February 24, 2022 marks the anniversary of the Russian attack on Ukraine. The day that Chancellor Olaf Scholz called “a turning point” – and which turned almost all certainties upside down. Reason for us to talk to SZ Eastern Europe correspondent Florian Hassel about what it’s like to report from the war zone again and again for the past year.
“If there weren’t any flight alerts, people here would think it was the same as before the attack,” says Hassel on the phone in Kiev. Looking at other reporters from the area, he came to the conclusion: “We can’t compare ourselves to the BBC or the big US TV networks.” They would have built a proper infrastructure. The SZ is “not remotely close” to that, “because we simply can’t afford it”. This reporting costs millions of euros, says Hassel.
Florian Hassel already has for the Frankfurter Rundschau reported from the Chechen war (1999 to 2009). At that time, however, the war zone in the Caucasus was very limited – and “there was often house-to-house fighting”. The current war in Ukraine “is about fighting at the front” and “attempting to subjugate Ukraine by destroying its infrastructure.” But compared to his time as Russia correspondent FR work in the Ukraine is “incomparably freer”. The problem is “not getting to people”, but to the military or military objects, which is “much more difficult”.
German calls for peace, such as the current one by Alice Schwarzer and Sahra Wagenknecht, are “absent from reality,” says Hassel. Peace negotiations are nice “when there are people on both sides who want to negotiate”. But that is “clearly not the case with Putin, and probably not in the long term either.”
The latest report by Florian Hassel from the Ukraine can be found here.
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