Monitor ISSUE 29
Living the story: Gennadiy Kot GENNADIY KOT.
BBC Monitoring’s output may give the impression that it is business as usual in our Kyiv office, with dozens of news products on Ukraine and its neighbouring countries delivered to our audiences every day. But what has life really been like for the team? Editorial lead Gennadiy Kot writes. Smoke rises over Lviv after a missile strike in January 2023
Driving west 26
As a fledgling monitor in the late 1990s, I worried about translation, selection and the occasional failure to record a news bulletin on tape. Now, as a manager, I make sure the team operates smoothly and provides comprehensive coverage – but only after every team member is “accounted for” and is as safe as you can be in a country under attack.
Frequent air sirens, explosions, rattling windowpanes and shaking doors made me decide to move my family. As we drove west for two days through endless roadblocks and traffic jams, we were unaware that if we had taken the main highway, we could have been shot at by Russian troops, who were targeting – and killing – civilians in their cars.
We have now learned to live with air raid sirens going off across the country, sometimes several times a day. We know where the nearest bomb shelter is – and the difference between the sounds of a missile hitting a target and of a missile being shot down by air defence. We have become experts on the inaccurate but lethal scrap metal used by Russia to bomb our cities and energy infrastructure.
GENNADIY KOT.
When I woke to the sound of distant explosions in Kyiv on the morning of 24 February last year, I realised life would never be the same again.
When Russian tanks were closing in on Kyiv in February and March last year, the team had to be moved out of the city. The Russian atrocities in Bucha or Irpin had not yet come to light, but we knew nothing good would come from a Russian occupation.
Foreign Exchange bureau in Lviv replacing the rate for the Russian Rouble with “PTN PNKh” (Putin go to hell)
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