“All of Ukraine has to see its heroes”

Our country changed a year ago. The new complex time requires appropriate media resources, able to meet the nation’s demand for information. True Stories, broadcast by Channel 5, is a worthy addition to the country’s TV offerings.

Every story takes about 20 minutes of air time. “The idea originated spontaneously, seeing as this year, tragic for the entire nation and individual citizens as it has been, has revealed so many wonderful, patriotic, selfless Ukrainians that it would be a sin not to show them. News broadcasts clearly show these people too little and too vaguely,” the show’s presenter Olha Kalynovska commented for The Day.

The presenter added that her characters reacted variously when approached by her. They typically agreed to an interview, but she met some difficulties as well, for instance when making the show about mothers of soldiers.

“Virtually all interviewees had experienced a tragedy of some kind, losing a friend, a family member, a comrade. It is unsurprising in a country at war. I talked to them in my usual manner, worrying and weeping with my show’s characters sometimes,” Kalynovska said. “I remember Andrii Sokolenko, a volunteer soldier who was wounded near Debaltseve. He went through 11 surgeries, lost 40 kilograms, but planned to return to the front on recovery, for he maintained that this war was no place for 18-year-old soldiers. Another Andrii, a native of Lviv and volunteer of the battalion ‘Donbas,’ known by callsign Antykvar, broke out of the Ilovaisk pocket on his own. I am impressed by the story of Maryna Fomenko as well, as this mother of a soldier of the 12th battalion waited for six months for her only son, a 22-year-old, to return from the war. She had it very hard in these months, crying even as she recalled her experience for me. Still, she is ready to let her son to go to the war again, because she brought him up to be a man and a warrior.”

Kalynovska told us that the revolution and the war showed the country what citizens it had – compassionate, kind, patriotic, ready to help even at the expense of their own well-being, and sometimes of their lives as well. “The entire nation has to see these Ukrainians, in order to be proud of them, to learn from them, to draw conclusions for themselves. My show is focused on people. They set its tone and theme. I will try to show those who can teach us something, get us thinking and make us review our lives,” the presenter told us.