© UnknownDonbass reporter Ekaterina Katina
I met Katya in 2016, when I arrived in Donbass. It was with her that I learned the profession of journalism, and more particularly war journalism. It was with her that I did my first reports on the front and on positions.
I worked with her for several years, we were inseparable, walking through the villages of the front line and the positions of the DPR (Donetsk People's Republic) People' s Militia, from Sakhanka to Golmovsky, through Staromikhailovka, Dokuchayevsk, Luganskoye, Spartak, Promka, and Zaitsevo.
Several times we came under fire from the Ukrainian army in Zaitsevo, Spartak, and on the outskirts of Donetsk. We received a telniachka (sailor's jacket) together from the hands of Alexander Zakhartchenko, the leader of the DPR, one day in August 2016. We were again decorated together by Commander Jelezny in Zaitsevo in the autumn of 2016.
Katya was not afraid of anything. Neither bullets, nor shells, nor death. At the beginning of 2014 she took part in the "Russian Spring" in the Donbass. A native of the region, with a grandfather who fought the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, Katya opposed the Maidan coup. She took part in the demonstrations and then in the seizure of administrative buildings in Donetsk. Katya defended the values that her grandfather had taught her.
A model before the war, she started working as a war reporter at the beginning of the conflict in the Donbass, after a friend offered her a job with a brand new news agency based in Crimea.
Katya continued to work as a model in addition to her work as a war reporter at News Front. She also carried out humanitarian work, mainly for children on the frontline. In December 2016, she was the one who donned the costume of Shegurotchka for our distribution of sweets to children in the village of Zaitsevo.
Katya put the truth above everything else, and it didn't matter if what she said or showed in her reports didn't please everyone, no matter the consequences. This is what made her an excellent journalist.
In October 2019, Katya lost her fiancé, Andrey Kutski, nicknamed "The Violinist", who was serving as a sniper in the DPR's People's Militia. His death at the front near Kominternovo had devastated Katya, but her strength of character was such that she not only overcame the ordeal, but managed to find love again.
On the evening of 6 July 2021, Katya suffered a stroke. But the medicine she needed was not available in the DPR. It had to be brought in from Russia. Several people, including friends and myself, struggled, some publicly, some in the background, to try to get the drug. After a long search it turned out to be impossible to get the drug even from the pharmacies in Rostov. It had to be brought from Moscow.
By the time Katya got the precious medicine, which was sent yesterday from Russia by the Union of Donbass Volunteers, she had fallen into a stage 4 coma, which left little space for hope. Despite this, we hoped to the end, praying for a miracle. Because Katya was young, 35 years old, in good shape, athletic. It seemed impossible to all of us that she could die like that, of a stroke.
Yesterday morning, the news came. Katya has left us. And we were all shocked, unable to realize that there was no hope. Katya, who risked her life so many times on the front line, was not killed by a bullet or a shell from the enemy, but by a stroke. At the age of 35.
Katya dreamed of seeing peace return to Donbass, which had been reintegrated into the Russian Federation. Unfortunately she did not live to see her dream come true.
Katya's funeral took place today in Donetsk. She was laid to rest in the city's large cemetery, not far from commanders Motorola and Givi, and Alexander Zakhartchenko.
If so, it just goes to show that people's fears are rarely directed at the proper threats.
R.C.