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When Russian journalist Lilia Yapparova began reporting from the Ukrainian side of the war, launched by her post-Soviet neighbor, Russia, she expected to face hostility.
“I was honestly surprised that people would spend a lot of time and effort helping me. People would have had their right to say, ‘no, we do not have time for you now‘”, Said Yapparova, who works for the independent media Meduza.
Despite censorship in the country, a handful of freelance Russian journalists have worked tirelessly in Ukraine to cover the fighting. In addition to interviewing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, they have documented evidence of mass killings, rapes and looting by the Russian military in towns and villages near Kyiv.
“People helped me. “There were those who found me places to stay and helped my editors give me money and medicine.” said Elena Kostyuchenko, a reporter for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which arrived in Ukraine on the second day of the war.
In addition to reporting events from the western city of Lviv, Kostyuchenko worked in Odessa and Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine. Her most dangerous journey during reporting included crossing the front line by car to reach the occupied city of Kherson.
While journalists like Kostyuchenko were on duty in Ukraine, the media they worked for in Russia were facing an uncertain future.
Yapparova’s news media, the Medusa, was blocked inside Russia shortly after the invasion and is now only accessible via a VPN. “I constantly think about the number of people in Russia who know the truth and the number of people who are protected by the truth. But I do not think about my work“, Said Yapparova.
In the face of growing censorship within Russia, talking to freelance journalists is one of the few ways in which Ukrainian officials can try to communicate directly with Russian audiences.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a video interview with Russian journalists. Peter Verzilov, the editor of MediaZona had met with Zelenskyn to do an interview for a documentary.
Those working in the field for the Russian media are exposed to the same horrors and dangers as Ukrainian and foreign war journalists.
“I have visited many morgues. In the morgue you can get objective information about the war. When I went to the Mykolaiv morgue, I saw bodies piled on top of each other. I opened a door to another room, saw more bodies, including children. And some bodies were lying in the yard“, Said Kostyuchenko.
Oksana Baulina, 42, a Russian journalist from the independent media The Insider, died last month from Russian bombing while on a mission to document military aggression in Kyiv’s Podil district.
After more than a month in Ukraine, Yapparova describes her feelings as “a mixture of physical, emotional and mental fatigue.”
But, she says she does not intend to leave the country. “Along with the war against Ukraine, a war against the independent press is taking place [në Rusi]. And I do not know how it will all end. But I am not ready to bury the independent press in Russia. I will not do it “, she concludes. / KosovaPress
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