Tracing Patterns — Rzychiv, Kyiv region, March 23

Yesterday, outside a site destroyed by a Russian drone, and on the edge of a recently planted wheat field, I was told to check my privilege.

This happened at Rzychiv, a small town 80 kilometres south of Kyiv on the Dnipro River, where a technical college and the four blocks of flats adjacent to it were hit. It is now very sadly established that nine people have died there — one of the worst single incidents in Moscow’s missile mania.

With the rest of a media scrum, we were held out of the site for a few hours after arriving in the riverside town. Then, the authorities let us through. Everyone dashed to the site for their TV and still shots, and their cuts to camera.

And, then, doing what journos do, you look for quotes, eyewitness accounts, and people who have experienced the incident etc. It’s part formula, part habit, and, when done with integrity, part appropriate to convey a reality for others.

There was a group of a dozen of so elderly villagers standing and sitting on a little rise across the street from the site of death and destruction. I, like the other journos, moved over to them in the hope of a chat.

I walked up to a man of about 70, but it’s hard to tell in Ukraine. I could tell, though, from his permanently tanned skin, practical clothes and worn hands that he was a farmer. My main consideration was that he was clearly local.

As I started my spiel, he politely and firmly said:

“It’s not appropriate to speak of this while there are still dead under the rubble.”

It sort of stopped me in my tracks with its directness and its clarity. I mumbled something like “yes, yes, quite right” and moved away. I didn’t try with anyone else.

I could see that the same rule held true for the others standing there — and they to conveyed it to other journalists. These people were in no way interested in playing the game or in making themselves a centre of attention. They knew what was important and were making it clear that perhaps we did not.

Indeed, at that moment, I thought to myself. What a fool I can be.

Locked into a certain goal and certain modality, I did not properly consider the grief, turmoil and other emotions that these neighbours were no doubt going through. Nor, as a city person, did I consider older cultural traditions. I acted from privilege.

I quite rightly was effectively told to fuck off and have a look at myself, I now make out.

When I think about why Ukraine is slated to win this horrible and senseless war, where death comes rapidly and randomly to people’s beds in the middle of the night, I will remember the old man on the road. Dignified, honourable, strong, stoic, invincible.

Thank you, sir.