In November 2021, a group of Ukrainian journalists quit their oligarch-owned newspaper and set up a new online publication. They were not the first journalists to turn their backs on an interfering boss – and they won’t be the last. What sets them apart is the fact that, only months after they launched the Kyiv Independent as an English-language newspaper, they found themselves reporting on a war – in their own country.
How could these reporters, many of whom were more used to writing about fashion and culture, deal with the existential threat, not only to their jobs (most journalists are used to that) but to their lives?
The Kyiv Independent is staffed by about 30 young journalists and funded by donations. An online appeal has now topped £1.7m and, unlike most newspapers around the world, the Kyiv Independent is hiring. But this is not work for the faint-hearted. These reporters are living every second of this war alongside their friends and families, and they have to balance their role as journalists with their hopes and fears as citizens.
In War Diary of the Ukrainian Resistance, we see the Russian invasion through their eyes. The book consists of a series of pieces from the paper, interspersed with personal reflections by the reporters. At times, they cover events with the kind of objectivity you might expect of a seasoned war correspondent. Elsewhere, they write about their own experiences of being bombed, fleeing their homes, or sheltering from sniper fire. In both cases, they describe things with clarity and precision.
As one reporter, Alexander Query, says, Ukrainian journalists have to “maintain a certain detachment to talk about Ukraine’s war wounds despite the pain, like an amputee who forces their eyes to stay open during the operation”.
Journalism is often called the first draft of history, but the early sections of this book read more like the first drafts of journalism – pieces rushed out at speed, under appalling conditions. As the war progresses, the writing becomes more fluent, and the journalism goes more deeply into the experiences of people across Ukraine.
Igor Kossov stands out for the laconic charm of his writing. On 22 March, he spends a day with two volunteer drivers, running supplies into the war zone outside Kyiv and extracting civilians. Arriving in a possibly occupied village, Kossov and the volunteers hear about two groups of people needing to be evacuated – some on Chekhov Street and one on Dostoevsky Street. “We decided to hit Chekhov first, not for any literary merit, it just seemed closer.”
It turns out that one of the evacuees has two enormous dogs – “Spanish mastiffs the size of young grizzly bears” – that she refuses to leave behind. Kossov suggests that they saddle up the dogs “and ride down the Russians like the Cossacks of old”.
There is no mistaking which side of the war these journalists are on. As Anna Myroniuk, head of investigations, points out, they are not like most war correspondents, who can go home after a tour of duty. “This is your home. Under attack.”
One member of the team joined the Ukrainian army at the start of the war, but the others have remained committed to journalism. They are fighting an information war, getting the truth out of Ukraine, just as the volunteers are evacuating civilians from the war zone.
Like Anton Chekhov or Fyodor Dostoevsky, their writing is full of the messy business of being human. The man who saved the life of his ex-wife and now has a “new, more complicated” relationship with her. The Kyiv resident with Covid-19 who has to decide whether to walk into a bomb shelter during an air raid and possibly infect those around him, or stay at home and risk being killed by a missile. The dead Russian soldier, whose nametape reveals him to be a 24-year-old from Siberia, whose mother is an elementary schoolteacher.
Every page contains stories such as these, of ordinary people in extraordinary times. There are horrors here, but there is also love, compassion, and a steady drumbeat of determination to stay alive and to keep other people alive.
In the words of Kossov, “around the broad red strokes of violence and sadism, one can see the little brushstrokes filling the negative space. Strokes of kindness and self-sacrifice, of heroism and defiance, of quiet grace and nobility in the face of annihilation. The best that humanity has to offer.”
Jonathan Heawood is executive director of the Public Interest News Foundation
• War Diary of the Ukrainian Resistance is published by Flint (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
