Three days after the Russian army invaded Ukraine, a 42-year-old Russian landscape photographer named Alexander Gronsky was arrested on a bridge just in front of the Kremlin in the center of Moscow for shouting “No to war!” with a dozen other protesters.
As he looked at the sun setting behind the Kremlin walls from a police van, thousands of miles to the west, a prestigious Italian photo exhibition of Gronsky’s work was canceled. “There is a time to firmly affirm the right of peoples to live in peace and a time to open up to dialogue and confrontation, without violence and death being invited to the table,” the exhibition's curators announced.
Like many Russians opposed to the current regime, Gronsky has found himself in an increasingly worrying situation. Outside Russia, businesses and media organizations have stampeded out of the country, halting operations and imports to Russia. The ruble has been crashing. International flights are canceled and visa centers have closed their doors. Inside Russia, the regime has banned words like “war” and “invasion,” censoring the remaining media and intensifying its propaganda campaigns.
Gronsky spoke about art and disinformation in a time of war and the reasons he’s staying put in Russia for now in a conversation that has been edited for length and clarity.
