One British journalist was asked to write in Ukraine. “Putin is a c**k” to prove he wasn’t an undercover Russian soldier.
The Guardian’s Shaun Walker told the paper’s Today in Focus podcastHe was asked to make the insult at a Ukrainian checkpoint.
Walker has been travelling across the country for the past two weeks, reporting what’s happening on the ground.
In a podcast recording, he explained how new checkpoints spring up each day along the roads.
He stated: “Some of the bigger [posts] are armed by professional soldiers but most of the small ones are just blokes with guns, sometimes a bit nervous, most of the time friendly.”
As he made his passage through one of the checkpoints on his way to Kyiv, the man remarked on how the people guarding the posts are “on the hunt for suspicious Russians in disguise”.
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He mentioned that sometimes they suspect the team might be cheating. “Russians pretending to be journalists”, but he said it’s usually okay.
Walker stated that he was going through the checkpoint just now: “They just checked the back, the boot, and told me to write that Putin is a ‘c**k’.
“So wasn’t particularly difficult to get through that one.”
On Twitter, Walker later shared a picture showing how a road sign in Odessa had been… customised.
Visit Ukraine for more information The Independent’Live blog.
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