Lynsey Addario: “They Were Killed Before Our Eyes”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, with all the politics and all the rhetoric, actually documenting war is essential for those around the world to bear witness and for the history books. And a warning that coming up, you’re about to see an image of the disturbing reality of war. “New York Times”, Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario has covered every major conflict in humanitarian crisis of her generation. In Kyiv, she captured an image will shock the world and it’s become one of the defining images of this war. A mother, her two children, and a friend killed by Russian mortar fire when fleeing Irpin, a village on the outskirts of the Capital Kyiv. In a week where four journalists have been killed covering the Ukraine war, she joins Hari Sreenivasan to explain what it means to actually witness history.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Lynsey Addario, thanks so much for joining us now. As we tape this conversation, a curfew that had been imposed on Kyiv had just lifted and you’ve been out there reporting. What have you seen?

LYNSEY ADDARIO, PHOTOJOURNALIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, we — this morning we woke up to the similar sounds of explosions. So, we found out that pieces of a rocket used to shoot down a Russian cruise missile had landed on top of a building in East Kyiv. So, we went over there, and, again, more lives destroyed. More people’s homes totally decimated. People displaced. There were dozens of people being loaded onto buses in the freezing cold of the morning. We went up into the building, met with some families who were trying to collect whatever they could, salvage family photos, whatever they possibly could from destroyed apartments. When I came out of the building that was hit by the piece of rocket, I — there was a man leaning over a victim, and there was a white sheet over the victim, bloodied. And he just was leaning over — you could not see his face. At one moment I think he was almost holding hands or just touching the victim. And he didn’t move for about 15 minutes. And he just wept. And it was the most — I think it was so devastating, because it was — he was just motionless along with the victim. And it was this moment where — of goodbye, it seemed, and then he just got up and kind of walked about 15 feet away from us, and just put his hands to his face and you can see his body convulsing from the back. And he was limping. So, I imagine he was injured as well in the mornings’ attack and then continued on. And it’s just like, this is another life destroyed. And it just keeps happening every single day.

SREENIVASAN: You have covered so many different conflicts before. Is there something that sticks out to you about what’s been happening over the past few weeks that you’ve been here?

ADDARIO: I mean, look, war is horrific. You know, I mean, to me all wars have similarities and all wars have differences. You knew — you see the most-evil in humanity but you also see the most incredible generosity and kindness that comes out in people when they are vulnerable and when they are at their most vulnerable moments. So, those things are similar across the board in most conflicts, for me. I think in Ukraine, the difference is this is a war that we sort of watched unfold in real-time and no one could stop it. And so, everyone was sort of incredulous when it actually began when Russians entered a sovereign country and just started bombarding civilians. I think, you know, it’s not often that you witness the intentional targeting of civilians that is so obvious that there is absolutely no denying it. And so, I think that is rare. I’ve covered conflicts before where I hear both sides of a story and people are trying to tell their narrative to me as a journalist. And, you know, but I have to be on the ground and do the proper reporting. This is a case where we are watching civilians be deliberately targeted. Really innocent people just uprooting their lives and fleeing more than, I think, two million people have fled already from Ukraine in a very short time. So, things are happening very, very quickly as well.

SREENIVASAN: I want to go over a couple of the images that we have probably seen in “New York Times” or maybe even on your Instagram recently. One of them became quite famous. And it was really kind of an intense image that, you know, viewer discretion advised before we put this on the screen. But it was an image of people who had just been victims, and they’ve been killed. And it was a very rare decision by “The Times” to publish this as you saw it above the fold on the newspaper.

ADDARIO: Yes. I mean, I — I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I know well that just because I’ve taken an image doesn’t mean it will be published. And this was the situation where I went to the civilian evacuation route out of Irpin, it’s a suburb of Kyiv. And I thought I was going to photograph civilians fleeing. Images that we had seen in the media. It was a very well-documented, well-known evacuation route. And as soon as I got there, there was incoming artillery and it was sort of bracketed on to the evacuation route. It started further away, got closer and closer. We were pinned down a lot of the time. I kept diving for cover with my colleague, Andriy Dubchak, and the security advisor for “The New York Times”. And eventually a mortar — I think a mortar round or a tank round landed between me and the family. It was a mother and two children and church volunteer who were killed — ultimately killed in — before our eyes. And, you know, after those initial moments, it was very chaotic. It was very dusty. Very emotional, of course, because we were trying to figure out if we were injured ourselves. There’s a moment in the video where I ask Andriy if I was bleeding in the neck, because I felt the spray of gravel all over my neck. And I didn’t know if it was shrapnel or gravel. And so, when we were able to run across the street, I — we came upon these four bodies lying, sort of, almost as if they were spooning with their luggage. And the little boy, the — I think the daughter or the son with the backpack still on their back. You know, it just was so — it was almost vulgar the way that they were killed before our eyes, these very innocent civilians. And so, you know, once I photograph an image like that, it then goes to “The New York Times”. I send it to “The New York Times” and they have to make the very hard decision of whether to publish that image. And this was a case where I’m so grateful that they were so brave and took the stand to publish it, knowing that they were civilians deliberately targeted.

SREENIVASAN: Do you think that we should see everything you see, or do you think that —

ADDARIO: Well —

SREENIVASAN: — we should be shielded a little?

ADDARIO: I don’t think that people should see everything that I see, because I see a lot of things that I think most people couldn’t process. But I do think, in a situation like this image, it was not too graphic. It was not too bloody. There was — it was a situation where I witnessed the entire event unfolding, so I could give the back story. It was civilians deliberately being targeted on the days when President Putin was saying he was not targeting civilians. So, I think the time was essential. I think the fact that I witnessed the runup, and the fact that it wasn’t too photographic. Yes, it was a horrible decision that the paper and that the editors had to make of whether to put an image out before they knew if the family members knew, and before — you know, there are — there’s a lot involved in these decisions. But I think, ultimately, everyone agreed, and Sergey (ph), the husband and father of those two children, and the husband of Tatiana, his wife, agreed that that image needed to be seen. That the world needed to see what was happening in Ukraine. And so, that also, you know, really helped in terms of justifying our decision. Not that we need justification as journalists. But for me as a mother, and for me as a wife, and for me as a photographer, it is reassuring to know that he understood exactly why that image was important. I think one other point that’s really important is, you know, I have two kids, I have a 10-year-old and an almost three-year-old. And my 10-year-old plays very violent video games sometimes that we, obviously, try to stop him from playing. But I think — and the movies that are out in the public are so violent and graphic that I, myself as a war photographer, can’t watch most of what comes out of Hollywood. And so, it’s interesting to me that those movies are palatable and those video games are acceptable in society, but reality is not. You know, why is that okay? Why is it okay that we have such a violent society, and we have films and tv shows that are people killing each other left and right. But the reality no one wants to see. And so, why is that? Because we need to see this reality so we can act on it.

SREENIVASAN: Some of the images that you made in Kyiv that I want to touch on. One is just an incredibly poignant one of, I think two or three children in a train, and one of them has a teddy bear. And they have very different looks in their eyes. And while you’re making that image, when you just said to me, that you’re still — you know, you’re a mom of two, you can see your own children in there. And yet, there are thousands and thousands of women and children who are getting on these trains and leaving their loved ones behind.

ADDARIO: Yes. I mean, it’s — yes, every single day is just filled with devastation. And, you know, for every one of these families that’s being torn apart. I mean, an image that I keep seeing over and over is a father or a husband saying goodbye to his wife or his partner, and the children. And putting them on trains and sending them West, because most of the men are staying to fight. Some of the women are staying to fight. But the immediate — the immediate sort of goal is to just get your family, get your children to safety. So. most people are just, sort of, throwing themselves on any train they can get on moving West. And so, often you see this, sort of, lonely father or a husband just standing on the tracks as the train pulls away, crying, but trying not to cry because, of course, he — you know, everyone feels a bit of shame for feeling so emotional. But it’s happening every day and you see these lonely men on the tracks watching their wives and children depart.

SREENIVASAN: You also made an image of, I think, three or four women sitting in a van with rifles, kind of. getting at the ready. And it was just a different type of faces that were there. But, you know, I looked at that, I didn’t see the caption, but these could have been your schoolteachers, your nurses, you know, CEOs. I don’t know. But they didn’t look like people who, were by any stretch of the imagination, you know, professional soldiers.

ADDARIO: Yes. And they were not. I mean, in fact, we were trying to get access to this base of volunteers. It was in the first few days of the war. There was this mass mobilization of civilians offering themselves up to fight. And then I saw, as we were waiting for permission to this base, I saw, sort of a gaggle of women that were maybe six, and they all had guns in their hand, but they were still behind the fence. And we were waiting and waiting for permission, and finally it came through. But in that time, they were transported to this van. So, when we got the permission, we ran on to the van, and I started shooting. And then I paused, and I said, you know, do you speak English? And the woman said, yes. I said, what’s your name? My name is, Julia. I’m a teacher. And she started crying. And I was shooting. And I said, why are you crying? And she said, I’m crying for my country. And I said, are you crying because you’re scared? And she said, I’m crying because I’m scared, but I’m crying for my country. And you realize, like, you know, the beauty of Ukrainians is that they — there is no hesitation. They have come out. They believe they’ve had a taste of this freedom of democracy. They are out there. There is no turning back. I have not met a single person who doubts giving themselves to this fight. And it’s amazing.

SREENIVASAN: I don’t know how long ago it was, but there’s a shot that you have of a small child, and it looks like it is in, what looks like maybe a makeshift cardboard box/crib, in the middle of a subway car? And, you know, this is at a time when people were taking shelter and refuge underground. And it’s just the — it’s sort of staggering to think that there are literally populations that are, at least at one point, headed underground for physical safety of their families.

ADDARIO: Yes. I mean, there’s an entire, you know, entire swaths of the city are living underground right now. And in most major cities across Ukraine are just — have just shifted underground, because the bombardment, generally, starts — not that it’s quiet all day, but it definitely intensifies at certain points throughout the night. And I think a lot of these families just know they’re safer underground. And so yes, you go underground, and people are on the subway platforms, they’re in the cars. Babies, children living in on the subway cars in boxes. It’s unbelievable. Because these are people who, you know, three weeks ago were living in a completely, you know, absolutely normal lives.

SREENIVASAN: Yes. To your point aboveground, you have an image of an apartment building that just looks basically shirred off. And you have one, I want to say a woman that was in the balcony or what was her balcony, just kind of looking around. And you see just all of the apartments around her are charred probably from the fires that were caused by whatever missile or rocket attack that hit that building. And that doesn’t look like it was a government building by any stretch. It just looks like a residential condo complex.

ADDARIO: No. I mean, residential buildings are being targeted daily now. Every single day for the past, I don’t know, four or five days. We wake up, we hear several apartment buildings that have been targeted. And there’s this rhythm of people, you know, thrust awake in the middle of the night from an attack. Some people are killed. Some people are injured. Collecting whatever belongings, they can. Trying to figure out where they will go next to sleep, you know, there are children, there are elderly. People being rescued by firemen, emergency workers who are unbelievable. So, it’s just this — now it’s just repeating every single day.

SREENIVASAN: I also wonder how the refugees, that you’re seeing today, are perceived and treated by neighboring countries, elsewhere in Europe, versus some of the other war zones that you’ve been to where you realize that some of those refugees are not greeted warmly by the neighboring countries, right? And it —

ADDARIO: I think that’s a great point. I think it’s a really good point. I mean, I covered the Syrian refugee crisis. I’ve covered refugees from Darfur, from South Sudan, from all around the world. I mean, I’ve — you know, if you cover conflict, you cover refugees, because it’s a byproduct. It’s — you know, there is no conflict that doesn’t have a surge of refugees, because civilians all want to save their lives. And I think it is heartbreaking. It’s as wonderful as it is that the world has come together to stand behind Ukraine and welcome Ukrainians across Europe. It’s — it is heartbreaking that the same didn’t happen for Syrian refugees. That there were not the same open arms. There was not the same understanding of the devastation of that conflict. And I think that’s a very important point. Because you know, no one chooses to be a refugee. No one chooses to leave his or her home. You know, it doesn’t — people aren’t going to seek a better life. They’re going to seek safety for their families, for their children, and to live out of a war zone. And I think it’s important for people to use this opportunity to realize that refugees should be welcomed, particularly if there’s ongoing conflict in that country. And it is, you know, it’s not their choice to leave their countries.

SREENIVASAN: What keeps you there? What keeps you doing this?

ADDARIO: I know. I mean, you can ask my mother. She keeps asking, when are you coming home? I, you know, I just believe it’s so important to witness – – to bear witness to this, to document, to provide a document to the world of what’s happening. You know, it’s a great honor to work for “The New York Times” because it’s such an incredible publication that I know is read worldwide. And yes, I just keep thinking that I have more work to do, and I can do better work, and so I haven’t left yet. But, you know, I — at some point, I’ll have to take a break.

SREENIVASAN: How does it affect you when you hear of some of our colleagues who are injured or killed in these places that you’re working?

ADDARIO: I mean, when one of us is killed, it affects all of us. I mean, there — this is a, you know, it’s a very tight community of war correspondents and photographers. And even if we don’t know each other, you know, we’re all doing the same things here. So, it’s — you know, a lot of this is luck. I mean, it’s, you know, some take more risks than others. But more or less, we’re in the same situation, and we’ve covered the same wars for the last 20 years. And I think, you know, we just realize how it could be any one of us. And it’s heartbreaking. And, of course, we think, you know, our condolences to their families and their loved ones and our gratitude for the work that they’re doing, because this is collective work. You know, we each do our part and it creates a picture for the world. And I think, you know, we need each other’s coverage, and it’s tragic.

SREENIVASAN: Lynsey Addario of “The New York Times” joining us from Kyiv tonight. Thanks so much for joining us and thanks for your work.

ADDARIO: Thank you.