Kuba Laichter ‘26 and Nikoletta Stoyanova Exhibit their Photography from the Ukrainian Frontline

Award-winning photographers Kuba Laichter ‘26 and Nikoletta Stoyanova, a Ukrainian photographer, shared their work and its accompanying stories at Kulturmarkthalle at their event “Between the Fire and the Camera.” The event was also a fundraiser for their friend and colleague Heorhii Ivanchenko, who lost his leg after being targeted by a Russian FPV drone despite wearing his press vest which identified him as a journalist.

Laichter first went to Ukraine in 2019; “Before the full scale invasion, everything was slower, quieter,” he recalled. During the first few years, he spent most of his time in Ukraine in Avdiivka, a city north of Donetsk which was captured in 2024 and has been under Russian control since. At the time, trenches stretched just a few kilometers from the houses of Avdiivka’s residents.

Laichter describes the full-scale invasion as something that “felt quite inevitable” at the frontline. He went to Kyiv in March 2022, where he witnessed “an endless line of destruction.”

Stoyanova has been capturing Ukraine’s frontline through photography since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. In 2023, she received the Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant. In each Ukrainian city she has travelled to, she has observed the way people get accustomed to war, to its realities and casualties. She describes beautiful natural landscapes interrupted by colonies of dragon’s teeth—pyramid shaped anti-tank obstacles made of reinforced concrete. 

According to Laichter, within war, you can be certain about one thing; the people you like, the people you love, will get hurt and/or die. Many stories he and Stoyanova shared ended in a similar manner; the person photographed has since been seriously injured or killed.

One such casualty was their friend, Ivanchenko, who Stoyanova says is “an example that we are not eternal and that no one is protected.” Both Laichter and Stoyanova consider Ivanchenko a good friend. He taught Laichter about the inner workings of journalism, taught him to go towards the shelling rather than away from it. He guided Stoyanova throughout Bakhmut, where the two met. The fundraiser, collecting funds for his surgeries, treatment, and rehabilitation is still active.

Many of the streets which Laichter photographed lined with bodies and rubble have since been reconstructed. New infrastructure will be built, and people will continue to live in the same places where death once governed. Laichter urges the audience to not forget the atrocities to which the world bears witness: “Remembering is an ethical act that we actively have to engage in.”

By: Hana Trenčanová '28

Post Date: 11-27-2025