Yevhen Spirin, journalist turned military medic and Ukrainian National Guard servicemember, gave Harvard University students a five-hour tour of de-occupied towns in Kyiv oblast and sites of the Russian army’s war crimes.
The event took place as part of a partnership between the Bucha community and the university, Yevhen Spirin tells IMI journalist Valentyna Troyan.
Spirin said that the group included around 30 students aged 20 to 30, majoring in various subjects. The tour had a monitoring as well as educational purpose and covered key sites of destruction and tragedy in Kyiv oblast.
“We have a tried and true programme. First stop, the destroyed Irpin bridge. Then we head to the cemetery of burnt cars that were brought there, with some cars having ‘Children’ inscriptions and bulletholes. Then the Palace of Culture, and the Church of St Andrew the First-Called, where the bodies of the deceased were exhumed from a mass grave that had been there. From there — on to the memorial in Moshchun,” Yevhen Spirin said.
The servicemember said that he talked to the students in English and lasted more than five hours without an interpreter. Based on his observations, Spirin said the foreign students had a clear understanding of Russia’s aggression and responded to photographic evidence and accounts of the destruction in an objective way.
“It was pretty easy to talk to them, they’re not steeped in propaganda. They didn’t ask me anything that would’ve required me to provide additional proof — they basically understood everything already,” Spirin said.
As IMI has reported, in March 2024 Yevhen Spirin announced that he was enlisting in the National Guard. Before that, he worked as a journalist and project coordinator for Memorial and Svoyi.City at the Abo Media Growth Agency, which he joined after leaving Babel in June 2023.
Yevhen Spirin is originally from Luhansk. He was threatened by unknown individuals during a mass rally near the Luhansk Oblast State Administration building on 29 April 2014. At the time, he was reporting for the website 0642.