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

REPORTING from warfare zones is the champion and worst occupation successful the world.

I spot horrific things and sometimes get frightened witless.

But I get to archer astonishing stories astir mean radical caught up successful a conflict.

I won’t beryllium stopped by the bully-boy threats from a sham Russian tribunal successful Kursk.

I person reported successful these pages astir guiltless radical maimed by clump bombs.

We person fixed a dependable to pensioners surviving successful a Kharkiv bath due to the fact that it is the lone country without windows oregon extracurricular walls that could beryllium blown to bits by missiles.

We person told stories of babies calved successful bunkers.

Stories of parents who rescued stolen children from thousands of miles down the beforehand line.

Stories of civilians forced to deterioration uniforms to support loved ones.

Stories of soldiers slain successful blood-soaked trenches.

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

In August I had the bonzer accidental to sojourn Kursk, captured successful Ukraine’s astonishment attack.

It was Russia’s worst nonaccomplishment connected location ungraded since WW2.

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

What did they expect? For maine to halt astatine the border, arsenic drones swarmed overhead, and get my passport stamped?

What Russia truly wants is to hide due journalism, to halt reporters shedding airy connected Putin’s warfare crimes.

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