A Ukrainian photographer has contributed to a website which allows people to immersively walk the war-torn streets of his country and compare them before and after the Russian invasion, in the hope it will highlight the “terrible” reality of the destruction caused. The Undeniable Street View was launched on the one-year anniversary of Russia launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – February 24 – and is the first war zone presented in Street View and made from more than 100km of raw Street View footage.
It has been shot by Ukrainian photography experts on the ground, including Mykola Omelchenko, whose project called War Up Close played a pivotal role in The Undeniable Street View’s existence. War Up Close shows people the extent of the continued destruction in Ukraine through 360 degree images, virtual tours and global exhibits and was made with Discover.ua and FreegenGroup.
Mr Omelchenko – who specialises in 360 degree photography and became the first Ukrainian certified Google photographer in 2016 – said that the idea behind War Up Close came about as a means of showing the true destruction caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “When the war started, the pictures that we started to see of the war in the news and on Telegram channels were depressive and scary,” the 47-year-old, who lives in Kyiv, told the PA news agency.
