What Reporting Doesn’t Always Show - The Shopkeeper in Kopanky
A quiet moment from Ukraine that didn’t make it into the final cut—but stayed with me anyway.
We’d driven up and down the few hundred metres of the one road that runs through the Ukrainian village of Kopanky. Dima had stopped and spoken to six or seven people. None had agreed to talk on camera about Ukraine’s new mineral deal with the US - or how little faith they had that it would change anything for them. This, despite the fact that they live beside what’s believed to be one of the largest lithium deposits in Europe.
Then we found Valeriy.
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I remember how coarse his hand was when I shook it, as he emerged - tentatively, suspiciously - from the dark, tattered door of his shop in the centre of the village. He carried himself with the authority of someone who owned not just the porch we were standing on, but the village itself. A presence shaped by the memory of Soviet collectivism. He wasn’t an official, though. More a vestige of something overlooked for too long - a place left off the map. But he knew that he, and Kopanky, were suddenly at the centre of one of the world’s biggest stories. And he knew exactly why we were there.
When Nart brought out the Osmo - a small camera, no bigger than a walkie-talkie - Valeriy recoiled. Not quite with fear, but with discomfort. People often assume that reaction is rooted in suspicion, but part of me wondered if it was the technology itself, especially in a war where surveillance and visibility carry risk. Dima had told me to keep the questions broad and open-ended, which was fine. It didn’t really matter what I said - with Dima translating, I had complete trust. I just needed Valeriy’s voice and perspective, in whatever form he felt able to give.
We began the interview in a triangle, which I usually avoid - it makes people talk to the translator rather than the journalist. But I didn’t want to disrupt whatever fragile comfort Valeriy had found. I needed to keep him inside the version of himself he’d pieced together before stepping into the daylight.
As we spoke - about the deal, the war, the village - he slowly shifted. Not dramatically, but noticeably. He turned away from me and toward Dima. He folded his arms. Pulled his cap lower. Lowered his voice. But he still spoke.
He said the most important thing was victory, and that the deal might bring that closer. More aid, more weapons - even if it came at the cost of Ukraine’s own resources. He voiced his fear too.
“We are not all happy about it,” he said. “We already have examples: the uranium mine, the Velta titanium mine. Around those mines, villages have not developed. Water has disappeared. And for a village, water is worth its weight in gold - because there is livestock farming, and fields need water.”
By the end of the interview, we’d moved two or three metres. I looked him in the eye, as I always try to, and said thank you in English, then Ukrainian. Dyakuyu.
As he retreated back into his shop - not a withdrawal, but a return - I told Dima we needed to buy something. Dima, already eating the ice cream he’d bought 15 minutes earlier to help warm Valeriy up, quickly agreed.
“I don’t have any cash,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Dima replied. “He has a contactless payment terminal.”
I smiled. We demonise technology for what it distracts us from, but it also reaches people we assume are out of reach - and sometimes, it makes difficult lives slightly easier.
I bought two ice creams. Valeriy’s whole posture had shifted. On his turf, behind his counter, he relaxed. He joked. We debated which flavour to choose. He tried to undercharge us. We insisted on paying more. Dima grabbed sweets that looked like cigarettes.
“For the kids near my apartment,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow and asked if that was really a responsible gift.
“I used to have these as a kid,” he said.
It was nostalgia more than generosity. I saw that. We paid him 100 Hryvnia - just over 2 euros.
Outside, I stood in the sun, opened the ice cream (delicious), and thought about what had just happened.
We all frame ourselves with things. Some more physical than others. Not all as literal as a till or a counter in a village shop. I knew those ten minutes on camera wouldn’t capture who Valeriy was, or what this moment meant for him. And I know how bitter that can feel - for those we speak to. For those we broadcast.
Buying the ice cream was about equalising something. A recalibration of power, however small. A moment that didn’t leave him feeling like we’d taken something. It was an interaction on his terms.
It also left the street dogs happy. I gave a dusty old border collie a few bites of my cone. I thought of my dog back home - how he would’ve loved that moment too.
So much of what we report as journalists focuses on what happens at the top: the war, the deaths, the politicians. The weight of history. But it’s always about people. It has to be.
Valeriy didn’t make it into my final three-minute package. His voice became a 20-second clip. A couple of cutaways. But he is more than that. Our exchange was more than that. And I don’t want to leave it behind.
These fragments - these quiet interactions - are how I make sense of the world, even as I try to help others do the same. I’ve had hundreds in my career. I hope to have thousands more. We can’t do them all justice. But we can buy an ice cream afterward, and let someone feel seen.
