Staying Alive: The Perils of Reporting from Ukraine
Staying Alive: The Perils of Reporting from Ukraine
Driving through Ukraine, Fried and I navigated the war’s chaos, narrowly avoiding danger as we documented resilience, connection, and the human spirit's defiance.
It’s 5:00 a.m. on the 31st of August, 2024. I’m gripping the wheel, eyes on the empty road ahead, as I cross a bridge bordering Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The darkness of early morning wraps around the landscape, and there’s a peculiar sense of calm that feels almost out of place given where I've been and where I'm heading. The hum of my car's engine is my only companion, a steady rhythm to the thoughts swirling in my head. My journey, my stories, my conflicts, the people I've met—it's all a tangled mess of emotions and experiences that I can’t quite unravel, but that I’m determined to share.
I’ve just come from Ukraine, a place that has held me since July 12, 2024, and which, in many ways, has never let me go. I’ve been reporting on the war there, documenting the resilience of a people fighting Russian aggression with a defiance that is as old as their culture, as personal as their morning routines. It’s not just soldiers in camouflage and politicians in Kyiv making headlines; it’s the barbers, bakers, designers, and teachers, the everyday people who breathe life into the country’s spirit. They’re holding the line in ways that aren't always visible, their daily acts of resistance a testament to a commitment that goes far beyond military strategy—it’s a commitment to home.
But this isn't just another assignment. It’s never just another assignment. There’s always a risk, an unforeseen twist. I was meant to work on a story—details I can't disclose—but things got complicated, drawn out. The journalist I was paired with had to return to London, and just as I was preparing to leave, another opportunity—if you can call it that—pulled me back in. A few incidents put my life in peril. Again. It's a pattern that I can't seem to shake. Since 2007, when I first started reporting on global conflicts, I’ve dodged death more times than I can count. Wars in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and now Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh—I’ve walked through them all. I’ve witnessed humanity at its worst and its most heroic, and somehow, I keep surviving to tell the story.
Since meeting Fried years ago in Kosovo, at a Dutch music festival where a little girl’s curiosity led to an unexpected friendship, we’ve shared countless conversations about politics, human rights, and the tragic cycles of global conflict. Fried has always been eager to understand the complexities of war, to see beyond the headlines, but Ukraine in August was the first time he joined me on the front lines to witness the horrors for himself. This trip wasn’t just about the stories I was chasing; it was Fried’s introduction to the relentless, unfiltered reality of war. It’s one thing to discuss the principles of human dignity over drinks in Amsterdam or Pristina; it’s another to stand on scorched earth where that dignity has been ripped away.
