As someone who comes from Ukraine and has lived here all my life, it’s really hard for me to describe how I feel about this disgusting war. I can take a moment and try to capture in a few words or sentences the totality of my emotions and thoughts associated with the situation in Ukraine today. But I feel that it doesn’t do justice to the magnitude of what is happening now and how it has shaped Ukraine and will shape my country’s future. I can even say that this is a hugely important moment that will shape the future of the world we live in.
I’m of course very happy that I haven’t lost any of my relatives since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. But then I can also extend my sense of empathy over space and time and realise how many lives of my fellow Ukrainians have been damaged or completely destroyed by the war events. Many people have lost their loved ones, their children. What will the future be like, and what’s the solution to end this suffering? If I knew the answers to these questions, I wouldn’t be sitting here typing these words on my computer. I would be sitting with world leaders as the President of Ukraine or something (just thought experiment). But I also think that rather than a single answer to ending this, there will probably need to be multiple solutions, implemented over many years.
Each of us can and should do what we’re best at and be willing to contribute whatever we can to our victory.
I am currently working with the team on this website, Truthful Reporting, developing our social media, attracting new people to the community and sometimes posting my own stories and interviews here.
Everything was going great with this work until the terrible war broke into our lives. When the full-scale invasion happened, our team decided to create the War Diary project, which would tell the stories of our youth and their experiences of resisting Russian aggression. We wanted to answer questions such as “What inspires them to continue creating and working despite the difficulties and challenges of the war?” This was the aim of this project, and soon we had the opportunity to engage a great team of students from different parts of Ukraine and different universities to develop this project. These are young people with different background and education from Ostroh University, Chernivtsi National University, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, who are all united by one goal — to tell the truth about the war in Ukraine. This project has also been translated into English, as it is extremely important to spread these stories abroad. Foreign audiences are eager to hear them and help our people in some way.
During the first months of the full-scale war, I was at home, in my parents’ house in the Zhytomyr region. I remember that a few days before the full-scale invasion, my roommate in the dormitory warned me to be very careful because the war could start any day soon. And in fact it did, the full scale war began just the next day after I left the city and came back home.
Of course, at that time many Western media were giving a lot of attention to the possibility of a full-scale war, saying that it was only a matter of time before it would start. The Ukrainian media didn’t publish harsh statements that the war was about to start and that there would be rocket fire. I’m not sure if that was the best strategy.
I spent all that time at home, and the first few weeks and months were incredibly difficult, to say the least. There was a lot of uncertainty, many days and especially nights we would hear explosions from rocket attacks about 20–30 kilometers away (they were relatively far away, but it was still easy to hear). The town near me, Korosten, suffered a lot of destruction, many houses were destroyed, many people were killed or seriously injured. Why do we suffer so much pain and death? Why do we have to go through all of this for so long as a nation? Because of the unfulfilled ambitions of the old Kremlin billionaire and his crazy, cruel ideas? Of course, this partly answers the question of why all this is happening. But the answer is not really important.
Why? I know I have to get up every day to do my job. I have to work a lot and constantly be learning something new, that’s what my profession requires, even though it is really hard, time-consuming and energy-consuming, especially in today’s reality. Sometimes I scratch my head and think: why do I have so many responsibilities? But I have to get up and just do it, that is my motivation. It’s of great importance for me to bring something new into this world, something of my own, something of value and interest to others.
At the moment my main goal is to keep developing various projects related to the war in Ukraine, also I work a lot to make our online outlet “Truthful Reporting” better and more interesting for the readers, and together with the team I also consider various project ideas for the future and on a regular basic we sit down and write grant proposals.
And then I also work for the online publication “Behind the news” which deals with fakes and disinformation in our digital age and how to fight against it. A large part of my work there has to do with debunking those fakes that can gain immense popularity among online users and cause great damage to our society. We do our best to protect our audience from sharing those lies while also equipping them with necessary tools to recognise and effectively deal with the fakes themselves.
And although all our journalistic projects come to an end at some point, the issue of war will be with us for a long time to come. It will be with us, in our minds, for many years to come. Unfortunately, it is now our reality. War has no positive side, I really don’t understand those who can somehow glorify it or even get pleasure from killing other people. For me, that is something totally wild.
But while the war continues, we — the young journalists who are just beginning our thorny path in this field — should write true stories about the war and tell the stories of other Ukrainians, be active in this realm as much as possible. We as journalists are charged with the task to tell stories of their struggles and how they defend freedom and the fundamental values of democracy.
I look forward to developing our platform. We’ve already published some great and really important work, had stories from the occupied parts of Ukraine, and I’m immensely proud of that.
Our team now consists of more than 50 people, including journalists, translators, editors, social media managers, IT people, photographers, etc. We’ve grown a lot as a team since we started. When we first started, I remember when the website was launched, we had 3–5 people at most, but now it’s so much more, and we have young talented people who are studying at prestigious universities in Ukraine and abroad, who have won scholarships to study in the UK, for example, or presidential scholarships, and who are already showing by their actions and dedication that they are our future.
I believe that it is very important today, at this point, to work on projects that deal with the war. Not to sound too grandiose, but I consider it one of my life’s missions (although it probably sounds grandiose).
So many images and stories come to mind when I think about what’s happened to us since 24 February. Kherson, Mariupol, deportations, refugees, missiles… This war evokes different associations and emotions in each of us.
In these years, the Russians have shown themselves in the worst possible way, both the military and the ordinary people. However, it is sometimes very difficult to call those who rape children and use dozens of different methods to torture innocent people human beings. They deserve the greatest punishment for all the crimes they have committed on Ukrainian territory.
However, I understand that investigations can take years or even decades. Sometimes we see in the news cases of convictions of Nazi leaders who took part in the Holocaust, when more than 70 years have passed since that time. So yes, this process takes time, but I believe that justice will prevail. I remain optimistic, and I am inspired by the way we continue to drive the enemy from our land, to liberate a piece of our land every day, despite all the difficulties. We simply cannot lose.
Below I am attaching a short presentation to encourage our readers to join the Truthful Reporting team. If you are a student of journalism, English, or philology and want to use your skills today, join us and help build a more just society in Ukraine based on truthful reporting. We welcome new people to our team that already has more than 50 members. We want to continue to expand and implement bigger projects, especially those related to the war in Ukraine. We view it as the key mission of our organisation today.
