Russian photojournalist Sergei Ponomarev won the Pulitzer Prize, reports the Dozhd TV channel. The award in the category "news photography" was awarded to Ponomarev, Mauricio Lima, Tyler Hicks and Daniel Etter for their joint project on the crisis with refugees in Europe.

"I still can't believe it," commented Ponomarev on the award.

The award-winning project addresses the problem of Syrian refugees who tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea in order to get to Europe during 2015. Photographers have taken pictures in various places, including the Greek island of Lesbos, Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia and Hungary. Reportages were made for various publications in The New York Times.

"We were all in different places and we had different impressions, but we were driven by one overwhelming desire for refugees to reach their destination. "We have to go!" - I've heard that phrase a hundred times. On the beaches of Greek islands, on the closed border of Hungary and in the camps in Idomeneo and Athens," Ponomarev later told The New York Times.

The photojournalist stressed that the key reference point in his work is the theme of "a small but great man," and he referred to the work of Nikolai Gogol "Overcoat". According to Sergei Ponomarev, an ordinary and oppressed "little man" is both a contrast and a victim of "an unfair system.

Ponomarev won first prize in the "News" category at the World Press Photo Award for his photo report on the same subject in February, "Rain.

The Pulitzer Prize is a prestigious American award in literature, journalism, music and theatre. The award has been presented annually since 1917 by the Trustees of Columbia University in New York. It can only be presented for publication in an American publication.

Since its creation, there has been only one Russian among its laureates. Alexander Zemlyanichenko, the head of the photo service of the Moscow bureau of Audiovisual Press, has received the award twice: in 1991 - for covering the events of the August putsch and in 1996 - for a photograph of Boris Yeltsin dancing at a rock concert.