The Front Page: NZ journalist Tom Mutch details close brush with death in Ukraine

Journalist Tom Mutch has returned to New Zealand after 10 months in Ukraine. Photo / Supplied

A New Zealand journalist based in Ukraine was less than 15 minutes from being annihilated by a Russian attack.

Speaking to The Front Page podcast, freelance war journalist Tom Mutch says he has faced many close calls over the last year that he has dedicated to telling the stories of brave Ukrainians on the frontlines, but one stands out.

“There was one occasion where we actually targeted specifically by Russian collaborators who genuinely wanted to kill us,” he says.

“We were in a small town called Soledar in the Donbas region, very near the city of Bakhmut, which is the epicentre of the fighting that is happening now.”

Mutch says he was there with a group of volunteers, mostly ex-British military, who were evacuating civilians from the town.

Many of the residents had lived in this town for most of their lives and it was incredibly difficult to convince them to leave.

“We were trying to evacuate this couple, a mother and her son. The son was very badly injured. He had an eye patch and his arm was in a sling. We had a medic with us who was examining his wounds, but he really didn’t want to leave. We eventually told him that if he didn’t come with us right now, he’d lose his eye and his arm and he’d probably die.”

They eventually convinced the couple to get into the car and they left the apartment block where they stayed – and it was at this point that things took an even darker turn.

“We drove to a meeting block about a 10-minute drive away to a park overlooking the apartment blocks where the family lived. About 10 minutes after being there, those apartment blocks were hit by a huge salvo of incendiary rockets.”

Mutch says it later occurred to the team that they had been identified by pro-Russian collaborators, who had given their co-ordinates to Russian artillery perched on the hills.

“If we had stayed there any longer... the place where we were [standing] was literally covered in explosives.”

Listen to the full episode of The Front Page podcast to hear more from Mutch, who just recently returned to New Zealand after his ten-month stint in the war-torn country.