On April 26th, 1986, a number of wrong decisions have lead to greatest nuclear disaster of mankind. In the aftermath more than 200,000 people had be evacuated, 50,000 people alone from the town of Pripyat. This reportage explores the aftermath 35 years after the catastrophe, exploring the Nuclear Power Plant Chernobyl with its four different units (including infamous control room 4, where the fatal decisions happened). It also explores abandoned towns, the ghost-town of Pripyat. There are portraits of one of the last resettlers, elderly people who decided to live in the Zone.

abandoned supermarket in Pripyat.

Posters and billboards for the May, 1st parade were stored inside a building in Pripyat and are still visible 35 years after the nuclear disaster.

An abandoned car in front of Pripyats firestation where the first emergency calls were received following the explosion of Reactor one inside the Nuclear Power Plant Chernobyl.

Thousands of vehicles have been used during the intense cleanup following the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. All the vehicles were extremly contaminated. There were different graveyards, some of them have been illeagally stripped for scrap metal, others were later buried in the ground. This image is taken in a vehicle-graveyard next to the firestation in Pripyat.

The abandoned town of Pripyat.

Thousands of vehicles have been used during the intense cleanup following the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. All the vehicles were extremly contaminated. There were different graveyards, some of them have been illeagally stripped for scrap metal, others were later buried in the ground. This image is taken in a vehicle-graveyard next to the firestation in Pripyat.

Thousands of vehicles have been used during the intense cleanup following the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. All the vehicles were extremly contaminated. There were different graveyards, some of them have been illeagally stripped for scrap metal, others were later buried in the ground. This image is taken in a vehicle-graveyard next to the firestation in Pripyat.

Salcininkai, Lithuania’s Polish and Russian-speaking city is only five kilometers from Belarus. In the backdrop of ‘Zapad 2017’ military exercises across the border, Lithuanian government government has finger-pointed at the the substantial Russian-speaking minority for being susceptible to separatism, and held multiple military exercises in the region.

In turn, however, they have demonised the vulnerable population, suffering from depopulation and social exclusion.

In April, 2017, unannounced snap drills in the area became the center of controversy. Armed men in military fatigues took over the local police station and institutions with little resistance from the unprepared security forces. Political fallout from these exercises continue to this day.

Additionally, the voting patterns in Salcininkai and Lithuanian peripheries along the 670 kilometer border with Belarus are firmly with the pro-Kremlin, Polish minority party.

I visited the area to speak to the local people, who are mostly ignored in the public discourse, and explore some of the underlying issues in the region.

Some layouts of Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad with my photostories from war-torn Eastern Ukrain, Donbass.

February, 2017. The front line town Avdiivka, Donetsk region, has been the epicenter of a recent escalation in fighting. At least eight civilians died here in January alone, as the humanitarian crisis worsened with heating and electricity cut off. Temperatures dropped to -8 degrees at night in unheated buildings. This hole was left by artillery fire in 2014, and a home of a local man — who didn’t want to be named — was completely destroyed in February.

Oksana Sidorenko leaves her frontline home in Marinka. Trenches are less than 100 meters away and her home gets routinely sprayed with shrapnel.

Apartment block destroyed by a Grad rocket-artillery in Marinka, Donetsk region. The building was destroyed in the early stages of the war, in 2014.

Pavel Chistokletov is the head of a local construction crew in Marinka. His own apartment was destroyed in the shelling.

Destroyed apartment block in Marinka, Donetsk region. Pavel's apartment can be seen on the first floor. Graffiti reads in Russian: "What for?"

Yura Nogin repairs war-damaged buildings in Marinka, where he now lives with Oksana Sidorenko, whom he met while serving with an artillery detachment in the town.

An apartment under complete refurbishment in Marinka, Donetsk region.

Oksana Sidorenko smokes in front of her home. Metal plate is bolted to the living room window; shrapnel holes have punctured some other windows in the house.

An apartment block destroyed by artillery fire in Marinka. A U.N.-funded program tears down badly-damaged apartment blocks to be rebuilt, while those with only moderate damage are refitted by local construction crews.

Oksana's neighbour receives fire extuingusher supplied by international volunteers. Because of it, a number of house fires were later extuingished, when set alight by shrapnel. "Bullets missed twice when repairing something on the roof," she added.

Oksana Sidorenko, Artiom’s mother, sprints across a sniper corridor in Marinka in the Donetsk region. Reminiscent of scenes from the siege of Sarajevo, residents must sprint across a street, as Russian-backed separatists continue to fire from positions directly in front. So far, two civilians have been hit, two soldiers killed and many more have experienced near-misses, according to locals.

February, 2017. Child runs past sandbagged windows in a frontline school in Marinka, Donetsk region. Signposts on the wall direct the children to an underground bunker, where they routinely have to hide from artillery shelling. Additional coloured stickers indicate if the wall is safe to hide behind, if artillery shelling takes place.

February, 2017. Yura Nogin repairs war-damaged buildings in Marinka, Donesk region, where he now lives with Oksana Sidorenko, whom he met while serving with an artillery detachment in the town.

Oksana's son Artiom, 14, watches a film inside his front line home in Marinka in the Donetsk region. Just 10 minutes earlier, a fragment of a shell fell in the backyard. The house is dotted with bullet holes from a sniper position directly opposite. The separatist positions are less than 300 meters away and the Ukrainian military are 50 meters away.

February, 2017. A Ukrainian marine sits inside a makeshift dining hall near Mariupol in Donetsk region. The Ukrainian military has experienced significant levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, which goes largely untreated.

February, 2017. A lone civilian walks on a road near Marinka in the Donetsk region, which has seen near-constant heavy fighting in the last three years. With key infrastructure and transport links destroyed, civilians are often trapped between the front lines

Destroyed industrial building in Luhansk region, September, 2016.

Donbass steppes in Luhansk region, September, 2016.

September, 2016. Konstantine Zarubin sits in his grandparents' home - two floors below the home of his best friend, Edek. In 2014, Edek was killed by a landmine as the boys climbed in a quarry. When trying to seek psychological support, his school headmaster called Konstantine 'weak'.

September, 2016. Pavel Albulov shows the deep scar in the center of his forehead, left behind after a booby-trap went off after opening the door to a house in Troitske, Luhansk region. He went inside to feed the animals left behind by the fleeing neighbours.

A team from the Ukrainian Army recovers the remains of a soldier killed in action from a grave in a field near the city of Debaltsevo. The remains are moved to a facility where DNA testing is carried out to determine the soldier’s identity. Once an identity is confirmed the remains are turned over to family members.

Completed over the course of three trips to Ukraine in 2014/15, this multimedia piece explores the heavy silence of war - away from the war porn of frontline fighting and Western-Russain power plays. With Ukraine slipping back into the corrupt era of Yanukovich, the anxious wait for reforms, true independence and peace continues.

“Exit,” Semyonovka Psychiatric Hospital.

Shells land 20 kilometers away. Four months later, in January 2016, a separatist rocket attack a few blocks away kills 30 civilians.

Separatists’ diversionary raid on a railway bridge leaves passenger trains stranded in Mariupol, Donetsk region. After many months of idleness, the bridge was finally repaired.

[Radio chatter] Separatist positions report ‘111’ – ‘All clear’. Other call signs are ‘110’ – we’re being attacked; and ‘112’ – We’re attacking. It is believed, that the previously stationed Chechens and Don Cossacks have been replaced with regular Russian military combatants.

Ukrainian street musicians perform a song by a
Russian rock band, ‘Splin’

I want to fall asleep and never wake up
go away into the sea and not come back
or come back, but together

With you so much more interesting
with you so many interesting things around
and not even tight (suffocating)

Without the squares, railway stations, stops
without all these civilisations

One more sip - and we’re on fire
on one, two, three

Burn with fire, your third Rome
catch my rhythm
and dance, dance, dance, dance

The patrol passes along the village streets, dotted by drunk civilians and military personnel – a sign not so uncommon even before the war. Somewhere in the vicinity, a high ranking Ukrainian officer was assaulted and kidnapped with his armed escort a week before.

Musicians play in Kyiv metro, September, 2015.

Sergei sits during night watch on the Permovaisk frontline, prepping his gun at the slightest noise in the distance; remains of an exploded 80mm mortar shell is a few meters away. In the morning, his face bathes in the warmth of a late summer’s sunrise.

“What a beautiful day, we all woke up alive.”

Sergei died on September 23rd during a skirmish, one day before he was due to return home.