Tom Mutch
@Tomthescribe
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Kiwi journalist covering war and human rights. Reported in Ukraine, Isr/Pal, Afghanistan, Karabakh. ✍️/📸 for @thedailybeast, @thetimes, @eveningstandard etc
Kyiv, Ukraine
Joined July 2020
My lifetime ban from the territory of Russia lasted less than two months. That's around the same amount of time Kherson was 'with Russia forever.'
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I'm out of Ukraine and safe in Poland. This has been wildest, most terrifying, moving, tear jerking month of my life. I will be back in Ukraine soon to continue reporting, but for now I'm going to crack a beer and sleep for about four days😵
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🧵Backfrom liberated Kherson- some observations:. Locals are full of praise for the way the UAF fought. 🇺🇦 artillery consistently hit Russian positions without hurting civilians. The city is not badly damaged at all. It is in much better shape than Kharkiv or Mykolaiv.
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I told Amnesty International their report would land terribly, miss crucial context and give support to the aggressor side. They didn't listen to me. Here's the story for @BylineTimes.
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@AgnesCallamard @amnesty The people attacking you are not trolls or mobs. We have genuine concerns that the report fails to make the distinction between defence and offence in populated areas. BTW, we had this talk when we were both in Kramatorsk and I told you this would go down badly. .
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What is happening in Kharkiv is sick. Russians are just shelling anything in the city they fancy. Not even pretending they are military targets. This was a market complex three days ago. It's a slow motion Mariupol.
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Remember these videos when someone like Noam Chomsky says we're 'just not allowed to hear the Russian perspective!' . It's perfectly accessible, and absolutely monsterous.
Russia Today’s anchor in full Radio Mille Collines genocide mode: Ukrainian children saying Ukraine is occupied by Russia? Need to throw them into a fast river and drown them alive. Or, even better, put them into wooden houses, nail the doors and burn them alive.
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@AgnesCallamard @amnesty I told your team- you need to account for the difficulties of defending an urban environment AND for the fact that Ukrainian authorities repeatedly tried to evacuate civilians from the front line areas. They did neither. There is a reason your report has been received poorly.
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This closes a long and difficult chapter in my life. I was the person who found Banks's files of his Russian connections- 'the researcher' in the judgement. For now, I'll just say that the judgement is fair and I'm glad my actions have been found to be in the public interest.
BREAKING: Arron Banks loses libel action against reporter Carole Cadwalladr
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One of the worst errors in the Amnesty report is they say that the Ukrainian military made no effort to evacuate civilians from the firing line. This is completely false. They constantly assisted with evacuating people. All journalists in Donbas saw it.
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Amnesty has tried to deflect the criticism as they could have 'framed' or 'messaged' it better. No. There are serious errors of fact and law in the report, which I detail above.
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I've never felt as despondent about the situation in Ukraine, or as bitter about its abandonment by the West. Many Ukrainians feel as if they used to be a favourite TV show and we've just changed the channel to more dramatic and ghastly events in the Middle East.
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🧵 From a terrifying day covering evacuations from Kherson. Key takeaways:. The Russians seem to be directly targetting civilian evacuation points. Shells landed within a few hundred metres of the main meeting spot. No possible military targets anywhere near.
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@AgnesCallamard @amnesty Also, for the Secretary General of @amnesty to respond to criticism from experts, journalists and its own local team with playground insults demeans the organisation's professionalism and credibility.
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A major issue the city will face is what go do about Russian collaborators. They run the gamut from enthusiastic Russian supporters to people who went along under extreme threats and pressure. Ukraine does not have a clear framework for how to deal with them.
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Disclosure, I've been critical of the logistical issues with Western weapons reaching the front. But can an amnesty researcher say there is 'no way' to track these weapons- how on earth would she know?.
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Saw little in the way of abandoned Russian kit, and evidence of deceptions (mannequins) that suggested the retreat was competently organised, and probably started weeks ago. Far from a Kharkiv style rout.
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Bran Stark: Can a man still be brave when he is afraid?. Ned Stark: That is the only time he can be brave. This quote really keeping me going tonight. #Ukraine.
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Ukrainian commander in Lysychansk all but confirmed to us the loss of Rubhizne, North of Severodonetsk. The Ukrainians now only control one exit to the town. He said the Russians were redeploying positions today for an imminent ground assault on Severodonetsk.
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A surprise press conference from the man of the moment was very welcome! He is disarming, yet serious at the same time, always striking the right emotional note. Speaks excellent English as well. (📸 mine)
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The city surroundings are still very much a war zone. On the city limits, our journalist bus was missed by an artillery shell by a hundred metres or so. You can hear incoming and outgoing artillery across the Dniepr constantly.
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The mood is genuinely jubilant- 🇺🇦 flags everywhere, people singing, crying with joy, everyone greets you with 'slave Ukraina!' or 'slave ZSU!' . One of the few truly happy days Ukrainians have experienced since Russia launched the war.
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$3bn in weaponry to Ukraine is precisely the quickest way to stop the carnage, by allowing Ukraine to push the invading country out of its land.
The Biden administration has announced a new diplomatic initiative to stop the carnage in Ukraine. Just kidding, they've announced another $3 billion in war funding, the largest package yet.
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The uptick in missile strikes hitting random cities in Ukraine is about sending a message that nowhere in the country is safe unless they bend the knee to Russian tyranny. It is the most despicable form of psychological warfare.
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Here is my video of a Ukrainian soldier evacuating civilians in Lysychansk back in May. It's one of many examples. This was one of the most dangerous roads in the world at the time, and they acted at great personal risk.
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In Kherson we witnessed of the most daring displays of bravery, .Ukrainian soldiers crossing the river on speedboats to evacuate civilians stuck in Russian controlled territories. My story for @thedailybeast here.
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Valeriya, below, actually travelled *to* Lysychansk when the war began to look after her grandmother. She stayed with her under weeks of bombing until she was ready to leave. Just one of the extraordinary and unspoken examples of Ukrainian bravery.
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Donbas is full of small towns like this one near Lyman, just wiped off the map and abandoned. There are dozens of mini-Bakhmut's or Mariupols scattered around these lands.
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Just hired an important new team member we met in an abandoned Russian trench near Kherson.
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"Russian artillery destroys city block by block" another commander tells us. "It's just like what they did in Mariupol". Even if the Russians fail to take Severodonetsk, there will be nothing left of it to save.
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This was the first time Galina, a former teacher had seen sunlight in months. Galina's daughter, living in Russia refuses to believe Kharkiv is being shelled. "You're lying" she told her mother who has been living in basements.
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If Azerbaijan's atrocities were committed in Ukraine, they would rightfully be front page news everywhere. Instead we hear barely anything.
There appears to be a second video showing the mutilated body of an Armenian female nurse. Almost the same as the previous one — hands, legs cut, stripped. This whole situation is sickening. #WarCrime.
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What worries me is that this horrific act of wanton terror has gotten such little attention. It's just become 'another day in the carnage in Ukraine, nothing new.' This can't be allowed to happen.
A 6yo girl burnt in the car. An 11yo boy was crushed by the rubble. Death toll of yesterday's russian missile strike on the train station in the Dnipropetrovsk region rose to 25. Now could be a good moment for everybody protesting against visa bans to protest against ru terrorism.
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This letter is so gross. dripping with condescension, snark and riddled with falsehoods. Seriously, referring to her husband as 'your old man' 🤨.
"Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?". An Open letter to Mrs. Olena Zelenska from Roger Waters - Sunday 4th September 2022. Dear Mrs. Zelenska. Read more:
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"Not enough tanks, not enough ammunition, not enough artillery" one soldier says. "If the situation doesn't improve we could be encircled in here."
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I am still haunted by the fact that in Kharkiv, thousands of people live completely below ground. Some have not left bomb shelters in more than two months despite injury and sickness.
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The Ukrainians have managed to carry out a series of daring evacuations that have bought dozens of people from occupied areas on the Russian occupied side of the river to 🇺🇦 controlled territory. These are extremely dangerous ops carried out under heavy fire.
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Thousands of people in Kharkiv have been living underground in disused metro stations for months. Some haven't been outside since February 24th. "Every time we go outside is playing a lottery with our lives" says one.
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"It was a quiet day compared to the others" the commander said while artillery thudded overhead. If that was quiet, I *really* don't want to see a loud day out here.
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It makes Banks&co's chummy relationship with the 🇷🇺 embassy- 'send a note of support to the ambassador! Just a few boozy lunches!. got royally pissed on Stalin's vodka!' quite sickening in retrospect. Banks later compared Ukraine to Isle of Wight- saying 'its Russian!'.
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Reporting in Ukraine-seeing mass graves, destruction of cities, widespread sickness and misery bought home for me the horrors of the Russian imperial project. This started with cultivating friendly foreign politicians, in the hope the west would look away when the time came.
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Ukrainians have been shocked watching Israel have a totally free hand to destroy everything in Gaza and Lebanon. For three years we've listed to quivering about 'escalation' and 'red lines'. Israel gives the US the finger and is rewarded with more and better weapons.
There is a double standard. The US doesn't impose restrictions on Israel. The US supplied weapons can be used by Israel any way it sees it fit. Apparently, the escalation is not an argument there either 3/.
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Whenever we visit the aftermath of a bombing like this, there are *never any* remnants of military hardware. These are purely civilian targets. And yet Russians pretend there is a secret Azov base under every house.
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@ThreshedThought I'm just back from Donbas and respectfully disagree. Ukraine wouldn't be willing to take such immense losses if only Putin's ego was at stake. This has slightly similar vibes to pro 🇷🇺 commentators saying 'Kyiv was just a feint/holding op'. .
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I cooperated with the NCA investigation found it disorganised, muddled and my interviewers to lack knowledge about crucial figures and events. I'm pessimistic- the window to really probe these issues has closed, and we will never know the full truth about the referendum.
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Its important to watch these, sickening as they are, to see that when Ukrainians talk about 'genocide' they aren't exagerrating. The Russian state openly wants to destroy Ukraine as a nation, a state and a culture, and murder those who resist.
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A Ukrainian officer said to me on the record that the Russians are refusing to allow civilians on the side they control through checkpoints. However, he shot down rumours that Russians were shooting people trying to flee, saying they had no evidence.
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There's no evidence-and I've dug through a tonne- that Banks accepted foreign funding. But I do remain very concerned that potential Russian involvement in Brexit was never properly investigated. And I was a Leave supporter.
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Galina and her husband Sergey as they pick the way through the rubble of their former apartment in Kharkiv
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My latest dispatch from Kharkiv, for @newlinesmag and my toughest assignment in Ukraine yet.
In eastern Ukraine sympathies toward Russia have evaporated, replaced by a deep-seated hatred that may take generations to overcome. @Tomthescribe reports from Kharkiv for @newlinesmag
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A pall of doom has descended over Kyiv. I've seen nothing like it since the first days of the war, when no one knew what the future held and the country itself was in balance.
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Can confirm- as one Ukrainian said to me before the war "you know you're a bit screwed if Boris Johnson is your best friend in the world!".
As someone who has been a fierce critic of Boris Johnson for a long time, it must be said, as far as Ukrainians I speak to are concerned, he is the best ally Ukraine has. I honestly take no pleasure in reporting this but it’s indisputably true. Come here & ask people yourself.
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A really good article on the terrible situation faced by Armenia and Karabakhi Armenians, left seemingly bereft and friendless while facing down terrible foes.
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In the *dozens* of sites of Russian shelling and missiles I visited, we found Ukrainian military wreckage near *two* of them. It is utterly indiscriminate- but when the Russians again attack civilians- they will use this @amnesty report to justify their crimes.
I saw houses of my grandparent's neighbors that were completely destroyed or shot through from a BMP. In my hometown, there was no military or "strategic infrastructure", it really hurts me when people try to question or legitimize russian war crimes.
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There is *no* support for Russia in Kherson. This annexation is naked imperial conquest and they aren't even trying to disguise it.
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In 2020 Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed villages in Nagorno-Karabakh with methods that included the *beheading* of civilians. @amnesty instead talked about 'violations of IHL by both sides!' Their pitiful false equivalence has been going on for a long time.
Importantly, Donatella, I've been consistent about your/Amnesty's really bad work, both in December 2020 when you released your terrible Karabakh report, and in May this year, when you were in our hotel in Kramatorsk pulling the same sanctimonious bullshit
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We need to get rid of our dependence on oil and gas from an evil dictator. Let's depend on another evil dictator instead. Flawless logic. .
The EU is turning to trustworthy energy suppliers. Azerbaijan is one of them. With today's agreement, we commit to expanding the Southern Gas Corridor, to double gas supplies from Azerbaijan to the EU. This is good news for our supplies of gas this winter and beyond.
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🧵I recently returned from an embed with Ukraine's 57th Motorized Brigade on the outskirts of Kupyansk. The situation is serious- but not dire, and there is just enough time to turn it around with renewed western aid flows.
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Everyone can now admit, once and for all, this is a war of colonial conquest. Shame on everyone who spouted the nonsense about 'this is just to protect the Donbas!'.
Lavrov gives the biggest official signal yet that Russia is planning to annex southern Ukraine. "Now the geography has changed. It's not just Donetsk and Luhansk, it's Kherson, Zaporizhia, and several other territories. And this is an ongoing process, consistent and insistent."
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@JulianRoepcke Considering how long it took the Russians to take Severodonetsk, I think it's way too early to declare a Ukrainian defeat in Kherson after just four days. .
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Proud to hear I am officially banned from the Russian Federation for 'shaping an anti-Russia agenda' within New Zealand.
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Talking to a woman born in Melitopol with family trapped inside. She says that Russians have stopped residents from leaving the city. They want to use the population as human shields against a possible 🇺🇦 counteroffensive from Zappohorizia.
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'Menu without light'. Kyiv restaurants now have specialised dishes they can prepare during electcirity cuts.
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We were on the water, where volunteers were evacuating civilians on speedboats when an artilley volley like this hit. One rocket was perhaps 100 metres away. I've been covering this was for a year and it was the scariest experience of my life.
Panic at the evacuation point at the sound of incoming fire - difficult to judge distances - maybe 500 metres - enough to scare everyone in the vicinity #kherson #Russia #ukraine
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Anyone reporting out of Ukraine can attest that these trains are unbelievably useful, punctual and efficient. They've saved thousands of lives and we can't be grateful enough for their brave employees.
I wrote a piece on the amazing effort of the Ukrainian railways over the last month, to take millions of people to safety and continue delivering aid to the east. 64 of their employees have died since the war started (with a photo essay by Jelle Krings).
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In Zapporizhzhia, Russians are mass texting civilians asking them to give away Ukrainian army positions for money.
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Good morning from Lviv, 28 Days Later. Ukraine is still standing after one of the ferocious military assaults since the second world war. Long may that continue!
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Lviv looks and feels so normal, everyone is out on the streets, shops and restaurants are open. Hard to believe this is part of a country at total war.
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The counterpoint to this is that everyone I know who spent significant time in Ukraine during the war is even more convinced their cause is righteous. I've not met anyone- journalist, diplomat, soldier, whose burned out from cynicism. Everyone wants to go back.
Just about every remotely interesting person I know is a critic of US involvement in Ukraine and our bloodthirsty handling of the war. All the people defending it are mindless drones repeating slogans and platitudes, and accusing dissenters of disloyalty (to America!).
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Alexei, from #Kharkiv, shared this video of an airstrike near his apartment. His house is destroyed, his infant son has blood all over him and his wife is stemming the bleeding from a deep wound that will put her in hospital. If you defend Putin's war, you defend this.
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Underground in a bunker in #Kyiv, the entrance is sealed for now. A lot of armed police down here. Fighting also reported close to central Kyiv. @NeilPHauer @guardaceci
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To answer this homicidal maniac, yes there were off duty soldiers in the restaurant. It was also full of civilians. It's a war crime, not a legitimate military strike.
“There’s soldiers under this rubble all over.” . -> I think this finally answers the question … who was there!
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@sommervilletv @dcinfocus @StuHollandEsq Watching this in Kramatorsk now while the air raid siren goes crazy in the background. This is the gold standard right here.
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@martyrmade So the Russian troops had all been stationed on the border just as pure coincidence?. Kyiv decided to up the bombings just as there was an enormous hostile army posed to retaliate. This isn't serious stuff.
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A little update and a bit of a rant about the situation here in the Donbas.
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In conversations with military and civilian officials in Mykolaiv region- not a single one expects a significant 🇺🇦 counter offensive in the Kherson direction soon. The most optimistic prediction was 'around November'.
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Groundhog day here in Mykolaiv. Petro Mohyla Black Sea University hit by Russian S300 rockets for the second time in four days. No casualties as all staff and security were in the basement.
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Huge explosion in the center of Kharkiv just now. Smoke billowing everywhere. .
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Street scene from Kharkiv. A destroyed residential building with an EU flagged draped over one of the blown out windows. Ukraine's desire for closer ties with Europe was one of the main drivers of Ukraine's Maidan revolution in 2014 so this seemed a poignant symbol of the war.
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Six months of war. When I walked down Kreshatyk on February 24, the fall of Kyiv was a foregone conclusion. Now charred and twisted metal remains of Russian tanks line the streets. Happy independence day to this beautiful and brave country and its people.
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Ukraine is sending the message to its citizens still living under occupation- we haven't forgotten about you, 'Ukraine leaves no one behind.'.
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The horrific strike on Kramatorsk had nothing to do with its military presence or location near the front. There are +/- 50k civilians still there and this is where they congregated. Plus aid workers and journalists. There are military targets in the region- this wasn't one.
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🧵I just interviewed UK Defence Secretary @benwallacemp at a joint UK/New Zealand training camp for 🇺🇦 recruits. Key takeaways: . He said 🇺🇦 should attack over the winter- a contrast with recent suggestions from some US officials that it was time for a pause/negotiations:
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@DrewPavlou The real black pill is there are genuinely people in polite UK society who would be more more offended by a defaced Qu’ran than Rotherham.
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Heart rending article from @MacWBishop about the devastation in Donbas. "I’ve been engaged in the professional study of organized human violence for 25 years. But I’ve never seen anything even close to this volume of artillery being unleashed."
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Great piece by one of the few journalists to remain in Kyiv for the entirety of the Russian military campaign.
My debut in Rolling Stone, a long-read on how Ukraine decisively defeated Russia in the Battle for Kyiv.
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"Venice, but with mines and corpses" is how one Ukrainian soldiers describes Kherson city.
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For those who say Russian military aggression is all about NATO/EU blahblah. Did carpet bombing Aleppo help stop NATO expansion?.
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We've been rightly reporting Russia's crimes in Ukraine. But Western powers committed crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan that needed to be reported. Objectionable as you might find Assange, he was essential to telling the truth about these two terrible wars.
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