the war: – Shot on the way to kindergarten
The two Danish journalists Stefan Weichert (31) and Emil Filtenborg (30) were on their way to a kindergarten in the city Okhtyrka (47,000 inhabitants) when things went wrong on Saturday in the war zone northeast of Ukraine, in the border area with Russia.
Suddenly, a rocket hits the ground near the car. Chaos ensues, and the driver Stefan Weichert gives the throttle gas in first gear while the car and the two Danes are shot – and hit.
They were seriously injured but are out of danger. The big question on Monday – without trains and planes in Ukraine – was how the newspaper Ekstra Bladet will get its two war reporters home to Denmark.
– I talked to them this morning. The condition is stable and they are in good spirits. Later in the day, the patients at the hospital in Poltava were evacuated to the basement due to air pollution, says Ekstra Bladet’s director Knud Blix to Dagbladet on Monday afternoon.
The two Danish reporters have lived in Ukraine since 2019, have worked for several media in troubled areas. Now they worked for Ekstra Bladet in the war. Avisa has hired a security company to get them home to Denmark.
Both had bulletproof equipment, have experience and have been on safety courses in their home country.
Finger in gunshot wounds
– We first noticed that the windshield was broken. Then came more shots. Stefan sat with one finger in a gunshot wound while driving away, Emil Filtenborg tells Extra Bladet.
He himself had his collarbone destroyed by a shot. Stefan Weichert was hit by three or four shots – in a thigh, a leg and lower back.
Both were operated on in a hospital in Okhtyrka and later this weekend transported to a supposedly safer hospital in Poltava, 100 kilometers further south.
Emil Filtenborg writes on Twitter and hears an explosion near the hospital in Poltava.
Girl (7) killed
In Okhtyrka, there have been clashes between Ukrainian and Russian forces since the start of the Russian invasion. According to the BBC, the governor of the city has stated that at least six civilians were killed there on Friday, among them a seven-year-old girl.
The acts of war are the direct reasons why the two reporters set out on the road by car on their own.
They have original agreements with a Ukrainian car owner, driver and celebrity. He had to go home to his family in a hurry.
The two journalists and Ekstra Bladet started looking for their own car.
Paid with bitcoin
Friday morning, before the reportage trip in the direction of the kindergarten in Okhtyrka, Emil Filtenborg told on Twitter that they had found a car.
– We paid with bitcoin. The ATMs are empty of cash, the banking system has collapsed, he announced.
Editor-in-Chief Knud Blix informs Danish TV2 that the newly purchased car, a well-used Mazda, had been driven a kilometer after the rocket impact before it collapsed from the damage.
– Our two reporters were hit by shots from close range, he states.
It was not a matter of course that the two Danish reporters saved their lives.
– How is evacuation from a country at war without planes and trains?
– Our Danish security company has a plan. With today’s situation, I can inform more about that plan now, says editor-in-chief Knud Blix to Dagbladet.