2015 Photo Contest, Spot News, 2nd prize

Final Fight for Maidan

Photographer

Jérôme Sessini

Magnum Photos for De Standaard

19 February, 2014

Anti-government protesters, during clashes with Ukrainian police on the Maidan.

Protests broke out in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in November 2013, after President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a trade deal with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia. Thousands of pro-European supporters gathered on the city’s Independence Square, known as the Maidan, in an occupation that would last for months.

Ongoing violence hit a peak on 18 February. Over the next three days, more than 70 people, both protestors and law enforcers, were killed by gunfire, with each side blaming the other for starting the shooting. President Yanukovych fled the country on 21 February, and the pro-European Petro Poroshenko was elected Ukraine’s new president in May.

About the photographer

Jérôme Sessini

He initiates his own practice, shooting people, landscapes, and daily lives of those around his native Eastern France (with Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Mark Cohen in mind). Ses...

Technical information

Shutter Speed
1/125
Focal length
50 mm
F-Stop
5.6
ISO
100
Camera
Canon EOS 5D Mark II

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