MINSK, 1 June (BelTA) – I was horrified, German journalist Alina Lipp said as she shared her first Donbass impressions with the V teme [On point] project on BelTA's YouTube channel, BelTA has learned.
"I was born and raised in Germany. I have a Russian father (who did not speak Russian with me) and a German mother. We have always spoken German in the family. My father followed closely the news about the events in 2014, the developments in Ukraine, and, of course, talked to us explaining many things. The narrative promoted by the German media differed a lot from what happened on the ground. Two years after that, in 2016, I was writing my graduation thesis and I went on a trip to the Crimea to see with my own eyes what really happened there, to talk to people,” Alina Lipp said.
The German journalist admitted that she fell in love with the Crimea. "Then I started blogging on YouTube and telling the Germans what I saw there, what people in the Crimea told me. That they really wanted to be with Russia and so on," she continued. “A year ago I graduated from the university, went to Russia. I had free time and made friends with a person from Donetsk. We just spontaneously decided to go to Donetsk together. I was curious to see everything with my own eyes. I wanted to understand why this conflict was dragging on for eight years.”
"Upon my arrival, I immediately went to the ‘gray zone' and I saw what was happening there. It was a disaster. People were skinny, many had no limbs. They had no medicines, lived in houses damaged by shelling. Every day they were shelled, and this ‘gray zone' was only 10 minutes away from the city center. I was horrified. I browsed the German media to see what they write about it and didn't find anything," Alina Lipp added.
