There is a huge gap between what we’ve been told in the UK about war in Ukraine and what is really happening here – British documentalist

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Kyiv, January 20, 2016. Mark Neville is a war artist who is planning to create a photobook about war in Ukraine. His big project involves taking photos of Ukrainian soldiers, IDPs and volunteers along with writing stories about them. This will result in his third photobook. “I’m going to send them out to people, especially to the media to give them an accurate picture of what is really happening in Ukraine. There is a huge gap between what is really happening and what we’ve been told in the UK”, stated Mark Neville, British photographer and documentalist at the press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. He already visited military hospital, family homes, and rehabilitation centers. He says he is amazed, how many volunteers there are in Ukraine. “It seems everywhere I go, there are volunteers giving their time and resources to help the troops on frontline”, Mr Neville explained.

Another project Mark is working on is to set up a printing press center in either Lviv or Kyiv to make photobooks like his that will continue telling stories about IDPs. He believes, “their stories aren’t covered in the West. “Not as they should be”.

Mr Neville is also planning to collaborate with the Stopfake.org to take ambiguous photos tell stories that are really behind them. That is the way to fight Russian propaganda and refute lies in Russian press.

Mark Neville was a war artist at Helmand, Afghanistan, where he lived with British army in 2011-2012. He came back with the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from that experience. His story on PTSD resulted in two books about impact every war has on soldiers and other people living through it.

“I’ve sent these books free to prisons, homeless centers, mental health charities – everywhere, where soldiers and veterans who might have been suffering from PTSD and never got treated, might have ended up”, Mr Neville said, explaining that it his way of encouraging people to come forward and get help.

According to Mark Neville, Ukrainian organizations reached out to him and suggested these books to be translated in Ukrainian for soldiers here, in Ukraine.