Is this one of the hardest periods of the war that the Ukrainians have had to face?
Yes. I mean, this is a war for our country’s right to exist. And a year later, I think everyone thought that maybe Russia would do everything in her power to occupy, let’s say, kyiv. And they expected perhaps a quick war. But, you know, we’ve already won in this regard. We are fighting. We are resisting, we are protecting our country, with heavy casualties among Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. But for us, we have no choice. We don’t want to leave under occupation. We do not want to live to become part of Russia. And for this, in such conditions, you have to fight. We have to protect our country, we have to protect our land, our people. And yes, now, before the anniversary, there are a lot of rumors about new invasions, new offensives, from the Russian side, but we are ready for this. Now we are receiving new weapons from Western countries. And we hope that we all dream that this war will end with the victory of Ukraine this year. And the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian volunteers and the Ukrainian media will do everything possible to stop Russia and protect us against it.
What is the significance of this visit by President Zelensky to the UK, Paris and Brussels?
This is important because, as you know, the victory of Ukraine will not be possible without the Western allies, without the support of the US, Great Britain and the European Union. So I think before the first anniversary, and before these rumors about the Russian counter-offensive, we want to show you that we are very grateful for your support. Without him, our resistance would not be possible. And just to be clear that we still want to be part of the European Union, we still want to be part of Western democratic development. And we pay a high price for it.
This path to democratic development did not begin in 2022, or even in 2014. It began in 2004, during the Maidan uprising, and we hope that after our common victory, I do not want to tell you that it will be only Ukraine’s. victory, it will be our common victory, of European civilization and European values against tyranny and dictatorship: Ukraine must be part of the European Union. We know that Ukraine has many problems with institutions, with justice, even with corruption, but on the side of independent journalism in Ukraine, we will cover it, we will fight against misconduct. And we will do our best because this is a kind of task for our generation, for my generation. Only for the right of my children to live as a European country without threats from the Russian side.
What have been your biggest challenges since you were appointed director of Ukraine Pravda?
A lot of responsibility towards our readers, that’s what I feel every day. Many difficult decisions, to publish, not to publish, for example, because it is also about the safety of our journalists. I feel a great responsibility. I feel a lot of responsibility in meeting people, making sure that readers can consume real information and real news. And during the war, this is even more important. Because I know how Russian propaganda can work and how Russian propaganda can affect people, and how they shared fake news in the first days of the war, ev had surrendered, that some cities were already occupied and there were no communications, for example. At the same time, it is also about options and words about options. And every day, as a director and editor-in-chief, you have to choose, you have to make those decisions. And, for example, in the first days of the war, we decided to publish the list of dead Russian personnel, we received from sources and re-published these lists of personnel and we understood that after that the relatives of our colleagues, my relatives, were a few kilometers from these people because they were trying to attack Kiev. Well this is hard. And the challenges are so big…so big. And every day, there is a new challenge. For example, two months ago, we were trying to deal with power outages. And, as we produce news 24/7, it was very important to maintain this process, even without electricity or internet, but we did our best. And every second, every minute, people continue to hear from us. Even in such difficult circumstances, we managed to find a generator near us.
It will be really difficult to work in these circumstances. How is your newsroom dealing with the continuation of the war? Do you think journalists are still enthusiastic about the work they do, or are people just getting sick of it all?
We don’t have a choice, we don’t have a choice to be tired of being exhausted. Of course we are. Of course, it’s been 24/7 for almost a year. And of course my people, I mean my colleagues in Ukraine Pravda, they are exhausted by so much intensity of work. But at the same time, we know that we don’t have the option of being tired, we don’t have the option of being exhausted. We just have to keep going. We must continue our work. It’s not exactly a front line, but it’s our responsibility. And it is our role. The role of independent journalism is so important, so crucial! People need this information. People need real news, people need to know what’s going on, know that everything is okay. Or maybe there is some misbehavior taking place, we let people know about that as well.
As you know much better than I do, military aid from the West is taking time, because the operation of sending main battle tanks like Abrams and Leopards is complex, but also because there has been some political wavering. Do you think that this period of time, this couple of months until the tanks arrive, will allow Ukraine to continue to resist, for example, in Bakhmut and Sloviansk?
This is a difficult question because your situation is serious. I know how the Ukrainian military fights in the mentioned cities and how they really protect our land with their own blood and their own bodies. And we have victims, we have a series of problems, with the supply of weapons, etc. And of course, time is critical. That’s why I think this was also one of the reasons why Zelensky came to London, Paris and Brussels, because we need those weapons as soon as possible. Because it is clear that Russia wants to use this time, in the next three months before Ukraine receives tanks, to do everything possible and maybe succeed on the battlefield. But I know that the Ukrainian army will do everything possible to protect us and we will do everything possible to resist. And no, the Russians will not succeed, we will manage to control these territories. Literally, if you are talking about Bakhmut, a city with a population of about 40,000 people before the invasion, they are still trying to control it, I mean the Russians, they have been trying to control the city for five months. now. And of course this is very important. This means a lot. And this also describes the level of resistance of Ukraine, even in such difficult conditions. When the Russians have a lot of weapons, when the Russians use those people they got out of jail and people from Wagner’s group, they don’t consider them victims, they don’t count as people. For us, each soldier has value, each life has value; not for them But even so, they are not able to take control of this city of 40,000 inhabitants in the last five months. It is clear that Ukraine pays a high price for dead soldiers and civilians, because Russia bombed civilians, civilians were bombed in the cities that were attacked. And there are many casualties among the civilian population. But we do everything possible so that they do not control our territories.
When I was in kyiv in January 2014, during the Maidan revolution, it was very common to hear people speak Russian, because they spoke Russian in their daily life, very naturally…
I speak Russian because I grew up in Crimea, yes…
In the future, how do you think Ukrainians will treat the Russian language, Russian literature, Russian cinema?
It’s a big trauma right now; it’s a pain now. You know, we, my mother, for example, are big fans of Russian literature. HE WAS a great admirer of Russian literature. And I asked him: What do you think about it? What do you think now? She told me that when she left the Crimea, she left all the books of Russian literature there, because it was painful for her, it was painful to bring all these books of those who destroy her life to Kiev. . And I think there are many Ukrainians who now care about the Ukrainian language, they want to speak the Ukrainian language. And we see it everywhere, in all spheres. Of course, I think we need some time, of course, let’s not write off all Russian literature. But now you are part of this tragedy. Now he is part of this aggression. Now, we cannot separate Russian literature from the Russian army.
But Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Nabokov or Eisenstein are not to blame for what Vladimir Putin does…
If this is true. But at the same time, you have to think that Dostoyevsky, for example, and the ideas from him… I mean, the people who started this war fed off the ideas from those books, of course. It is a difficult question. But at the same time, we are talking about Pushkin, for example, and his monuments in Kiev, it is not about literature, it is about colonial politics, because we do not have, for example, a Byron monument in every town and every city in Ukraine. , but we have monuments to Pushkin in every city, in every village in Ukraine. And it is part of the colonial culture. And I think we have to do something with that.
We don’t want to fight against literature, we don’t want to fight against culture. But at the same time, the Russians want, and in fact this interview of the head of the Hermitage, just a few months after the start of the war, said that they started the invasion as a cultural front.
They started this part and they understand the Ukrainian culture as part of the Russian culture; it is a part of military warfare. And we don’t say that. He said in his interviews that culture is part of military warfare. These are not my words, these are the words of this head of the Hermitage Museum, looking at everything that is colonization from the Russian legacy. ~
Do you think that the decolonization of this Russian legacy and democratization will also… prevail in Ukraine?
Yes, of course, we dream about it. And from my side as a freelance journalist and from my perspective as editor-in-chief of an independent newspaper that was founded in the year 2000, when Ukraine was a different state, without democratic values and without freedom of expression, I will protect freedom of expression. as a democratic path for Ukraine. This is my frontline, my personal frontline and my colleagues’ frontline, and we do our best. And, of course, whenever there is something missing, we inform the people, the readers. Don’t even think about not doing it because Ukrainians paid a high price for that, for the chance to be European, to be a democratic state and that’s why we don’t even think about being, shall we say, destroyed.
Source: TSF
