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2023 Breaking News Story
First Place
- NYTUKRAINE: Ukrainians clean up debris after a residential building was hit by missiles in south Kyiv, Ukraine, February 25, 2022. Russian troops have entered Kyiv and Ukrainians brace for a battle for their capital. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
- NYTUKRAINE: Some of the last remaining Ukrainian civilians are evacuated from the town of Irpin across the bridge on the periphery of Kyiv as fighting continues between Russian and Ukrainian forces, Ukraine, March 8, 2022. As Russian troops continue to bombard towns across across, and tighten their presence around the country’s capital of Kyiv, desperate Ukrainian civilians are trying to flee west daily. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
- NYTUKRAINE: A steady stream of Ukrainian civilians try to make their way out of the village of Irpen while being shelled by Russians as Ukrainian soldiers try to hold back Russian forces from entering Kyiv, Ukraine, March 6, 2022. The capital city of Kyiv is extremely tense as Ukrainian men and women prepare for battle as Russian troops have entered Kyiv. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
- NYTUKRAINE: Desperate Ukrainian families try to push themselves onto a train heading west out of Kyiv toward Lviv, at the main train station as rocket attacks intensify in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 4, 2022. The capital city of Kyiv is extremely tense as Ukrainian men and women prepare for battle as Russian troops have entered Kyiv. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
NYTUKRAINE: Ukrainian families run across train tracks to get to the next train heading west out of Kyiv toward Lviv, at the main train station in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 4, 2022. The capital city of Kyiv is extremely tense as Ukrainian men and women prepare for battle as Russian troops have entered Kyiv. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times) - NYTUKRAINE: Ukrainian families live below ground in a subway station, where many of them have been for about one week as Russian forces fight Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, March 2, 2022. The capital city of Kyiv is extremely tense as Ukrainian men and women prepare for battle as Russian troops have entered Kyiv. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
- NYTUKRAINE: Ukrainian and foreign soldiers with the Carpathian Sich Battalion shelter in the basement of a building while heavy artillery is fired at their position in a village roughly one mile from Russian positions one the road from Izyum and Barinkove, in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, May 11, 2022. Fighting has intensified in Eastern Ukraine as Russian forces continue to try to take ground. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
- NYTUKRAINE: Serhiy Novosad, 26, stands over the bodies of his father, Serhiy Novosad, 49, and grandmother, Lyubov Novosad, 78, while surrounded by among Ukrainian police investigating their deaths after they were killed by Russian soldiers and left inside a bunker in their yard likely on November 10, 2022, in Lvivsky Otrubi village, in the Kherson region, Ukraine, November 23, 2022. Novosad tried to reach his father on November 10, and his phone was off, so he returned from Kyiv to make sure his father was alright. When he arrived, Ukrainian forces were living across the street from his home, and pointed out a cross in his front yard, where he found his loved ones. Ukrainian intelligence reported that Russian forces have used more than a dozen mobile crematoria to incinerate the bodies of dead civilians in Mariupol and Novoaydar, and testimonies from across Kherson point to evidence of the same tactic used there. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
- NYTUKRAINE: Ukrainian civilians and soldiers rejoice over the liberation of the city of Kherson after Russia formally announced it had retreated from the city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, November 12, 2022. Abandoned bases and scars of shelling and fighting littered the area as this pullback would be the third major retreat after Kyiv and Kharkiv in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
Ukrainian civilians weep and rejoice as they greet Ukrainian soldiers tearful as they celebrate liberation from Russian troops after Russia formally announced it had retreated from villages along the Kherson front in Blahodatne, in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, November 11, 2022. Abandoned bases and scars of shelling and fighting littered the area as this pullback would be the third major retreat after Kyiv and Kharkiv in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times) - NYTUKRAINE: Ukrainian security forces joined by Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, as they walk through a prison and torture chamber in the bottom floor of an office building, where Russian forces held and tortured Ukrainian prisoners in Kherson City, southern Ukraine, November 16, 2022. The security forces speculated the Russians set fire to the prison as they were leaving to hide the evidence of torture. Roughly a week after Russians retreated from Kherson, the atrocities committed by their troops are becoming evident. Ukrainians across Kherson are grappling with life under occupation, and having lived in fear. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
- NYTUKRAINE: A Ukrainian woman weeps with joy as she embraces a Ukrainian soldier on the first day after Russia formally announced it had retreated from villages along the Kherson front in Snihurivka, in southern Ukraine, November 10, 2022. Abandoned bases and scars of shelling and fighting littered the area as this pullback would be the third major retreat after Kyiv and Kharkiv in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
- Ukrainians civilians and soldiers rejoice over the liberation of the city of Kherson after Russia formally announced it had retreated from the city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, November 12, 2022. Abandoned bases and scars of shelling and fighting littered the area as this pullback would be the third major retreat after Kyiv and Kharkiv in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
Ukrainian civilians weep and rejoice as they greet Ukrainian soldiers tearful as they celebrate liberation from Russian troops after Russia formally announced it had retreated from villages along the Kherson front in Blahodatne, in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, November 11, 2022. Abandoned bases and scars of shelling and fighting littered the area as this pullback would be the third major retreat after Kyiv and Kharkiv in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)
Ukraine At War
Lynsey Addario/Independent
Second Place
- Ukrainian emergency employees and police officers carry an injured pregnant woman Iryna Kalinina, 32, from a maternity hospital that was damaged by Russian airstrike in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022.
“Kill me now!” she screamed, as they struggled to save her life at another hospital even closer to the front line. The baby was born dead. A half-hour later, the mother died too. The woman and her baby died after Russia bombed the maternity hospital where she was meant to give birth. - Marina Yatsko, left, runs behind her boyfriend Fedor carrying her 18 month-old son Kirill who was fatally wounded in shelling, as they arrive at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022.
- Russian army tanks move through a street on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022.
- Medical workers try to save the life of Marina Yatsko's 18 month-old son Kirill, who was fatally wounded by shelling, at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022.
- Janna Goma, right, with her family settle in a bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine, Sunday, March 6, 2022.
- Serhiy Kralya, 41, looks at the camera after surgery at a hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine on Friday, March 11, 2022. Kralya was injured during shelling by Russian forces.
- An explosion erupts from an apartment building at 110 Mytropolytska St., after a Russian army tank fired on it in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022. On the 7th floor of the building dwo elderly women Lydya and Nataliya were stuck in their apartment because they couldn’t come down to the shelter. They were killed by this explosion. Two heavily burned bodies were buried by neighbors in front of the building. This is the same building where Marina Yatsko's 18 month-old son Kirill was killed on the March 4, 2022.
- Oleksandr Konovalov, an ambulance paramedic, performs CPR on a girl Evangelina injured by the shelling in a residential area as her dad sits, left, after arriving at the city hospital of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. Evangelina did not survive.
- Serhii, father of teenager Iliya, 15, cries on his son's lifeless body lying on a stretcher at a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Iliya was playing soccer with his friends when the Russian cluster bomb targeted the football field. His friend David and Artem were heavily injured.
- Dead bodies are put into a mass grave on the old cemetery of Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022 as people cannot bury their dead because of the heavy shelling by Russian forces.
The Siege or Mariupol
Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
Third Place
- The ghostly sight of hands and legs protrude from the earth as investigators begin the grim task of exhuming bodies from a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints, while assessing evidence of war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine on April 8, 2022.
Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops in the suburbs of Kyiv where atrocities have been reported. Every body bag is later opened and forensics recorded at a nearby cemetery. Families gather in sorrow while trying to identify their loved ones. - Family members see the body of their loved one as investigators begin the grim task of exhuming bodies from a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints, while assessing evidence of war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine on April 8, 2022.
Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops in the suburbs of Kyiv where atrocities have been reported. Every body bag is later opened and forensics recorded at a nearby cemetery. - Volunteer gravediggers use a door and crane to lift corpses from the earth where they were stacked together in a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha, Ukraine on April 8, 2022 Some had signs of torture and hands tied or shot in the head.
Investigators begin the grim task of exhuming bodies to investigate war crimes as families gather in sorrow while trying to identify their loved ones.
Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops in the suburbs of Kyiv where atrocities have been reported. Every body bag is later opened and forensics recorded at a nearby cemetery. - Volunteer gravediggers use a door and crane to lift corpses from the earth where they were stacked together in a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha, Ukraine on April 8, 2022. One rises with the surreal resemblance to a crucifix. Some had signs of torture and hands tied or shot in the head.
Investigators begin the grim task of exhuming bodies to investigate war crimes as families gather in sorrow while trying to identify their loved ones.
Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops in the suburbs of Kyiv where atrocities have been reported. Every body bag is later opened and forensics recorded at a nearby cemetery. - A mother weeps during countless days of searching for her son’s body while exhumations took place at the mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha, Ukraine on April 8, 2022. Sorrowful weeping echoes as families gather trying to identify their loved ones. This mother was eventually able to bury her boy.
- Storm clouds gather as investigators continue the grim task of exhuming bodies from a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints, while assessing evidence of war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine on April 11, 2022. Body bags are lined up awaiting forensics. Families stand in sorrow while trying to identify their loved ones.
Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops in the where atrocities have been reported. - Eyes of death stare from a body bag begging the question what was his final sight before life ended. Investigators begin the grim task of exhuming bodies from a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints, while assessing evidence of war crimes from the Russian invasion in Bucha, Ukraine on April 6, 2022. Every body bag is painstakingly opened and forensics recorded.
Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops where atrocities have been reported. Families gather in sorrow while trying to identify their loved ones in the hope they will finally lay them to rest with a proper burial. - Body bags of people recovered from a mass grave and throughout the town are lined up at a cemetery as investigators begin the grim task of assessing evidence of war crimes from the Russian occupation in Bucha, Ukraine on April 9, 2022.
Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops where atrocities have been reported.
Families gather in sorrow while trying to identify their loved ones. - A woman stands over the body of her son that was killed as body collectors move bodies to the city morgue as investigators begin the grim task of assessing evidence of war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine on April 12, 2022. Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops in the suburbs of Kyiv where atrocities have been reported.
- A funeral for family members killed in the Russian invasion takes place in Bucha, Ukraine on April 23, 2022 where war crimes investigations continue.
Many sorrowful funerals are held for fallen Ukrainian troops and civilians killed in the Russian invasion. The wails of weeping loved ones echo throughout the land. Soldiers are not the only casualties of war as its toll reaches far from the frontline and families bury their dead, dealing with the tragic aftershocks of loss. - A mother weeps at her son’s gravesite during the funeral after finding his body during countless days of searching while exhumations took place at the mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine on May 7, 2022. ‘He’s in the sky,’ she cries, feeling only a small peace that he is finally at rest with a proper burial.
Every body bag was opened and forensics recorded at a the cemetery as investigators continued the grim task of exhuming bodies from a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints, while assessing evidence of war crimes.
Wreckage of war and bodies littered the streets of Bucha, recently liberated from invading Russian troops where atrocities have been reported.
Many sorrowful funerals are held for fallen Ukrainian troops and civilians killed in the Russian invasion as war crimes investigations continue. The wails of weeping loved ones echo throughout the land. Soldiers are not the only casualties of war as its toll reaches far from the frontline and families bury their dead, dealing with the tragic aftershocks of loss. - Birds fly past a war-damaged tombstone in Bucha, Ukraine on May 8, 2022. Bucha was liberated from Russian forces where atrocities have been reported and war crimes investigations continue.
Many sorrowful funerals are held for fallen Ukrainian troops and civilians killed in the Russian invasion. The wails of weeping loved ones echo throughout the land. Soldiers are not the only casualties of war as its toll reaches far from the frontline and families bury their dead, dealing with the tragic aftershocks of loss.
Bucha, City of Death
Carol Guzy/ Independent