The news of the invasion was like a bomb

Photo courtesy of Pedro Caldeira Rodrigues

I was there three weeks before the war too. At that time, I was a member of a journalist study tour into Eastern Ukraine, which was organised by the Academy of Ukrainian Press and supported by the American embassy. During this trip, together with a group of international journalists, we had an opportunity to meet local leaders in the areas that were affected by the war in 2014 and which, as we believed back then, were of the highest risk if an invasion was to take place again. Our interlocutors were of course very aware of their situation, they were preparing their localities for different scenarios, which included training people, and especially the territorial defence. They also informed us that in early 2022 the Ukrainian army was much more prepared than it was in 2014, when the war broke out in Eastern Ukraine. As I now recall these meetings, I can once again repeat that nobody expected that such a large invasion would take place. Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine in so many places at the same time was unpredictable and brought on the consequences that we are seeing now. That is why even now nobody knows how this war will end.

The war broke out early in the morning on February 24th. You were then in Kyiv staying at Hotel Ukraina in the city centre, as I know. What was this moment like for you?

I must say that the news that the invasion had started was like a bomb. I am sorry for the comparison, but yes it was actually like this. In our hotel there were lots of foreign journalists. I got to know them a bit since I arrived there on February 16th. We spent time together in the lobby talking, drinking, etc. On February 24th many of these journalists started to do their live reports from the hotel stairs that overlook the Maidan. There was a lot of chaos too. There were no taxis, it was impossible to get an Uber. In my case, things changed already the day before. We had plans together with journalists from Portuguese television to go to Donbas. We had purchased train tickets to Kramatorsk for six o’clock in the morning on February 24th. As you can imagine, we could not go there. It was actually crazy to compare the Kyiv of February 23rd, the day before the invasion when there were many cars on the streets and many people on the sidewalks, with Kyiv of February 24th, when there was a deep, profound silence. And people were very apprehensive.

I decided to change hotels because the journalists with Portuguese television were in a different hotel. I joined them there. We stayed together until our evacuation. This relocation and later evacuation were due to the advice given to me by the Portuguese embassy, which was already trying to arrange a way for us to get out of Kyiv. At the hotel where we stayed until the evacuation, we were practically barricaded, especially once martial law was enforced and a curfew declared. This was the case for the first 36 hours of the war. It was practically impossible for us to leave the premises because the outside conditions were very difficult. We attempted to leave the city by train on, I believe, February 28th. We got to the train station but it turned out the number of people there was incredibly huge. There were literally thousands of people trying to leave the city and it was impossible to get on a train. Thus, we returned to the hotel. In the end, the embassy arranged a van for us that was at that point 25 kilometres south of Kyiv. We had to wait for it until the next day and we had to pay the driver. In this way, our entire Portuguese media team left Kyiv. Now, there are other Portuguese journalists in Ukraine covering the developments, but we had to leave the country back then. Not only was the situation very difficult then, but we also could not do any reporting. Because of the martial law, we were stuck in the basement where the garage (our shelter) of the hotel was located. Food was rationed.

So you started your evacuation with a group of Portuguese TV journalists. I can imagine they had their cameras and all this large equipment that television teams always carry with them. Did they manage to take their equipment along when you were leaving the city? Or did they have to leave it behind?

They did not leave it behind. They took it because we got the van. There were 11 of us. Nine journalists and two Ukrainian women who also wanted to leave Ukraine. One of them actually came with us to Portugal. The other went to Italy where her mother lived. We took one more Ukrainian lady with a baby. We picked her up in a city near the border with Moldova. So when we arrived at the border there were 13 people in the van plus the driver.

Your evacuation route was through Romania?

Yes.

If I recall correctly, in this early stage of the war the Polish border was already quite jammed. However, Ukraine has also a border with Slovakia, which has always been less busy. Why did you choose Romania?

This was the advice of the Portuguese embassy in Kyiv. In fact, on our van we had a sign with a Portuguese flag and the logo of the Portuguese embassy. So our vehicle could be identified. The ambassador left Kyiv on February 25th or 26th. Our evacuation was thus arranged by a member of the embassy’s staff. This person was a Ukrainian national who speaks Portuguese. The trip to the border was long because there were lots of checkpoints on the way. And lots of cars and traffic. That is why it took us 19 hours from Kyiv to Botoșani, which is a city in northern Romania where we stayed after we crossed the border. We left Kyiv at nine o’clock in the morning and we arrived in Botoșani at four in the morning the next day.

And what was the situation at the border? Were there a lot of people trying to cross it?

We got to the border at night, at around 11. There were some cars but we crossed the Ukrainian-Moldovan border on foot because there is some sort of bridge to a no man’s land. Then we took another van that was waiting for us in Moldova. It took us to the border with Romania and this was a much longer ride because there was a lot of traffic and controls along the way. All in all, it took us three or four hours to enter Romania.

Unfortunately, this is not the first war you experienced. In the 1990s, you were also covering the Balkan wars. I remember when we talked together in Ukraine before the war you were saying that a lot of Balkan memories came back to you. In what way?

First of all, I must say that it was very important for me to be in Kyiv before the war and talk to people and listen to their concerns. I think this was very important for me to understand the country. When it comes to the Balkan wars, indeed in the 1990s I was working for a daily newspaper in Portugal – I was actually one of the founders of this newspaper that launched in 1990, it still exists and it is considered a good daily. Back then I worked for the international section, and when it was decided that I should start to follow the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the start of the Balkan wars in 1991, I understood that it would be very difficult to inform the Portuguese readers about what was going on.

Why?

First because Portugal is a country where borders have not moved for centuries. Our wars – during the Portuguese right-wing dictatorship that lasted 48 years – were mainly taking place in our colonies in Africa, like Angola. So war was not here. It was not something that we knew first-hand. Second, Portugal is in a sense a homogeneous country. We do not have large minorities. Now, we live in times of greater globalisation, there are of course some immigrant communities and there have been cases of racism. The far-right party, with their very racist rhetoric mainly against the Roma, has been growing.

But back to Ukraine. When I went there before the war, I felt that the conflict with Russia could have some similarities to what I saw in the Balkans. Namely, the wars in the former Yugoslavia were the result of a growing and dangerous nationalism that was used to turn local populations, mainly Serbians and Croats but also Muslims in Bosnia, against each other. To put it more precisely, the ethnic minorities that stayed in the countries that declared independence were used as a pretext to justify the enlargement of territory. For instance, when Serbs declared their autonomous republics in Croatia, or Bosnian Serbs declared their own republic in Bosnia, Belgrade under Slobodan Milošević decided to turn these territories into parts of a Greater Serbia. The same was true in Croatia. So, in the Balkans there was a civil war but it was also an ethnic war. It was a war initiated to cleanse territories of populations that lived there for centuries and felt threatened by independence. They were manipulated by the leaders. As a result, in Croatia, where before the wars the Serbs constituted almost 14 per cent of the population, the Serbian population is now at about two or three per cent. This ethnic cleansing that took place in the regions, mainly those between Bosnia and Serbia that were inhabited by many Muslims, illustrates the nature of these wars. Groups aimed to control territories that were to be cleared of those who were different. As a result, people who lived together for centuries in communities where a church, a synagogue and a mosque stood not so far away from each other, now disappeared. In my opinion, this was a tragedy for Europe.

Also, today when I hear people say that the war in Ukraine is the first war in Europe since the Second World War, I disagree. The one in the Balkans was the first war in post-war Europe, but we also need to remember about the war over Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1991. This second example was also a very painful war with lots of refugees. Thus, I would like to stress that the similarity between the current war and the earlier wars in the Balkans lies in this manipulation of the national feelings of local populations. In the Balkans, the memory of what took place in these areas during the Second World War became a sort of bridge that allowed it all to happen again. That is why many of the massacres and fighting that occurred in the 1990s happened in places that saw massacres and killings during the Second World War.

So this manipulation of a minority population’s national feelings in a territory of an independent state that was once a part of a larger unit, is something that you also saw in Donbas. Do you believe that they are first and foremost used to start wars?

Yes, these minorities can be very useful in starting aggression, unfortunately.

We have started discussing the disintegration of Yugoslavia. That is why I want to point out a statement made by Professor Serhii Plokhy, who in a discussion with our magazine on the 30 year anniversary of the collapse of the USSR said that “the disintegration of the Soviet Union is still going on and it is not peaceful.” Given your experience of the equally chaotic process of disintegration in the Balkans and looking at what is going on right now in Ukraine, what do you expect may happen in the future?

I believe that it is very important to properly reflect on what happened in the former Yugoslavia and mainly in Bosnia. The situation in Bosnia is again very difficult and there are signs that a conflict could return there too. We also have to keep in mind the role of the superpowers in the conflict, as in the Balkans we clearly saw the involvement of the US, which pressed for the 1995 Dayton Agreements. As a result, Bosnia was divided into two entities with the recognition of only three peoples: Serbs in Republika Srpska in Bosnia and the Federation of Bosnia, which includes Bosniaks and Croats and does not work. And now, as you know, the Serbs in Republika Srpska are trying to leave all the central institutions of Bosnia.

Yet, other people who also live in Bosnia were not recognised by the treaty. This includes representatives of the Jewish and Roma communities, who appealed to the International Court of Justice precisely because they are not recognised in Bosnia. They do not exist there, as – in legal terms – Bosnia is only inhabited by Serbs, Croats and Muslims. This means that the Dayton Agreement was a peace deal aimed at stopping the war, but it did not solve the problem. That is why, even now, almost 30 years since the conflict took place, the problem is still there. This case could probably serve as a lesson for the future of the current war in Ukraine. However, to be honest I have to tell you that I really do not know how this war will end…

Nobody knows, I think. The only thing we do know is that there will be more victims than winners in this war and that the consequences of this conflict will be long-term.

Yes. This is certain.

In meeting with refugees who have now been coming to Poland in large numbers, I can say that the trauma that haunts these victims of Russian aggression will not go away quickly. It will last for a long time and may even be passed down through the generations. In this region, we have had similar experiences with the trauma of the Second World War, which has stayed with us for a very long time and in the case of many nations affected their development.

This is very true.

To continue the topic of the refugees, Portugal is also home to a Ukrainian community that was established there in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Are today’s Ukrainians who are fleeing Russian aggression also choosing Portugal as their destination?

Yes. Since the early stage of the conflict, Portuguese television has been reporting on the arrival of Ukrainian refugees and the government has already made some decisions with regards to their reception here. It is not that surprising because as you said the Ukrainian community in Portugal is relatively large. It is around 20,000 to 30,000 people. They have been here since the 1990s and they are very well-organised. They have their own church. Now they are, of course, helping the refugees but they are also politically active. For example, they organised a light projection of the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag on the buildings of the Russian embassy. They have also organised anti-war demonstrations in several cities.

Pedro Caldeira Rodrigues is a Portuguese journalist specialising in international and European affairs.

Iwona Reichardt is the deputy editor in chief of New Eastern Europe.

interview, journalism, Ukraine, Ukraine at war