Senior BBC Editor: Ukraine Is A Story In Itself 07.02.14 by Громадське радіо

Olexiy Solohubenko, News and Deployment Editor, Global Languages, BBC, came to his native city, Kiev, after some time, and to barricades and tension. In this interview he speaks of his impressions as a journalist and a Kievan.

Olexiy Solohubenko's interview in Ukrainian, touching on some other aspects of the situation in Ukraine, is here: https://soundcloud.com/hromadske-radio/lzd046xkbtiw

Script by Andrew Kobalia

Andriy Kulykov: Olexiy, you’ve come to your native city after some time and you came when the city is moving, when the city is seething, what are your first impressions?

Olexiy Solohubenko: The first impression is that part of the city is seething, part of the city is moving in various directions and there is a lot of tension, and you can feel the tension but you get on the tube, you get on the bus and that tension is not palpable there. I think this is something that people need to understand, like in every protest, in every demonstration, there is a focus, and then there is an area outside focus. It’s like in photography, you know. So, there are soft spots and there are areas of great tension. I think this is one thing. The second thing, I think, because I was born here and I know the city center very very well, it’s kind of strange that, for instance, the barricades are now blocking the street which I used to, you know, to walk many many years almost every day, because I was playing tennis next to the Dynamo Stadium on Hrushevsky street, where now there are barricades. So you kind of recognize some of the places and yet you don’t recognize all of the places. And the other thing that impressed me, I think, the size, the skill that was put into building the barricades.

Andriy Kulykov: And the inventiveness.

Olexiy Solohubenko: And the inventiveness, yes. And you know, there is this old joke that it takes a Ukrainian two months to put a shelf in the bathroom and two hours to build the barricade and I could see that with my own eyes. I know the joke maybe a little bit crass, but you know the skill was there And I saw the people manning the barricades and that’s very interesting, because they all looking rather menacing for someone who visits, you know, with armor, body-armor, with helmets, with sticks, very polite, yet it’s quite a force that is quite impressive.

Andriy Kulykov: Have you been to the place where adherents of the current authorities are holding their rally?

Olexiy Solohubenko: Yes, I drove past, I didn’t enter. There was quite a presence of police around.

Andriy Kulykov: I must tell you that you wouldn’t have probably been let in, because they demand a special sort of accreditation.

Olexiy Solohubenko: Yes, I didn’t have anything, though, so we drove past and I saw the rally and I saw some of the posters. And some were very depressing, frankly, for instance, there was a poster, yellow with blood dripping down the poster saying “Yugoslavia first, Libya second, is Ukraine next?” And obviously there were “Stop EU” slogans and anything else. “Russia is a trusted friend” was one that I saw, certainly. I have nothing against the last one but I was quite puzzled by this “Yugoslavia, Libya, Ukraine”…

Andriy Kulykov: So what’s your personal impression? Is Ukraine next?

Olexiy Solohubenko: No, I don’t think Ukraine is next and I don’t see there are forces anywhere in the world that want really to partition Ukraine. I don’t believe in the conspiracy theories. And I think there is very little evidence, whether I believe or not, it’s a different story but there is very little evidence that the European Union or the United States, you know, or anybody else has this plans. But I understand that, you know, politics is very very tense and sometimes not exactly clean business and all sorts of slogans that are being banged around, you know, on the other side, on the side of the opposition there are also some… rather stern phrases about the current leadership, about the president who, let’s not forget, was elected, and elected relatively cleanly according to the international observers. So, I think, yeah, language and various phrases, they fly around on both sides. However, what I saw next to the parliament, I think some of the slogans were rather offensive and suggestive of a big global conspiracy to undermine Ukraine which I don’t think there is an evidence to.

Andriy Kulykov: You came to Ukraine, I would say, from a very disciplined and decent media environment in Britain, which represents a whole range of views and quite a lot of news, about Ukraine as well. We talked about this in your interview that your gave in Ukrainian, but how do you find the Ukrainian media environment these days? Just imagine that you do not go to BBC, Reuters or any other foreign source for news and views from Ukraine. Will you get sufficient information from the Ukrainian media?

Olexiy Solohubenko: In order to get the sufficient information from the Ukrainian media it’s not good enough for me to watch one channel or to read one publication. I’ve been always saying that the key difference between what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s happening in Britain is that in Britain, apart from the print media which is different, there are political variations there, but in the electronic media which is very regulated, there is a sense of balance and there is a sense of impartiality within one channel. If you are watching just the BBC or ITV or Channel 4, maybe to a lesser degree, but nevertheless you get different views and you get the idea of where different sides of the conflict, for example, stand. If you go and do the same experiment with the Ukrainian media, you know where the Fifth Channel stands, where the First National... You need the polarity of channels and I think this is the problem of the Ukrainian viewer and listener, because you just cannot go to one favorite channel of yours in order to get a balanced information, there is always political bias of some kind or bias maybe the wrong word, but nevertheless a political preference, let’s put it like this. And it is very obvious in the way questions are put, in the way the guests are treated. That’s one thing. The second thing, I guess, there is a lot of stuff that in Britain, for instance, I as an editor would be extremely unhappy with. And I would certainly tell it and point it very firmly to my presenters, to my reporters: there is a lot of libel, there is a lot of accusation which is completely unsourced, unattributed. And I think this is quite worrying, because I think the overall standard of skill in journalism is very very high, but the slippery slope of banging around various accusations, you know, naming people names. I don’t think this adds to the reputation of a presenter, of a journalist. I think you can do your job without kind of lowering yourself to that level.

Andriy Kulykov: Olexiy Solohubenko, you’ve been in news and other media spheres for thirty five years I guess, what’s the biggest news in Ukraine now?

Olexiy Solohubenko: I think the biggest news in Ukraine now is Ukraine itself. Where the country is going to go. There are all sorts of rumors, you know, big words, “civil war”, your hear, you know you hear how the world is split over Ukraine and I am talking about certainly Western Europe, European union, Russia and the United States. You hear all sorts of things coming from the Crimea, you hear talk about federalization, you know, about parts of the country being absorbed into Russia, whatever, or, you know, some kind of invasions, you hear all sorts of things and I think Ukraine is an interesting, but a very complex story, because again, there is history there, there is all sorts of cultural differences, all sorts of nuances. And I think the interesting thing is that Ukraine is still a pluralistic society but as any pluralism, it involves quite a lot of things that you may not want or you may not like. And I think, you know, yesterday for instance, my colleagues asked me in an interview down the line from Kiev to London, they asked me “What about the fascist and the neo-Nazi groups and anything else?” I think the irony or the tragedy is that this is part of the mix; it’s not the face of what’s going on here, but it’s part of the picture. And I think it’s important to keep that in mind, obviously all this kind of nasty stuff and unpleasant stuff is being played out by those who have their own political games outside of Ukraine or inside of Ukraine. And it’s very easy to do it, you can manipulate stuff, you know, by exaggerating one trait or one feature and saying this is the real face. Whereas you know it’s not. But, nevertheless, I think this is quite an important thing to understand that the Ukrainian story is a complicated one. Ukraine itself is a story and it’s now becoming very geopolitical.