EP. 1: How to cover Russia's war against Ukraine for a decade with Kateryna Malofieieva

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky Welcome to the podcast, «Yak ty? Ukraine Live». «Yak ty?» means, «How are you?» in Ukrainian. I am your host, Luzia Tschirky, I'm a former correspondent reporting from Ukraine, now a book author and a freelancer. I am more than delighted to welcome today's guest on the show: Kateryna Malofieieva. Kateryna Malofieieva has been covering Ukraine for the British newspaper «The Times» since 2021.She began her career as a news producer in 2014. Today's episode focuses on Kateryna's work as a journalist and her personal relationship with the Eastern region of Ukraine, the Donbas, where she's currently reporting from and where she was born and raised. Kateryna, welcome to the podcast!

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva Hello!

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky I would like to start the podcast with a question. How are you? How are you right now?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva I'm actually fine. It's been quite interesting that I'm currently in Sloviansk, one of the biggest cities of the Donetsk region. And despite the fact that I could hear the sort of shouting in the distance, I managed to sleep for the past few days. I really managed to have a proper sleep. In comparison to the sleep I have in Kyiv. Because the area where I live in Kyiv, it is on the left bank, and in the past week or so there were kind of regular missile attacks and almost each attack we now call massive, one of the biggest attacks since the beginning of the invasion. So I've been sleep deprived for about a week because I was waking up at 3 am, 4 am, 5 am. And also in Kyiv, because of this, of the missile attacks, there are power outages and not even regular or scheduled ones, but also kind of unexpected power outages and it was very exhausting. I perceive Kyiv as a place to recuperate from my long exhausting assignments on the front line. But it doesn't give me any peace because of these attacks. But here in Sloviansk, I'm just about 100 km away from Pokrovsk and about 35 km from Chasiv Yar, where in the past few months they've been quite intense fighting. I really managed to sleep and I do feel fine. But again, you take it day by day. It's been kind of tragic because since I arrived in the Donetsk region, I saw the evacuation of people from Pokrovsk district. I'm talking about Pokrovsk town and the neighboring villages and towns that conclude the Pokrovsk district. And I was present at the evacuation of the civilians in Kurakhove and they simply took their meager belongings and literally went on a bus and departed to nowhere. It's kind of been tragic because apart from the reason that I myself come from Donetsk, basically the Donetsk region that is currently occupied by Russian forces since 2014, I've been covering the war for 10 years. As I mentioned, the war for me began 10 years ago. I stayed in all these towns across the Donetsk region and Lugansk region. I stayed in Bakhmut, I stayed in Toretsk, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk. So, I traveled many times through these towns and now I could kind of see all these people who were building their lives. They have to flee in the seeking for safety and it's very tragic. It's tragic because these are my people. The Russians took recently the small village of Novogrodovka. It's on the vicinity of Pokrovsk and this is actually the third line of defense of Pokrovsk. That means that the Russians might be really advancing and they might be very soon seizing Pokrovsk. So yeah, mean, sorry, this is very complicated and might not be understandable for the audience, but it's difficult for me, of course, to see all this because I relate to this, because I experienced this myself before.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky You just mentioned that you've been working as a journalist in Ukraine now for 10 years since Russia first invaded Ukraine. Can you tell a little bit how actually it came that you went into journalism?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva I was a teacher of history but I studied English and I had quite a good comment of English back then so I was just asked to do some translation for the journalist Kim Seung Gupta from The Independent. Sadly Kim passed away in August this year so it's also tragic because I learned few tricks from him I learned my few you know some few tips of a journalist from him. And it's sad to realize that the person who gave you first lessons actually doesn't live any longer and the world won't see his pieces from different war zones. And after that, shortly after that, I started basically organizing interviews for the media, for the top media. I covered the MH17 shutdown, if you recall, a huge massive tragedy. The Boeing flying from the Netherlands to Kuala Lumpur was shut down above the Donetsk region and I covered this horrible tragedy. You know this is how my all my life in the past 10 years have been shaped now by covering the hardships of war for civilians for the residents, covering also the military operations, different battlefields, and being on different battlefields.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky You think like when you're looking back, like 10 years back, someone would have told you, Kateryna, in 10 years, you will still be covering this. This is going to be your life for 10 years. Would you have believed this person?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva You know, I thought about it on the very first day of Russia's full-scale invasion. I met it in Mariupol and I remember waking up from the knock to my door of the correspondent, Aljazeera correspondent I worked with, who just shouted and said: «It's begun, there are explosions in Kyiv.» And I just went to the bathroom and looked into the mirror, looked at my small wrinkles around my eyes and gray hairs that I have now in my age which shouldn't be there so and I was like looking at myself and I said come on you've been covering this for eight years how long how much longer. And this is really an interesting question because in a way you don't really see yourself doing anything else but from the other side you think that it's absolutely exhausting and energy draining job because you are constantly affected by the stories, human stories, human pain and you are apart from covering their pain, you experience this pain yourself and the pain became so permanent because the tragedies became so permanent because you often sometimes you are more affected, sometimes you are less affected because the missile attacks, they became so regular now that you really don't know what to cover anymore because last week there was an attack on a hotel in Kramatorsk where a safety advisor of one of the media teams was killed and then some others were injured, including people that I knew. Then a few days later, Kharkiv, for a few days, has been attacked by missile attacks, really on a daily basis. And then overnight there was attack in Zaporizhzhia, again on a hotel, like the one similar to the one that was hit in Kramatorsk and Kryvyi Rih. Now we hear about another tragedy where young students of the Institute of the Communication, Communications Institute, it's a military institute where more than 40 people have been killed today as a result of the attack of ballistic missiles. Of course you empathize with everyone because these are your counterparts and it's extremely painful but also it's a huge level of relief in a constant level of stress and anxiety because we... I myself don't know how to protect myself because there is no safe place in this country. You can be really targeted or killed anytime and it's difficult to recognize all this.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky Why you think, sorry for interrupting, why you think it's difficult for you to recognize all this? Why is it so difficult for you to deal with this fact?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva Well, I mean that it's hard to... You know, since Russia occupied Donetsk in 2014, my life has already been split in two parts. Honestly, I could not really enjoy life because my parents lived in the occupation and every time I read in the news about shelling, I was in a huge state of alert. I felt anxiety and I was always constantly worried about my parents. So those eight years were already difficult for me. Then after the full-scale invasion began, I started thinking also more about my safety because before I could come to Kyiv and it would be my safe haven where I could rest from the cover in the front line. Now... You are really constantly in a huge distress not stress but distress because one stress situation overlaps with another stressful situation then it becomes a distress. So you all your senses are on a high alert all the time and you know, you understand that you cannot really sustain yourself for a long time being in stress, adrenaline or anxiety all the time. That's what I mean by that. When you ask me about would I imagine, I'm only wondering how much longer I will be able to do that because sometimes I feel such a huge fatigue, both mentally and physically. After driving across the country every day, six hours, of course you are physically exhausted. But also mentally, you think how much longer I can take this pain of other people. So this is a question I ask myself sometimes.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky When you see other journalists, journalists who are not from the Donbas, who are not related to the region as you are yourself, when you see them traveling, reporting from the region, do you have the impression that for them it's different than it is for you?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva Are we talking about people from Ukraine or about foreigners?

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky From Ukraine or foreigners. Do you see any difference between you and them?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva I wouldn't say there is much difference for the Ukrainians because I'm pretty sure that journalists from Kharkiv, for them, of course, it's painful to cover the shelling or attacks on Kharkiv. Similar applies to Kherson, Mykolaiv, or Zaporizhzhia. Obviously, it's very difficult. It's definitely true that for people, the foreigners, it is easier to cover this war, this conflict, because they don't have a personal connection and emotional attachment to this place. I remember when I covered the war in Nagorno-Karabakh it was, of course, very difficult because I emphasized with the civilians, with the residents, but it was not as hard as to cover the war in your own country. Ethically and there are a lot of different aspects that should be taken into account, like am I a journalist and should be objective and unbiased or should I be or am I a citizen who is part, who is like a victim of this war and there are so so many aspects you need to consider. I think that of course for local journalists it's much harder to report on this war than for the foreign media. Again, because foreign media can leave to their homes, they will go like to, I don't know, London, New York, Zurich, but then after the assignment, we returned to our homes where it is unsafe.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky What are the reasons that made you stay? You said you're feeling a fatigue which you did not have before in your life. What were the reasons that made you stay in Ukraine and not leave Ukraine?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva Again, that's a good question because in a way I don't have anything to lose except for my life because, you know, my home, my flat is under occupation. I lost my mom in the early days of the invasion and I don't have a flat that I own in Kyiv and any family here. So technically I could just depart to anywhere I wanted. But as a journalist, of course, I felt that this is my duty to be here and report because this is one of the most... This is basically a history. And journalists are the first reporters of history. So what's happening in Ukraine right now, on European land, it's incomprehensible. You know, the world hasn't seen anything as big since the end of the Second World War. These atrocities, the war on civilians. You need to stay and report and of course as a professional with my level of, with my degrees, with my level of experience, of course I felt extremely, I didn't really consider to leave. It's my duty, it's my responsibility, so I should do that.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky When you left Donezk several years ago. Did you ever feel as an internally displaced person, as someone who was forced to leave home but who remains within the country's border?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva No, it was different for me because luckily I made the decision to leave when I got an offer from the UK university to study. So it was two years after the occupation began. It was my choice. And I'm happy that I was able to make this choice because a lot of people could not, didn't have this opportunity to make this choice. They were literally taken to the basements. They were taken hostage in captivity, in prison, beaten, some of them for their pro-Ukrainian position, this is what I mean. With years it became even much worse because, if people seemed suspicious to the Russian authorities, Russian law enforcement authorities, they wouldn't be let out and they could have appeared in the basement. So it's complicated. I've never felt myself an IDP because I also didn't allow myself to feel like that because you know probably the worst thing that a human affected by work can feel is fear because fear is such a poisonous feeling that really restrains you from any activity. Fear is like depression. It's like ulcers that started like metastasis that spread around and freeze you from any activity. In my case, of course I was scared. Of course I was scared when there were a lot of manifestations, a lot of signs that pro-Russian authorities wanted to evict me from my home or to imprison me so they were like signs, they were like people following me on the streets kind of, you. But I mean, the fear is, to me, fear is probably the most poisonous feeling that can embrace human being. And that's why I didn't allow myself to feel weak, to be weak and to feel weak and to show weakness because you kind of close up yourself and you just keep doing despite the risk, despite of your feelings, so you just keep going.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky But what actually, but what was your feeling back then? Did you have the feeling you lost your hometown or did it never occur to you that you lost your hometown, Donetsk?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva Luzia, it's actually probably one of the hardest feelings that people can have, you know, when you are uprooted, when you have to flee your home. Oftentimes without money, without any support, you feel yourself bereft, lost in limbo because you are leaving behind something that really represented a big part of your life. Your schools, the streets that you were roaming, the maternity house where you were born, the memories, because I don't have any photos from my childhood with me. I don't have any albums, photo albums of my parents that I could look at and have this moment of nostalgia. So it's very hard to be in limbo because this feeling doesn't let you adjust to a new community or integrate to a new community. A lot of refugees who had to flee their homes, even inside Ukraine, even if they departed from Donetsk region to Rivne region, they told me two weeks and a half ago when I spoke to first refugees in the past two weeks, they said that they don't feel like home in the Rivne region. Even though they were given home, temporary home, where they can stay during the winter time, they didn't feel happy. When you're forced to flee, it's not your own decision that you are undertaking, then it's extremely hard because you're losing the ground. You're losing the ground under your feet. Again, for many people from the Donetsk region who had to flee home in 2014, Russia's full -scale invasion ade them to flee for a second time. So it became a double trauma. They have to, they had to start everything from scratch many times. And believe me, it's really difficult to start everything from scratch. I can't really convey this feeling because it's everything. It's lost ties with your community, with your friends. It's... It's absolutely... You need to find a job and a place to stay in absolutely new settings. Oftentimes when you don't know the language, when you don't speak the language it's very difficult. It's heat, human self-esteem and I understand why people stay. I had this discussion on Friday a few days ago with men who are staying in Donetsk. Very, very nice men. They were helping their neighbor to take out the furniture from the house. She was leaving and they were staying and they told me: «Who is expecting us, who is waiting for us anywhere.»

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky Is someone ringing? Just answer. Totally fine.

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva Yes, sorry!

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky Kateryna just got called or someone is at the door. So obviously someone is at the door, as you can hear. You're listening to «Jak Ty». «How are you» in Ukrainian means «Jak Ty». I'm your host, Luzia Tschirky, and we're talking to Kateryna Malofieieva, who is at the very moment in the eastern part of Ukraine covering the ongoing invasion of the Russian army of Ukraine. I met Kateryna several years ago. As I was looking for a journalist in Ukraine who could help me with an interview. Now we're asking Kateryna, if everything is okay. Everything okay?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva Yes, my colleagues just, they came to invite me for dinner.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky You were telling about your experiences when you were reporting on the evacuation of civilians out of the Donetsk region, especially like the region around Pokrovsk, where the Russian army is now very close by. When you talk to people and they're telling you their experience: Do you have the feeling that you can connect to them on a different level than other journalists, because you have a clearer picture or a more in-depth picture of what is actually happening to those people in the moments they're forced to leave their homes?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva I can relate because I understand what they feel. They're scared. They're scared to go because you know they lived all this life in their flats they they bought flats that they earned with very hard work in the coal mine for example, because all this area in the Donetsk region is industrial area of coal mines and other types of the machinery and other types of basically heavy industry. you know, were penny by penny, they were collecting, earning this money to buy a flat, to buy furniture to their homes. And one man told me, he was 58 and he looked really good. He looked very healthy. He said: «My wife is buried here. I don't want to leave here.» And I'm just, and it's really, really sad because you're like: «Man, you know, few, maybe a few months later, the Pokrovsk won't exist anymore.» And you're just saying: «I won't leave because I cannot leave behind my, my wife's grave.» And «Where can I go?» he told me. «Where can I go? Everything that I have, is here. My home, this is my land. This is my Ukrainian land», he emphasized. «I was born here, this is my land. Where should I go from here?» So I can relate, I can relate also to the fears they have. I can relate to the uncertainties they have. I'm extremely angry and sad that people in the Donetsk region appeared in this situation. Because as you know, they've been suffering from the hardships of war in the past 10 years prior to the invasion. But they never lost hope. Some of them even purchased flats here. They had their dreams connected to this land. They had their plans about marriage and businesses. And then they have to leave, know, like being cursed by God, know, like by being cursed by somebody to have all these endeavors, to have all these challenges they have to go through, like for what, what for? And again, you know, just, this is not liberation. This is not the liberation of the Russian speaking population as the Russian leadership claims. This is dooming people to suffer, to lose their homes and their lives. This is nothing connecting to freedom and liberation. I'm angry, I'm angry and I really cannot really convey this anger because cities that I used to know, roam and explore. And these are not just industrial cities. Luzia, a lot of towns here were really built by the European entrepreneurs back in the end of 19th century and early 20th century during the industrial revolution. A lot of Dutch, Belgians, Welsh entrepreneurs came here because they received the concession from the Russian government of the Russian Empire not to pay taxes while they will be developing their businesses. There are lot of different, there are buildings that used to be Lutheran churches, Calvinist churches. So there is a huge connection to European legacy here. It's not just Soviet buildings. So, and then to see that these streets, these towns with history are being destroyed and they become sifted with bullets and artillery shells. So these towns now, you know, like... Yeah.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky How do you deal with this anger? How do you deal with your, like this feeling of being angry and not being, you know, able to just stop it, right? I assume you have the wish that you just could stop what's happening. So how do you deal with these feelings personally?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva When I have power, when I have some energy, of course I keep working. When I don't, I feel tired and very down. So there are just two states I can be. Work 24 -7 nonstop or just have some sort of despair when I'm tired. Despair that this might never finish. All this might never finish.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky When you talk to these people, when you talk to people who are forced to flee their homes, you have the impression that the people, who are just right now fleeing are still having hope that they can come back.

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva This is ridiculous. Some people really told me about their hopes. «We hope everything will be alright.» told me a woman, who was saying that: «I might leave today or tomorrow.» This is so ridiculous. I mean, you know, the hope that her home won't be destroyed, that this area won't be destroyed, but we've seen already the examples of Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Bakhmut. So I wouldn't really disillusion yourself in what the Russians want to do here. When you can, you need to just leave and save your life.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky And what can you do as a journalist in such a moment?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva You need to report, you need to keep reporting because look the war is horrible and of course the world's attention is now on the Kursk incursion which has been sort of stagnation for a week or so so it's kind of so there are other topics which are important to cover in the news, like the attack on Kharkiv residents or Poltava. But with regards to what's happening right now in the Donetsk region, it's such a massive scale. I really call it the exodus of people, you know, the exodus of people because it's not just, you know, one town. It's not just one village. It's, its an entire region, which before 2014 was the most densely populated region because of the industrial enterprises. So all these people have to flee their homes and it's just unbelievable what's happening. The scale of what's happening is incomprehensible. And I think that we as journalists, of course, we cover the news, which are happening every day, like the shellings I mentioned before in Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Poltava, but we should not forget about this pain. You know, I was just in this bus with 30 people. There were two more buses. And every human in that bus carried his own burden and small bag. It was just everything that they took with them. They left kittens. They locked kittens at home. They locked dogs at home because they couldn't take them on board. It's another tragedy that they cannot really take animals with them. And I really think that we need to keep covering all this because it's probably one of the biggest tragedies the world can imagine. The tragedy of all these people leaving their homes. And the towns that I'm in right now, the big town of Sloviansk, I'm in right now, probably it's the last year for its more or less tolerable existence. After Pokrovsk, after Pokrovsk will be taken, the next turn will be for Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, and then the Russian forces will implement the dream of of their leader to take Donetsk region, but they won't stop on the Donetsk region. They will go forward. As soon as they tasted the taste of blood, it's very hard to stop.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky Are you sometimes afraid to read the news that the whole Donetsk region has been taken under control? That this headline at some point will be there?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva I've already accepted this idea. I've already accepted this idea because it was understandable before. From the political-military view, it was already a done deal that they would sacrifice this area for something else.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky And how does it feel being a person from this region that, like, on a political level, someone might be ready to sacrifice the region for other areas? How is that for you personally?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva I got used to feel, I got used to being ostracized. Because you know, in Ukrainian society, the period between 2014 to 2022, there was a blame on people from Donetsk for some sort of bringing Russia's forces to that side. But this is not the case. It's like the civilians, the peaceful civilians could not do anything against people with guns, you know, when the land was occupied in 2014. So there was a big misunderstanding and not proper work of the Ukrainian media to ostracize and guilt-tripping civilians for speaking Russian language, for being from Donetsk. There was much thorough attention of the security services and police for people who were coming from the Donetsk region and Luhansk region. I sort of got used to being like an outcast. But I grew a thick skin, so I don't really care about this.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky You have thick skin and you already came to the conclusion that the region will be occupied, like the whole region of Donetsk will be occupied by the Russian army.

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva I speak with the military, I speak to the military, I know the background information about the fortifications and you know, if in the two and a two years and a half, the fortifications, proper ones, haven't been built and I mean, just need to, you know, just need to have some common sense and logic to understand that this will be the case.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky When you're in contact with people who are still in Donetsk, do you think about the fact that you might never see them, might never be able to visit them again or...

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva You know, when I went on this evacuation to Kurakhovo last Friday and I saw this red sun rising up and I saw this, you know, someone's clothes hanging in the garden, in the courtyard. Somewhere I saw the unfinished watermelon half-eaten. I was driving to Kurakhovo and this was the closest I've been to my home in the past two and a years. You know, if I would turn right, 30 minutes and I would be home. And I was thinking at that time: «What is home?» But for me, probably the hardest thing is not that I won't see the town, that I won't see the city. The hardest for me is that I will never see the grave of my mom. I will never have a chance to ask for forgiveness. And that's what I was thinking about. I really would like to go there and ask for forgiveness from her. Yeah, this is a thought connected to the occupation.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky What gives you strength, Kateryna? To find a way to move on. What gives you strength?

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva On a physical level, it's the gym. This is my dopamine and drug since I don't consume alcohol. And this is really, I love going to the gym it makes me so happy. The gym and dancing. On the mental level I see the resilience of the Ukrainian people. I... Even in every hard story they tell me there is always some light of hope. And when I see their courage and resilience, I understand that the country is holding because of that. Because people are united, people want peace to be established. They will do everything to make it happen, everything they can to make it happen. And also when I look back, when I look at my achievements, at what I've been through. There are thoughts sometimes that I've sacrificed so much to... I've sacrificed so much to cover these 10 years of war and did really anything change? Did I make any difference? But then looking from the other angle at all this, I'm thinking I've been to so much. There was so much risk to my life, both from the shells and humans, then I think that it's definitely worth to keep going. It's worth to keep reporting. And after all, I'm just curious as a journalist, I'm very curious what can happen with my life. You know, very trivial, very trivial curiosity. We just wanted to know if you have some sort of a path, if you have some sort of mission in this life, where it will lead you, what it will be, you know. At the end of the days, it might be a very interesting book about my life.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky I am sure that it is going to be a very interesting book.

Kateryna Malofieieva: Kateryna Malofieieva And a lot of things to say to my grandchildren.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky Kateryna, thank you so much for being my guest today and giving us an inside view of what it really means and how it feels to be living in a war-torn country. You're listening to «Yak ty?», the podcast that gives people living in Ukraine a voice to talk about their very personal experience of Russia's war against its neighboring country. I'm your host, Luzia Tschirky, and I'm looking forward to your comments on today's show. We will be back in two weeks. Take care.