Ordinary Ukrainians and their haunting stories are the heroes of the Scottish reporter’s wonderful hymn to an embattled nation
In the run-up to Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, Jen Stout was in Moscow. The mood there was venomous. Russian television broadcast non-stop propaganda about “Ukrainian Nazis”. In a bar a drinker called Andrei told Stout “fascists” were to blame for the looming crisis. Russians, she found, were touchy and quick to anger. “The wild fantasy, the twisting of history, the paranoia and insecurity; it was all there,” she observes.
When explosions rocked Kyiv, Stout abandoned her trip and went via Istanbul to the Ukrainian border. A freelance journalist and producer, she spoke Russian and knew Ukraine well. But her plan to report on the biggest conflict in Europe since 1945 ran into obstacles. One was a lack of cash and frontline equipment. Another was a condescending male boss who deemed her, then 33, too inexperienced to work as a foreign correspondent in a war zone.
