The call from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office came early Friday morning. AP’s team in Kyiv had been lobbying for an interview at this critical juncture in the war with Russia, and an adviser said the president was ready to sit down with us on camera the following day.
The call set off a scramble, with our team dropping other assignments and priorities to focus on pulling off the interview.
The logistics alone required hustle and creativity. On camera interviews with prominent newsmakers are typically a three-camera shoot – but we only had one video journalist in Kyiv at the moment. Fortunately, it was one our best, Srdjan Nedeljkovic, who was on assignment from his home base in Athens, Greece. If anyone could pull off a three-camera shoot solo, it was Srdjan (oh – and he had only an hour on Saturday to set up in the president’s office).
In total, it took six AP journalists to handle the interview. In addition to Srdjan, we had Susie Blann, our news director for Ukraine, and correspondent Samya Kullab conducting the interview; senior producer Vova Yurchuk producing; longtime AP photographer Efrem Lukatsky shooting photos; and reporter Ilia Novikov assisting with translating the interview into English of our customers and audiences (though Zelenskyy speaks English, he often prefers to give interviews in his native Ukrainian).
AP was able to deliver this interview on short notice because of the commitment we’ve made to having a robust presence on the ground in Ukraine, even as the war there hits the three-year mark. The result was a wide-ranging interview that drew out key insights into how Zelenskyy is managing his country’s precarious position as a new administration takes root in the United States and Western support for Ukraine’s defense becomes far less certain.
