Fin dePencier connected with W5 on the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I personally didn't expect Russia to invade all of Ukraine,” he told W5. “I thought that they were going to move into the rest of the Donbas region from the areas they already occupied.”
“I thought there might be some strikes in Kiev or in the western parts of the country to draw forces away from the front lines. But when I went to Kharkiv, I certainly didn't expect to come under attack there.”
The Canadian journalist is a correspondent for Palladium Magazine (), a non-profit and non-partisan journalism project. After a few days in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital he headed for Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city.
While he was en route Russia’s invasion began.
“I woke up at about 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, as did everybody else on the train, we were all just frantically reading the news, knowing that we were driving into the fire. It was about two hours before we reached Kharkiv and there was no turning around and it was certainly a very nerve-wracking situation.”
At the station, pandemonium reigned.
“It was rush hour in the other direction. The train station was an absolute zoo. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of people trying to catch the next train west immediately.” West, toward the country’s borders with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania. West, away from the war.
But dePencier stayed to see what happened next. That’s when he spoke with W5 and agreed to share his experiences in a modern-day video diary, recording the daily events and working with the W5 team to produce what became a chronicle of the Russian invasion, told from the front lines.
In Kharkiv, he documented the early Russian advance and subsequent embarrassment by Ukrainian forces as they repelled the invaders.
“The Ukrainians actually did something very ingenious, which is that they withdrew from their front lines. They pulled back into the city a little bit. Then they allowed the Russians to walk in. Then, once the Russians were inside the city, the Ukrainian military clobbered them from both sides.”
Out in the city he and fellow journalists found abandoned and destroyed Russian armour. At one location where a Russian personnel carrier stood abandoned Ukrainian solders showed off their prize. And lying in the snow nearby was the body of a dead Russian, lying abandoned by his comrades and too dangerous to move because there were explosives next to the body.
“By this point in the invasion, the Russians were growing increasingly frustrated, having not been able to take the city of Kharkiv with their infantry. They were now resorting to more indiscriminate and aggressive attacks on civilian areas using missiles and artillery.”
What followed was a full-on assault that has yet to abate. Civilian streets, homes, roads – no part of Kharkiv has been spared by intense Russian bombardment, with no regard for civilian casualties.
Staying ahead of the assault, dePencier and fellow journalists decided to head south.
“One of our colleagues who woke us at about eight in the morning said that we had a car ready to take us to the Dnipro and we had to get all our things ready in five minutes. It was time to go.”
Three hours later, they pulled into Dnipro. The city on the Dnieper River has played an important role in taking in refugees from the Russian-backed assault on the Donbas. The city has a monument to the victims of that conflict.
“Compared with Kharkiv, Dnipro seemed relatively normal and quiet, but we quickly realized that while Kharkiv was a city under attack, Dnipro was a city preparing for attack.”
Over the next two days he documented furious preparations. At a local civilian defence centre, dePencier filmed the packaging of medicines. It was as if every drugstore in the city had been raided and their contents collected for the war effort.
At another stop, he was shown hundreds of Molotov cocktails, boxed and lined up, ready for use. He watched as bottle after bottle was filled with the makings of incendiary devices to be used against advancing Russian armour. Outside, a quick demonstration: light the wick, wait for it to start burning, throw.
A big blast of flame followed. Online, Ukrainians had already been given primers on where to aim.
By now, day seven of the unprovoked Russian invasion safety began to become a great concern. City after city and civilian areas were under indiscriminate attack by bombs and missiles. In the south, the major city of Kherson fell to the Russians and Mariupol was under siege without electricity, running water or a sanitary system.
“Safety is paramount. We're just trying to remain calm, keep our heads, keep our heads together, and we're going to make the right choice and get out of the country as soon as possible.”
On day eight of the war for Ukraine the choice was clear. DePencier and his fellow combat journalists found a bus heading west, to Lviv and the border with Poland. It was time to get out.
