‘Russians Were Bringing Bodies Every Night’ | Developing News

the protesters were scattering from the police but several of them had been caught these police in particular they were called Raptors they would hog tie these protesters [Music] I'm Nicole Tung and I'm a photojournalist over the past year I've been working in Ukraine back in early September 2022 the Ukrainian military was launching a counter-offensive to retake towns that were captured by the Russians as soon as Ukraine manages to retake a place the war crimes investigations begin I just saw these men standing in these blue gowns on a few of their faces there's this look of just incomprehension of trying to weigh or understand the task that was ahead of them what was behind me at that time were unmarked Graves one of the residents was talking about how she saw the Russians bringing bodies to the grave site every night even without the graves having been opened you could smell hundreds of people and bodies that had you know been decaying for for months now it was so somber I can't even find all the words to really describe it but it was just this heaviness that weighed on everybody very shortly after this they started digging [Music] this picture was of the investigators pulling out one of the coffins this was a little bit unusual because most of the bodies that were exhumed were not put into coffins there were suspicions that a lot of the people had been executed so we were looking for signs of people who had maybe their arms tied behind their backs or bullet wounds to the head and things like that in the background you see police who have pieces of paper and cameras and bags for evidence or personal effects there is so much paperwork involved to try and investigate war crimes and bring hopefully the perpetrators to justice that is not an easy feat there's still an active war going on just a couple of hundred meters away basically foreign this photo is of investigators loading bodies into a refrigerated truck it was from a supermarket chain actually that I guess they had asked to borrow so that they could transport the bodies to morgues in different parts of Ukraine this person hadn't been identified he or she was just identified by a number 405. in the end it took them two to three weeks to exhume more than 400 bodies [Music] foreign this image was taken near a town called Limon which at that time was still being occupied by Russian forces the only separation between us and somewhere near the front line was this River I just started photographing while the Ukrainian soldiers were disembarking from the speedboat they brought this man to the front and he had what looks like a dish towel tied around his head with some packing tape and as soon as they pulled him off the boat they were questioning him apparently he was collecting firewood but according to the Ukrainian soldiers he was a Russian spy this moment talks about the ambiguity that exists near the front lines the fog of War where you don't know who is Friend or Foe [Music] these photographs were taken in Western Ukraine and it's of a prisoner of war camp holding Russian prisoners many of them had belonged to the Wagner Group which is a notorious paramilitary group fighting on the Russian side what was interesting to me was the little details that were in the prison itself there's so much Ukrainian paraphernalia on the walls there's a Ukrainian map which shows that Crimea is also part of Ukraine and Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 and all along here were portraits of former Ukrainian leaders and Fighters this Photograph was of one of the prisoners he was recruited from prison in Russia to fight in Ukraine he was talking about how evgeny pagosian who's the head of Wagner had come to the prison and flown there in a helicopter and proceeded to kind of give this whole speech to the prisoners people were promised reduced prison sentences or clean slates but in reality according to this one prisoner it was just really brutal because a lot of them were thrown in waves of attacks towards Ukrainian positions and were treated as cannon fodder but were also threatened with execution if they weren't following orders so you know there was this whole system of brutality there was only one room where we could speak to the prisoners and it really wasn't very much around it so I kind of pulled this curtain across and surely enough it's like some Japanese garden and it just provides this incongruity to the image of this very hardened prisoner Soldier and this gentleness of a of a of a lake my family's from Hong Kong I grew up in Hong Kong I was born there and I consider it still my home so when the protests started I felt really compelled to go back these protests at first were about an extradition build which would mean that people would stand trial in China what this meant for people in Hong Kong was that there would be very unfair trials because of the way the judicial system is in China people were protesting about not just the extradition Bill there was a lot at stake this was during one pretty heated day most protesters didn't want to be identified by the police they were wearing gas masks and goggles and helmets and they would have these quite brilliant tactics to deal with tear gas and also rubber bullets they would put a cover over the where the tear gas canister had landed so it wouldn't Propel more gas into the air or they would immediately go and throw them back so you see one tear gas canister flying back towards the police lines it was quite difficult to photograph because I had to wear a gas mask then you're running around trying to avoid the tear gas canisters flying your way by the police I did get hit once and it caused quite a bit of a bruise [Music] so this picture was of the protesters launching a brick towards the police using an exercise band so it was quite a remarkable scene to witness because it just looks slightly apocalyptic people were wearing these funny yellow helmets and goggles they were up against so much Firepower from the police as far as like tear gas and rubber bullets when you really had the most willing protesters up at the front because they were the ones who were willing to be hurt and injured [Music] this Photograph was of a mass arrest Happening by the police in Hong Kong the protesters were scattering from the police but several of them had been caught and these police in particular they were called Raptors by the protesters they would hog tie these protesters this guy has his hands tied behind him I saw a few of them being beaten with batons and in a few rare cases police would pull out their guns as well to aim at protesters all of this of course was being recorded by the police so they would have people's faces on the record so these protests went on for days on end until the coveted pandemic hit and not just the government in Hong Kong but many governments around the world used covid as a way to stifle dissent it is really hard to confront some of the things that happen in a war or even a protest but it's so necessary it's important to have these pictures as a historical document but also if these pictures can kind of bring people together because of what they're witnessing hopefully it'll serve some tiny little purpose [Music]

Channel: VICE News

Views: 1,664,201

Keywords: Ukraine, Russia, Ukraine Russia, Ukraine War, War, Putin, Wagner, wagner group, Russia News, Ukraine News, war photography, war photographer analysis, war photographer, breaking news, russia wagner, vladimir putin, russia war, russia news, russia war today, nicole tung photographer, Nicole Tung, Mass Graves Ukraine, Mass grave, Russian Prison, Russian Prisoners, Russian Spy, VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2023, Developing News

Id: 2v1TlMJxHwY

Length: 9min 38sec (578 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 29 2023