Two wedding photographers turned war reporters, Konstiantyn and Vlada Liberov, have once again shown the stark reality of war through their camera lenses, this time focusing on the harrowing everyday life in the trenches.
On Tuesday, July 4th, they visited a Ukrainian brigade position near Bakmut, immersing their followers in the struggle faced by Ukraine’s troops after capturing Russian positions but unable to move the corpses of their enemies.
"What you see in these photos are like illustrations for books about the war that we read at school. But this is the reality that we experienced today," they write on Instagram.
"The dugout in the first photo was recaptured by our soldiers during the assault. They are unable to dig a new one due to heavy shelling. It may appear as a common situation, but the man in the first photo is not sitting on a carry mat. Instead, there are bodies. The white bags cover the bodies of the enemy."
According to the story which accompanies the photos, unable to remove the booby-trapped bodies, soldiers are forced to remain in their positions, knowing that the Russian forces are in close proximity.
With heavy shelling preventing them from digging a new dugout, they have no choice but to sit and even sleep on these bodies, using them as their only refuge within several hundred meters.
"The heat is 35 degrees. It's hard to breathe. The ammunition is pressing. The stench is terrible. Not just in this dugout. The entire battered landing is full of broken bodies and body parts. There are flies everywhere. Lots of flies," Liberov writes.
ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November, 4, 2024
Amidst the suffocating heat, the soldiers pour water over themselves, attempting to find some relief. Nervousness pervades the atmosphere as they take quick puffs of cigarettes, seeking some distraction.
"The military man, who always covers his face from the smell, looks into our soul and says:
Show them. This is what war looks like."
Prior to the full-scale Russian invasion, Odesa photographers and married couple Konstiantyn and Vlada Liberov, specialised in capturing love stories, celebrity portraits, and wedding photographs.
Since February 24 2022, they made a profound shift in the nature and tone of the work.
Now their photographs depict the aftermath of destroyed buildings, civilians suffering from Russian aggression, and the frontline reality.
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