water volumes along the yangtze river are currently at their lowest ever levels. now on bbc news, it s hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i m stephen sackur. for six months now, ukraine has been a nation at war, the government and people united in a conviction that they are fighting for freedom. but in the face of the existential threat posed by putin s invasion, has ukraine stayed true to the democratic values it loudly proclaims? well, my guest is olga rudenko, the editor of the kyiv independent, a news organisation committed to reporting from ukraine without fear or favour. but is there room for independentjournalism on the ukrainian battlefield? olga rudenko in kyiv, welcome to hardtalk. well, stephen, thank you for having me. it s a great pleasure to have you on the show. just a short time ago, you reflected with time magazine on the impact of what is now a six month long war that you have lived through, you ve experienced. you said, none of us are the same people. we may
independent, a news organisation committed to reporting from ukraine without fear or favour. but is there room for independentjournalism on the ukrainian battlefield? olga rudenko in kyiv, welcome to hardtalk. well, stephen, thank you for having me. it s a great pleasure to have you on the show. just a short time ago, you reflected with time magazine on the impact of what is now a six month long war that you have lived through, you ve experienced. you said, none of us are the same people. we may look the same on the outside, but on the inside, we have changed. how have you changed? well. even as you were saying that, i was thinking about how true it is, especially today, you know, six months, exactly six months after the war started. and looking back, i honestly can t believe how i could even come to the office, this office, on any day and think that i was having a difficult day while, actually, you know, in retrospect, it was so normal, the life that we were having before
could happen is going to be you know, there s going to be an escalation in eastern ukraine, but to imagine kyiv being targeted was nearly impossible. so when the invasion did happen, we didn t have flak jackets, we didn t have the equipment we needed to be war reporters. what we did have was very dedicated staff. several of us, fortunately, have experience reporting at the front line in eastern ukraine, where the war has been raging since 2014. so, the three people who had the most experience in reporting that, they stayed in kyiv during that first month, when the so called battle of kyiv was happening and the city was essentially besieged and they were the core of our reporting force, while the rest of us, for security purposes, went to different parts of ukraine and several of us went abroad, because our big fear and anticipation was that russia would try to cut off
for a very dire scenario that is very unlikely. even back then, we didn t believe it will actually happen. we thought that anything that could happen is going to be. you know, there s going to be an escalation in eastern ukraine. but to imagine kyiv being targeted was nearly impossible. so when the invasion did happen, we didn t have flakjackets, we didn t have the equipment we needed to be war reporters. what we did have was very dedicated staff. several of us, fortunately, have experience reporting at the front line in eastern ukraine, where the war has been raging since 2014. so, the three people who had the most experience in reporting that, they stayed in kyiv during that first month, when the so called battle of kyiv was happening and the city was essentially besieged. and they were the core of our reporting force, while the rest of us, for security purposes, went to different parts of ukraine and several of us