Katerina Gordéieva: "The victims of the Ukrainian war have taught me that those who survive hell feel not hatred but mercy."

BarcelonaKaterina Gordeieva (Rostov-on-Don, 1977) covered the wars in Chechnya, Iraq, and Afghanistan as a Russian television correspondent. She was forced to leave Russia following the annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014, after being criminalized by Vladimir Putin's regime as a "foreign agent." She lives in Latvia with her four children and runs a YouTube channel with two million subscribers. She visited Barcelona to present her first book, Take my pain away (Comanegra), at an event at the CCCB. The work brings together the witnesses of 24 victims of the Russian invasion of Ukraine whom she has interviewed while traveling throughout Europe.

As a Russian journalist, it wouldn't be easy to interview Ukrainian victims. In the book, many say it's different.

— I was born in southern Russia, in Rostov-on-Don, which is very close to the Ukrainian border. We share the same language, a mix of Russian and Ukrainian, with some of the same words, but with our accent... I understood each other much better than with Muscovites. Part of my family lived in Kiev. I swear, we people from southern Russia have never hated Ukrainians, and I know for a fact that Ukrainians have never hated us either. This has been the hardest job of my life. I'd worked in other wars and volunteered for an organization for children with cancer. They were tough experiences, but this time it was harder because I felt a personal responsibility.

Do you feel responsible?

— I'm a journalist, and I have to fight propaganda. And I've tried to do everything possible: I don't know if I can change history, but I've tried to be honest and do my job as best I can. 1984 George Orwell's work already stated that human beings are weak in the face of state totalitarianism. In fact, we are living through the most false and propaganda-filled era in human history.

Do you think Putin wants a ceasefire now?

— I don't know, and I don't believe any of these leaders. They talk and talk, but meanwhile, people continue to die on both sides. I don't think any of the current leaders really want to resolve the situation, and to be honest, I don't have any solutions either. Because Putin doesn't want to give back the territories he stole.

Do you see any prospects for political change in Russia?

— There's no one who can fight Putin; people are afraid: there are thousands of people in prison, and those who aren't are afraid of ending up the same. My friend, Zhenya Berkovich, a playwright and poet, is in prison for her work, accused of terrorism. Her young daughters are motherless, and one of them is mentally disabled. Her grandmothers died while Zhenya is behind bars. They make her sew clothes for twelve hours a day without pay, like in the gulag era. Human beings are weak, and no one wants to spend their only life in prison. People try to remain silent, to protect their children, because not everyone has the opportunity to leave Russia. People are afraid of being reported, of being arrested, and that sense of fear has spread incredibly quickly. The state is an enemy, a totalitarian monster.

The Putin regime has labeled her a "foreign agent," as have most of those who have dared to criticize her. Why does this accusation have such traction in Russia?

— A couple of years ago, I received documents about my grandfather's trial. The Stalinist system killed him in 1937. The indictment called him a traitor to the state and a foreign agent. So I'm following the family tradition. I love my country, even though I'm not Russian—I'm Jewish—but I was born there and spent most of my life there. I speak Russian, I think in Russian, and I wish the best for my country, just as my grandfather did. I'm scared, of course. But I'll keep going until my last breath. And I'll feel my responsibility for that country until the end. I feel my responsibility in this war, my professional weakness as a journalist for not having prevented it, and I hope I have the opportunity to stop it.

He has a YouTube channel with two million subscribers. He's already doing his job.

— YouTube is banned in Russia now, and they won't let us collect donations to keep filming videos. And Google won't let us sell ads. They've strangled us from both sides. I think we have to accept that they're more powerful than us; they're smart, cruel, and cunning. We have to accept that we can't win, which doesn't mean we shouldn't keep fighting. My generation has lost the game: we've lost the future we wanted for our country.

You've received the Anna Politkovskaya Award for your YouTube channel. What does the figure of the Russian investigative journalist, murdered in 2006, mean to you?

— Anna Politkovskaya is a benchmark for the journalism I'm trying to create with this book, which doesn't deal with geopolitics but focuses on the victims. I will always stand with the victims, not to judge them, but to listen to them so as not to lose sight of how war destroys human lives. Putin created this diabolical plan to invade Ukraine and steal all these territories. I don't know why the hell he needs them: Russia is very large, and we have many empty territories.

You have seen how human beings can endure anything.

— People can survive almost anything. But my heroes have taught me that those who have survived hell can love. People who have never experienced war can transmit hatred, but people who have lost their lives and found the strength to continue living and continue loving transmit mercy.

Often, when you cover a war, you don't explain everything. There are things you keep to yourself because of your privacy or because of your close relationship with the victims. Where do you draw the line between what should be explained and what shouldn't?

— I don't know. I try not to get lost.