The National Libraries of Great Britain and France, the State Library of Germany and the Royal Danish Library have added a book created by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation to their collections. This is the photo book Donbas and Civilians, which was first presented in April 2018. Its protagonists are 11 Donbas residents who found themselves in the epicentre of the war. This is a book about war, people, help and hope. Today, when the tragedy of war has engulfed the whole of Ukraine, the relevance of living human testimonies remains enormous.

"Rinat Akhmetov Foundation shows the fate of millions of people through the stories presented in the photo book. The reality in which people have to survive. These stories should be spoken, heard, preserved, lived and understood by the world community," said Natalia Yemchenko, member of the Supervisory Board of the Foundation.

You can see the photo book on the portal of the Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation at https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/en/expositions/

The photo book was previously presented in Ukraine, Brussels, Frankfurt am Main and Strasbourg. The Foundation also handed over the book Donbas and Civilians to embassies and international organisations. The publication was presented in leading libraries in Ukraine. In 2019, the book was awarded by the Ukrainian Library Foundation in the Best Social Photo Book of the Year nomination. Now its English-language edition will be freely available in key national libraries in Europe.

Since the first days of the war in 2014, Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has been providing critical assistance to civilian Ukrainians in Donbas. At the same time, it turned out that people were eager to talk about their experiences, and this was no less important to them than humanitarian aid. So the Foundation began to collect testimonies, and the archive grew rapidly. In 2020, the Museum of Civilian Voices was created, which included the stories of civilians. After the full-scale invasion, the Museum became a chronicle of the tragedy of the entire Ukrainian people.

As of July 2024, the Museum has already collected more than 110,000 first-hand stories of Ukrainian civilians about the war - the world's largest project of its kind telling Ukrainians' stories about their experience during the war. Tell yours on the Museum's portal or on the free hotline 0 (800) 509 001.