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CBS News reporter Aidan Stretch prepares for a live report from Ukraine, where he’s been based for the past six months covering the war.<\/p>\n
Aidan Stretch<\/p>\n
Sitting in a coffee shop in Kyiv last November, CBS News reporter Aidan Stretch was catching up with a prominent Ukrainian journalist and her husband, a special forces veteran, when their phones simultaneously lit up with breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n
Push notifications were announcing a supposed diplomatic breakthrough: President Trump\u2019s envoys had helped draft a peace plan that would require Ukraine to give up territory in exchange for a ceasefire. Sitting in that coffee shop, as the trio tried to make sense of the early reports, Stretch asked whether they thought Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might go for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean Zelenskyy?\u201d his journalist friend shot back with a surprised look. \u201cIt is not his decision. That deal would be invalid the second it was signed. People would be out on the streets immediately.”<\/p>\n
Her husband nodded along, adding: \u201cThe military guys would not go for it. Tell them to go home after fighting since 2014 for that land? No way.\u201d <\/p>\n
Stretch, one of the first hires made by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss<\/a> after she joined the network, told me that exchange stands out for him as one of the defining moments of his first six months reporting from Ukraine.<\/p>\n The life of a foreign correspondent<\/p>\n \u201cNo one in Ukraine believes this war will end in a final, neat settlement, establishing peace between Ukraine and Russia for years to come,\u201d Stretch said. \u201cMost Ukrainians I\u2019ve met see themselves as having been at war with Russia since 2014 and assume they\u2019ll be in some sort of conflict with them for their lifetimes.\u201d<\/p>\n Six months into his Ukraine assignment, a typical workday for Stretch might begin in a coffee shop just like the one that day in Kyiv, with a pair of headphones draped around his shoulders and a table crowded with the tools of a modern foreign correspondent. His ever-present gadgets include two iPhones\u2014one personal, one for work\u2014a LiveU setup for TV hits, microphones for social video, an earpiece for broadcasts and a tripod.<\/p>\n He might also step outside to record videos for social media, then go live for CBS audiences before heading to another interview or catching the metro across the city.<\/p>\n Back home in Kyiv, he crams Ukrainian language lessons and research and writing in between Zoom meetings with colleagues in London (2 hours behind Kyiv) and New York (7 hours behind Kyiv). He regularly writes and broadcasts near a church in the city center that serves as an eye-catching backdrop for live shots, and in the evenings he\u2019ll often meet up with Ukrainian or expat friends at a restaurant or bar.<\/p>\n \u201cA veteran journalist told me when I moved here that I should be meeting 10-15 new people each week,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I\u2019m in Kyiv, where I live, I shape my days around these meetings\u2014bouncing between cafes, often traveling with a tripod and extra phone that I set up to go live on CBS\u2019 shows when news is breaking or I have a new piece of reporting to speak about. <\/p>\n \u201cI also try to travel around the country as much as possible to understand and report on developments outside the capital. I probably spend as much time working on Ukrainian Railways\u2019 sleeper trains as I do in coffee shops or at home.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s that sort of multitasking that caught Weiss\u2019 attention when she recruited Stretch, who\u2019s also written for The Kyiv Independent<\/a> and The Free Press, the outlet Weiss co-founded before taking over at CBS News.<\/p>\n His hire also represents the other side of Weiss\u2019 arrival at CBS, where much of the attention so far has centered on the upheaval<\/a> surrounding her tenure rather than the journalists she’s brought in.<\/p>\n During her first CBS newsroom town hall, Weiss introduced Stretch as the kind of “Swiss Army knife” journalist she wants to build the network around\u2014her way of describing reporters equally comfortable writing, reporting, analyzing and speaking directly to audiences across platforms.<\/p>\n Reporting from Ukraine for CBS News<\/p>\n Stretch has spent the past six months doing exactly that, reporting on everything from Ukrainian children who\u2019ve been kidnapped<\/a> into Russia to Ukrainian attacks inside Moscow and the effects they\u2019re having<\/a> on Russia\u2019s air defenses. On social media, he regularly distills military developments into concise explainer videos, like one<\/a> currently pinned to his Instagram feed that details how Ukrainian forces detect and disrupt the control signals of incoming drones.<\/p>\n Stretch also participated in a gaggle with Zelenskyy earlier this week, asking about the last time he spoke with Trump\u2019s envoys\u2014prompting Zelenskyy to urge them to come to the region. That came after Stretch had spent the previous night in a bomb shelter after covering a new Russian attack on Kyiv.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most difficult thing to communicate to viewers is daily life in Kyiv,\u201d Stretch said. \u201cIn some ways, it\u2019s almost disturbingly normal. It\u2019s a beautiful European city where people are out enjoying cafes and bars until around 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. before the curfew begins at midnight and everyone has to go inside. <\/p>\n \u201cBut fairly frequently\u2014these days, about once every week or two\u2014there\u2019s a massive Russian bombardment of the city. During these nights, no one gets any sleep and, honestly, it\u2019s terrifying. Even missile impacts that are miles away can shake your building or break windows or trigger car alarms nearby. Life doesn\u2019t stop. People are up at 8 a.m. the next day to go to work. But it definitely leaves a mark the more you experience.\u201d<\/p>\n