(NewsNation) — Maria Avdeeva, a research director with the European Expert Association, has been documenting the destruction of Russian bombardments in Kharkiv, a Ukrainian city close to the Russian border.
In some of her videos, she has captured striking images of a kindergarten shelled by Russian forces, windows blown out, furniture torn apart, and toys tossed everywhere.
Avdeeva said she’s not a blogger or journalist, but she’s an international lawyer and also received a Ph.D. in political studies. She has gained thousands of followers on Twitter, who watch as she reports on the war crimes in her country.
“I was researching Russian disinformation and combating and fighting with Russian disinformation since 2014. When Russia waged this war, so when they invaded Ukraine, and on the 24th of February, I saw the huge wave of disinformation coming out of Russian media. And I decided that it is necessary to stay in hierarchy and show and document what is happening on the ground,” Avdeeva said.
So Avdeeva decided to combat disinformation with a video of what she’s seeing on the ground firsthand. In one of her videos, she said the worst thing she saw was children’s shoes after a missile attack. She said that as she shows these images to the world, she wants people to know that this is a war Russia is waging against Ukraine.
“It’s not only against Ukraine but all the free world and democracies, because Russian state media are now open to discussing the possibility of invading Poland and Baltic states,” Avdeeva said. “I want everyone in the room to be aware of what is happening here. And also to put pressure on the governments so that more help, more defensive weapons will be supplied to Ukraine, because that’s what Ukraine needs most right now.”
Avdeeva said if she could say anything to Putin, it would be: “I would say that it’s enough. He has crossed all the red lines. The blood of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian women and children are on his hands.”
She continued: “He [Putin] will not achieve anything because Ukraine is an independent country. We will be free forever.”
