Putin’s bully-boy tactics won’t stop me telling stories of ordinary people caught up in conflict

REPORTING from war zones is the best and worst job in the world.

I see horrific things and sometimes get scared witless.

Russia has issued an arrest warrant for The Sun’s defence editor Jerome Starkey

EPA

What Russia really wants is to bury proper journalism, to stop reporters shedding light on Putin’s war crimes[/caption]

Peter Jordan

The Sun’s Jerome Starkey pictured as artillery is fired in 2022[/caption]

But I get to tell amazing stories about ordinary people caught up in a conflict.

I won’t be stopped by the bully-boy threats from a sham Russian court in Kursk.

I have reported in these pages about innocent people maimed by cluster bombs.

We have given a voice to pensioners living in a Kharkiv bathroom because it is the only room without windows or outside walls that could be blown to bits by missiles.

We have told stories of babies born in bunkers.

Stories of parents who rescued stolen children from thousands of miles behind the front line.

Stories of civilians forced to wear uniforms to defend loved ones.

Stories of soldiers slain in blood-soaked trenches.

And I have interviewed captured Russian troops — some of them convicts press-ganged into Storm Z battalions.

In August I had the extraordinary chance to visit Kursk, captured in Ukraine’s surprise attack.

It was Russia’s worst loss on home soil since WW2.

Russia claims my trip was a crime. It’s absurd. The Leninsky District Court said I crossed the border illegally.

What did they expect? For me to stop at the border, as drones swarmed overhead, and get my passport stamped?

What Russia really wants is to bury proper journalism, to stop reporters shedding light on Putin’s war crimes.

It won’t work. We did our jobs. We did journalism. And ­journalism is not a crime.

President Zelensky with Jerome in November 2023

A bullet-ridden sign at the border crossing on the way into Kursk, Russia