“Every Ukrainian photographer wants to take the photo that will stop the war.” Maxime Lavin, 41-year-old Ukrainian photojournalist, used to repeat this phrase, it was his way of explaining that flame that burns and pushes you to always go a little further: one more kilometer, one more testimony, an image in addition, to look reality in the face and tell it. Even the most atrocious such as war, to expose its horrors. The end of this conflict, which for over a month has inflamed his country, Maxime will not get to see it. With two fatal blows, “Levin was assassinated by soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces,” said the Institute of Media of Ukraine, citing the State Attorney General.
On the other hand, there is no news of Maxime Lavin’s travel companion and colleague, photographer Oleksiy Chernyshov. The two arrived in Huta Mezhyhirska, in the Kiev region, on March 13 to document the consequences of the Russian aggression. They had left the car they were traveling in and headed for the village of Moshchun. At that point, however, communications had stopped, while news of fighting in the area was chasing each other. The silence for over two weeks, broken today by the confirmation of the chilling suspicion: “On April 1, after extensive searches around the village of Huta Mezhyhirska in the Kiev region, the police found the lifeless body of Maxim Levin”, writes in morning Ukrinform citing the Ukrainian newspaper for which Levin worked, the LB.ua. Levin was born on 7 July 1981 in the Kiev region, he had also collaborated with a large number of international newspapers including Reuters, Ap and Bbc. A photojournalist and documentary maker, most of his projects were dedicated to the war in Ukraine. But many of his activities were also for humanitarian purposes, linked to international organizations such as WHO, Unicef ​​and OSCE. He leaves behind four young children, his wife and parents.
He is the sixth journalist killed in Ukraine since the war began on February 24, according to reports from Reporters Sans Frontieres. At least 35 were wounded according to the head of human rights of the Ukrainian parliament, Lyudmila Denisova, while the trace of Oleh Baturin was lost in Kherson, a city in the hands of Russian forces, suspected of kidnapping him. The dramatic list includes Oksana Baulina, a video journalist for the independent site The Insider, who was killed in a bombing on March 23 while filming the destruction caused by the launch of rockets on a shopping center in the Podolsky district. Brent Renaud, US journalist shot dead in Irpin on March 13. Pierre Zakrzewski, Fox News camera operator, and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra ‘Sasha’ Kuvshynova, killed on March 14 in Horenka. Viktor Dedov, a Ukrainian journalist who died on 11 March in Mariupol in the bombing of his apartment. He was one of the most important operators of the Ukrainian television station Sigma-TV. He was home when two bombs hit his apartment. The family could not bury the reporter because another grenade caused a fire in the house four days after the first explosions. Yevheniy Sakun, Ukrainian Live TV cameraman killed on 1st March during a missile attack on the TV tower in Kiev The family could not bury the reporter because another grenade caused a fire in the house four days after the first explosions. Yevheniy Sakun, Ukrainian Live TV cameraman killed on 1st March during a missile attack on the TV tower in Kiev The family could not bury the reporter because another grenade caused a fire in the house four days after the first explosions. Yevheniy Sakun, Ukrainian Live TV cameraman killed on 1st March during a missile attack on the TV tower in Kiev
