A top Ukrainian journalist has told how her brave team became war reporters overnight as Russian missiles rained down on the country.
Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent, said her publication, founded in 2021, also became the “world’s eyes” on the brutal war and Ukraine ’s “voice in the world”.
Delivering the annual Hugh Cudlipp Lecture at Stationers’ Hall in central London, Ms Rudenko recalled the start of the invasion on February 24, 2022.
She received a call from the office at 3am and, just an hour later, Russian state television was broadcasting a speech by President Vladimir Putin.
She said: “At around 4.50am when he was done speaking I heard an explosion.
“Then I heard another one. They were coming from above and that’s how I realised my city, Kyiv, was under attack.”
She continued: “I didn’t know much about air raids. I didn’t know how deadly they were. And I had just listened to a tyrant talking for an hour about how he wants to destroy my nation. So I put the two things together and concluded that this is it. At this same time everyone else on the team, in different parts of Kyiv, in their homes, were going through the same or similar realisations.
“So what did we do? We opened our laptops and we started writing. We all became war reporters overnight.”
In the early days of the invasion her team dispersed around Ukraine to ensure the survival of the online newspaper.
Eventually, they were all able to return to the city and have endured air attacks and a “very dark winter” of blackouts, but made it work with the help of “a lot of hot tea”.
Praising her fearless team, Ms Rudenko said: “My colleagues have been going to the frontline and to liberated territories all the time.
“Risking their lives, risking their health and their mental health to tell the world the real stories from the ground in Ukraine. When the Kyiv Independent goes to the frontline, it’s often just one journalist with a camera.
“Our journalists volunteer to do it. The bravery and dedication of my journalists is something that keeps me going every day.”
Ms Rudenko, who was named one of TIME magazine’s next generation leaders in 2022, said her reporters makes the important daily choice to “carry on”.
She added: “We are all exhausted, physically and mentally. It would be very easy to just stop.
“But we’re not stopping.”
She said she is “particularly proud” of one choice made on the first day of Russia ’s invasion as publications across the globe reported on events.
Some outlets used Putin’s words to frame the illegal invasion as a “special military operation”.
Ms Rudenko recalled: “I regret to say that most Western publications reported it that morning using the words that the dictator offered them.
“The headlines on the main news websites across the world said: ‘Putin announces special military operation against Ukraine’. That headline was Russia’s first disinformation victory.”
She added: “When a country sends troops into a neighbouring state to invade and faces resistance, there is a word for that. It’s a very old word and very short one and it’s one that Russia wanted to avoid so much.
“The headline on [our] website that morning was very simple. It said: ‘Putin declares war on Ukraine’.”
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