Finalist: The New York Times, by Mauricio Lima, Sergey Ponomarev and Uriel Sinai

Feb. 19, 2014. Protesters burn barricades to prevent riot police from storming Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine. (Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)

Feb. 19, 2014. Riot police set up a water cannon to aim at the Independence Square protesters. (Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)

Aug. 19, 2014. A mother is comforted by her son, a pro-Russian rebel, in front of the body of her daughter, who died next to two other people in shelling by Ukrainian troops near a railway in Makeevka, east of Donetsk. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

Sept. 8, 2014. A cemetery employee covers the body of 6-year-old Karolina Baykina as another closes the coffin of her brother, 10-year-old Nikita, in the small village of Lebedinskoye. Their injured grandmother, Lyubov Baykina, 53, third from right, is comforted. The two children died during shelling. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

Feb. 21, 2014. Women take shelter from sniper fire at the barricades in Kiev. (Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)

March 2, 2014. Pavel Gubaryev, center, head of a militia, at the parliament hall as pro-Russian protesters take over the regional parliament building in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. (Uriel Sinai for The New York Times)

Aug. 1, 2014. A wary Ukrainian, Nadezda Ivanovna, 84, peers through the gate after collecting green apples from a tree near her home, on the outskirts of Slovyansk, a former pro-Russian rebel stronghold back in Ukrainian government control. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

May 2, 2014. A pro-Russian villager argues with Ukrainian soldiers after the troops were blocked at a checkpoint outside Slovyansk, in eastern Ukraine. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

June 20, 2014. Rescue workers at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near Grabovo, Ukraine. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

August 24, 2014. Alyona, 32, takes care of her friend Lyuba, 30, a hospital patient who was evacuated to its basement after an early-morning shelling that hit the hospital compound in central Donetsk. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

March 2, 2014. Armed men outside a blocked Ukrainian military base in the village of Perevalnaya, in the Crimea. (Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)

August 24, 2014. Pro-Russian rebels parade dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war through the main street in central Donetsk, the day Ukraine celebrated its independence day. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

Aug. 10, 2014. Lisa Soroka, 80, grandmother of Roman Pronyakin, 37, who died while watching TV inside his bedroom during a rocket attack, cries as she receives first aid from a doctor after being injured by heavy shelling near the Donetsk airport. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

May 5, 2014. The funeral for Yulia Izotova, shot dead at a checkpoint in Kramatorsk, Ukraine. (Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)

Feb. 19, 2014. Medical volunteers treat the wounded in a makeshift hospital at Independence Square in Kiev. (Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)

Aug. 24, 2014. A nurse holds rifles of pro-Russian rebels as they help move a patient from a hospital basement after an early-morning shelling in Donetsk, Ukraine. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

Aug. 25, 2014. Attacked and humiliated as a Ukrainian spy by pro-Russian rebels, Irina Dovgan, wrapped in a Ukrainian flag, was praying for death in this Donetsk traffic circle. Three days after the photo was made, she was released by a rebel commander who had been shamed into a rare act of mercy. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)

June 1, 2014. Members of a pro-Russian battalion at their training ground in Donetsk. (Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times)

May 19 2014. Nadezhda Sanzharevskaya, 49, mourns her sister Yelena Ott, 42, following the truck carrying the coffin to the cemetery in the small village of Starovarvarovka, eastern Ukraine. The victim's husband said she was shot near a checkpoint after being stopped by Ukrainian soldiers. (Mauricio Lima for The New York Times)