EP.6: Documenting war crimes for 1’000 days as a journalist

Luzia: Welcome to the podcast, Yak Ty, Ukraine Live. Yak Ty means how are you in Ukrainian. I'm your host, Luzia Tschirky. I'm a former correspondent reporting from Ukraine, now a book author and a freelancer. In this podcast, I always talk to a guest live from Ukraine. The goal of this podcast is to give people in Ukraine the opportunity to talk about their experience of Russia's war against its neighboring country. I'm more than delighted to welcome today's guest on the show, Olga Guzhva. Olga is documenting war crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine with international journalist teams. She is herself a frontline journalist. Olga Guzhva was a country project officer at the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. Before Russia's full-scale invasion, she lived in the northeast of the country, in the region of Kharkiv, but now she is with her family in Lviv, a city in the western part of the country. Thank you so much for being with us today. Today's episode focuses on your work, Olga. Your work as a journalist during the past thousand days already of Russia's full-scale invasion and your aim to do even more than documenting war crimes committed by the Russian army against Ukrainians. But before we talk about your work and your plans and ideas for the future, I would like to ask you the question I ask everyone invited to this podcast. Yak ty saras? How are you right now?

Olga Guzhva: Okay, thank you. It's really a very hard question and I don't know what to say about... We are still alive. I am still alive. I am just alive after the massive air attack. We do not have such big shooting in Lviv, but in the other city we can see horrible pictures of what happened during the past couple of days. A lot of civilians killed, injured and universities and private residential houses destroyed. So it's a very hard question now. We are still alive and we are still able to resist.

Luzia: Thank you so much for answering even hard questions on this podcast. Olga, you have been working with many, many different international journalist teams in Ukraine. Can you tell the audience briefly how you ended up doing this job?

Olga Guzhva: Okay, thank you for this question. My life is divided into two parts. First part before and after huge scale, second after huge scale escalation. Before that I work at university as a member of the staff, like as a member of the faculty of the university and run a lot of different project. I also work with a journalist, an international one, and run a lot of international project connected with how to highlight the war since 2014. Because this war started not in 2022 but in 2014 and it is very important to be aware of how long this period lasts for Ukrainians. But of course the huge scale escalation is more violent and more visible for all the others so I started to work with the international team in January of 2022 and the first shelling we experienced in the end of January. Back then we were in Luhansk and Donetsk region and after that I decided, I just recognized that I don't have any choice, I need to be present here because I'm not only work like a journalist, I work like a local producer and this book is very important because you are eyes and everything for the international journalists that do not know nothing about the context, how to get permission, how to talk with people, how to find contact and so on and on. And when we start working in the fields, I understand that this is my duty to share this experience with other journalists, also international one and Ukrainian one. And we kept in touch with a lot of media companies, small media companies that decided to stay in the frontline areas and highlight all the situation and Ukrainian journalists and bring them personal protective equipment and give a training about this. So it's last till now, but now I'm more focused in like safety and security policy and cyber security component for the journalists.

Luzia: Can you briefly describe, you just mentioned that you felt like a duty of doing this job. Can you describe why you felt this duty is there, that you felt like obliged to do this job?

Olga Guzhva: It's happened maybe mostly because my home is in the Kharkiv region. It's not the city of Kharkiv, it's closer to the border with Russia. at the start of the huge scale invasion in February, I was in Kyiv and my family, my husband and my daughter was at home in Kharkiv region and it was the hardest period in my life because the Russians moved very quickly and all this territory was occupied by them very very quickly and they shelling like heavily 24 hours per day. And I thought that I will never saw my family again and when I came back and we managed to evacuate from this frontline area I decided that this situation should see all the world. And they should not be talking about concern, but act. And the facts and the situations that you're witnessing by the eyes of the journalists, by the eyes of average people, by their stories, they are very important. It is urgent and you need to be in this field because I have some experience, because I have some expertise, I have connections and a lot of journalists asked me to help them. It was like I don't have any choice. It was my acting to the victory, to the resistance of country or something like this.

Luzia: The audience of this podcast is happily living in totally different circumstances than people in Ukraine. So people listening to this podcast have luckily never seen a war crime, never seen an army committing war crimes against civilians. Can you describe for people who are not familiar with war crimes, how exactly journalists are documenting war crimes and why it is so important that they do this work?

Olga Guzhva: This is a very important issue and I think that especially international audience need to understand that sometimes a journalist is the first and the only person with whom a civilian who for example have been occupied or witnessing something very horrible are able to talk about this. And for them it's not only about to share the story but they believe that this story can change something, can influence on people who listen to it and they not be like, okay, it's a horrible story, but they try to change the situation and influence on this. Because I heard a thousand of stories and first time when you ask a question, just stop to breathe because you understand that an answer would be horrible. People talking about horrible things without any emotion, they are just looking through you and talking about horrible crimes. And at first time you even deny to believe that the other human beings could do... with the humans, with the children, with the women. It's genocide of the nation. It's not a war with some rules and when the military combat with the military. It's against humanity, it's against the main values. yes, if you do not like this, it is normal that the story frightens you very well. you need to act not to see the story anymore, not to continue the story, to do something to ask your politics to influence on this situation, to make the story more public, because it's not only about Ukrainians, it's about the humanity and the international safety and about how the other country can commit a crime publicly and nobody cares and nobody can stop this country.

Olga Guzhva: you

Luzia: Why is it so difficult, you know, like after having documented war crimes and after, you know, so many proofs were found in Ukraine that Russian soldiers committed war crimes? Why is it so difficult to bring those people that have committed these war crimes to justice? What is your experience? Why is it so difficult?

Olga Guzhva: It is difficult. depends on what we mean. If we want to see, for example, Putin in court, it's the one case. It is really very difficult and we need to do cooperatively, internationally some things. We're talking a lot about international national tribunals and importance on this and we have like a lot of cases like Slavodan Milosevic cases and so on and we need to move in this area but if we talk about like average soldiers that committed a crime we have a lot of evidence and the only thing is to find these people and to bring them to the court because a lot of even journalists do very important work to identify the criminals who committed some crimes because sometimes they use TikToks to just show how they I don't know how even how to to describe this situation so they do not hide their crimes they talk publicly about this because for them they are hero in friends and community and even some relatives said okay do something to the Ukrainian do something back to the Ukrainian but in general we need to be united in this area and understand that all these cases we have more than 1073 cases it's a lot we need to make them working to put this person in court because this is our responsibility for people who have been killed, have been tortured and who never see this in their real life. But this is our duty also and our responsibility for this.

Luzia: When came the moment for you personally, I remember talking to you when we first met in Vienna a few weeks ago, that you told me that you would like to do more than documenting war crimes, that there should be more done. When was the moment for you personally that you have decided so there should be done more than just like the documentation of war crimes? When was that? Do you remember that?

Olga Guzhva: You see, it's like a very complicated emotional situation because when you, for example, come back to the same liberated villages and see the same people who you've talked, for example, six months ago or one year ago when it was liberated, just was liberated, and they talk with you and talk about the cases of the witnessing, about the crimes, how the Russians tortured their neighbors, or how they killed their neighbors, about the collaborators who collaborate with the Russians. They have hope. They talk about this with you, like a journalist, not only to highlight the situation, but they believe that something happened and the criminals would be punished. When you come back for some period to the same village and saw this... this ice again and saw these people and they a little bit demotivated and desperate because nothing happened. are shouting every day. The flying invasion bomb destroyed their houses. The Russians continue to kill civilians, their neighbors, their friends and so on and so on. So this is like an unfair situation without any solution for them. And you feel guilty because you You talk about this publicly, you do what you can, you documentate all this, you cooperate with professional departments and with organizations who collected this evidence, but nothing happened. And this is really a very bad situation. And also for the journalists and for the activists who work in this area, only collected and heard these horrible stories and didn't see how it could be changed the situation. Of course there are some changes. We should be absolutely clear that there are some changes, there are some positive changes. We do a lot, we make a capacity. We united a lot of international actors in this field. But there are still not enough. And this is very important to understand not only for Ukrainian community, but also for international communities.

Olga Guzhva: more maybe proactive even in this field and to support not only by words but by the real mechanism how make this possible more quickly because a lot of people want to be alive still when these criminals go to the court and see the result of their testimony on the evocs.

Luzia: Do yourself you want to see that?

Olga Guzhva: Yeah, you see it's my dream when I first saw Russian soldiers laughing when he telling a story about how he raped Ukrainian women and girls. My vision was so, so clear. I want to see him in court. want to... understand that all these people have been punished not just stay ahead and laughing and say okay you can do nothing but punished by the system of punishment that accepted in democratic society. Because if we're about democracy, we need to understand that it's about like, let's pretend that it would be peace and nothing happened before. It's not about forgiveness, it's about justice. And justice is about like punishment for the crime, not for ignorance and pretence. blind that you do not see that someone killed another another a lot of another people

Luzia: There were court sentences against Russian soldiers who committed war crimes in Ukraine, but most of them were sentenced in absentia, so like the Russian soldiers were not present while the court was taking place against them. What's your opinion on these court sentences, you know, against Russian soldiers who have committed war crimes? Would you say that these sentences at least changed something? There's a little bit of justice restored or how would you, you know, consider them?

Olga Guzhva: Yeah, I think it is at least something. It is a small drop that gives us beliefs that... We do something like physicality, not only talking about this, but we already punished and have this court decision about these crimes. And this is also about motivation because the huge scale escalation lasts 1,000 days. It's a horrible days of resilience when you don't know if you will have tomorrow. that are still in Ukraine and they do their work and continue to this work. It is very important to aware and to understand that something happened. It's maybe a small drop but it's already a drop and I hope we will have an ocean of changes in this area.

Luzia: When you're thinking about your future plans, you know, not knowing whether there is an air attack within the next day, the next two days, within a week: What are your ideas for the future, how to do more than, you know, just documenting war crimes, although documenting war crimes is already a huge amount of work and very difficult work to do as a journalist. What are your ideas for the future?

Olga Guzhva: You know, thank you for those questions because I allow myself to make plans for the future. For me it means that I allow myself to have a future because 2022 was for me like one big day without any numbers and names of the day. I just have a task and we go for different points on the front line and we do our stuff without non-stop. But now I understand that it's Even in this situation when you don't know, you can't predict what will do Russian today or tomorrow and where the Russian rocket would be shot at. But I understand that now we have an aim why we are leaving more clearly and more directly. And I think that documenting of war crime, it's one day stopped and we... we will think about our rebuilding and restabilization and about even rehabilitation of our society, our combatants, of the family and to create a more stable and more strong society. And now I want to say that I very proud that I am Ukrainian because it allows me to talk about this everywhere and to proud, like sincerely proud that I am Ukrainian and I resist 1,000 days of during huge scale escalation.

Luzia: So the plans for the future are now concretely that you want to be more active in cyber security as far as understood you correctly. Can you tell us more about that?

Olga Guzhva: Yes, think that the plan plans a little bit refocus. I don't think it's changed like particularly about refocus if we're about the resilience. So the cyber resilience it is very important and it's important for organization and for personal because if we're talking about the journalists in general cyber resistance is about the ability to be more professional and to more sensitively talk about even war crimes, about the criminals, to protect their self and to protect their sources and to more professionally and more quickly identify the criminals. So it's like a complex story about this. And also if you're talking about how the Russians combine cyber security attacks, IE technology and disinformation, fakes, misinformation, propaganda, so they split all this together and we have no choice, we need to orientate good in this issue and we have to be protected because if small world make big claims and make big attempts for Russia and Ukraine now it's a big lab where the Russians tested everything so we need to understand how it happened and how to easily protect because easily steps can protect you very good. For example, two factors of identification. sounds everyone knows about this, but how many persons have this on their gadget. This is issue. So we need to be more protected and more resilient in this issue.

Luzia: Would you say that there is still a huge gap or still a lot to know for Ukrainian journalists or what is your experience talking to Ukrainian journalists?

Olga Guzhva: Yeah, I think it's still a big gap not only for Ukrainian journalists it's like average attitudes for example I talked a lot with also international journalists and they divided like okay in my professional fields in my work computer I didn't use for example pterograms or Viber or non-licensed application but for example for my personal use I can allow myself to use this kind of stuff and this is not about the cyber safety and security. It's about double standards that make it reads and make it challenges for and make it double risk for the professional activity of the journalist. And this means that we need to form a culture and we need to form an everyday practice and make a behavioral changes. This is not so easy and not so quick, but when we talk about the zero trust concept, it means that you evaluate suspicious everything that you are working with and you double check it. Of course, in situation with Ukrainian journalists, they are more vulnerable because the situation adds the risk all the time. It's a different kind of risk. Physical safety and security, emotional and of course cyber looks like a command. It's not killing me at the moment, but in general it can cause a lot of problems for the media organization and for the journalists personally.

Luzia: Can you describe briefly for people who are not into cyber security and are not working as journalists what could be the risks? why is it especially for Ukrainian journalists very important to know about cyber security and to take as many possible security measures they can?

Olga Guzhva: Okay, first it's that the journalist personally and organization can lost their resources like Facebook pages, different accounts in social media, in messengers, their site could be lost and they can lost some information. If for example it could be used combined technology so the Russians could put on your site some fake information and share the this information from your site or can use spoofing for example copy your site it would be looks like your your media site but it would consist of fake information. Why is this matter it's issue about the trust The Russians understand that the media and the journalists do their job pretty well and the people trust them and they like a testimony worldwide about what happened in Ukraine. So for them it's very important to... to delay all this issue and to make it hurt to the reputation of this media. The second is the safety of the person, of the journalist and for their sources. For example, if the contact should be stolen from your telephone, from your messenger chat. It's very simple thing. For example, you can check how many devices are connected to your phone, Telegram channel or Whatsapp channel and nobody does this but it is very effective because if someone connected with some purpose and trying to to hack your messenger and it could be visible on your phone and you know just need to Delay it also the issue about phishing. This is the most maybe popular things in cyber security field when you received some list that looks like a phish

Olga Guzhva: It could be from the bank or from some governmental authorities or whatever. It can look like newsletters with some information and you can believe that it's real. It's okay if it's only this information but it also can consist of... they can store your personal data. For example, they can ask you to put your card numbers or your personal... emails and paroles of this mail so it is very dangerous situation. this is also, this could bring harm also to the media reduction, not only to the personal. And of course if this phishing list sent to the audience and from, for example, from the media and they give some personal information and they understand that they have been treated by media they do not check if it's really a media do or it's a criminal's do. So it's also about the reputation and the trust, especially if it's due on behalf of volunteers or organizations who collect donations, like charity community. And this is also a very important issue.

Luzia: You said in the beginning that your life is divided into two parts before the start of the full-scale invasion and after the start of the full-scale invasion. When you look back now and you think about how you dealt yourself before the full-scale invasion with cyber security, are you sometimes thinking, my God, I was so not aware of what I was doing and how much I was not safe?

Olga Guzhva: this is also a good question because before the huge escalation I conducted a lot of trainings for different groups in the Kharkiv region. also was a governmental official, faculty staff, like schools and so on and also activists. And it was like a really big amount of trainings and nobody evaluate it as a real treat, as real risk or real dangers. Everyone knows like a simple rules and if you ask people do you know the basic principle of safety and security they said of course and give you an answer. Do you practice it? this is what be interesting answer. Not all or they do it like partly or they use a double approach for example only for this computer because it's connected with this work but telephone I can give my telephone to my grandchildren or to my children and they playing and download some application as I don't say so this is the case we are all living in a world that we do not expect like that risk become real but now the war situation and is change particularly everything even according to my experience I used to use Viber and Telegram but when I start to work in from applying, I delayed even application from my... It was hard in the first, but then I decided, okay, I don't have this application on my device, so I use another one. And everyone who want to communicate with me, they also use another one. So this is a very useful because people also change their practice because they understand that some bubbles, some communities of people use only signal or WhatsApp. So if you want to communicate with them, you need to download this. application. So I think it's a common not only for Ukrainian, but Ukrainian feel this more strictly because it connected with the physical security and this is that push people to make it changes.

Luzia: Are you having any concrete plans how long you would like to do more in the field of cyber security or are you just now really looking into it and are exploring for yourself?

Olga Guzhva: I think the cyber security will be the main topics for maybe... 10 years, it would be really important not only for Ukraine but globally because it is effective, it does not need kinesthetic influence on any society, it could be very harmful and it could be connected with, for example, AI and other technology and make a lot of mess inside the democratic and other societies. So I think that this topic should pay more attention and it should be included in management of any organization and we need to build like a real culture of cyber resilience and understand how to behave before, after and during the cyber attacks.

Luzia: When you talk to foreigners coming to Ukraine, do have the impression that those people are behind? Like the experience of Ukrainians, how important cybersecurity is? What is your personal experience like having contact with people from abroad?

Olga Guzhva: I think that they behave like average people, average civilian people, except if I work with a military journalist they behave differently because it's like protocols of their professional ability and duty. But the other journalists, do not see the connections between if they do something, for example, put some information some documents in telegrams what should happen. are nothing like that can cause harm to national security of any country. But in the situation of war, any information could be used by the enemy. And we need to understand that even if we think that nothing interesting in this information, nothing interesting for the enemy, they can use it. and they can use it against you. So this is very important to explain to international journalists that they should behave as the risk is as real as they can imagine.

Luzia: And do you feel yourself a little bit paranoid sometimes when you explain to people not familiar with the context in Ukraine that they need to be aware of dangers basically everywhere?

Olga Guzhva: Hmm

Olga Guzhva: Sometimes it looks like you are very suspicious and you try to avoid everything and you are talking about everything. It maybe looks strange. But what I used to do, I just make cases and make examples. If you are talking about this scenario and talking not only about command not to this because... But you say, okay, we have a set of risks. what will happen if we continue to use, for example, such kind of messenger that we use. It is okay if you accept this risk and if you accept the circumstances and if you accept the scenario that you should do if this risk is happened. Okay, you can use it, but I don't. if you need to communicate with me, you need to use this one, this one, this one. And this is usually works because this is Russianize your behavior, you talk not emotionally and you do not look strange and I conduct a lot of training about cyber security to the journalists. it is absolutely practical without any emotions and when you show the case what how it can be used and what kind of scenario Russian used it's impressed and people say okay we never think about this, that this is simple things can be used like this. So this is the issue.

Luzia: Can you use one example here as well, where cyber security, a basic rule, was not respected and it actually was misused by the Russian army for their purposes?

Olga Guzhva: The first maybe it's about the messengers, unsafe messengers that also Ukrainian military used to use. It was like Vibros and so on and on. And the case that they can use it to even hack for example the signal or WhatsApp messenger or to track the information in this messenger. It means that even if you use for It's about this double standards approach. For example, can use signal for working communication but have a vibrate for a chat with your grandma on the same telephone, on the same device. And this is also unsafe. And this is maybe the most common issue for today because I think that almost everyone knows about the unsafe issue and how it could be used and a lot of talking about this and even the most wave of disinformation share with this messenger but this double approach okay I don't do something wrong I'm just talking with my grandpa but this is the risk if you use your messenger to talk with your grandma the grandma may be used by criminals as the easiest way to hack or your other messengers.

Luzia: How do you work as a journalist when you're limited, when you try to reach out to people? It's not just one thing that people would like to reach you, but when you are trying to contact someone and these people are only using these kind of not safe channels, how do get in contact with them as a journalist? What are your workarounds?

Olga Guzhva: In this case I recommend to have a separate device that has only this messenger, do not have your personal account like Google accounts, mails and other main messengers. So one phone, other number of phones and only one messenger. But this is also unsaid because it could be tracked. For example, we know that Viber can share your geolocation even if everything is switched off. So it is better to use only phone and to physically phone. We forgot about this option of the telephone that we can talk using the mobile connection, not only messenger that we have. But yes, this is a difficulty, especially if you work in a frontline territory or liberated territory, is better to not use this messenger at all.

Luzia: Do you yourself catch yourself by reading or educate yourself on the topic and you catch yourself with the moment that you read about something you never thought of, that it could be dangerous? Is it like for you the same that you learn every day something new about it or how is that for you going?

Olga Guzhva: No, sometimes I coach myself that, my god, I need to change these settings, need to change them a long period of time, but I didn't do it. I need to do this. So it's like this. You need to aware and understand that all these attempts to hack an average person, they are very simple. They are not complicated. They cheap and simple. They do not invent some big technologies, do not need to have access to... They use very simple things. If you are not protected, they hack you and they'll see if the information that you have is useful. And you need to be aware that if, for example, Russians want to hack you or your organization, you have no choice. They do this. They can invest in this money, resources, and... nothing can protect you from 100 persons. the resilience and the awareness of cyber security protocols and rules give you ability to work and to recover after this and to continue to work professionally in the field. This is the difference. This makes sense. Because if you are a target, you have been hacked. the questions if you have your archive or if you still have access to your websites or Facebook pages or accounts. It's an issue about your protocols or what you have been done before or you haven't done.

Luzia: Have you wondered whether you have been hacked in the past and you might never caught it?

Olga Guzhva: Yes, I have such kind of experience. I would not talk in detail yet, I have this display and I feel it in my own. I have not been protected properly at this period of time. This happened at the start of 2022. And yes, it is harmful and I still feel the... what happened, how it can cause to my even professional activity.

Luzia: We're now today, when we're recording this podcast episode, the full scale innovation is already going on for a thousand days. Looking back on these thousand days of the full scale evasion, does it feel for you like a thousand days or is it for you personally more like a thousand years?

Olga Guzhva: It's again very hard questions because for me it feels like a different life, like a long different life and I feel like a different person. At once I lost everything. You start to live again and start to find again senses of your living and to rebuild everything, to build your reality from small pieces. But these pieces are different. They are not what you have before because they are destroyed by Russian weapon, like physically. My house is destroyed and everywhere it's a frontline now and it's a very strange feeling. Because you understand that you are strong and you are strong inside enough to resist and to build something. And it's very hard to do simple things like allow yourself to live, allow yourself to be happy, allow yourself to make everyday small happy things like breakfast with the family because it's so unique and it's so easily harmed. It's so unstable in this reality that you're even afraid to breathe because you think that it could be disappeared in one moment because of some iron lumps and iron toxin and so on and on and this is a particular different life during I can say that it's all

Olga Guzhva: days would be the same because I have a part when I walk in the front line and it's a particular different life and particular different persons that have a horrible experience but very vulnerable for me experience and it's really changed a lot of situation in my life now but yeah it's look something like this

Luzia: Olga Guzhva, thank you so much for being guest on my podcast today and I'm 100 % sure that you can be proud of yourself, of what you've achieved during the last thousand days and what you're still going to achieve. Thank you so much.

Olga Guzhva: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.