Anastasia Vlasova

I began documenting the war in Eastern Ukraine since it's start in April 2014. This work is my personal journey through people and places I connected with.

I was working in Debaltseve town during the hostilities in January-February 2015. I was walking on the street when the shelling started. People were rushing to the basement to hide. In this photograph a woman is hiding in the basement from the shell

Stray dogs roam around the empty streets of Debaltseve, Donetsk area, Ukraine.

A Russian-backed insurgent guards the polling station on the election day in Donetsk, Ukraine.

The body of one of the passengers is marked with barrier tape near the crash site of the Boeing 777, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which crashed during flying over the eastern Ukraine region near Donetsk, Ukraine.

On his way up the hill, he turned back to me and said 'bye, mama�, and waved his hand.
About a week after I got a call from a comrade who told me that a shell had landed exactly where their tent was...
That kid got killed right away. The others got

A view of a school window blocked with sandbags in case of shelling in Verkhnyotoretske, Donetsk area, Ukraine.

Tatiana Kolesnikova and Oleksandra Kovalyova play on a rope in a school gym in Shchastya, Luhansk area, Ukraine.
The name of the town Shchastya translates to �happiness,� from both Ukrainian and Russian.

Classmates, Ilya Gudzovatiy and Ilya Shlykov, decorate the school's assembly hall in Shchastya, Luhansk area, Ukraine.
Shchastya is a small provincial town in some 10 km from the front line.

Liza, a student from Popasna, is about to start her performance with Marat, a Ukrainian soldier, in a local cultural center. Children and soldiers created a play together as part of the documentary theatre project. with the Theatre of Displaced Peop

A view to Kurakhove pover plant, near Kurakhove, Donetsk area, Ukraine.

- Is there a blood in my face?

A woman who was just evacuated from an embattled town of Debaltseve, sits in a bus.

Children and their parents stay in a bomb shelter in the Palace of Culture of Petrovskiy district in Donetsk, Ukraine.

We were hiding in a basement during the shelling. Some unknown men wearing military uniforms and carrying AKs broke into the basement.
They told us to get out, but we didn�t want to as it was still shelling outside.
They pushed us out of the basemen

A view to a shelled kindergarten in Debaltseve, Ukraine.
Children were evacuated before the shelling.

Anastasia Sarancha, 17, gets dressed for her graduation day in Shchastya, Ukraine.
Anastasia, as most of the young people in town, doesn't see her future in Shchastya and dreams to leave for a bigger town outside the war zone.

Love Letters to Donbas

Love Letters to Donbas is a very beginning of my book about the war in Eastern Ukraine. For years I have been covering the conflict in Donbas region of Ukraine’s east. In this work, I would like to step aside from the usual perception of war which highlights the military victories and defeats and share the personal narratives of people I have met and my own story as well. During my numerous trips to Eastern Ukraine, I fell in love with the land and the people I have met. I would like to take a reader on that personal journey of mine, through war, grieve, happiness and love. I see this work as a mixture of photographs, monologues of protagonists and my letters to my partner. Some of the monologues were written down while collaborating with the documentary theatre in Ukraine, the Theatre of Displaced People, and I plan to continue that collaboration. My story will be shown through the letters I wrote to my partner who was staying in a besieged town of Debaltseve during the battle.

Anastasia Vlasova

Anastasia Vlasova is a Ukrainian documentary photographer based in Kyiv. She has covered the EuroMaidan Revolution, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 near Donetsk. Anastasia's work focuses on the humanitarian aspects of the war in Eastern Ukraine, gender and identity issues. Vlasova's photojournalism has won several awards, among them the gold for College Photographer of the Year and the bronze at Picture of the Year International, honorable mention at 2015 Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award and became a finalist for Leica Oscar Barnack Award. Vlasova has a master’s degree in journalism from the Institute of Journalism at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. She is a 2015 Magnum Foundation Human Rights and Photography Fellow at NYU and the XXVIII Eddie Adams Workshop participant.