View with press officer Kateryna Petrenko (26) about the Ukrainian front: “I keep the stories of all those who die here”

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The off-roader slides dangerously over the icy bumpy road somewhere in the pitch black Donbass. Winter and war rage outside. But Kateryna Petrenko (26) sits quietly in the backseat and talks in an endless stream about her wild life. This? Icy road, artillery thunder, potholes? This is nothing compared to what the Ukrainian experiences every day in her work.

Petrenko is the press officer of the “80. Separate Galician air assault brigade, an elite unit of the Ukrainian army that prevents the advance of the Russians on the eastern front. She is a ‘soul saver’, says the little woman. «I keep the stories of all those who die here and who we would otherwise forget. I’ll make sure some of it stays.”

Being forgotten has always been Ukraine’s biggest enemy – besides its Russian neighbors, of course. “The Soviets already tried to rob us of our history. Now Russia wants to steal our identity,” says Petrenko. Instead of reporting on fashion, films and corruption as before, she now reports on the fighters at the front, fallen soldiers and new heroes. This is important, especially now that Ukraine is unfortunately falling into oblivion again. “And especially for the future, so that later generations can read how we fought for them.”

With red fingernails on the front

Kateryna Petrenko herself had completely different plans. She had tickets for a weekend in Paris, her very first trip abroad. The fingernails were already painted red and the bag was packed. Then she got a call: the 80th Brigade’s press officer had been killed and a replacement was needed immediately.

Instead of taking the train to Paris, Petrenko got into an acquaintance’s car in November 2022, paid him 5,000 hryvnia (120 francs) for gasoline and was driven to the newly liberated village of Borova. No taxi would have taken her here, too dangerous. Petrenko appeared in a camouflage uniform and a bulletproof vest.

But the young woman not only brings news and foreign visitors to the soldiers in the command posts and in the trenches along the front, but also a pinch of life, a touch of civilian color. «Smile, joke, enjoy the moment: that’s what you have to do here. “Everything else is of no use,” she explains to the Blick reporter.

The hugs are long – they could always be the last

The hugs with the soldiers in a rocket launcher command post are long and warm late at night. Perhaps they are the last. Perhaps soon the warm hands of the fighters will soon be cold and dead, like so many whose stories Petrenko wrote. “It doesn’t make my job any easier that I never know if the people I talk to today will still be alive tomorrow,” she says.

Petrenko recently received the Golden Cross, a high rank of merit, from Ukraine’s top general Valery Zalushni. The war is not only fought with artillery and assault rifles, but also with words and stories. On this front, Kateryna Petrenko is part of the Ukrainian war elite.

A poem by the Ukrainian writer Kateryna Kalito has accompanied the press officer in her dangerous work since the beginning. “In these unforgiving times it’s like being on a stormy sea, so easy to get lost and forget who you are.” After all: thanks to Petrenko, the world is less likely to forget who the people are that it meets every day.

Source: Blick