World Press Photo award withdraws invitation to award ceremony for Russian

The World Press Photo-2025 international award has withdrawn an invitation to the award ceremony for Russian Mikhail Tereshchenko. Earlier, the photographer from the Russian state news agency TASS received the award for his photographs of anti-government protests in Georgia. Source: World Press Photo

Details: The organisers explained their decision on the contest's website as a result of the growing "tensions on the European continent".

The organisers called it an "uncomfortable fact" that a Russian working for a Russian propaganda agency was awarded for covering the protests in Georgia. World Press Photo also stated that the jury has limited information about the contestants when selecting entries, which is usually limited to nationality and gender. Meanwhile, the judges do not know the names of the photographers or their places of work.

Meanwhile, Mikhail Tereshchenko's work met the competition's evaluation criteria and was authentic.

The award said it would try to improve the rules and procedures for selecting participants. Joumana El Zein Khoury, the executive director of the competition, said that World Press Photo would not cancel the award to the Russian in order not to disregard the established rules. "We will work to improve our rules and procedures, but must always apply them fairly and without exception.

Our contest has a global reach and its rules need to be applicable to very different contexts. Any change of rule to reflect one specific context will also have implications for very different ones," added Jumana El Zein Khoury, the Executive Director of the competition. The organisers of the prize noted that they did not agree with the phrase "liberation of Mariupol", which Russian Mikhail Tereshchenko used in an interview in March 2025.

They recognised that part of Ukraine's territory is occupied by the Russian Federation, including Mariupol. "While the Russian government and TASS have disputed some of these statements, we consider them simple facts," World Press Photo added. Background:

• This year's World Press Photo jury selected two Russians and a Belarusian among the regional winners.
• The Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPF) condemned this decision and called for compliance with standards of ethics, impartiality, and transparency.

  The UAPF stated that awarding Russian photographers who express the position of Russian state ideology contributes to sympathy for the aggressor.

• In addition, the award visually paired two works.

  One depicts a six-year-old Ukrainian girl suffering from panic attacks after fleeing shelling.

  The other shows a wounded Donetsk People's Republic soldier who fought for Russia.

• Following criticism, the jury publicly apologised for the decision and admitted that the combination created "an overly simplistic and false equivalence".

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