The Crying, The Crying, The Crying
On Health, Healthcare and Hope in Ukraine: A Conversation with Evegeniy Maloletka | April 16, 2023 by Kimberly J. Soenen
(Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted on Tuesday, March 21, 2023 by phone and has been edited for length and language translation. All photos are by Evegeniy Maloletka.)
Soenen: Evegeniy. Great to connect with you. Thank you so much for making the time.
Maloletka: Of course. The Fine Print has been featuring some exceptional journalists and conversations about Global Health. Glad to be a part of it.
Soenen: Where are you based now?
Maloletka: We were living in basements and in the corridors of the hospital in Mariupol, but now, we live in somewhat normal conditions, renting apartments, staying with friends, or in hotels.
Now it is a much more comfortable situation for all of us who are covering the war. It is much, much better than it was in the beginning. The war is constantly developing and changing though, and we are prepared to move at any moment. The security situation might change in an instant and the places where we stay change, too. It feels a little more stable nowadays, or maybe we are just used to the violence.
The situation on the ground is a little better. In Donbas, for example, the shops and restaurants are open, but not all of them. The major businesses are trying their best to stay open through the violence.
Soenen: How do business owners sustain operations and transactions while rolling power outages persist and limited food, heat and water continue to be an issue?
Maloletka: Everyone is just trying to survive. It’s survival.
Soenen: How are goods getting through with supply chain issues and blockades? Is it now mostly a cash or barter economy?
Maloletka: Yeah, the economic situation is not good. We have seen how businesses try to survive any way they can, to make life livable, you know? People did close their shops for a while, but people need to work. They must survive. They run generators and do other things to survive. The social aspect of shop owners seeing customers trying to do normal things day-to-day is also helpful to health.
Soenen: For those who are not familiar with skilled veteran conflict photographers and how they work in the field, manage logistics, and deal with equipment, can you talk a little bit about what you carry in your pack every day?
Maloletka: We have a lot of training for working in war zones and I did a refreshment course in the summer of 2021. I recommend that everyone take RISC Training or something similar every year to prepare for triage in the field.
I carry a satellite phone, a GPS tracker, and an extra power bank with me. I also pack a medical kit with a minimum of two tourniquets. One tourniquet is carried on my flak jacket, and a second one is always in my medical kit. I take extra food and extra water in the car as we are not always traveling in armored cars.
Soenen: Bio physiologically and mentally, how are you doing? How do you manage your own health day to day, hour to hour? Are you sleeping?
Maloletka: It's ok most nights. We are managing ourselves as best we can. I try to focus on the job I am doing—that we are all doing here as journalists. All of my colleagues and the editors around the world who are publishing our work, we are all working together. I keep that in mind because otherwise it is…
Soenen: Overwhelming.
Maloletka: Yes, overwhelming. This war and our ongoing work here is a big marathon. It's not a 100-meter sprint. We accept risk in exchange for showing the war to the world and to show people what is happening here.
We do our job, but we try not to be running around the clock and be working every second of every day or night. You know? We simply cannot be photographing and documenting 100% of the time because this is a big marathon that will last for many, many kilometers.
This war will probably be on for many years, so unfortunately, that means we might have to be working to document it for a very long time. And, we know we may need to survive in these dire conditions for an extremely long time. That may not be easy for some people to understand, but in this situation, in our role as journalists, we are prepared mentally to document it as witnesses for long time. Prepared to the best of our ability, that is.
Soenen: You recently signed on full time with the Associated Press. For readers who are not aware, can you explain how that changes your work approach as far as fixers, security, resources, permissions, access, safety, and every other aspect working as a journalist in a high-risk environment requires?
Maloletka: We have an AP bureau in Kyiv now and we operate as a team, which is extremely helpful and supportive both with covering stories, but also with team connection. Instead of frequently working alone, I often travel with a reporter and videographer now. The AP has created a national team and they do their best to utilize journalists from Ukraine to tell our story. This is the key to good reporting and also to maintaining Public Trust. We have deep ties here and that shows in our work.
This is our home.
I have been reporting on this war since 2014. We know the situation and dynamics here better than most international journalists who are coming in periodically. I appreciate them all, as they are my close friends and colleagues, but we—my Ukrainian colleagues—are a major resource and work as a cohesive unit, a team. This helps with morale and impact.
Soenen: Rape as a weapon of war, disabled persons languishing while being bombed in hospitals, elderly people unable to move, mentally ill persons and developmentally challenged persons living in a traumatized state…The reports keep coming. What are you witnessing day-to-day after a year of incessant violence?
Maloletka: It is difficult for me to describe or explain how people adapt to war. Some people live, literally, on the front line. They try to adapt, you know? But when the rocket hits the house or shop next to theirs, those people become distressed and traumatized.
Just today, I was at a mental health hospital and we saw so many people there who are beyond distressed. They are getting sicker, you know, with each bomb or bullet that they hear and feel. There is no quiet time or down time. When it is quiet, they are expecting the next attack. They are either living through trauma and violence or anticipating more trauma and violence…that is our chronic state.
And today…the crying, the crying, the crying. It was unbearable even for me.
Soenen: How do you cope?
Maloletka: We keep going, keep working.
The people of Donbas—everywhere—are suffering as we are struggling with our usual health and healthcare needs. People forget about the health conditions that are caused and worsened by war—cancer from munitions smoke and fire and dust; the lack of clean water because of attacks on infrastructure and power grids; there are sanitation challenges without water; pregnancy is high-risk; hunger and starvation are pervasive; there is a lack of nutrition; mental trauma is endless, grieving is endless, and much more. The food we get from humanitarian aid, for example, contains higher sugar and is generally low in nutrients. This contributes to diabetes and other health issues.
I have witnessed, first hand, how war and violence impact citizens and soldiers both, especially on the front line. I have seen so many people get diseases and illnesses because the war is happening next to them and they live in a such bad conditions.
Nowadays, because the war has been going on for so long, people are not visiting doctors to check their health. So even the people who are lucky enough to survive this war, after the war ends, we will have even bigger health and Public Health problems, which include post traumatic stress and chronic health conditions caused by the lack of healthcare maintenance. Mental health is a big one—for citizens, soldiers and journalists.
Soenen: Yes. War fractures the health of multiple generations mentally and physically. Are there limits to what people can take?
Maloletka: So much so, yes. Because people have limited financial resources and war creates poverty, they go less and less to the hospital. And, because our hospitals and clinics have been actively bombed from the beginning, that adds another layer of fear and trauma. Even when people seek out help, they fear harm. That is the futility.
Soenen: You’ve reported a lot from hospitals and clinics where physicians and healthcare teams are trying to administer medical care.
Maloletka: So many hospitals have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Doctors have been doing surgery in basements, you know? I was in a hospital that was filled with soldiers. It was a hospital for civilians but it was filled by traumatized soldiers. In one place where the people get help from the doctors, the head doctor was trying to survive and trying to shift the medical triage units to other parts of the building, which were damaged. It was bombed twice. They had 30 patients.
Soenen: How do you manage the emotional and physical toll of instances like the ones your describe?
Maloletka: I can share with you my emotions on this. It's, for me…you know… like to, to be there, it was…it was a bit uncomfortable because... because I think I'm also traumatized, you know? To hear those stories, it gets to me a bit, as well, it is not comfortable and I am triggered emotionally. It’s sometimes too much to take in all at once.
But, because it's not easy topic, and to cover this topic is, it's, you know, you need to, to be fresh, but I've just come off a month on the front line, and that reaction tells me I need to take care and refresh. I will come back to work on these stories later. I think it's important that we think about the health of soldiers and what war does to people, you know?
Soenen: Do you seek out help?
Maloletka: You know, all of us—journalists, soldiers, survivors—should speak with a therapist and they can provide some tools on how to operate and function with this trauma. All of us, you know, have this, nowadays, especially the people who are living on the front line in cities or the soldiers who are fighting and being under the shelling all the time…journalists especially.
Soenen: It seems awareness is changing about that need.
Maloletka: Yes. It is very difficult to talk about torture, murder, rape as a weapon of war, and all of the other crimes we have all witnessed over the last year. It’s difficult to document, but it’s even more difficult to talk about. We sometimes have to leave it to the cameras to do the talking.
Soenen: We both know some of the most skilled conflict and human rights photojournalists in the world by their first names and we both know friends and colleagues who have been killed while documenting. It’s a calling that some call an affliction. That said, have journalists done a good job of capturing what is happening there or are we filtering and sanitizing war?
Maloletka: There is now less interest from abroad about Ukraine because the war has been going on for a year and, of course, when the anniversary passed, many journalists left. But others are still coming. The major media outlets do have an interest in the story here, but budgets for international coverage have been cut so deeply over the years, bringing this story to international publications is challenging. We are grateful to all of the editors and publishers who continue to consistently publish our work. We do our best to file the uncensored reality. Whether or not readers choose to look away is outside of our control.
Soenen: There is debate about whether all conflict journalists are lone wolves or “adrenaline junkies.” In my experience, I find conflict journalists to be incredibly skilled technically, and deeply sensitive, compassionate people. They are able to synthesize a lot of information, assess risk quickly, and in the moment, capture the story sometimes in one solitary frame. How do you feel about this working in such a violent, chaotic arena?
Maloletka: We are all in it together. We have a common purpose, a drive. There will be some turning point in this war. If Ukraine starts counteroffensive for example, we all feel a sense that there will be one moment of change. In the meantime, there are still so many stories which need to be told and aren’t being seen or read.
So many people are suffering and there are now countless war crimes that have yet to be documented and published. Because Ukraine doesn’t have enough resources to get these stories out on our own, we need more visibility.
International society needs to see what's happened to our people in recent years—not only in the last year, but dating back to 2014 and before. So, we do need a lot of journalists to document this war because it is not just one battlefield or one front line or one region…it's every village, every town, every school, that has been targeted. We have tragic stories of war crimes, everywhere. Neighborhoods, hospitals, clinics, basements of houses, rape as a weapon of war…
Soenen: How do you decompress after an exhausting or deeply disturbing day?
Maloletka: Sometimes I have the possibility to leave the country and to spend some time in a non-conflict area. But unfortunately, I cannot switch off and on, and I am 100% on all the time. I read the news when I am not working and understand how many people have been killed and injured. It's actually a non-stop process and feeling and I cannot switch it off. Sometimes it is possible to spend a month off and then come back with a new energy. But unfortunately, it's…I don't see how we can refresh ourselves nowadays...any of us. I don’t know if we will ever be able to forget what we continue to witness here.
Soenen: What does it feel like when you travel to Park City, Utah or Perpignan for film and photo events? Modern day travel allows us to be catapulted into new environments in a matter of hours. How do you immerse yourself in those environments, where it's relatively peaceful, and then return to Ukraine to continue covering the war?
Maloletka: I remember the first time I left the country during the war and I was in Germany. Of course, the first time was the most difficult because I thought "Oh, what I am doing here? I want to run away." But I understand that the people of the world desire living a normal, peaceful life.
I forget how it was before, and how it might be again.
We want Ukraine to come back to that normality again, but unfortunately, we do not know if, or when, that will happen. Like, for example, the militarization of our society. We have so many losses nowadays from the non-stop rocket and drone attacks and so on. I don't feel anyone is guilty of disregard. I understand that people just keep living through peacetime and war everywhere…they have to.
Soenen: Do you ever reflect on how this war will impact your own health over the long term?
Maloletka: There have been two major turning points in my career and life as a man: In 2014, and war started in the spring. That made me grow up overnight. It changed me. And secondly, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the attack in Mariupol, I changed even more. Covering Mariupol changed me a lot, it changed…
War makes you learn things very quickly. I have to learn quickly. If I don't learn these survival and journalism skills, I will not survive.
Soenen: Do you see a lot of children in Ukraine?
Maloletka: Oh my God, yes. We just published a story today about how children are being evacuated from Avdiivka. The police are trying to evacuate them. The families do not want to leave their homes and the police are trying to explain to the families why they should evacuate with the children. The people are ignoring basic rules and ignoring the police. These areas are not safe areas. In Avdiivka, for example, people live less than two kilometers from the frontline. If you can imagine me seeing a one-year-old baby on the frontline growing over a year, it’s sometimes too much to take in, too much to deal with. People don't know what to do in other places. Some people have never traveled or left their homes for distant lands.
Soenen: It's their home.
Maloletka: Yes. This is our home.
Truly, they are just surviving. At the frontline there is no electricity, or healthy normal running water. These people have been living in basements for over a year, and hiding their children. The children are not in school and are not getting an education. I cannot explain, cannot ex…I just can’t, I can't.
Soenen: The United States just pulled out of Afghanistan a minute before Russia invaded Ukraine. War continues worldwide and people have Perpetual Warfare economy fatigue. War also generates profits for investors globally. How can people who feel helpless, help?
Maloletka: Share our work and stories. Don’t look away.
You know, it may escalate to a full-scale invasion. Like every Ukrainian, I hope that every single fighter will come back to normalcy soon because after a year of non-stop shelling everybody just wants to live, we all just want to live... in a calm, peaceful place.
Soenen: The film that features your work called “20 Days in Mariupol” has been screening on the festival circuit and will hopefully be released widely soon.
Maloletka: It is a hard movie to watch, a really hard documentary to watch, but it's, I think it's an important film. I feel it is one of the important films about this war, yes.
We are testifying with this film.
Soenen: Take care out there, Evegeniy. Thank you.
Malolotka: Thanks, Kimberly. Thanks for your time. Thanks. Thank you.
ADDITIONAL READING
Available for preorder from FotoEvidence now: Ukraine: A War Crime
RECOMMENDED JOURNALISTS
Mstyslav Chernov, Maxim Dondyuk, Julia Kochetova, Marian Kushnir, Slava Ratynski, Andriy Rubchak and Anatolii Stepanov.
One Language is a remarkable debut collection where touching verses sit alongside photographic images by photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind.