Ruslan Smieshchuk

Ruslan Smieshchuk, a reporter for privately owned Ukrainian TV channel Inter, had long dreamed of being a war correspondent when he covered his first conflict, the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, for local Odessa TV channel ATV. Now he hopes that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war will be his last battlefield assignment. “War is a lot of pain and grief,” he told CPJ.   The 38-year-old…