Clarissa Ward is an award-winning British-American conflict journalist, and is the current chief international correspondent for CNN. After graduating from Yale College in 2002, she has spent the last two decades reporting from the front lines of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Georgia. In 2020, Ward investigated the poisoning of Alexey Navalny and interviewed him in an undisclosed location. Last year, she reported from Kabul, Afghanistan during the first few days when the Taliban took control of the city. Recently, Ward has been covering the ongoing Russian invasion.
You were in Kharkiv, Ukraine during the initial invasion – can you paint us a picture of what the first days and weeks of the invasion were like?
I was actually in Ukraine from mid-January. I really didn’t think the invasion was going to happen. I was actually lobbying to go home again because I have two small kids. Then Putin gave this very ominous speech where it became clear that despite the predictions of many people who had spent a lot of time in Russia and knew Russia quite well, that actually this invasion was going to happen.
Once we knew it was going to happen, we had to try to work out where we thought it was going to occur. At that stage, there were very few people entertaining the idea that it could be a full-blown national invasion in Kyiv and across the country. So we decided to go to Kharkiv, which is Ukraine’s second-largest city and directly across the border from Russia. As we were driving there, we got a phone call from our bosses saying that they were hearing off the record that the war was going to start that night.
We got to our hotel, and it was pitch black. It was very eerie. Eventually, it was like 4 A.M. and it seemed like nothing was happening. I happened to look on Twitter before getting into bed and I saw that Putin was speaking. So we all rushed back up to the roof, and you could just hear the explosions rippling across the night sky as missiles began slamming into Ukraine, not just in Kharkiv but all across the country. We were live for several hours, then slept for a few hours. The next morning, we began trying to get a feel for what was going on.
In those initial days, people were in a state of shock. The Ukrainians had also been led to believe by their leaders that this was not going to happen – that there was not going to be an actual invasion. So they were in deep shock. We went to the subway station where people were hunkered down. They didn’t have food. There were no bathrooms down there. They were just waiting and hoping that there would be some kind of guidance as to what they should do or where they should go. What was extraordinary to see, though, was just how quickly the Ukrainians adapted to living in a war. Despite the sense that they hadn’t been fully prepared for this moment, in a matter of days they were mentally and physically prepared for a big fight. Whether that was soldiers, or whether that was old ladies building Molotov cocktails in their garage and getting ready to throw them at the Russians as they came in, it was pretty remarkable.
Putin has expressed interest in expansion before — he briefly invaded Georgia in 2008 and annexed Crimea in 2014. I know that you were stationed in Georgia during the 2008 war. I’m curious if you see parallels between your experiences in Georgia and Ukraine, or what the previous invasions say about the current invasion?
It shows that Putin has been softening up the ground for a long time in terms of getting ready for a moment like this and preparing the international community for the possibility of an invasion. It also shows, though, that he has radically overshot the mark and does not understand the reality of the competence of his own military, the desires of his own people, or the willingness of NATO allies to come together in full union to fight this and defend Ukraine. He grossly underestimated how hard it was going to be and how much resistance he was going to face, internally and externally. In Crimea, the Little Green Men — as [the Russian soldiers] were called — arrived in town and people put up their white flags. The whole thing was done in a matter of days. That was the expectation for this, which tells you that Putin is getting really bad advice from people in his inner circle and that decades of rampant corruption will hollow out any institution, whether it’s your military or judiciary.
If you think of it as poker, he can bluff his way through multiple rounds and win with a pair of twos and everyone’s like, how does he do that? That’s because he knows how to play a hand. In this case, he has grossly misread the situation and has now been forced to capitulate.
There’s such a lack of access to Russia and the sentiment of Russians. Given that you spent some time living in Russia and have contacts and friends in Russia, how are they describing the situation there?
The main thing I would say is that Russia is not a monolith. There are different perspectives, depending on who you talk to. Some people in Russia are exceptionally wealthy and powerful, but not directly involved with the government. And those people are irritated by the war. Because they’ve lost a lot of money. They’ve lost a lot of power. They’ve lost their ability to go to Saint Tropez on their yacht in the summer. And that annoys them. And they’re also resentful to the West because they feel that Putin was kind of boxed into a corner and that’s why this whole invasion happened.
Then you’ll talk to other people, middle-class Russians who are educated and who have traveled a lot, but don’t have that kind of wealth. Many of them feel deeply ashamed and heartbroken about the war in Ukraine and don’t really know what to say, or even what their future is in their own country. But they understand that everything they’ve worked so hard for for three decades is now basically destroyed and won’t be rebuilt for another generation, realistically. So there’s a lot of heartache.
And then you also have a lot of ordinary Russian people who don’t have money, who haven’t traveled, who aren’t well-educated. Their only information is state-sanctioned propaganda. I would say that they are pro-war in the sense that the war has been framed as a kind of continuation of Russia’s resistance to Nazis during WWII. They are pro-war in the sense that the war is being framed as NATO trying to kill Russia, and we have to defend ourselves. But they are still not lining up to send their sons to volunteer to fight in Ukraine. This is what I think President Putin has found challenging, as we saw with the partial mobilization. That was hugely unpopular. If he has to do something like that again, it remains to be seen whether he would be able to pull that off, particularly as thousands and thousands of Russian soldiers continue to come back in body bags.
Recently you reported from the regained territories in Ukraine, and you described it as a “grim victory.” These areas are now under Ukrainian control again, but they’re irreversibly damaged by the war.
That story was about a series of villages and towns and Kherson Oblast that had been liberated. As is often the case with victory in such an ugly conflict, it comes at a huge price. Once you get past the initial jubilation, there’s a lot of darkness, trauma, and destruction. In a country that is still at war, it can be hard to find resources for the governing authorities to use to repair some of that damage. These towns or villages were pretty much destroyed in the heavy fighting — almost every single house had some kind of damage, if it wasn’t altogether obliterated. They had no electricity, no running water, and very little contact with the outside world to try to get aid or help with their rebuilding.
There are these Ukrainian police units that go around to investigate damage and some to investigate sexual assault. All of them have different purviews, looking at different war crimes. They have a huge task in front of them. It can be hard because [Ukrainians] feel ashamed. People don’t know the names of the Russians involved in this. They don’t remember the unit. There’s many reasons for why it’s an uphill climb for these investigators, but they continue to do it because it is really important work. Recently, I interviewed this elderly woman whose house had been destroyed. Her son had been injured fighting on the front lines and was in a rehabilitation facility. She was desperately afraid that she was completely alone. You leave someone like that and you think, Gosh, how is this person going to eat? Where is she going to sleep? The Ukrainian state has such an enormous task in trying to care for its citizens and trying to protect them — not just those who are living under current fire, but also those in liberated areas that have been decimated.
Recently, you interviewed a Ukrainian woman named Tatiana who was allegedly raped by a Russian solder. What struck me about that video was that Tatiana’s face was hidden to protect her identity, but viewers could watch your reaction. You had such a human, emotional response, which was really moving. Could you describe how you manage being in such intimate settings and conversations with these people? Then, you eventually go back to “normal life.” You are able to leave the conflict. What is that like?
What we did was sort of by accident. We had two cameras and one of them was on me, and I was incredibly emotional because I was watching her break down in front of me and talk about this shame she was carrying. I had a really human reaction to that. That ended up helping us tell Tatiana’s story in a way that the viewer could latch on to and connect to.
I think traditionally in journalism, there has been a resistance to cross that line a little bit.
Part of the reason you see that space being explored a lot more these days is because so many more women are doing this kind of reporting. As a woman, I don’t really have a problem bringing emotion into the story if it belongs there. I don’t have a problem focusing on humanity. Traditionally, that was seen as too sentimental. The news was thought of as giving the facts — what happened, where it happened, the guns being used, the tactics. That gives people a lot of knowledge, which is really important. I’m not saying those things aren’t important, but my goal with this kind of storytelling is to allow viewers to feel connected to these people and feel that they have a glimpse into what these people have been experiencing.
Now, the downside of that is that it does mean that when I do these interviews, I am very open to other people’s pain and trauma. You’re very present for them when they’re telling their story because it’s a big moment for a lot of people, especially rape victims. Talking about that kind of trauma is extremely difficult. You would be naive to think that just because you leave the war zone and go home and have your “real life” again, that you don’t carry some of that with you – consciously or on your body. There are many different ways that we hold on to trauma, even if it’s not our own trauma. The best way that I have found to mitigate that, to the extent that it can be mitigated, is to be proactive and aware about self care.
For me, it’s become a lot easier since I’ve had kids. Before I had kids, I would come home and feel really detached from my life. You can’t really feel that kind of numbness with your children. It’s this geyser of love that is always there. That really helps me feel my way back into real life.
If you’re going a million miles per hour, and you’re working so hard, not sleeping, driving endlessly, trying to make your deadlines, in incredibly stressful and often dangerous situations — it means you’re running on a lot of adrenaline. When that adrenaline goes away and you return to a more predictable place, you’re going to crash. It’s the laws of physics. It’s going to happen. You’re not going to avoid the crash, but you can at least put down a nice mattress to try to cushion it and just try to be good to yourself once you get home.
The following portion of the interview was not published in the print issue of The Politic, and is only featured online.
A few weeks ago, we spoke to Matthew Aikins, who reports out of Afghanistan for The New York Times Magazine. He has more or less ‘settled’ in Kabul — he has learned the language, has made friends. Your job is very different — it requires you to travel from conflict to conflict in very different parts of the world: Syria, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Russia are a few examples. What does that ‘international’ aspect of your journalism allow for? Has your exposure to crises in multiple places shaped/enhanced your understanding of another country’s dilemma?
I would start out just by saying that I didn’t always have this job. I lived in these countries as well. I spent three years in Beirut, two years in China, and two years in Moscow. So I’ve also had the experience of really living in a place and covering the story day in and day out. The experience of living in these different countries and working in a bureau and having a beat makes it easier when you make that transition to a more global role, where you’re flying in and out of different conflicts and trying to do justice to the story. This was hugely valuable in terms of enhancing my ability at this later stage in my career, to take a step back and be looking at a bigger picture.
Every conflict is distinct and unique. But when you spend a lot of time covering conflicts over a couple of decades, like I have, then you come to recognize certain themes. And that can be helpful in building a deeper picture of a place that maybe you don’t have as much experience in or haven’t spent as much time covering. There’s no question that what’s true for one place is not true for everywhere. But the more you do this, and the more exposure you have to various conflict zones around the world, the deeper your understanding grows of the general nature of conflict. It’s a very different type of reporting and type of journalism than any other number of kinds of reporting — it’s a singular type of calling for most people who do it and there are so many challenges, but there are also so many rewards.
It’s incredible that you were able to track this invasion from the beginning. I read in the New York Times that you were awake everyday from 9 a.m. to 4 a.m., while working in Ukraine. What was your schedule like?
Our biggest shows are primetime, which is basically the middle of the night in Ukraine. So when I’m on a big story, I’m going to be working until 3 or 4 a.m. If I want to be able to do good reporting and tell good stories, I can’t sleep as much as I would love to. I can’t stay in bed all day — I have to get up and go out and try to find stories and see what’s going on.
Particularly in the war’s early days, it was really difficult to have a good sense of what was actually happening. There was a lot of confusion, a lot of stress, anxiety, and fear. It was very intense. I just recently came back from Ukraine after spending five weeks there. Ukraine is a huge country, so you drive a lot, sometimes 8 to 10 hours a day. And getting permission and getting access takes time. So there’s a lot of waiting and trying to move things along with the story ideas you’re working on. Of course, we have a process: we go out, shoot it, come back, and look at all the material. Then, I log all the interviews, write the piece, and edit it. It’s a process, especially when it’s happening in front of you — you just have to go where it’s happening. In the last few weeks I spent in Ukraine, you have to really look for stories and you have to tease them out and try to build them up. So you’re probably not going to be getting very much sleep, and that just comes with the territory.
Given the tediousness of the process that you describe, how do you decide what story you want to focus on for the day or the week? Is it decided for you by the availability of resources? How does that process happen?
It really depends on the situation. When there’s big news, it’s decided for you — you cover the news. When it’s a little bit quieter, then you usually have an opportunity to dig around for a story that might be slightly more ambitious or slightly more challenging but also a really exciting story, in the sense of getting the opportunity to find great characters and try to do justice to some of their experiences. I love doing that kind of work.
There’s an element of tedium in the sense that there are a lot of steps in the journey, but there are also these fleeting moments that you have of connecting with people. When they tell you their stories, or when you discover something that you didn’t know, or even when you feel a story come together as you’re editing it. You’re like, wow, we’re really creating something vivid and memorable. Whatever it might be, a crime or even just a small heartbreak or a moment of inspiration — that is tremendously satisfying. It’s exciting and it’s challenging. Ultimately, once you’ve done this for a really long time, these stories are probably what keeps you going. Because the feature stories are the slightly longer-form pieces, with the opportunity to really explore storytelling more deeply.
I’m curious about the hyper-personal nature of some of those stories that you’re telling and the emotional impact that you describe. Were there ever any stories from Ukraine or even other countries that you really cared about but were not able to broadcast on CNN?
I have so many stories, and that’s a big part of why I wrote my book. Because a lot of the time, you’ll interact with people or come across their story and it doesn’t belong on the news. It just doesn’t make sense — it’s not designed for that kind of an audience. For years, that bugged me. Because I was having all of these experiences behind the scenes that played a huge role in instructing how I understood a conflict or a people or a place, and yet there was no outlet for them to be shown to other people. It just wouldn’t neatly fit into any kind of obvious story. And yet those off-camera experiences can be profoundly moving and inspiring.
I guess that’s the reason that people who do this kind of work are always urged to keep a journal, which I’m embarrassed to say I don’t do. But I have a really good memory, so hopefully that helps. And that is a big reason I wrote the book. I wanted to do justice somehow to all these moments and all these connections with people that meant a lot, even if they didn’t necessarily make it to the front page of the newspaper.
Russia is not the most friendly towards journalists, and I’m curious about what reporting from Ukraine has been like because of it. Were there any Russian attempts to crack down on or silence your reporting? I know that you were stalked by Russian authorities in the Central African Republic a few years ago. Have you experienced any parallels with that experience?
It’s been very frustrating. I have not been able to get a visa to travel to Russia to report since I was involved with this investigation into who poisoned Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader. I think that it is a tremendous loss that very few of us can get visas and go there anymore. There are a couple of my colleagues who still can, but it is such a difficult and risky working environment there now, with the laws against whatever they deem to be “fake news.” These laws are stated in such a way that it becomes nearly impossible for people to effectively go about their work or report properly. So that comes at a great loss on many levels, because it means there’s part of the Russian perspective that we’re not really getting.
Sure, we can get that from official statements, now more than ever. We can also get it from open-source videos posted on social media, which means news organizations have to invest in really well-trained investigative reporters who are able to geolocate these videos and try to verify them. So we’re using every single tool we have to try to get more depth and more nuance and more of a perspective on the Russian side. But it’s really challenging when you can’t do good old-fashioned, gumshoe reporting.
In terms of repercussions from Russia for the work I’ve done in Ukraine, a big part of the reason none of us can get visas to Russia right now is because we’ve been covering Ukraine and Russia doesn’t like the coverage it has seen. But I would also just say that in war, all sides try to control the narrative, and that includes the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have a lot more respect for the process, but they’re still going to try to limit access to certain things and get angry if you challenge their narrative. Part of being a reporter who is on the ground covering any war is learning how to navigate that.
What do you think the future of journalism is in Russia, considering all this censorship?
Right now, it’s grim. I don’t see much of a future at all. If you’re a journalist, you either subscribe to the state narrative and pump out propaganda in accordance with that, or you have dared to challenge conventional wisdom — in which case you have probably been declared a foreign agent, or arrested, or chased out of the country. It is interesting, and a kind of bellwether for how tenuous things are inside Russia, that you see more people on state television questioning the Kremlin’s handling of this war. But I don’t think that is evidence of there still being some freedom of speech. I think it’s more a measure of Putin not being on as solid ground as he was, so it’s easier to question some of his decisions. There is always room for even more of a crackdown, but I would say that right now, it is pretty much impossible to do free and fair reporting.
Is there a story that you think needs more attention or more reporting on?
There are definitely plenty of terrible things happening in the world that are not getting as much attention as they would have if there hadn’t been this sort of mammoth world news event this year.
One that I would rank pretty high on this list is Somalia, where I spent a couple of weeks earlier this summer, and where I believe a famine will be declared imminently. Already, there are famine-like conditions being reported in parts of the country. Somalia experienced a famine in 2011, and more than a quarter of a million people died. Everybody said it would never happen again. And here we are.
A big part of it relates to all the other events happening in the world — because there’s a food crisis, an inflation crisis, an energy crisis. All of these things are conspiring together to make agencies really struggle to avert a catastrophe.
It’s this terrible push and pull because I don’t want a famine to be declared, because that means things are horrifically bad. But on the other hand, if a famine is declared, then it will get more attention. There are journalists who are covering the story, but I do wish the story was getting even more attention.