World Press Photo accused of promoting Russian propaganda

The publication of the list of the first regional winners of the World Press Photo Award (WPPA) 2025 on March 27 caused a huge uproar. The reason: Moscow photographer Mikhail Tereshchenko, a reporter at Russia's state news agency TASS since 2017, was among the winners of what is probably the most prestigious prize in the field of photojournalism.

Tereshchenko had photographed mass protests in Georgia against the pro-Russian government in December 2024. The protesters were reacting to alleged electoral fraud and calling for the country to chart a pro-European course.

Critics questioned the WPPA's decision to honor a TASS photographer, while photographers from Georgia suffer from repression. Tereshchenko has openly shared Russian propaganda, describing for example in a TASS interview the storming of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in May 2022 as a form of "liberation."

The jury was accused of irresponsibility, a lack of sensitivity and even possible influence by Russian propaganda.

Reflecting the world in pictures

The World Press Photo Award has been presented by the Amsterdam-based foundation of the same name since 1955. In 2025, 59,320 images were submitted by 3,778 photographers from 141 countries.

This includes photographers from Russia and other illiberal countries, as well as photojournalists working for state media. "We do not exclude photographers from any country. While recognizing the realities of state propaganda, we believe even photographers working in places with little press freedom can create meaningful work," the foundation said in a statement.

Expert juries from six regions sifted through these images, with the first round being anonymous to ensure that the entries that make it through to the next round are selected solely on the basis of their visual quality. "With the knowledge of the region they possess, [the experts] are well equipped to place the entries into a cultural, political and social context," said the award website.

More is known from the second round onward — such as the names of the photographers — and in the fourth and final round there is further information on "motivation, the type of project (assignment/personal project) and funding."

Seven winners are chosen per region — three each in the "Single Photo" and "Story" categories and one for "Long Term Project." This makes a total of 42 winners. As is the case every year, there are some lyrical, intimate pictures. Most often, however, photojournalists train their cameras on the world's conflicts and tragedies.

Tereshchenko's photos open to interpretation

One can rule out the possibility that the jurors were not aware of who they were honoring in the "Story" category for the European region. Tereshchenko is renowned for his expressive, drastic imagery at TASS, or the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union. The agency has supplied the world with high-quality images for over 100 years, although these are often far from being journalistically neutral.

Tereshchenko has been reporting from eastern Ukraine since 2015, also as an "embedded" correspondent for the Russian armed forces. He was present during the storming of Mariupol in 2022, and submitted his pictures for the World Press Photo Award at the time.

In 2024, however, Tereshchenko was not on the Ukrainian-Russian front, but in Georgia. Here, on behalf of TASS, he documented the clashes between mainly young, pro-European Georgians and the police.

There was violence on both sides during the protests, and that is exactly what he captured on film, said Tereshchenko. "It was pretty tough footage. Both the government and the police, as well as the demonstrators themselves, often resorted to various means." The assignment in Tbilisi was a business trip, and Tereshchenko had to undergo security training beforehand.

His gloomy, nocturnal images do not read clearly; they allow for a range of interpretations. In view of the fact that Russia is trying by all means to bind Georgia to itself as a former republic of the Soviet Union, some have questioned whether a TASS correspondent is the ideal person for a report on the conflict in Georgia.

"For me, it's above all strong pictures," a respected Bavarian landscape photographer, who was on the WPPA jury did not wish to be named, told DW. "The special feature of good pictures is precisely this: They emancipate themselves from the author and speak for themselves."

Ukrainian art historian Liudmyla Bereznitsky, who was one of the first to present the work of the renowned Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov in Western countries, sees it differently.

"It's like awarding Leni Riefenstahl for her great Olympic pictures in the middle of World War II," she said, referring to the German filmmaker who directed several Nazi propaganda films.

In a statement, the WPPA jury said it was taking criticism and complaints about Tereshchenko's journalistic independence seriously and would "review them following the process outlined in our procedures. Until this review is complete, we stand by the jury's decision to award his project, Protests in Georgia, and encourage everyone to view this work for themselves." The WPPA did not respond to further inquiries from DW.

Photo of Russian troops paired with portrait of Ukrainian child 

The jury's pairing of two individual and disparate photos has also caused outrage. One shows a Ukrainian child traumatized by war, the other a wounded soldier, a Ukrainian who was conscripted to fight for Russian-backed separatist forces. According to the jury, the combination of the two photographs provides a "deeper, more nuanced view of a conflict with far-reaching global ramifications."

The works are by German photographers Florian Bachmeier and Nanna Heitmann.

Bachmeier, who commutes between Schliersee in Bavaria, Madrid and the rest of the world, accompanied an organization of volunteers in Ukraine in the immediate vicinity of the front line. He photographed 6-year-old Anhelina in the village of Borshchahivka in eastern Ukraine. She now suffers panic attacks and apathy due to her war experiences.

Heitmann, a Magnum photographer and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Photography 2024, lives in Moscow. Her photograph shows a severely wounded soldier in an improvised underground hospital. The composition of the work draws a visual analogy to a dying Christ.

Ukrainian photographer Serhii Korovayny, quoted by German daily FAZ, described the work as an "unsympathetic, superficial manipulation constructed through formal similarity, which absolves 'ordinary Russians' — soldiers and civilians alike — of responsibility for the Russian war of aggression."

The New York Times, on whose behalf Heitmann took the picture, has defended the photographer: the soldier in the picture is not Russian, but Ukrainian, the US newspaper specified. "Nanna Heitmann’s work in Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine war has been a vital window into a country where reporting has become increasingly dangerous," the daily said in a statement on April 4.

Lucy Conticello, chair of the WPPA jury, admitted to a judgment error in a press statement. "We should not have presented these two photos as a pair as it suggests they should be viewed and understood only in dialogue with one another," she said.

'At some point, only stereotypes remain'

The awarding of a prize to photo artist Aliona Kardash, who comes from Siberia and has lived in Germany since 2017, has also been criticized. With her series "It smells of smoke at home," the 34-year-old provides a long-term observation of her own family in the Russian hinterland.

Commenting the series in the FAZ newspaper, Ukrainian photojournalist Oksana Parafeniuk asked how Kardash could describe the work as being about the loss of home, since her family could simply continue to live there while Russia was destroying Ukraine.

The series was created as her personal reflection on her country's invasion of Ukraine, Kardash told DW. The title is both an homage to the sweet smell of wood stoves in winter and a warning signal: yes, something is burning in Russia.

Kardash sees photography as an opportunity, especially in view of the suppression of the free press and the ever decreasing number of Western journalists allowed to report from the country. "Otherwise you lose all feeling for the country. At some point, only stereotypes remain," she said.

This article was originally written in German.