Perous Secret Diary - Keep Out

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Vyacheslav Andriichuk

started with another WEM training day for medics in Lviv

and then me and mark split to visit a trauma hospital where there are people injured by the war, from all over the country

this trip, me and mark were hoping to get to a stage 2 hospital NEAR the frontline

where it was my intention to photograph injured soldiers who had been treated with the trauma medicine and equipment that WEM had sent out there

and to photograph the medics treating the injured soldiers

but despite our best efforts to arrange this, it was not possible

it was too dangerous and nobody would support this endeavour, especially as the russians have been targeting field hospitals where injured soldiers are taken from the 'red zone' to be stabilised

targeting hospitals is against the Geneva convention

so is targeting civilians and medics

so is raping children and torturing people before murdering them.

i thought i was going to be photographing soldiers

soldiers though are expected to be injured or killed

maybe it's more shocking to meet and hear about innocent civilians who were caught in the invasion and horror?

Vyacheslav is 48

he's from the Severodoneck Donbas region

he was going to a shelter and got caught by artillery

he lost his wife and doesn't know if his relatives are still alive.

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Maxim Savchenko Mykolaiv

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Maxim is from South Ukraine

he is 35 years old

he was a chef

one night he got up to pee, as his house was struck with missiles

killing his girlfriend and blowing half off both his legs.

he managed to use makeshift tourniquets to prevent himself from bleeding out

and was found in the mud outside his house by a military medic on patrol the next morning

it was almost a blessing that I couldn't speak to these guys in Ukrainian because I wouldn't know what to say

I wanted to say what amazing eyes he has and how handsome he was but I would have expected him to say, 'yeah great: ive had both my feet blown off'

it felt like maxim was trying to smile for my photos: literally putting brave face on

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Artem Smirnoff

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Artem is a 37yr old labourer

he's from the Pokrovsk Doneck region

he was caught by artillery barrage in the street

now he has half a foot and half a leg

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i'm sorry if you find these photographs as hard to look at, as i found to take

civilians are getting maimed and killed EVERY day in ukraine

if the russians didnt start this, there would be no war

if the russians stopped, the war would stop

we need to help STOP PUTIN and the 'fucking russians' doing his beyond-dirty work

Perous Secret Diary - Keep Out: June 13, 2022