In Russia’s war against Ukraine, an old form of sacred imagery – religious icons – has acquired a new potency. To coincide with a new exhibition of icons painted on ammunition crates, theologian Regina Elsner and journalist Anastasia Magazova discuss the significance these images have taken on in a life-and-death struggle.

In recent years, images have developed their own unique power in public discourse, especially due to their direct mediation via social media and mobile communications. In war, images are important for documentation purposes, but they can also be used to manipulate public opinion. And although we often perceive this aspect of images as something modern, in recent times seemingly old images – religious icons – have come to play an extremely important role in both Ukraine and Russia. They are an expression of sacrality in the context of mortal combat, they convey hope, they are meant to work miracles in the midst of despair, and they allow – as in the case of the icons on ammunition crates – a life to shine through behind death. Together with theologian Regina Elsner and journalist Anastasia Magazova, this ZOiS Forum looks at the significance of images in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The event takes place against the backdrop of an exhibition of icons painted on ammunition crates by the Ukrainian artists Oleksandr Klymenko and Sofiia Atlantova, which opens a few days earlier in Berlin’s Immanuelkirche.