An open letter to journalists at the kyiv independent | thearticle

Dear Friends, The first thing you should know as the war approaches Kyiv, is that the free world is overwhelmingly on your side. This is now abundantly clear. As darkness falls over Ukraine,

leaders and ordinary people across the globe understand that your fight is their fight. People are glued to their TVs. The heart-wrenching stories of refugees flooding across borders into

Poland, Moldova, Hungary and Romania are moving many to tears and generating a flood of aid. The values of freedom and democracy, the right of a sovereign people to choose how they live, are

universal. The free world understands that. Disbelief at the sheer recklessness of this aggression is being replaced by rage. Hesitancy by politicians is being supplanted by increasing

political resolve to defeat Vladimir Putin’s adventure. Your war is the free world’s war. Putin has managed to unite a fractious Europe. The past two weeks have seen a remarkable unity of

purpose and coordination between Europe and the US and a sea-change in the EU’s and especially Germany’s stance as military powers. It is a war of ideas and principles that every democracy

in the world holds to be fundamental to its survival. It is, already in a sense, a war without borders even if NATO is not putting boots on the ground or enforcing a no-fly zone although

that must a bitter pill for you to swallow as bombs rain down on your homes. The clarion call is now “Whatever it takes” as Ursula von der Leyen, President of the Commission told the

European Parliament. It is a war we cannot afford to lose. That realisation is dawning on the free world even as it emerges from a bruising pandemic and an already challenging economic

climate. The next target in the economic war must be to stop buying Russian hydrocarbons. A key part of this conflict is the war of information. You at the Kyiv Independent are its soldiers

on the front line. Truth, the old cliché goes, is the first casualty of war. If Putin had his way, truth — _the_ truth — would be cast aside like old rags for _his_ truth. Fact-based,

verifiable, balanced news out of this, or any other war for that matter, is crucial. The world needs to know what is happening if it is to respond appropriately. Journalists in the theatre

of war are the outside world’s eyes and ears. The work you do matters. Citizen journalism is important of course. It played a decisive role in the Arab Spring and of course the Orange or

Maidan Square revolution in 2014 just as it did in the run-up to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube are weapons on the modern battlefield. But they

are not enough. Great and complex fast-moving stories, like the aggression against Ukraine, need to be put in context as they develop, day by day, week by week by experienced journalists

working for news sources that people can believe in and trust. We are defined by the stories we tell each other. These in turn play a part in influencing events. I was one of the first

journalists to fly into Kabul in 1979 to witness and confirm the Russian invasion. These are small but not insignificant footnotes to history. In contrast the fiction coming out of Moscow in

an age of the smartphone and the citizen journalist, is frankly bizarre. Watching Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s poker-faced foreign minister, flipping the increasingly savage invasion into a

sinister fairy tale about western provocation is a throwback to the darkest Soviet times. Putin’s propaganda — his barefaced lies — are meant for domestic consumption of course. But they

also point to a deeper impulse in the dictator’s mind. One of the reasons for his land grab is the fear that the pluralism, the freedom of ideas and the freedom of speech that characterises

Ukraine today, will spill over into Russia. He was shaken by the Orange revolution. Totalitarianism and truth make uncomfortable bedfellows. Putin targets journalists with impunity because

he fears them. He pursues them relentlessly. His obsession with alternative facts flows from his days as a KGB man when controlling the narrative was possible. I fear you will be in his

sights. Stay safe. Reporters Without Borders says: “With draconian laws, website-blocking, internet cuts and leading news outlets reined in or throttled out of existence, the pressure on

independent media (in Russia) has grown steadily since the big anti-government protests in 2011 and 2012.” We should remember this too and if this is an affront to many well-meaning Russians

who yearn for democracy and free speech, then I apologise: Russia, with the exception of the _perestroika_ years, has never been a democracy. It was founded as a princely state and later as

a monarchy. Reborn as a communist state it now exists as an imperial presidency. The moving heroism of ordinary Ukrainians who have chosen to stay and resist this brutal act of aggression

has galvanised support in the UK and around Europe and the US. The fight being put up by the Ukrainian armed forces in the face of overwhelming forces is extraordinary. Your role in this

historic drama is equally important. Truth does not come from the barrel of a gun. It comes from hearts and minds of news outlets like the _Kyiv Independent_ and we are deeply grateful for

that. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we

need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation._