“I have to take a photo. This is a war crime.” -Lynsey Addario

The photograph of Ukrainian soldiers working to save the life of a man initially thought to be the father of two children and their mother who were killed by Russian mortar fire was made by New York Times photographer Lynsey Addario.

A concrete box

In an interview on Times Radio, Lynsey Addario said that she and a team with The New York Times, a security adviser and freelance journalist Andriy Dubchak who made a video of the event were behind a cement wall. They watched as the mortar bombs started to fall initially about 200 meters away.

“They literally started bracketing closer and closer to where the civilians were,” Addario said. “And that mortar landed 20 meters from us. We were very very lucky. We were in a sort of cement box, so we hit the ground immediately.”

CBS interview

On the “CBS Evening News with Nora O’Donnell,” Addario said it was clear that the area was full of civilians and that “everyone” including the Russians knew there were refugees leaving the area. Watch the interview below.

On Photography: Lynsey Addario, 1973-present
The New York Times front page, March 7, 2022

“This is a war crime.”

“I had just been sprayed with gravel from a mortar round that could have killed us very easily,” Addario said. “So I was shaken up. And when we were told that we could run across the street by our security adviser, I ran and I saw this family splayed out. And I saw these little moon boots and puffy coat, and I just thought of my own children, of course. And I thought, ‘It’s disrespectful to take a photo, but I have to take a photo. This is a war crime.’”

It appeared on the front page of the paper on Monday, March 7, 2022.

No respect for international journalists

The war in Ukraine is different from other conflicts that Addario has covered.

“In other wars I’ve covered there has been some sort of respect for the international journalists, we are there to bear witness to what’s going on,” she said. “And that is just not the case. We have to put ‘media,’ we have to put ‘press’ [on flak jackets] in a sense because we hope that it provides us with some sort of cover, some sort of protection. We have to cover this. There are civilians deliberately being targeted.”

In Irpin, a city near the capital, Yelena Lavinsky, 22, mourned the death of her fiancé, Mikhailo Pristupa, a Ukrainian soldier who was killed in combat on Saturday. Photo by Lynsey Addario.

Read more stories about inspirational photographers in On Photography.

Sources: Boston.com, The New York Times