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Why Should Journalists Interview Perpetrators?

by Clara Marchaud, 2025 Journalism Fellow

In August 2024, I stood outside a prison in the Sumy region, about to do something I never imagined: interview Russian soldiers captured after Ukraine’s offensive in the Russian Kursk region. Some colleagues had already spoken with Russian POWs in camps, where arranging such interviews is relatively straightforward. As a French correspondent fluent in Russian and living in Ukraine for nearly four years, I thought it natural that I should take this assignment.

But as someone who lives in Ukraine—who has not only reported on but lived through this war—I dreaded facing “the Russians,” the people I hold responsible for our suffering over these years. Many of my friends have become refugees; some of their homes remain occupied. Others have joined the military. In February 2022, after days of working under droppings bombs, I fled Kyiv for Western Ukraine. Since Russian tanks rolled through our streets, I couldn’t return to my apartment in Northern Kyiv. Just 15 minutes from my flat, the Russian army massacred hundreds of civilians in Bucha.

Trying to understand these men felt like excusing them, and I had no empathy left to give. I feared they would use our interviews to justify their actions. Many of these prisoners claimed, excusing their own part in the invasion, that they were simply mobilized, “victims of a system,” the very one killing Ukrainians that wrongly equates their suffering with that of their victims.

I also doubted I would learn much. These soldiers were captives; technically, everything they said could be used against them, so why would they speak openly? The Geneva Conventions instruct journalists not to expose prisoners to “public curiosity” and to respect their dignity, though without precisely specifying how to do so.1 Our newsroom decided not to show their faces or use their names, even if they agreed to give them, and to avoid details that might cause reprisals if they are exchanged later.

Still, when I arrived at the prison, I was deeply uncertain about what I was doing. As a journalist, I knew that joining the Russian army is not a crime under international law—unless war crimes were committed. Yet, on a human level, I didn’t want to meet these men I held responsible—people I viewed with a mixture of disgust and anger. I felt like I would encounter bloodthirsty invaders determined to destroy my home and kill my friends.

Dreaming of the FSB

Once inside, I found it even more terrifying—not because these men were monsters but rather because they were so strikingly ordinary. I spoke with about a dozen soldiers, mostly conscripts, though with some who signed contracts or were mobilized.2 My Ukrainian photographer had been there for a brief period, so some inmates welcomed her back and laughed about their photos being published in magazines. “Look, I’m like a rock star,” one young conscript joked when she showed him images. Ukrainian guards stayed out of the cells or out of earshot for almost all conversations. Many young conscripts still hoped their government would negotiate their exchange; contract soldiers were less optimistic. “They’ll tell my wife I deserted to avoid compensation for families of soldiers who were killed in action,” one shrugged.

Their motivations were ordinary. Many were young, scared conscripts from poor regions, doing their military service, forced to serve because they lacked the social or financial means to avoid it through bribes or connections. Surprisingly, some of them didn’t really realize their country was at war until they ended up in captivity, believing the Kremlin narrative of a “special operation.”3 Nikolai, an urban entrepreneur, complied with a summons received 15 days earlier. Nikita, a father of two, who was promised a rear-duty driver role, signed a contract to pay debts and save his house. None seemed to hate Ukrainians deeply, and all were surprised not to face torture or mistreatment.

Then there was Igor. Young, fit, and unusually cheerful, he stood out. Unlike many others, he was better educated and hailed from Saint Petersburg. A person like him could likely have bribed his way out of military service, especially in the border regions. Igor was wounded—not from combat but from a failed suicide attempt.

Fearing torture upon capture, he had tried to use a grenade, but it malfunctioned. “War is not like Counterstrike,” he joked, referring to the video game. A law student, Igor genuinely wanted to serve in the military, dreaming of joining the “three letters agency,” the FSB, successor to the Soviet KGB, notorious for assassinations, torture, surveillance, and political repression. He confided this to me in a whisper, only after I assured him that I was neither Ukrainian nor Russian, and guaranteed him full anonymity. In other media interviews, he stated he was “against the war.”

“I want to help the state,” he said proudly when I asked why he would want to join such an organization. He seemed eager to be part of something greater, something powerful. Yet he feared that his parents might face repercussions after his captivity, repercussions from the same state he wanted to serve. I could have spent hours trying to understand what drives a seemingly reasonable 22-year-old to join such a deadly apparatus.

Lessons from History: Nazi Testimonies and Accountability

This experience led me to rethink interviewing perpetrators. But it was my visit to Auschwitz and study of the Nazi system that convinced me: we must interview perpetrators—whether in captivity, awaiting trial, or free—whenever possible.

Not all Russians are guilty of war crimes, but, like people under the Nazi regime, many support brutal actions that could qualify as war crimes.4 Interviews with perpetrators document the “banality of evil,” showing how millions can become complicit in mass killing. They preserve testimonies, especially from lower-level operatives who leave few official records.

Reading about how few Nazi testimonies were collected during and after World War II, I now appreciate how valuable and rare such documents are. Gitta Sereny’s detailed book of interviews with the Treblinka commandant Franz Stangl and Luke Holland’s decade-long interviews with 300 Nazis for his documentary Final Account offer rare insight into perpetrators’ minds.

Journalistic interviews with perpetrators can also aid justice. In 1972, French reporter Ladislas de Hoyos tracked down Klaus Barbie, infamously known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” in Bolivia. Barbie, who as head of the Gestapo in Lyon deported 14,000 Jews and resistance fighters and personally tortured many, was living under the alias Klaus Altmann, an ordinary German-born Bolivian citizen for over twenty years. The interview was initially tightly controlled, with pre-approved questions asked in Spanish. Barbie vehemently denied all accusations, but as the interview progressed, de Hoyos exposed contradictions that revealed the German’s true identity.5 Barbie reluctantly repeated French phrases despite denying he spoke the language, and when shown a photo of Jean Moulin—the renowned French resistance leader he had tortured—he inadvertently left his fingerprints on it. This crucial mistake provided concrete evidence of his identity. Barbie was later sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity during his 1987 trial in Lyon, where he died.

While tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors recorded testimonies, few comparable collections exist for perpetrators or their sympathizers, although recent initiatives aim to recover these last voices before they disappear. “Losing those memories matters. To understand the inner workings of the Third Reich, we need to know not just its leaders, but the ordinary Nazis who made up its ranks, whose roles in war and genocide have vanished from the historical record”, explains historian Daniel Lee. “Recovering perpetrators’ voices sheds light on consent and conformity [...] enabling us to ask new questions about responsibility, blame, and manipulation.”6

Modern Confessions, Social Media and Impunity

Interviewing perpetrators at different levels is essential to grasp the entire system. In my work on the occupation, I study the repressive apparatus Russia has established to replace Ukrainians in occupied territories. Studying Nazi crimes has convinced me that interviews should include not only high-ranking officials, like governors, but also the small cogs in the machine—Russian teachers sent to staff schools to indoctrinate Ukrainian children or doctors who refuse to treat Ukrainians without Russian passports, even in emergencies. Often, these officials live in homes confiscated from Ukrainians. What these interviews reveal is that many perpetrators do not perceive their actions as wrong; in fact, they see them as legal and encouraged by occupation authorities.

Although answers vary greatly depending on who asks the questions and when they are asked, interviews with perpetrators can help demonstrate that many ordinary people were complicit in government crimes. After World War II, some Germans claimed that the genocide occurred “without their knowledge,” a notion thoroughly disproven by historians. While we are neither historians nor law enforcement, such interviews capture what ordinary people knew and did at the time, preserving crucial historical records.

Shockingly, even amid ongoing war, some perpetrators openly admit crimes on social media. I documented a case7 of a Ukrainian woman illegally imprisoned, forced into labor, raped, tortured, and deported. Ukrainian colleagues identified the man responsible for her fate, an FSB agent who boasted about it in a TikTok video, toasting “to the deportations.”8

The urgency to document these crimes grows as they escalate. Since September 10, 2025, Russian occupation authorities consider all Ukrainians without Russian passports foreigners by law and thus subject to expulsion. Several deportations have already been documented.9 Even those who remain in their homes face denial of healthcare, education, freedom of movement, as well as employment, and are constantly threatened with house confiscation.10 At least 16,000 civilians are held in a network of camps and prisons11 across the occupied territories and inside Russia itself—a grim echo of the darkest days of the Gulag.

One of the obstacles we face as foreign journalists is that we are often viewed not only as enemies but also as spies for our respective countries. Russian authorities deny independent access to occupied territories. Because the crime is ongoing, interviewing perpetrators is nearly impossible except when they are in captivity. After four years of full-scale war, fewer perpetrators openly boast about their actions on social media, aware that these admissions can now be used against them, especially since the International Criminal Court has opened cases. Some have been added to sanctions lists.

This prompted me to consider a controversial step: making undercover calls to perpetrators, hiding my identity as a journalist. After all, they are reachable. The Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian English-language outlet, successfully used this method.12 Journalists in Kyiv gathered confessions and, posing as Russian TV producers and prosecutors, exposed an FSB looting operation in Kherson where nearly 33,000 historical artifacts were stolen. After all, ethical journalistic codes in most countries do not prohibit undercover work. The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics recognizes that undercover journalism can be ethically justified when used as a last resort. Media ethicists argue that three conditions should be met: the information must be vital to the public, there must be no other way to obtain it, and innocent people must not be harmed in the process.13 But that kind of operation takes resources I don’t currently have.

The fact that Russian perpetrators publicly share proof of their crimes reveals their belief in impunity. Perhaps in twenty years, I will conduct an interview with a Russian war criminal hiding in Bolivia, or, hopefully, while they await trial. In the meantime, it is crucial to collect evidence, including their direct testimonies.

Clara Marchaud was a 2025 FASPE Journalism Fellow. Since 2021, she has been a correspondent in Ukraine for various French outlets, including Le Figaro and L’Express. She covers war crimes, the frontline, and the Russian occupation.

Notes

  1. Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, 27 July 1929, article 2, International Committee of the Red Cross https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gc-pow- 1929/article-2.
  2. Clara Marchaud, "’I thought they would torture us’: Words from Russian soldiers captured in the Kursk region during the Ukrainian offensive," Le Figaro, August 26, 2024. (In French) https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/paroles-de-conscrits-russes-captures-dans-la-region-de-koursk-lors-   de-l-offensive-ukrainienne-20240826.
  3. The word “war,” referring to the invasion of Ukraine, is forbidden in Russia.
  4. Independent Russian polling organization Levada Center reported on September 9 that polling from August 2025 shows that 78 percent of respondents support the Russian military’s actions in Ukraine. "Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 9, 2025," Institute for the Study of War https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment- september-9-2025/.
  5. Interview of Klaus Altmann (Klaus Barbie) by Ladislas de Hoyos, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel,(In  French)  https://mediaclip.ina.fr/fr/i22126087-interview-de-klaus-altmann-par-ladislas-de-hoyos.html.
  6. Daniel Lee, “Why History Needs World War II Stories of ‘Ordinary Nazis,’” TIME, https://time.com/5854001/nazi-memories/.
  7. Clara Marchaud, “Exclusive: War in Ukraine, the chilling testimony of a former prisoner of the Russian army,” L’Express, (in French) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVhksrgrDtM.
  8. Hanna Kalaur, “‘Treated like slaves’: who deported and sent Ukrainians from the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia to forced labor, and how”, (in Ukrainian) https://suspilne.media/863617-stavlenna-ak-do- rabiv-hto-i-ak-deportuvav-ta-vidpravlav-u-trudove-rabstvo-ukrainciv-z-okupovanoi-castini-zaporizza/.
  9. Shaun Walker, “Banned from Home for 40 Years: Deportation in Russia Is Latest Move to ‘Cleanse’ Occupied Ukraine,” The Guardian, June 21, 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/21/banned-from-home-for-40-years-deportation-russia-  latest-move-to-cleanse-occupied-ukraine.
  10. Clara Marchaud, “In Ukraine, the forced Russification of occupied territories,” Mediapart, September 4, 2025, (in French) https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/040925/en-ukraine-la-russification- marche-forcee-des-territoires-occupes.
  11. “Human Rights Situation During Russian Occupation of Territory in Ukraine and Its Aftermath,” United Nations Ukraine, https://ukraine.un.org/en/264057-human-rights-situation-during-russian- occupation-territory-ukraine-and-its-aftermath.
  12. Yevheniia Motorevska, “Investigation: Uncovering FSB’s Secret Operation to Steal Ukraine’s Valuable Art,” Kyiv Independent, https://kyivindependent.com/investigation-uncovering-fsbs-secret- operation-to-steal-ukraines-valuable-art/.
  13. Society of Professional Journalists. (n.d.). SPJ Code of Ethics. https://www.spj.org/spj-code-of-ethics/.