Victor Pinchuk Foundation opened the Russian War Crimes Exhibition during Informal YES Gathering in Kyiv

24th February 2023, Kyiv – The Victor Pinchuk Foundation and the PinchukArtCentre in partnership with the Office of the President of Ukraine presented the Russian War Crimes exhibition during Informal YES Gathering One Year – Stay in The Fight. The exhibition shows the documented Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine, providing evidence of the horrific reality of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

Russian War Crimes exhibition brings stories of Russia’s crimes against the Ukrainian people and begins with an extensive map of Ukraine that indicates all independently verified war crimes and victims registered to date. The exhibition continues with a series of documentary photographs taken from all regions of Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. They depict images of atrocities accompanied by individual accounts describing these crimes. While addressing only a fraction of known brutal and inhuman crimes, these photographs transform anonymous statistics into real identities, affording some victims a posthumous platform to have their silenced voices heard.

At the center of the exhibition, a monumental video installation combines thousands of verified photographs as evidence of war crimes, created in cooperation with leading contemporary Ukrainian artist, Oleksii Say. While the images pulse on the screen, audio clips of Russian soldiers, boasting of their atrocities on intercepted telephone calls, are heard in the background. 

The exposition is extended with film works by Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei from recently liberated Kherson, showing the threats and suffering resulting from the Russian siege. 

Ultimately, Russian War Crimes demonstrates the systematic iniquities against civilians which have been central to Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

First presented during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, the project called Russian War Crimes House was located in the former Russia House at Davos. The exhibition became instrumental in bringing attention to the atrocities committed by Russians in Ukraine, and to the efforts to bring to justice those who committed the crimes.

To keep the focus on the continuously growing crimes, the exhibition was since shown in the European Parliament in Brussels, the British Parliament, during the UN general assembly in New York and in NATO Headquarters. It traveled back to Davos in January 2023 as part of a larger project entitled Ukraine is You. This project was most recently presented at the Munich Security Conference. 

With every iteration, new crimes came to light and with it the exhibition changed.

Special thanks to the Ukraine 5 AM Coalition for providing information on war crimes.

The Russian War Crimes is organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and PinchukArtCentre in partnership with the Office of the President of Ukraine, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the Ukrainian association of professional photographers.

Curated by Björn Geldhof, Artistic Director of the PinchukArtCentre and Ksenia Malykh, Head of the PinchukArtCentre Research Platform.

Official website: www.russianwarcrimeshouse.org

Video from the exhibition opening and discussion panels are available on the YouTube channel @PinchukFoundation 

Photos are available at https://yes-ukraine.org/