He photographed Ukraine, then enlisted and died defending it at 27. Eleven years on, Viktor Hurniak’s story is still being told

Viktor Hurniak was a Ukrainian photojournalist who worked for UNIAN, a major Ukrainian news outlet, and for Reuters, and co-founded the LUFA photo agency, according to Ukrainska Pravda. He joined the fight in the Russo-Ukrainian war in September 2014. Russia killed him on 19 October that year near the village of Smile in Luhansk Oblast, as he helped evacuate wounded soldiers under mortar fire.

Since the Russo-Ukrainian war began in 2014, Ukrainian media workers have been killed while reporting, as civilians, and after joining the armed forces.

From photographer to volunteer

Hurniak had been photographing since he was 14. He started at the Ternopil newspaper 20 Khvylyn, and UNIAN picked up his work after he happened onto a fire on Crimea’s Ai-Petri in 2007.

By summer 2014, Viktor was raising money and finding helmets, body armor, clothing, and vehicles for Ukrainian troops, often delivering the supplies himself. His network and ability to source equipment earned him the callsign Oligarch among Aidar soldiers.

On one trip to Italy, Viktor, his father Petro, and friends returned with 550 helmets.

Friends, including Vitalii Derekh, tried to persuade him not to go further. They argued that he was more useful finding equipment than carrying a rifle.

Hurniak answered: “Well, I want to fight.”

In September 2014, he joined Aidar’s 24th territorial defense battalion.

His decision did not make him more distant from his family. Olesia Yedynak-Khoma recalled that after joining the battalion, he contacted them more often, sent photographs, and shared more about what was happening in Donbas. He told his sister Olia that there was “real life” in Donbas and that he had found sincere people and a strong sense of brotherhood there.

The day Russia killed him

On 19 October 2014, Hurniak was helping evacuate wounded soldiers from checkpoint 32 on the Bakhmutka road near the village of Smile in Luhansk Oblast when mortar fire hit. He was killed by shrapnel.

Viktor was 27. His daughter Yustyna was two.

Seven years later, Ukraine posthumously named Viktor Hurniak a Hero of Ukraine and awarded him the Golden Star.

His photographs were later exhibited in Poland, Estonia, Germany, and the United States, including at the European Parliament in an exhibition titled “Donbas: War and Peace.”

His story continues

Writer Iryna Vovk's Viktor Hurniak, published by Folio in its "True Heroes" series, was presented at a memorial festival in his home region in October 2025 and in Ternopil in January 2026, 11 years after his death. The book is built from the recollections of his family and friends.

Olesia Yedynak-Khoma, one of Hurniak’s friends, founded a scholarship in his memory at the Ukrainian Catholic University’s School of Journalism and Communications.

The question Hurniak once asked himself later became a guiding phrase for his sister Olia:

“What have you done for victory?”

He had already given his own answer. Urged to keep sourcing equipment rather than carry a rifle, he said he wanted to fight, and in September 2014 he went.