One afternoon in March 2014, while reporting on Russia’s covert operation to annex Crimea, I spotted a familiar figure. With his muscular build and shiny shaved head, Pablo González was easy to recognise from afar. I had first met González, a freelance journalist from the Basque Country, on a training course for reporters who work in conflict zones. Now we had run into each other in a place that was threatening to turn into one.
González was with a Ukrainian journalist, who had contacts at the besieged military base I was on my way to scope out. He arranged for the three of us to slip inside, where we found a detachment of Ukrainian marines on edge. Outside, an angry crowd of locals was yelling pro-Russian slogans, but these people were just cover for the Russian army, the marines said. They were expecting an imminent visit from a Russian general, and agreed that we could leave a Dictaphone on the base, for them to covertly record the conversation.
