Ilustrative photo/Kharkiv/Mariya Volkova/Hromadske radio
After the russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February, 24 the difference comparing to the war going since 2014 was that now war is everywhere, says journalist and frontline reporter Anastasia Stanko.
She spoke about it during the conversation with Andriy Kulykov for English-language podcast Ukraine Calling on Hromadske radio:
«Maybe it’s, I don’t know, you can hear it’s like very solemn or something like this, but it’s true. The war is everywhere. And you can’t hide anywhere from this war.
I mean, when in 2014, for example, or 2015, I was going to the frontline near Avdiyivka, I understood that, okay, it’s a dangerous place now. But we will be here for two or three hours, and after this we will go back for five kilometres, and we will be in safe place. You know, now it’s absolutely not like this. If you are in some, I don’t know, positions of Ukrainian army 20 kilometres from the frontline on some, point of battle or something like this, you are in danger, absolutely.
And you are everywhere in danger».
Anastasia shares, that «this is why you feel so tired all the time»:
«…Because, you know, you don’t have this feeling of safety anywhere. And that’s why it’s very tiring. It’s very stressful. This is the first thing. Another thing that you see all the time is death. For example, you are asking me about my first frontline trip. It was to Kharkiv. And I remembered also that that time I asked some soldiers, can I go from Kyiv to Kharkiv just by the same road as we are always taking. lt’s Kharkiv roadway, you know, because I said maybe there are Russian soldiers somewhere, maybe somewhere destroyed bridges. And you know, you can’t even imagine, if the road is more or less safe for you. And this changed everything. And we even decided, we were down this trip for a couple of days, but we decided not even to stay in Kharkiv for the night because it was too, too dangerous, because shelling was everywhere in all the districts of Kharkiv. And it was March. It was so cold, I remember, and we didn’t see people on the streets.
And for me, the scariest moment when I’m walking somewhere, is always if you can’t see people on the streets. If you can’t see people on the streets, it means that something wrong has happened here, and it’s not the good place to be, to stay».
You may already read and listen the full conversation on Hromadske radio: Anastasia Stanko: «My only one decision as a journalist was I should go to the front line»