AP PHOTOS: 1,000 days of war in Ukraine captured in images

A thousand days of war in Ukraine have been captured in stunning images, many of them horrifying, some of them poignant, others uplifting.

Since Russia’s all-out invasion of its smaller neighbour on Feb. 24, 2022, Europe’s biggest armed conflict since World War II has cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the fighting. Others have lost their family, their homes and their livelihoods.

The Russian military has repeatedly used missiles, drones and artillery to blast civilian targets across Ukraine with devastating consequences. The loss of homes and possessions, snatched away in the blink of an eye, is traumatic.

Across Ukrainian towns and cities, communities are suddenly and bewilderingly pitched into unfamiliar circumstances.

The Russian destruction of Ukraine’s public infrastructure, including the national power grid, adds to the feeling of vulnerability. At night, candles may provide the only light.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have evacuated and migrated abroad.

Those who stayed often had to improvise. That sometimes meant digging mass graves, such as in the besieged port city of Mariupol in 2022 where heavy Russian shelling prevented proper burials and brought despair.

The dreadful toll of war is illustrated in funerals held for soldiers and for civilians, including children, and the grief of those attending them.

For almost three years, Associated Press photographers have been on the ground documenting the war.

The AP photograph of a wounded pregnant woman being carried on a gurney through devastated Mariupol, only for her and her baby to die shortly afterward, is one of the war’s most distressing and heartrending images.

In 2023, the AP won two Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of the war in Ukraine, earning recognition for its breaking news photography as well as the prestigious public service award for its exclusive dispatches from Mariupol.

Earlier this year, AP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol,” a harrowing first-person account of the early days of Russia’s invasion, won the best documentary Oscar.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine