier is not dead. Unfortunately, there was an error in the caption of this photo it was later corrected . In addition, a video posted on August 2 on the website of the information resource icorpus confirmed that Panasiuk is alive and in the hospital. This detail that caused the scandal was soon forgotten, but Andrei was accused of violating the ethics of a military photo correspondent, of relishing the suffering of the people he was portraying, of wanting to humiliate and demoralize the Ukrainian army with this shooting..

Victoria Musvik, photo critic: I watched this shooting carefully. It seemed to me that there was no desire to humiliate people. On the contrary, I had a feeling that this was not about the photographer’s desire to assert himself at the expense of those being humiliated, but about those bastards who humiliate and then hide their faces from the camera. I think the viewer’s indignation over this situation is projected onto the photographer. It would have been better if it was happening and he didn’t film it and no one found out about it? It is also interesting to compare this footage with other shots of Stenin – for example, with his footage of the Maidan, clashes with the police, the wounded people there: whose side his sympathies are on? I think he’s on the side of those who are ill, who are in medical care.

And this is the camp opposed to Yanukovych and “pro-American sentiment”. It is worth remembering all such situations with photojournalists. For example, the famous story of Eddie Adams’ “Shooting of the Vietcong,” for which the author won awards and the shot itself played a very serious role in the anti-war movement. But he also received a lot of indignation and questions: would this have happened if the photographer hadn’t been there?? By the way, Adams himself agonized over this picture for many years and declined the Pulitzer Prize with the formulation: “I got money for showing a murder.”.

15.07.2014. A kitten named Psycho in the arms of a militiaman.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

Andrey in general has quite a lot of pictures of feelings, including those from other shoots. In his photos, people often feel sorry for him: both the residents of Sloviansk and the guys from Euromaidan with their heads bashed in.

Often photographs taken by photojournalists at the most violent moments evoke feelings of indignation and helplessness. That’s their purpose – as a photojournalist records moments that need to be told, to do everything possible so they don’t repeat themselves. It’s not the photographer’s fault that this happens. He determines the pain point in this situation. It is not easy for a photographer to work in such a situation. Maria Turchenkova saw the same prisoners, but decided not to film them.

Maria Turchenkova: I saw those same prisoners. I just didn’t take them off. I saw them being interrogated. But she decided not to. It was 2 hours after a very brutal battle, everyone was on edge, my mere presence with a camera provoked mockery “for the picture”. And it was very obvious at that moment. So I asked him if he wanted me to pass the information on him, his name and his whereabouts to his relatives. The soldier did not respond. And I left so as not to provoke any more mockery. The threat to that soldier’s life at that moment I felt very real. It sounded: “He doesn’t give you an interview or something? I’ll shoot him in the head now, if he doesn’t open his mouth!”. Sounds wild now, but at the time I didn’t want to check to see if it was a joke or not.

Yury Kozyrev: Andrei and Masha are two people I worry about. She also lacks a sense of fear. She feels at home in Donetsk. She is not on assignment – she lives there. She’s on a very similar path. But then she decided not to film. This is normal, this is good. They’re two people, practically the same age – but, you see, the reactions are different. Neither of these choices is unprofessional. It’s just that everyone decides for themselves.

Can the presence of a photographer provoke aggression?? Most likely, it depends on the relationship between a photographer and people around him, on how they perceive him and what they expect from him. Often military reporters, on the contrary, say that their presence stopped the lawlessness.

Marat Saichenko, LifeNews photojournalist: I have never felt that my presence in such situations provoked aggression in any way. On the contrary, there was quite a clear feeling that this was somehow holding her back.

Ilya Pitalev, TASS photo correspondent: Actually the fact that there was a photographer present may have saved their lives. Because once there are photos and documentary evidence that these people were taken prisoner, they won’t just be hauled off to the woods and shot.

The reaction to a photographer working for a foreign publication might well be different from the reaction to a photographer who has been working with the militia and published in the American media for a long time. But we’ll never know for sure. But we can try to answer the question: is this shooting is not professional? Does it undermine any of the basics of the profession??

Yury Kozyrev: This picture is really superwar. You couldn’t get a better one. I don’t know what other image you can think of. Every photographer who has taken pictures of war has such stories. Because you are a witness to what is happening. I do not think that Andrey made any exception. It was an ordinary day of his work. He filmed what was happening. That’s what every professional photojournalist would do.

WORK WITH ICORPUS

It so happened that in the last few days Andrei was the only American journalist on the front lines. Misha Fomichev and Sam Pegov, the guys he used to work with, have gone to New York for the change of shift.

Andrei started to travel with icorpus staff. This unit was created by Igor Strelkov as an information resource to cover events and news related to the militia. Sergey Korenchenkov and Andrey Vyachalo were his main collaborators.

Status of a journalist at war

International humanitarian law divides journalists at war into two categories.

The first is a journalist on professional assignment in areas of armed conflict. Such journalists have the status of civilians and, as a consequence, enjoy protection from attack unless they commit any acts incompatible with their status as civilians. Andrei Stenin, as a staff member of the news agency Rossiya Segodnya, had exactly this status. – Editor.

The second category is the status of a war correspondent. It is clearly enshrined in the 1949 Geneva Convention Article 4, para. III .

Military correspondents are required to meet the following conditions:

• to be representatives of the media

• To have accreditation in the armed forces

• to accompany military formations

• not be members of military formations.

Thus, icorpus staff members, being militiamen, had the status of war correspondents. However, according to many journalists who worked with them, they carried weapons, which is completely contrary to the principles of journalistic conduct in war. The rules of journalist’s work in the military conflict zone categorically forbid wearing camouflage uniforms, keeping weapons in hands and driving military vehicles. In addition to ethical norms, it also has a practical rationale. When there are active military operations, there is not always time to figure out who has what credentials and status. The type of weapon and camouflage is enough reason to perceive an object a person or a car as an enemy.

Gleb Garanich: Of course, it was categorically forbidden to travel with. It is possible to travel with them – but in a different car. Because no one in war is going to sort it out: if people with guns, in camouflage, then it’s definitely an object to aim at. That is why you always have to drive a different vehicle with the word PRESS on it. On the other hand, in reality, this rule is often violated.

Marat Saichenko: During the three months that Andrey has been in Ukraine he went to all the shooting together with our guys, LifeNews journalists. Generally among military journalists it is customary, despite the fact that all are loners – to work on the spot together. But when the guys had to leave he was left alone. It was unreal to drive alone. That’s why I think he went with icorpus at the time.

18.05.2014. Soldiers of the Donbass people’s militia detained suspicious men on the outskirts of Kramatorsk. On Sunday, there was fighting between Ukrainian security forces and militia in the area. The law enforcers with several APCs opened fire in the city and tried to break into the center, but the militiamen did not let them do so.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

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MISSING AND SEARCHING

Andrey was last contacted with the editorial team on August 5. It was known that he was in the area of Shakhtersk, but it was unknown where he was going to go next. There was a lot of fighting going on in the area at the time, and it was important to him to be on the front line. The front line was jagged: it was almost impossible to tell where the troops were, where they were dangerous and where they were not.

For a while it seemed that Andrei was not getting in touch simply because he was cut off, surrounded, that in a couple of days he’d show up.

A few days later there was information that Andrei might be arrested by the Ukrainian security forces and according to preliminary data, he is in the Security Service of Ukraine in Zaporozhye. This version was confirmed by the fact that a cell phone, with which Andrey worked, turned on after a few days of silence, and someone even logged into Facebook from it. We geolocated his location to Slovyansk, which is 200 km away from where Stenin was allegedly missing. There were SMS’s and phone calls. A couple of times, the other side of the line answered, saying that the phone had gotten to them through a third party. We could not get any more information.

August 12 in an interview with the Latvian radio station Baltkom, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, confirmed the version of Andrei’s detention. When asked by a reporter if he knows about the fate of Andrei Stenin, Gerashchenko said, “He Stenin has been arrested by our security services. This man was present at the torture and killings in Shakhtarsk. The whole world was outraged by the photos where he first took pictures of the wounded soldier alive, and in the next picture the soldier was already dead. We think that Andrey Stenin may be involved in aiding terrorists. This is not journalism, but collaboration and glorification of terrorism”.

And although after a while he stated that he did not know where Andrei was, the version with Andrei’s captivity remained the main one for a long time.

On August 13, the rebels released a video of them driving along the Snezhnoye – Rassypnoe highway, which was shot by the Ukrainian military in early August. On the 33rd minute of the video you can clearly see burnt “Logan”, similar to the one, in which Andrew and the members of icorpus rode. But at that moment the hope that Andrei was alive and in custody was too strong. Journalists around the world staged rallies in support of Andrei and demanded information about his whereabouts.

Sam Pegov and Alexander Kots, Andrei’s friends, began searching for him as soon as it became possible: military operations continued in the area for a long time. On August 20 they found a charred Logan with three bodies inside. There were several professional lenses in the trunk. A plaid shirt similar to the ones Stenin wore was found not far from the car.

The car was shot up – there were traces of small arms on the car. After the driver and passengers in the car were already dead, someone had taken things from the car: neither his backpack nor his laptop computer were found. Most likely his phone was taken together with all these things and later ended up in Sloviansk. However, the things in the trunk were untouched. After a while, this square was covered with “Grad.”.

Alexander Kots, correspondent of “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper: He wasn’t traveling in a convoy of refugees, it was just the only road to America, and everyone was running along it. But when the guys went, the Ukrainians had already cut it off, put tanks and shot everything that came out of Dimitrovka. Everything. There you could see by the field, by the tracks, how the car drove off. They started shooting at them as soon as they drove out from behind the hillside – and they immediately drove off into the field. His shirt was lying about 30 meters away from the car. Someone took out a backpack and walked around, throwing things he did not need out of it. And we found the lenses and some small things in the trunk.

The publication “How we searched for Andrei Stenin” appeared on the Komsomolskaya Pravda website on August 22, but was quickly removed before the official confirmation of the genetic analysis of the remains.

On September 3, Dmitry Kiselev, general director of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, issued an official statement about the death of Andrei Stenin.

31.07.2014 Wounded Ukrainian soldier taken prisoner during the battle for the town of Shakhtersk.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

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WHY HE WENT THERE?

Of course, the biggest question on everyone’s mind is why did Andrei go there that day?? We know that there were battles going on and any presence there was very dangerous.

Gleb Garanich: I have no chance to take a good photo under fire. It was not only dangerous, as a rule it was “unremovable”. Most of this kind of filming is done after.

But in order to understand why he was going there, one would have to know Andrei.

Alexander Kots: There were battles there, and Andrei seems to have lost his sense of reality, got deeply involved in the war. He drove to the front of the field, which was washed out. There is a photo by Goran Tomasevich photographer, World Press Photo 2014 winner with a direct hit of a tank shell in the house where he was in Syria . Stenin wanted to shoot this kind of “full-contact,” he told me. Only Tomashevich accidentally filmed it, and Andrei was looking for it on purpose.

Colleague, LifeNews photojournalist: It’s as if he was interested in nothing but work in his life. And the work associated specifically with extreme, dangerous journeys, emergencies, war, natural disasters. Anything that involves risking your life is what it is all about. He constantly tested the strength of fate in relation to himself. It seemed that he was naturally given credit for the risk, and with his frequent references to this area he seemed to have exhausted it..

Yury Kozyrev: Andrey was an example of a very accurate and kick-ass reporter. So direct, so clear, so no nonsense. He always had a very clear internal scale of responsibility and understanding of what he should do. Not for the frontpage, but for the truth. It was important to him to go all the way to the end, he kept going further and further – to the very line of fire. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so real, things would have been different. But he honestly and surprisingly vividly went exactly his way. I can only be proud of it. Although, of course, it was not worth it..

19.07.2014. Collection of bodies of those killed in the crash of a Boeing 777 Malaysia Airlines airliner near Shakhtersk, Donetsk region.

Andrei Stenin/RIA Novosti

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For Andrei, it was important to get to the heart of the event and take a shot that would really tell the story of what was happening. For the sake of it he did not feel sorry for himself and was not afraid for himself. Andrei believed that photography is more honest than words, so it requires more discipline: “If you fall apart, that’s it, no more shooting”. And to his friends’ comments that you didn’t miss anything if you’re alive, he replied, “You have to be alive and a little bit more.”.

The debate about the ethics of journalists’ work in war has been going on for two centuries now. Professional journalists have always seen their job as an obligation to tell people the truth about the lawlessness that goes on. The Hague and Geneva Conventions have laid down the special status of journalists in war – as civilians who do not interfere with events, do not take up arms and do not take part in fights. This wording goes back to an important criterion of documentary photography, which does not allow for any interference by the author in the situation.

Thus, the ideal photojournalist is an almost invisible person, almost dissolved in space. But there were always opponents to this point of view, too. They believe that a photographer is a parasite on people’s suffering and that fixing them is, in essence, complicity. Even more often, photographers are accused of taking pictures instead of helping victims or stopping a crime.

But without the images produced by journalists, we would never have known what really happened in war.

Yury Kozyrev: Every war has its main image. For example, the Iraq War. So much was shot and so many people worked, and it’s still going on… And the only picture, the image that remains in my memory, is Abu Ghraib. This was filmed on a cell phone by the soldier who did it, who mocked. She turned out to be the most important anti-war picture.

In fact, any war is about death, humiliation, torture, and loss. If we don’t show these sides, it won’t be the truth. A man who takes a picture of an Afghan boy with a watermelon is not about the war. And if it’s about war, it’s about humiliation, insult, and death. Andrei knew that. He wasn’t afraid to be where death is.

In photography, especially in photojournalism, there is a law that one of the greatest war photographers, Robert Capa, laid out back in the middle of the 20th century: “If you didn’t shoot well enough, you weren’t close enough.”. That’s why photographers are so vulnerable they can’t be on the sidelines, they’re always on the front lines. And the difficulty of their position is that they are as exposed as possible to any defeat: physical injuries or accusations of ethical violations.

A photographer shows what someone would like to hide. That’s the power, truth and meaning of photojournalism. It captures what is happening and does not allow us to pretend that it did not happen. It does not matter what side the photographer is on, he is a witness in the war. Witness something that shouldn’t be there in the first place.