Working for nearly 37 years as a professional photographer in Wisconsin, Brian Malloy has witnessed a lot of life through a camera lens. But he also knows some things just have to be seen unfiltered, with your own eyes.
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It’s why, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, he felt he had to do something – anything – to help. Two months later, he was in the refugee center of Przemyśl, Poland, overtaken by the grim faces of Ukrainians fleeing Russian bombs and missiles.
“I could see a lot of panic in the eyes of the refugees,” he recalls. “The town was overwhelmed with people just looking for a place to sit, to rest.”
After a stint at the World Central Kitchen relief operation, he began transporting refugees using a small bus on which he spelled out “No War” in orange tape. His first trip lasted until that June.
This May, Malloy returned, joining a volunteer operation in Lviv, western Ukraine, that makes camouflage netting to hide camps and machinery from bombers and drones. He went to help, not to photograph – though he did capture some powerful images of the people affected by the war.
“I fell in love with all of them,” Malloy says of the many Ukrainians he met, so steadfast in their will to survive bottomless trauma. “These people are just crazy resilient. Nobody seemed to know what the next hour would bring.”
