Ukrainian war correspondent Andriy Tsaplienko says free press helps Ukraine defend itself against Russia
For more than two decades, Andriy Tsaplienko has been a war reporter, traveling to conflict zones around the globe. Two and a half years ago, war arrived in his country, Ukraine. When Vladimir Putin sent Russian tanks and missiles across Ukraine's borders, Tsaplienko became a trusted source of information from the front line.
He's as fearless a journalist as they come. Some of Ukraine's military leaders told us they're surprised he's still alive. Tsaplienko told us he's fighting for Ukraine's survival… using his reporting - and the truth - as his weapons.
Andriy Tsaplienko is battle scarred and limping - yet like his country, he refuses to stop….close to Russia's border last month, he filmed Ukraine's 80th Air Assault Brigade…. with birch forest as cover from Russian drones, they showed him their American- supplied Stryker fighting vehicles - 19 tons of armor plated steel, topped with a 50 caliber machine gun.
He reported that the Strykers are helping the Ukrainians to storm Russian positions …one soldier said Russian land mines 15 yards away feel like a slight rustle against the armor.
Andriy Tsaplienko: Being a witness of what's important going on right now. That's for me.
Holly Williams: You like the front row seat of history.
Andriy Tsaplienko: Even more, I'd like to be in the middle of the story and to share this with the audience. So they are also witnesses of what is going on. This is important. My channel, they always want me to be in the studio as an anchor, as a host. I always refuse to be like that, because I'm a field journalist. I feel myself in-- in the studio like a doll in a box.
Tsaplienko's graphic accounts from the field - for the privately owned channel 1+1 - have shaped how many Ukrainians see the war. He's told stories of heroism - but also turned a critical eye on his own country, revealing how some Ukrainians paid bribes to government officials to avoid the draft.
Andriy Tsaplienko: Freedom of speech, very important. It's a crucial thing that helps us to win this war.
Holly Williams: A free media is helping you win the war?
Andriy Tsaplienko: Free media system helps us to win this war and will help us to win this war. Because we fight not for the government. We fight not for a particular person, like Russians do. They fight for Putin. We fight for ourselves, and we fight for our identity. We fight for our country and for values because we want this country to be free. That's it.
Andriy Tsaplienko has some history with Russia. He grew up as a citizen of the USSR, in the city of Kharkiv - even doing national service with the Soviet military in the late 1980s. But at home he was listening to American rock music - and told us he worshiped American democracy. In 1990, he posted leaflets with his friends calling for Ukrainian independence from Moscow.
Andriy Tsaplienko: It was a kind of real rebellion because we expected that KGB could come to us and knock to the door.
Holly Williams: That must have been dangerous.
Andriy Tsaplienko: Yeah. We were waiting for the consequences. But-- fortunately there were no consequences at all.
Instead, a year later, the Soviet Union collapsed. Tsaplienko told us he felt he'd finally been set free.
In the new, independent, democratic Ukraine, Tsaplienko became an international war reporter - one of Ukraine's first. Beginning in the 1990s, he broadcast from Iraq and Afghanistan…Gaza and West Africa. He told us he learned how easy wars are to start - and how difficult they are to stop.
In February of 2022 - with over a hundred thousand Russian troops massed along Ukraine's border - and 10 days before Vladimir Putin launched his invasion - we interviewed Tsaplienko in central Kyiv. He'd experienced Russia's earlier invasion of 2014.
Andriy Tsaplienko: I travel to the east you know almost every week and uh… there's some friends of mine here.
He showed us the Wall of Remembrance - a memorial to those killed since 2014.
Holly Williams: Just days before the Russian invasion, we interviewed you. And you said, "Ukrainians have already made their choice between war and dishonor. Every window in this town will shoot at the invaders."And Andriy, that turned out to be prophetic. You were right. How did you know?
Andriy Tsaplienko: I know my people. I-- sorry for my emotion. We will live or we will die. That's it. I know my people. And-- they are like this.
Andriy Tsaplienko has come close to losing *his* life. Outside the town of Chernihiv in 2022 civilians were fleeing through a narrow humanitarian corridor. The Russians began shelling - and Tsaplienko took a shrapnel wound to his leg.
Holly Williams: You know, I report from a lot of war zones, but I don't -- don't really take the same kind of risks that you take. Why do you take such huge risks?
Andriy Tsaplienko: We are sitting in the studio. Do we think we are safe now? No. There is no safe place in Ukraine. We are under threat of Russian missile attack. You know, stop this recording, stop our lives, stop your piece, stop everything. It's possible.
Tsaplienko told us he sleeps around four hours a night, and hasn't taken a day off since the invasion.
His contacts inside Ukraine's armed forces are more than just sources. Gen. Serhiy Deineko is the commander of Ukraine's State Border Guard - a decorated war hero - and one of Tsaplienko's closest friends.
Serhiy Deineko (translated from Ukrainian): The audience that Andriy reaches - we're talking about millions of people. He is really respected - both on the front line, and by Ukrainian society.
Holly Williams: So you're fighting a war on the ground while Andriy is fighting an information war by reporting the truth? Is that right?
Serhiy Deineko: Of course.
The truth - according to Tsaplienko - is that Ukraine is doing battle against evil.
Andriy Tsaplienko: So I raised myself around $2 million for-- Ukrainian military. It's not that much but-- I think it helps.
Holly Williams: You're not an unbiased observer of this war. You're on one side of it.
Andriy Tsaplienko: I am not unique. I think every Ukrainian journalist took his side in this war. We know that Russians treat us an information-- information soldiers of this war. And we know that we will be killed if we're captured by the Russians. So that's why we choose-- one side.Normally, before this war you have to give two points of view to the viewers to help them to decide what's right, what's wrong. But it's not like this in this war. We still have corruption problems. That's true. We still have problems in bad managing. That's true. But we are on a good side of history. That's it. We protect values.
This war is personal - and Tsaplienko makes no effort to deny it. In the city where he was born, Kharkiv, residents are under near daily bombardment by Russian missiles, drones and glide bombs.
More than a quarter of Kharkiv's residents have fled - but for those who've stayed, civic pride is non-negotiable...in Freedom Square in the center of Kharkiv the fountains are still working - despite air raid alarms like this one - that sent us scrambling for cover. Nothing landed that day - but just over three weeks later, the building where we took shelter was shattered by a Russian glide bomb.
Andriy Tsaplienko: I just gonna bring to my mother something.
Holly Williams: Oh, OK.
Andriy Tsaplienko:: Yeah.
On the outskirts of town, in a district that's frequently bombed, Tsaplienko took us to meet his mother, Valentina, a retired shopkeeper. She refuses to evacuate.
Holly Williams: What will you do if the Russians come here?
(VALENTINA SPEAKING RUSSIAN)
Andriy Tsaplienko: She says that Russians will never come here, never." We will not let them in, never." My mom.
Like around a third of Ukrainians, Tsaplienko and his mother speak Russian as their first language. Kharkiv is a majority Russian-speaking city.
Holly Williams: Vladimir Putin says that the Ukrainian nation doesn't actually exist. He says that Ukrainians are really Russians. Is it possible that you're really Russian and you've been brainwashed?
Andriy Tsaplienko: (very long laugh) I totally lost my answer, actually. How can you brainwashed-- identifying yourself? Nobody can force you to be identified as-- anybody.
Holly Williams: I mean, Vladimir Putin said that this war is to defend and protect people like you, Russian-speaking Ukrainians.
Andriy Tsaplienko: Protect from-- from what? This is standard propaganda cliché. They want to kill us. They mostly destroyed Russian-spoken regions of this country. They turned them into a desert of-- debris-- and remains of-- concrete buildings-- soaked with blood. This is what they do. This is what they continue doing.
Putin's blood-soaked invasion has cost the lives of over 100,000 Russian soldiers, according to U.S. officials. Ukraine's military death toll is now thought to be more than 70,000. The Wall of Remembrance has extended much further down the street. Andriy Tsaplienko told us the freedoms Ukraine only recently began to enjoy are what these soldiers died for - and the reason he keeps going back to the frontline.
Andriy Tsaplienko: We realize how vulnerable it is. It could be broken, it could be destroyed because we live next to Russia. We know how it works. That's why I do my news, I do my reports, I write my articles.
Holly Williams: So it's not a -- it's not a job for you. It's-- it's a calling.
Andriy Tsaplienko: It's a calling. It's an obligation. It's a dream job…If you can help your army to win, if you can help to-- your people to survive, you can be proud of your job. That's it. That's what I'm trying to do.
Produced by Erin Lyall. Field producer: Oleksandr Churkin. Associate producers: Tadd J. Lascari and Matthew Riley. Edited by Warren Lustig.
