A woman crying in front of a destroyed apartment. Bodies thrown into a mass grave. A pregnant woman on a stretcher outside a bombed maternity hospital; he will die shortly after the picture is taken.
Footage of the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked the world last spring, showing the dire realities of war and sending aid to Ukraine. More images came as the devastation spread to cities whose names the world quickly knew (Mariupol, Kharkiv, Kiev and Bucha) while media coverage persisted to give the world a clear picture of the attack
This work has won The Associated Press photography staff the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News coverage “for unique and urgent images of the first weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the devastation of Mariupol after the departure of “other news organizations, victims of Russia’s targeting. of civilian infrastructure and the resilience of the Ukrainian people who were able to flee,” the Pulitzer Board citation reads.
Read on to see images from the AP’s Pulitzer-winning entry, including images by AP photographers Felipe Dana, Evgeniy Maloletka, Emilio Morenatti, Vadim Ghirda, Rodrigo Abd, Nariman El-Mofty and Bernat Armangue.
Warning: These images contain graphic content.
Emergency personnel and Ukrainian police officers evacuate injured pregnant woman Iryna Kalinina, 32, from a maternity hospital damaged by a Russian airstrike in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022. ‘Kill’ me now!” she screamed, as they fought to save her life in another hospital even closer to the front line. The baby was stillborn, and half an hour later, Iryna also died. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
FILE – Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee across the Irpin River outside Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5, 2022. The war has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the world. A year later, thousands of civilians have died and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrawn nations’ relationships with one another, and tore apart a tightly knit global economy. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
FILE – Natali Sevriukova reacts next to her home after a rocket attack in the city of Kiev, Ukraine, on February 25, 2022. Ukraine’s year-long war has left tens of thousands dead and injured in both sides, has interrupted the supply of energy and food. , and reduced entire cities to ruins. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, file)
An explosion erupts from an apartment building at 110 Mytropolytska St. after a Russian army tank fired at it in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022. On the seventh floor of the building, two older women Lydya and Nataliya were trapped. their apartment because they couldn’t make it to the shelter and died in the explosion. The two badly burned bodies were buried by the neighbors in front of the building. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Medical workers try unsuccessfully 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. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT: Lifeless bodies of men, some with their hands tied behind their backs, lie on the ground in Bucha, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. Associated Press reporters in Bucha, a small town northwest of Kiev, they saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have died a short distance away. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
FILE – Nadiya Trubchaninova, 70, cries while holding the coffin of her son Vadym, 48, who was killed by Russian soldiers last March 30 in Bucha, during his funeral at the Mykulychi cemetery, on the outskirts of Kyiv , Ukraine, on April 16. , 2022. Trubchaninova hitchhiked daily from her village to the shattered town of Bucha trying to bring her son’s body home for burial. On the northwestern fringes of the Ukrainian capital, Bucha had been occupied by Russian forces for about a month, taken on its way to Kiev at the start of the invasion of Ukraine that began in late February 2022. When they retired, they left the scene behind. of horror (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, file)
Strike-injured Volodymyr, 66, sits in a chair in his damaged apartment in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty )
FILE – A dog lies next to the body of a murdered elderly woman inside a house in Bucha, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. Russians hunted people on lists drawn up by their intelligence services and they went door to door to identify potential threats. As their advance towards Kiev stalled and casualties mounted, Russian troops continued to clear the streets of Bucha and surrounding towns with increasing levels of sometimes drunken violence. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, file)
A woman walks among destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, outside Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A resident injured after a Russian attack sits inside an ambulance before being taken to a hospital in Kherson, southern Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A man runs after retrieving items from a burning store after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Anastasia Ohrimenko, 26, is comforted by family and friends as she mourns the loss of her husband, Yury Styglyuk, a Ukrainian serviceman who was killed in action on August 24 in Maryinka, Donetsk, during his funeral in Bucha, Ukraine , on August 31. , 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Bodies are placed in a mass grave outside Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
