TV4’s foreign reporter Jona Källgren and photographer Daniel Zdolsek have been reporting from wartime Ukraine for the past week.
Now they are in the Donbass region, where the fighting is constantly reminding them.
Kramatorsk
Inside a grocery store, which has a surprisingly wide range of everything – from cheese to vegetables – I stand and think about whether it is better to buy cornflakes or oatmeal for breakfast. We have rented apartments on the outskirts of Kramatorsk – the last big city in the east before you get to Bachmut. And food, we have to arrange that ourselves.
A deep rumble is heard in the background but I can’t tell if it’s an explosion or someone closed a dumpster too tight. Security advisor Ivan comes walking quickly.
– It’s time to knit, he says.
Aircraft alarm and explosion. The pulse goes up and I half-run towards the till. An old lady slowly scans all the cornflakes, bananas and bottles of water before I finally get to say “karta” (card in Ukrainian) and hold my phone up to the reader to pay.
Once out on the street, we quickly walk towards the cars. There are five of us on this trip: Photographer Daniel, fixer Rodion, driver Dimitri and then me and Ivan. Everyone carries grocery bags with chips and milk and sweets.
Then comes the explosion. The air wave presses, the ground shakes, car alarms start to wail. Panicked, I look around. And see nothing special. The young woman selling make-up rather disinterestedly does not look up from her phone. The soldiers standing around a car continue to smoke and laugh. The couple walking hand in hand smiles at each other. War has become a part of life. Life has become part of the war.
Bachmut
The video on the phone showing the jubilant leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner lights up my otherwise completely dark room. He stands in front of soldiers with flags, probably only about five miles from where I sit, and says that after ten months of hard fighting, Wagner controls all of Bachmut.
Far away, at the G7 meeting in Hiroshima, Ukrainian President Zelensky is asked if it is true. He says that the city now only “exists in our hearts,” something that some journalists quickly, and wrongly it turns out, interpret as his having given up on the city.
It feels important and unimportant at the same time. Russia’s tactic of simply blasting away building by building is hardly smart warfare, but impossible to resist for any length of time. In Kramatorsk, you don’t notice much of a difference.
– If it took ten months for Wagner to take Bachmut, it will probably take ten more for them to reach the next city, says our security advisor Ivan.
Everyone here hopes that the Russian troops never get that far, but instead that Ukraine launches a counter-offensive soon and, with the help of the new Western weapon systems, quickly pushes the Russians out. In Ukraine, hope is truly alive.
The flight alarm goes off again. I turn off the Wagner video and sit up, making sure the safety vest and helmet are nearby. The war continues.