Ukrainians believe in their victory

Baku/14.04.22/Turan: Photojournalist Aziz Karimov returned from the war in Ukraine. In an interview in the "Difficult Question" program,  in his photographs he shared what he saw and captured the everyday life.

He stayed in Ukraine for about 20 days. Since there were no flights to Ukraine, a group of Azerbaijani journalists who went to cover the events taking place in this country had to fly on the Baku-Istanbul-Bucharest route. From Bucharest, the journalists went to the border town of Suceava. From there, they crossed the border on foot to reach the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi, and only after that they end up in Kiev.

“From Chernivtsi we traveled to Kiev together with Ukrainian volunteers. In Kiev, we spent the night in a metro station. After filming in Kiev, we went to Kharkov, where we stayed for 5 days. There we visited the satellite cities of Kharkov, where intense battles were taking place. We even got so close to the combat zone that shells were exploding 100-200 meters away. After Kharkov we returned to Kiev. There we visited the cities of the Kiev region - Bucha and Irpin, as well as the villages of Gustomel and Borodyanka,” says the reporter.

“As it turned out, in Bucha people died not only from bullets and fragments of mines and shells. There were cases when elderly people, having witnessed the fighting, could not stand it, they died of horror. Fights went literally at a threshold of their houses.

Photographing the horrors that the Russian military created in these cities, I felt that I was having psychological problems. It is not easy to see corpses, blood, ruins all day long, to hear the cry of those who have lost relatives and friends, to hear the smell of decaying corpses.

Colleagues who specialize in covering the events of the war said that if you stay in such an environment for more than 20 to 25 days, then psychological problems will arise. I myself felt that it was time to return, otherwise I would not be able to stand it,” says Aziz Karimov.

Describing the military everyday life of Ukraine, he noted that the population of cities and towns close to the place of hostilities is experiencing problems with food, as shops are open until 2 pm. In the afternoon they are closed and all the staff, as well as all other residents, go down to the bomb shelters. Also, bakeries apparently work, so bread is often two days fresh. There have been cases of poisoning with stale meat products.

Speaking about the horrors of Bucha, Karimov noted that when he arrived in this town, the corpses of people had been lying on the streets since the first days of March. There were hundreds of them, and there was no way to remove them. But, the same, and perhaps even greater horrors were happening in other cities.

“I spoke with a refugee from Mariupol. He said that what you saw in Irpin and Bucha is nothing compared to what is happening in Mariupol.

According to him, famine began there and people began to eat cats and dogs. But what's worse is absence  of  water. People are forced to live in basements to escape bombings and artillery raids,  and skin diseases began to spread in them,” the photojournalist said.

“However, despite all the horrors and hardships of the war, Ukrainians are ready to fight to the last drop of blood and believe in their victory,” Karimov said. –0—