Episode 59 – When Your Beat Becomes a War Zone with Oksana Kovalenko

Oksana Kovalenko talking to Janet and Stephanie

As a companion to our episode on Bucha with AFP’s Danny Kemp, we also want to shine the light on Ukranian journalists. They are lauded by Time Magazine and we see them on Twitter giving us crucial updates of what is happening in their country and trying to countrer disinformation efforts.

We talked with Oksana Kovalenko who has worked with Babel an online news site since its launch in Ukraine in 2018. 

She covers politics, war, law enforcement, and war crimes. Oksana has seen her work change since the Russian invasion in February and tells us about the difficulties reporting from a war zone from getting enough petrol to go out to gather news to reporting on traumatic events.

In the midst of Russia’s war on Ukraine Oksana does not have a lot of time to watch or read things but she did say she is trying to read up a lot on war crimes trials especially the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi leaders. She recommends the movie The Reader with Kate Winslet which deals with a post-war trial of SS women camp guards.