A more diverse World Press Photo takes the pulse of the world

This project, photographed between 2013 and 2021, looks at the long-term context that led to war in Ukraine in 2022. Tensions between the country's eastern and western regions rose in 2014, when Kremlin-backed forces occupied the Crimean peninsula and separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk they established self-proclaimed people's republics, a status not officially recognized by most of the international community.

Tensions continued, and in April 2021 Russia began increasing its military strength on Ukrainian borders. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward a series of security demands, including a permanent ban on Ukraine's NATO membership, intensifying the previously volatile situation. On February 21, 2022, President Putin formally recognized the independence of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR). Three days later, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In this photo, women make camouflage kits for snipers at the Novy Mariupol Center, an organization that collects supplies for Ukrainian soldiers, Mariupol, Ukraine, September 26, 2014.