Working inside Donetsk presents various challenges as a photojournalist . One of them is working directly with rebel forces defending one of their last bastions against government forces . Each day their defensive perimeter shrinks due to constant shelling . Journalists need to acquire proper accreditation given and approved by the Donetsk People 's Republic . The funeral series of photos is both rare and hard to come by , as the rebels typically do n't give access to the kind of events which show their military losses . If you 're a reporter or anybody from the press you have to apply to get two different ID cards from the rebels . One is more general ; it allows you to go through checkpoints . It 's like an official accreditation . The second one is supposed to allow you to photograph military areas -- although in practice it 's up to the discretion of the local military commander and usually they 're friendly but they 'll say 'no . ' We suspect the document is also a good way to control us and the info we provide to the world , by checking the internet . This accreditation also carries another risk -- if you 're in Ukrainian Army-controlled areas and they see that , they 'll probably arrest you ... because it 's official documentation from the `` Donetsk People 's Republic . '' Nonetheless , we have both , so every time we go through checkpoints , the rebels check our car and they ask for our accreditation and we show them these documents and they let us through . In this case , while driving with our fixer on the road we passed a convoy of rebel cars and two armored vehicles each carrying troops and two coffins . We decided to follow it and try our luck . After a mile , a car from the convoy stopped us , pointed its machine gun at us and asked why we were following them . We explained to them that we wanted to follow the funeral . For some reason they agreed . We drove another 20 minutes to a small village on the front lines - you could hear the constant shelling as government forces were nearby . For an hour we photographed the entire ceremony , only to be arrested as it ended under the pretext that the rebel 's faces were shown and some lived nearby . They put us in different cars , drove us to their headquarters in Donetsk , and forced us to delete all the photos . Which we did . But back at the hotel we managed to retrieve all of them . There are unique moments -- it was very personal for them , they were crying . It was quite powerful . See more of Jonathan Alpeyrie 's photos of Donetsk and read about the siege of the city .
Photojournalist Jonathan Alpeyrie has been documenting the siege of Kiev , Ukraine . Donetsk is held by pro - Russian rebels but the Ukrainian Army has gradually encircled it . Alpeyrie volunteered to follow a rebel convoy to a funeral for their fallen fighters . He and his colleagues were arrested but later released after photographing the scene .