A collected series of dispatches from Paweł Pieniążek, translated from the original Polish by Łukasz Chełmiński.
Admiringly called “the poet laureate of hybrid war,” Paweł Pieniążek is a journalist and regular contributor to Tygodnik Powszechny, a Polish weekly. He covered protests in Kyiv’s Maidan square–where he was badly beaten by the Berkut riot police–from their beginnings in November 2013. Paweł spent years embedded in the Donbas, reporting on a conflict that became the topic of his first two books, Greetings from Novorossiya (available in English) and Wojna, która nas zmieniła (The War that Changed Us). He has since reported from Afghanistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Iraq and Syria. Wydawnictwo Czarne published Paweł’s Po kalifacie. Nowa wojna w Syrii (After the Caliphate. A New War in Syria) in 2019. Pieniążek has also been published in Gazeta Wyborcza, Dziennik Opinni, and New Eastern Europe. In 2015 he was awarded a Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale University and in 2021 a Milena Jesenská Fellowship for Journalists at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna.
Fluent in both Ukrainian and Russian, Pieniążek has been reporting from Ukraine for nearly a decade. He had returned to cover the escalating threat of Russian military buildup on the country’s borders for Tygodnik Powszechny and was in the eastern city of Kharkiv when the invasion began. His reports cut through the cacophony of conflict to shed light on the tragic and pointless human cost of war.
We will keep adding translated dispatches here:
February 19th, 2022 – The first day of the end of the world
February 22, 2022 – Residents of Kyiv: We want to know how to defend our families
February 23rd, 2022 – Kyiv residents are buying military gear
February 24th, 2022 – Russia has attacked Ukraine
February 24th, 2022 – When they shell your home
February 26, 2022 – Increasingly difficult to find bread in Kyiv
February 27, 2022 – House keys
February 28, 2022 – Wartime Maidan
February 28, 2022 – “It’s hard to shake off negative thoughts.” Kyiv lives under threat from rockets
March 1, 2022 – Territorial Defense of Ukraine: Defending our Neighborhood
March 2, 2022 – Kyiv: a rocket falls near the train station
March 5, 2022 – The Evacuation of Irpin: Will I ever see my house again?
March 6, 2022 – Kyiv prepares. Anti-tank hedgehogs and Molotov cocktails
March 7, 2022 – For Our Today, for Your Tomorrow
March 10, 2022 – Kyiv: concert for closing the skies
March 11, 2022 – “I will lay down in front of a tank, I won’t let it pass.” Correspondence from Ukraine
March 13, 2022 – Leaving Kyiv be heartbreaking
March 16, 2022 – Kyiv Shelled. Correspondence from Ukraine
March 21, 2022 – A home on a volcano. Life in Kharkiv?
March 28, 2022 – The Kharkiv metro: a month underground
April 1, 2022 – Kyiv catches its breath
April 4, 2022 – Home can’t be packed up. Correspondence from Kharkiv
April 5, 2022 – The Donbas rail station: concert and evacuation
April 12, 2022 – Donbas: Julia wants to fight for her home
April 15, 2022 – Severodonetsk under fire
May 5, 2022 – I didn’t think that this would reach us. Correspondence from Donbas
May 7, 2022 – Mobile defense. What’s happening on the front line?
May 10, 2022 – Donbas: I’m leaving because I want to live
May 16, 2022 – On the road of life: correspondence from the front in Donbas
May 23, 2022 – The fight for the Kharkiv region. Correspondence from Ukraine
May 27, 2022 – The International Legion. A Pole and an American fight for Ukraine’s freedom
June 12, 2022 – “We finally see how wonderful our country is:” an interview with Yaroslav Hrytsak
June 29, 2022 – Ukraine: Exhaust a country defending itself
July 11, 2022 – When it’s bad, you appreciate the little things
July 11, 2022 – To volunteer in hell: medics at war
August 1, 2022 – Ihor remains on watch. Correspondence from Kharkiv
August 8, 2022 – Our objective was to not die and we succeeded
August 12, 2022 – Ukraine: an increasingly entrenched war
August 19, 2022 – Stakes higher than boxing. Oleksandr Usyk will fight Anthony Joshua
August 22, 2022 – Volunteers. How Ukrainian women fight for their country
September 19, 2022 – A new hope. Will Ukraine win?
September 19, 2022 – Family on the other side of the river. Correspondence from Kharkiv Oblast
October 3, 2022 – Rail – a pillar of Ukraine. Correspondence from Paweł Pieniążek
November 12, 2022 – Ukraine returns to Kherson: “We have been waiting for you for so long.” A report from the liberated city
November 14, 2022 – My plan is to celebrate
November 21, 2022 – Kherson: the joy of liberation and terrifying memories
Novemeber 28, 2022 – Save, in turn: life, limbs, sight. Correspondence from a field hospital
December 5, 2022 – Ukraine is reclaiming land and tracking down collaborators
December 12, 2022 – Where is your flag?
December 23, 2022 – What will you do when this is over? We asked Ukrainians from different corners of the country
December 23, 2022 – “My life consists of constant deconstruction.” Paweł Pieniążek about the work of a war reporter
February 13, 2023 – Correspondence from Ukraine: The last road to town
February 20, 2023 – Bakhmut: the longest battle
February 26, 2023 – “Was I supposed to wait for the Russians to knock on my door?” A report from the front in Donetsk oblast.
April 1, 2023 – A pacifist with a rifle. Artem Chapeye writes about the experiences of ordinary soldiers.
Dispatches from Ukraine