The only
Material
The most difficult thing morally and physically was to cover the explosion of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. My team and I were working in waist-deep water and under fire from Russian artillery. I saw the bodies of dead pets floating in the water, destroyed houses, people in despair and one of the worst man-made disasters since Chernobyl. But every time I hear the stories of children who have lost limbs and been injured by mines, I am heartbroken. I will always remember the boy who accidentally stepped on a petal mine in his home village in the east of the country and lost his foot. For some reason, he blamed himself for what had happened, and when he told me about it, he could not even look up.
But I always have a motivation to continue as I want to make at least some contribution to this struggle. I don't want to look at the suffering of Ukrainians and make materials about it, but I can't pretend that it doesn't exist either.
A Ukrainian soldier meets
his
family who just escaped
from
Russian-occupied territory
Photo credit:
Andrii Dubchak
Photo credit:
Andrii Dubchak
But I believe our
ability
to empathise
and help those
around us is
the only way
to survive now.
Perhaps classical sterile
journalism would call
this
a lack of objectivity.
While you're in Pokrovsk (3 km from the frontline), your family is under fire in Kyiv. And when you are in Kyiv and the shelling starts, you are torn between ensuring their safety and running to film. We almost never stop working because there is always work for journalists. Journalists work very hard and at the same time do not work enough.
Recently, at a media conference, I was asked what Ukrainian journalists should do to make Western media trust them more and not consider them biased or traumatised. I honestly answered that I don't know. Today, it is increasingly difficult to remain detached. And I see that my colleagues are finding it harder too. Ukrainian journalists are trying to help the heroes of their stories, looking for housing, lawyers and psychologists for them. And those who film evacuations are evacuating people and animals themselves.
However, Russia
is killing Ukrainian
journalists,
not because they live
or work in the wrong
places, but because
they are Ukrainians.
The second challenge
is that we no longer
can separate work
and personal life
because the war
is personal.
Along the frontline,
Russian drones
are hunting
for vehicles
marked ‘Press’.
Russia is no longer hiding the fact that Ukrai-nian journalists are being hunted or that they are being retaliated against for their work.
Cooperate with Yuliya
The main challenge
for me is that
I feel like
a target.
I was 14 years old, doing my homework by the light of a desk lamp and listening to the TV a bit. I remember how the late-night news made me freeze — the 9/11 terrorist attack took place in the United States. Ukrainian TV channels were broadcasting live from New York. There was smoke, fire and chaos, but the voices of the journalists working in the epicentre of the tragedy sounded brave and professional. I was struck by how people who are in danger and scared as much as others can separate themselves from fear and panic to convey information to the audience and to do it in a way that even a schoolgirl from a town in eastern Ukraine would not remain indifferent. A year later, I started working part-time at the only printed newspaper in my town and since then, I have not left my profession for a day.
I have always been interested in people — their dreams, their fates, their motivations, how they make decisions, what makes them smile or cry. Since the beginning of the war in 2014, I have less and less time for deep, in-depth projects; I work as a war journalist and write for the media abroad. Mostly, I report from the frontline — the consequences of shelling, occupation and deoccupation, war crimes, stories of children who suffered from mine explosions, and the evacuation of civilians from the war zone.
There are a lot of rules about how to work on the front line, about not staying in hotels in frontline cities, about having an armoured car, not going to the area where Russian drones fly, not working in the occupied territories, and so on. All of them are true.
Russian shell impact site,
Kharkiv
Photo credit:
Yuliya Surkova
However, it became impossible once the Russian troops reached Donetsk in 2014, occupying the police station and turning the airport into a hotspot. Since then, I have been working as
a war correspondent for Western media with focus on frontline events: shelling, occupation and liberation, war crimes, children affected by landmines, and the evacuation of civilians.
War journalist.
With over ten years of experience in journa-lism, Surkova works with Agence France-Presse and UNICEF as well as mentors projects for the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine. She has covered military actions and humanitarian issues for the media abroad, reported from Eastern Ukraine and across the front line since the full-scale invasion.
Yuliya
Surkova