Interview with Bruno Amaral de Carvalho: “The xenophobic policy of the Ukrainian regime was disastrous and gave oxygen to the Russian narrative”

At 42 years old, Bruno de Carvalho already has a remarkable CV as a journalist and correspondent. The launch of his book “The War in the East – 8 Months in the Donbass” (Caminho), containing the essence of his coverage of the war in Ukraine from the Donbass, sparked protests from Ukrainians in Portugal – and the interest of hundreds of people, which turned the work, of which the third edition is being prepared, into a success story. He recognizes that the invasion launched by Putin is illegal, but says that the West has set an example (a not entirely unreasonable point of view) and that people on the “other side” also have the right to be heard. Whether or not we agree with his political opinions, it is difficult to deny the journalistic relevance of this position, even if one wants to see his reports as a form of propaganda-criticism made to many journalists, in this area as in others. Expresso sent him a series of questions to which he responded promptly.

In his book he describes the circumstances that led him to travel to Donbass and report from there. What view of the conflict did you previously have?

I arrived in Donbass in May 2018 and was already following the conflict, albeit from a distance. Deep down, I felt that Russia, but especially the West, was not doing enough to force the parties to comply with the Minsk Agreements. I remember that, later, Angela Merkel would admit that the Minsk Agreements had only served to strengthen Ukraine militarily. In 2014, the impression I was given, following conversations with journalists who were on the ground, was that the fall of President Viktor Yanukovych was due to a coup sponsored by the West. We are not talking about the fall of a dictatorship at the hands of the people, as we often try to make people believe. The then pro-Russian president was legitimately elected in the context of a regime where pro-Western presidents had previously been chosen by Ukrainian voters. This war, triggered by Kiev’s response to dissent from Russian-speaking populations in the East, had support from Russia for the separatists and from the West for the new Ukrainian regime. The fact is that the new power in Kiev was imposed by force, as was the break of the separatists.