“He was a photographer of souls”: a tribute to Antoni Lallican, French photojournalist killed in Ukraine

“He had this perfect balance between rigour and compassion”

“He was extremely meticulous. For example, I remember a call almost a year after a report, to verify the caption of a photo. Was it taken from the eighth or ninth floor of the building? He wanted to make sure he had the right information. That’s what made him such a great, passionate journalist — he had this perfect balance between rigour and compassion,” stated Justine Brabant, journalist on the French investigative outlet Mediapart, who had labored with Antoni Lallican in Ukraine.

“He communicated intelligently,” added Emmanuel Grynszpan, journalist on the French newspaper Le Monde, earlier than calling for the continued investigation to determine these accountable, as a result of the “proof of this murder exists.” According to Pascale Tournier, deputy editor-in-chief of La Vie journal: “He was a photographer of souls. When faced with the chaos of the world, he managed to find a sort of harmony.” Always skilled and cautious, he ready his assignments rigorously. “Photographers are not hotheads. Being a reporter means weighing up risks. Antoni had that discipline,” recalled Lionel Charrier, picture editor on the French nationwide newspaper Libération.

A dedicated photographer

Antoni Lallican received into photojournalism after making a profession change in his early thirties. From the Yellow Vest protests in France, to Ukraine or to Nagorno-Karabakh, wherever he went, his lens all the time targeted on individuals.

For almost 4 years, he tirelessly travelled by japanese Ukraine, a area devastated by the full-scale Russian invasion that he had visited greater than ten instances because the full-scale warfare started in 2022. His collection “A Summer in Donbass” earned him a nomination for the RSF Lucas Dolega-SAIF Photo Prize in 2024.

He was a dependable witness to the evolution of the warfare, as much as the latest intensification of lethal Russian FPV drone assaults. In certainly one of his final conversations earlier than his dying, he advised his companion, “People are afraid, no one dares go outside. Something has changed.”

Last report in Donbas

His final reporting notes from October 2025 revealed the misery of civilians in Donbass because the Russian military superior: “To leave everything behind or stay and risk being killed in a Russian strike — that is the question on everyone’s mind in Druzhkivka, as Russian forces are now barely fifteen kilometres from the city. With the increase in shelling and the constant presence of drones overhead, Ukrainian authorities issued an evacuation order in mid-August for all residents under 18.”

Antoni Lallican is the fourth French journalist to be killed in Ukraine since 24 February 2022. During the assault, he was working alongside Georgiy Ivanchenko, a contract Ukrainian photographer, who was critically injured and subsequently had a leg amputated. Since 2022, sixteen Ukrainian and international reporters have died whereas masking Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, together with three who perished in October 2025 alone.