Night Train to Odesa: Covering the Human Cost of Russia's War

by Jen Stout

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, millions of lives changed in an instant. Millions of people were suddenly on the move. In this great flow of people was a reporter from the north of Scotland. Jen Stout left Moscow abruptly, ending up on a border post in southeast Romania, from where she began to cover the human cost of Russian aggression. Her first-hand, vivid reporting brought the war home to readers in Scotland as she reported from front lines and cities across Ukraine. Stories from the night trains, birthday parties, military hospitals and stories from the ground, from a writer with a deep sense of empathy, always seeking to understand the bigger picture, the big questions of identity, history, hopes and fears in this war in Europe.

Night Train to Odesa begins in Russia and continues to focus on people, relationships and individuals in Ukraine. It is the account of a young female reporter with no institutional backup or security. Both in language and themes, it is accessible and highly readable.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ukraine, War, Travel, Politics, Russia, Journalism

316 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 2, 2024

About the author

Jen Stout is a journalist, writer, and radio producer from Scotland, frequently working in Ukraine. Originally from Shetland, she has lived in Germany and Russia. Her reports are often found in the Sunday Post and on BBC Radio.

Reviews

[Iain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snapshots from the front line and around Ukraine during the first year of the war, describing the mix of fear, terror and outrage, but also the spirit of resistance and determination of the Ukrainians. There is no neat narrative or conclusion and as the war grinds on these 3 years later, with no sign of an end, perhaps this is as it should be. The hope shown early on in the war diminishes as the futlilty of stalemate descends. Hopefully Putin and Russia will one day be properly and purposefully scorned and judged for thie war crimes, unlike the weak response from Western leaders and governments so far witnessed. The author is an incredibly brave person.

[Cams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blurb on the front cover says that 'Jen Stout is very brave, a storyteller of supreme gifts'. (Fergal Keane). It's a perfect description of Jen. She's not fearless, far from it, but she breenges in regardless and takes advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. The writing is very personal and she's sensitive to the plight of the inhabitants of Ukraine. She puts her interviewees at ease with her personality and gets some wonderful responses and some heartbreaking stories.

She describes the friendships she builds with the people she meets in a way that lets us get to know the characters and get a feel for what life is like in these war-torn cities. One of my favourite scenes was of the bakery in Kharkiv.

The thick walls of the old building made it a good shelter. But they also kept the heat in, much better than the thin walls of Tanya's apartment. 'If there's electricity and we can use the ovens, it will be warm inside. I think a lot of people could stay here,' she said. These girls, I thought, really had built a hearth. I was finding warmth and determination all over the place, when what editors expected was fear and despair. This had often been an issue, and I tried to explain that the resilience I described wasn't an individual phenomenon but society-wide. The more Russia attacked Ukrainian society, the less inclined people were to despair. They only got angrier.

Another heartwarming scene was the dancing in the Teatralna metro station in Kyiv. If you look up Jen's website, you can see photos to accompany these stories, including a beautiful shot of a couple dancing in the metro station. Music features a lot in the book—from buskers on the streets to charity gigs and music therapy for children. That makes me happy.

I also loved that she included some Scots language and culture — 'are you, aye?' That bit had me chuckling. (It's a humorous Scots response to someone making a ridiculous statement about themselves). And the reference to the hilarious lift scene in Burnistoun, where the voice-activated lift can't understand a Scotsman shouting out his floor, 'eleven!' How did that make its way to Ukraine?

Jen doesn't shy away from describing some heartbreaking scenes, too. The search for Volodymyr in Kapytolivka was difficult to read but tactfully described. Her trip with the young drone operators was exciting, and the scene where she accidentally hopped into the truck going to the more dangerous city of Siversk instead of waiting for her ride to Chasiv Yar made for an interesting story.

I've come away from reading this book with a sense of hope for Ukraine. Jen perfectly portrays the resilience of the Ukrainian people, and I felt her love for the country blossoming as she got to know it. At one point, she even mentions that she'd considered staying. I hope she goes back and keeps writing her stories to share with us.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Stout is clearly a mad woman, but that doesn't stop her from having more balls than a wacky warehouse soft play.

She was in Russia when the war broke out and instead of fleeing home to Scotland she was like, nah man, I'm gonna cover this. No back up, no funding and not even a huge amount of journalistic experience - just her turning up in Ukraine and repeatedly making her way to the front line to record the stories.

It's genuinely brilliant reading and super super accessible, not to mention a ridiculously descriptive read. Fully recommend.

[Debby Binns · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the abridged version of this on BBC sounds. It was really good. In essence about the run-up to Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine and a newly qualified journalist Jen Stout who journeys into Ukraine to bring us reporting. It was really good - am tempted to read the whole book as her personal experience was so well told.

[Nata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read.

[Dillon Patterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is well written, but it wasn’t what I hoped it would be. It is essentially a diary of the author’s experiences as a journalist covering the war in Ukraine from its beginning through early 2023. To be honest, I found her overtly biased perspective to be pretty off-putting. Rather than teach the reader something about the war or history leading up to it, she basically just goes on and on about how shitty Putin and Russian imperialism are. That’s not necessarily a perspective I disagree with, but as someone who knew very little about the conflict prior to reading this book, I feel like I didn’t really learn anything here. And even if that’s not the point of the book, it feels like an odd time to tell the story. The author shares her experiences traveling to and within Ukraine during the first couple years of the war. Then she leaves in 2023 and the book ends. Meanwhile the war is still happening. So I guess the point of the book is just to share her firsthand account of how awful war is, which is totally valid; it just doesn’t make for a very interesting read in my opinion.

[Dmitry · Rating 2 out of 5]

(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)

Книга, написанная журналистом и как следствие, напоминает очень большую газетную статью, повествует главным образом о периоде 2022 года. Это очень важно подчеркнуть, что речь идёт о ситуации именно 2022 – начала 2023 года. Почему важно? Дело в том, что почти все книги, которые были изданы за последнее время на тему российско-украинской войны, брали именно этот период, ничего не говоря о последующих годах. Да, скорее всего будут выпущены книги и о том как ситуация в Украине развивалась в 2024, 2025 г. и так далее, но пока этого нет, а это означает, что мы не видим полной картины. Многие авторы, пишущие книги на данную тему и симпатизирующие Украине, описывают именно период 2022 и начала 2023 гг. по той причине, что именно в этот период всему миру казалось, что зло будет наказано, и Путина свергнут. Эта война рисовалась и возможно и сегодня рисуется как некий аналой американской войны за независимость, которую американцы выиграли в войне против Британской империи. Действительно, в 2022 году и начале 2023 многие думали, включая меня самого, что в этот раз Путин не устоит и развязанная им кровавая авантюра дорого обойдётся не только ему самому и его окружению, но и России в целом. В этот же период мы можем вспомнить, как украинского президента Зеленского встречали овациями во всех Западных парламентах мира. Эта книга, она о том времени, о том настроении и о том духе.

But in a cafe in Sloviansk, a soldier friend of Volodymyr and Tetyana’s did speak to me briefly in English – and said something I knew I’d never forget.
She’d been fed up, she said, a few months ago – cold and miserable, frustrated with the war, with commanders, with everything. Missing her daughter, who was abroad. But now she’d reached a new stage of acceptance.
‘I’ve made my peace with the war. Everyone has. We’re resigned to this shit.’
She and her comrades still believed victory was inevitable, she said. ‘But we all know that we probably won’t be alive. We won’t survive this.’
I stared at her. There was no emotion, no tears. Entirely calm, she added, for the avoidance of doubt, ‘By the time the war finishes we will all be dead.’ And then she speared a chunk of cake with her fork, and ate it.
I wanted to object, somehow. Throw my arms up, protest. You can’t say that! You’re too young! But it would be like objecting to the wind or the rain. For her, this was just the likely outcome. Better to accept it than fight it.

Вот эта цитата лучше всего характеризует эмоциональное наполнение этой книги. Впрочем, я не хочу сказать, что эмоциональный настрой книги слишком воинственный. Порой в книге встречаются довольно красивые и как мне показалось, неподдельные и искренние переживания людей.

Ivanna had told me about visiting a friend the other day, on the eighteenth storey of a high-rise, of going out onto the balcony to smoke. She could see the city, spread out before her. ‘It was sunset, and at first glance everything’s calm,’ she said. ‘But then you see the smoke, where a district has been bombed. It’s this . . . mix of beauty and pain. Every moment.’

Можно ли сказать, что книга точно описывает жизнь гражданских, что живут в «горячей зоне», т.е. зоне, где ведутся боевые действия, включая прилёты ракет и дронов? Нет, я так не думаю. Когда гражданский человек оказывается в месте боевых действий, первое что его волнует, это когда перестанут стрелять, а не кто прав и виноват и на каком языке следует говорить. В этой книге мы встречаем не только, как бы это правильнее сказать, немного идеалистическую картину борьбы добра со злом, белого с чёрным и истины с ложью. Я хочу сказать, что все герои книги, которых описывает автор, предстают в образе воина, готового биться до последнего. Однако в реальности такое редко когда бывает. Обычно люди делятся на тех, кто готов убивать и умирать и на тех, кого не волнует идеологическая подноготная этого конфликта, но волнует только одно – чтобы перестали стрелять. Вот второй категории граждан в этой книге нет. И это – главная проблема этой книги, т.к. в реальности такого просто не может быть.

В книге так же не упоминается о бездействии украинского правительства и украинских элит, которые не только допустили полномасштабное вторжение в их страну, но и оказались совершенно к этому не готовыми, т.е. не смогли провести эвакуацию, зная, как Россия ведёт боевые действия в гражданском секторе. К примеру, как пишет автор книги «Terror In Chechnya: Russia And The Tragedy Of Civilians In War»:

«The largely unrestrained militarism that defines this period worked on a simple principle. Civilians, personal property, state institutions, and cultural and historical monuments would largely be killed, wounded, or destroyed in order to protect Russian ground troops and to avoid high casualty rates. The laying of anti-personnel land mines and a massive fi re wall preceded any ground troop movement, and the photographs and testimonies show that the firepower was far from precise or accurate».

Конечно, никто не снимает ответственности с России за вторжение, так же как никто не пытается преуменьши��ь гражданские потери и тот ущерб, который причинила и причиняет РФ, но ведь есть же ответственность политического руководства и той страны, на которую напали. С независимостью приходит ответственно��ть, включая ответственность за свои собственные поступки. И вот о них, в книге ни слова.

The book, written by a journalist and, as a consequence, resembling a very large newspaper article, tells mainly about the period of 2022. It is very important to emphasize that we are talking about the situation of 2022 - early 2023. Why is it important? The fact is that almost all the books that have been published recently on the topic of the Russian-Ukrainian war have taken this period, without mentioning anything about the following years. Yes, there will most likely be books published about how the situation in Ukraine developed in 2024, 2025, and so on, but so far, there are none, which means that we are not seeing the full picture. Many authors who write books on the subject and sympathize with Ukraine describe the period of 2022 and early 2023 for the reason that it was during this period that it seemed to the world that evil would be punished and Putin would be overthrown. This war was and perhaps still is portrayed as a kind of analogy to the American War of Independence, which the Americans won in the war against the British Empire. Indeed, in 2022 and early 2023, many thought, including myself, that Putin would fail this time and that the bloody adventure he had unleashed would cost not only himself and his entourage, but Russia as a whole. In the same period, we can remember how Ukrainian President Zelensky was greeted with applause in all the Western parliaments of the world. This book is about that time, that mood, and that spirit.

But in a cafe in Sloviansk, a soldier friend of Volodymyr and Tetyana’s did speak to me briefly in English – and said something I knew I’d never forget.
She’d been fed up, she said, a few months ago – cold and miserable, frustrated with the war, with commanders, with everything. Missing her daughter, who was abroad. But now she’d reached a new stage of acceptance.
‘I’ve made my peace with the war. Everyone has. We’re resigned to this shit.’
She and her comrades still believed victory was inevitable, she said. ‘But we all know that we probably won’t be alive. We won’t survive this.’
I stared at her. There was no emotion, no tears. Entirely calm, she added, for the avoidance of doubt, ‘By the time the war finishes we will all be dead.’ And then she speared a chunk of cake with her fork, and ate it.
I wanted to object, somehow. Throw my arms up, protest. You can’t say that! You’re too young! But it would be like objecting to the wind or the rain. For her, this was just the likely outcome. Better to accept it than fight it.

This quote best characterizes the emotional content of this book. However, I don't want to say that the emotional mood of the book is too belligerent. Sometimes in the book, there are quite beautiful and, as it seemed to me, genuine and sincere experiences of people.

Ivanna had told me about visiting a friend the other day, on the eighteenth storey of a high-rise, of going out onto the balcony to smoke. She could see the city, spread out before her. ‘It was sunset, and at first glance everything’s calm,’ she said. ‘But then you see the smoke, where a district has been bombed. It’s this . . . mix of beauty and pain. Every moment.’

Can we say that the book accurately describes the lives of civilians who live in the “hot zone,” i.e., an area where there is fighting, including incoming missiles and drones? No, I don't think so. When a civilian finds himself in a war zone, the first thing he cares about is when the shooting will stop, not who is right or wrong, or what language should be used. In this book, we meet not only, as it would be more correct to say, a slightly idealistic picture of the struggle between good and evil, white and black, and truth and lies. I want to say that all the characters of the book, which the author describes, appear in the image of a warrior, ready to fight to the last. However, in reality, this is rarely the case. Usually, people are divided into those who are ready to kill and die and those who do not care about the ideological background of the conflict, but only care about one thing - to stop shooting. The second category of citizens is not in this book. And this is the main problem of this book because, in reality, this cannot happen.

The book also fails to mention the inaction of the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian elites, who not only allowed a full-scale invasion of their country, but were completely unprepared for it, i.e., they were unable to evacuate, knowing how Russia was fighting in the civilian sector. For example, as the author of the book “Terror In Chechnya: Russia And The Tragedy Of Civilians In War” writes:

“The largely unrestrained militarism that defines this period worked on a simple principle. Civilians, personal property, state institutions, and cultural and historical monuments would largely be killed, wounded, or destroyed in order to protect Russian ground troops and to avoid high casualty rates. The laying of anti-personnel land mines and a massive fi re wall preceded any ground troop movement, and the photographs and testimonies show that the firepower was far from precise or accurate.”

Of course, no one is absolving Russia of responsibility for the invasion, just as no one is trying to minimize the civilian casualties and the damage that the Russian Federation has caused and is causing, but there is also the responsibility of the political leadership of the country that was attacked. With independence comes responsibility, including responsibility for one's own actions. And there is not a word about them in the book.

[Aron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goed en mooi journalistiek verslag, persoonlijk en inhoudelijk

[Steven Batty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting read.

[Ketchup · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t work for me – too many words for what’s being shared.

[Jenny Barden · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most impactful books I’ve read

[Nic Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not an easy read but also such an important one.

Jen Stout recounts her experiences of helping people escaping the turmoil of the Ukrainian/Russian war.

This book was profoundly impactful and heartbreaking. And scary - especially the beginning when the author recounts her experiences of living in Russia at the outset of the war and the impact Russian propaganda was having on the believes of people day to day about Ukraine.

I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading about events that were current and ongoing now - it was so easy to picture some of it as relating to things that happened historically - the level of propaganda, the experiences of people escaping Ukraine was so reminiscent of the things I had read about from World War Two, it was unnerving.

This book is important - people need to read it. It is raw and honest, it is sensitively handled and well written. The stories of individuals are impactful and heartbreaking, the photos really got me.

This book will make you angry, worried and want to do something to help

Please read this book

[Oscar Jelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A humane and lively portrait of a society that has managed to remain impressively resilient amid a lot of terrible, pointless suffering, from a Scottish writer clearly in love with Ukraine - its people, its geography, its history and, notably, its food. Important, among other things, for stressing that the diversity of its culture, landscapes etc. and its nuanced and tricky relationship with Russia are things that have always been integral to Ukraine's identity, rather than proof that it's an arbitrarily defined patchwork country that can therefore be carved up at will by its imperialist neighbour. Stuffed with pen portraits of inspiring people living with various levels of horror: medics, journalists, civilians-turned-soldiers, ordinary people trying to live something like a normal life, and a frankly intolerable number of very small children. Deeply upsetting but worth a read.

[Rob Crilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've lost track of this war, who's up, who's down, where the frontlines are, what weapons the Ukrainians need, what the Russians actually want. It's all there in the newspapers and I've read it all for three years and got lost and confused in the minutiae. As ever, what I really want at this stage is to know the human stories. How are people living in a war zone? Where do they buy their food? Is anyone making music or art? Or are they all fighting or just trying to survive. Jen Stout answers these questions and more in a very readable account of her war and the people she meets along the way. I'm not sure she ever really gets away from her own guilt and her own questions about why she is covering this conflict, but the reader comes away feeling clear: It is because she gives a shit. If you only read one book on the Ukraine war make it this one.

[Coffee & books · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well written and interesting book. I enjoyed it. Unlike other similar books written by foreign correspondents covering Russia's war in Ukraine, Stout was in Moscow in February 2022 and nicely describes the mood and situation within Russia as she experienced it.

She went to one of the borders crossing from Ukraine to Romania and reported from there, covering things like language and human interactions. She went to Ukraine and saw the mass graves at Izium, went very close to the frontlines and interviewed many people there.

This is, as its title suggests, about the human cost of Russia's war against Ukrainians. A must read.

[Michael McEwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s easy to depersonalize statistics, but each of those deaths is a life cut short at the whim of Putin. Jen Stout takes us into the cities close to the front line and reports on how life goes on there.

From America it seems so distant. I was especially affected by how that perception kept resetting as she moved closer to the front line. Life goes on in the middle of the chaos.

It may be wishful thinking, but it would be good if people could feel the despair and anger at the injustice of the Russian invasion without actually having to experience it in person. I am so thankful to the author giving us a glimpse.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, thoughtful and humane book on a horrendous war which is it seems very easy to ignore unless you're actually in it. Good also for taking Ukraine as it is, rather than as 'Kyiv, Lviv, and Sovoks', which means she depicts very interestingly how cities like Kharkiv and Odesa, so easily caricatured as insufficiently authentically Ukrainian, have been reimagining the place's identity and history way beyond the Western Ukrainian narrative that usually dominates. Also admirable for the very '1930s travel book' details, like listening to Take the Floor on Radio Scotland during air raids.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Stout does an incredible job at portraying the richness and resilience woven through the stories of these individuals and communities in Ukraine. This book contains many stories within it, but is written through Jen’s eyes, which creates a smooth and cohesive narrative.

This book gives a fascinating glimpse at what day to day life looks like when your country is being invaded. I read this book a few months ago and still find myself thinking about the people in these stories and hoping that they’re ok.

[Cairns · Rating 5 out of 5]

First hand reporting from Ukraine which brings home the rawness of the conflict and it's impact on the resident people of Ukraine. It is the war that we have become too familiar with over time. The writing wakes the reader up to the realities of the ongoing conflict. The author gets close to people and unravels some of the complex relationship between the two peoples often considered as brothers. An important book.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Stout was in Ukraine from November 2021 to April 2023, and this brilliant non-fiction debut covers her time there. She documents the human cost of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and describes the people she meets in a variety of circumstances along the way and how they try to carry on despite everything. The result is mostly poignant, touching and at points harrowing, but there are moments of dry humour and even of joy despite it all. A necessary read, particularly given recent events.

[Suzette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explains the Russian war against Ukraine and the collateral damage from it in a more informative way than anything else I've read. The situation is much more complex than I realized and it varies city by city and region by region.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to know what life is really like in Ukraine now this is the book to read. So authentic and real as Jen Stout gets to know local people and families and seems to have such a love for the country now that she can’t stay away.

I’ll be looking out for further books by her.

[Ronald Heins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interessant boek over het eerste jaar van de Oekraïne- Rusland oorlog. Indrukwekkende verhalen over de mensen die betrokken zijn bij de oorlog, burgers, vrijwilligers, journalisten, soldaten. Veel bewondering voor deze mensen!

[Douglas Greenshields · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admirable, and a documentation of history I'll be sure to come back to.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book. Well worth reading.

[Elizabeth MacKellar · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for uni. i feel like i can’t really rate this book any lower. it was such an interesting perspective to read about the war from, and was just incredibly well done.

[Mads Floyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice journalistic piece. It reminds me at times of my own travels within Ukraine during this war, and there are a lot of touching passages within this book’s pages.

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

filled with terrible stories, inspiring people, and beautiful writing

[Derek Woolley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful personal journey through war torn Ukraine, beautifully written, i do hope she write more books.

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Stout was on her way back from a Russian study trip when Ukraine was attacked. She gave away her luggage, changed her itinerary and started reporting.