War correspondent Diana Butsko: I film cityscapes. These can often be the last shots from there

Due to the intensity of Russia's battlefield advance, in particular in Donetsk oblast, Hromadske war correspondent Diana Butsko has changed her approach to work. She and her cameraman started filming cityscapes, since each visit to a municipality may be the last.

Diana Butsko spoke about this on the Hromadske Radio podcast “In Touch: Occupied Territories”.

“In the summer, I realized that on each of my trips I may be the last person to visit a city. This changed my approach to work: if before we would arrive, focus on the story, look for subjects for a news story, speak about them, now I want to film the city. We try to film videos of just cities, panoramas from the car, because these often may be the last shots taken there. Now most of my stories are stories about destroyed cities,” Diana said.

Diana Butsko. Photo by Diana Butsko on Facebook

Diana Butsko has visited many cities and villages that are now destroyed completely or in part: Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Pokrovsk, Kurakhovo, Vuhledar, New York, Toretsk. The reporter notes that the situation has changed a lot over the past year, since previously the frontline had been moving much more slowly. Because of this, the destruction of cities was perceived gradually as you could see fewer and fewer intact buildings on each subsequent trip.

“And now you arrive in a city and you don’t know whether you will ever come back. I clearly realized this in the summer of 2024, which was the most difficult time for me emotionally. We spent a lot of our time on the battlefiled, every time I come somewhere, and in a few weeks that place is gone,” the journalist said.

Diana Butsko added that the Russians destroyed New York, Hrodivka, and Novohrodivka in Donetsk oblast shortly after her visits.

The survey of the media community in all oblasts across Ukraine taken by the Institute of Mass Information showed that Diana Butsko was on the list of top journalists in 2024.