Kyiv, Ukraine, February 26, 2022. © Mikhail Palinchak

Kyiv, Ukraine

Mikhail Palinchak

February 2022 — Ukraine

About this series

On February 21st, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he was recognizing two regions in eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent states. A day later, Russia declared that the Minsk peace agreements were dead. Then, on the morning of February 24th, Putin said Russia was initiating a “special military operation” in eastern Ukraine and subsequently launched a full -scale invasion of the country. As of Sunday, February 27th, the capital Kyiv remained under the control of the Ukrainian military and civilians, according to the country’s defence ministry. The defenders of the city, led by President Volodymyr Zelensky and including countless civilians, are hunkering down to save their country. Some seek refuge in a Kyiv metro station. A war has started in Europe.

Photographer Mikhail Palinchak shot this series between February 24-27, except for the civilian training which took place before the war began. 

An armed local resident carries a cat in a carrier and a fish in an aquarium, which he rescued from an apartment building damaged by recent shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 26, 2022. © Mikhail Palinchak
Kyiv Territorial Defense, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 25, 2022. © Mikhail Palinchak
Public training of civilians. © Mikhail Palinchak
Kyiv, Ukraine, February 25, 2022. © Mikhail Palinchak
Kyiv Territorial Defense, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 25, 2022. © Mikhail Palinchak
Interior of public shelter. © Mikhail Palinchak
Civilian volunteers sorted empty bottles to be used for Molotov cocktails in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 27, 2022. © Mikhail Palinchak
Kyiv, Ukraine, February 26, 2022. © Mikhail Palinchak
Ukrainiens seek refuge in Kyiv metro station in an agonising chaos. Shelter, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 24, 2022. © Mikhail Palinchak

Photographer: Mikhail Palinchak
Nationality: Ukrainian
Based in: Kyiv, Ukraine
Website: palinchak.com.ua
Instagram: @mpalinchakphoto

Mikhail Palinchak is an Ukrainian street and documentary photographer residing and working in Kyiv, Ukraine. He was born in January 1985 in Uzhgorod.
He starts taking photographs in 2008. Since 2012 he is a member of the Ukrainian Photographic Alternative (UPHA) and since 2014 a member of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPF).
2014-2019:  Official photographer of the President of Ukraine.
Founder of Untitled magazine and co-founder of Ukrainian Street Photography group.
His photographs are stored in private collections and permanent collections of photography museums.