I See a Fast Process of Unpicking Centuries of Colonialism and Russification in Ukraine | Jen Stout

Jen Stout is a Scottish freelance journalist covering the war inUkraine for British media. She specializes in long-form reporting. Stout has reported from Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka, from the front line, train carriages, schools, minefields, and humanitarian convoys.In 2024, she published her debut book «Night Train to Odesa: Covering the Human Cost of Russia’s War». In it, Stout reflects on the work of journalists and photographers duringwartime.

She found herself in Siberia when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, having arrived there as part of an academic program. After receiving messages from her friends in Kharkiv saying they were being bombed by Russianaircraft, she immediately left Russia.

Stout had never been a war correspondent before. She decided to first travel to Ukrainian border towns to interview refugees. She deliberately avoided working alongside large international media outlets. Instead, she chose thesmall Romanian town of Isaccea, located on the Danube River, where refugees from southern Ukraine and Mariupol were arriving. Later, she went to Odesa.

Although Odesa appears in the book’s title, Stout writes more about her beloved Kharkiv. She first visited the city in 2018 and was blown away by its diverse architectural styles, which embody the city’s — and Ukraine’s — layeredhistory. She still keeps a photo from that visit, in which she stands smiling happily under one of the arches of the Derzhprom building.

Journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk talks with Jen Stout about her book, what people abroad ask her about Ukraine, her deep affection for Kharkiv, how foreign freelance journalists work, what draws her to Ukrainian culture, and why pacifists aren’t pressuring Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine.

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