14 • The Sunday Times MagazineIn the early hours of February 24 Vladimir
Putin’s tanks rolled in, missile attacks began
and a new war in Europe was under way.
Myrie is “slightly wound up” by the idea that
“it’s all about Nato moving eastwards, and
that was a provocation to the Russian bear”.
The “big issue”, he argues, was Ukrainians
moving west both physically and
psychologically. “[The Ryanair CEO]
Michael O’Leary is as responsible for the war
as anybody else, frankly, with cheapo flights,”
he says, laughing but not really joking.
On night one he was bedded down at
a Kyiv hotel when the PA system startled
him awake: there was potential missile fire
and guests were ordered to the car park
basement. Myrie, along with his
colleagues, operated out of the “Bunker
Broadcasting Corporation” (as he named it)
for ten long days.
Amid the chintz of the five-star Langham
he recounts how Ukrainians dragged their
mattresses to the basement, the strip
lighting and noisy air vents: “You’re not
going to get any bloody sleep but it’s safe
and that was the thing.” One morning he
was woken by a young woman weeping at
the end of his makeshift bed; she’d just
learnt that Russian soldiers had ransackedI
t’s mid-morning croissant hour
at the Langham, a swishy hotel
opposite Broadcasting House,
and Clive Myrie, news anchor,
Mastermind inquisitor and war
reporter, is in London media
attire: navy Armani suit,
Converse trainers and chiffon
scarf. He’s back in the UK on
a brief break from Kyiv, where
his flak-jacket-and-helmet bulletins at the
extraordinary opening of the Ukraine war
put “Uncle Clive” (as fans call him) on the
national-treasure track. By the time you
read this he’ll be back in the conflict zone.
The decades of war reporting don’t
show — he’s 57 going on 47. Although
immediately friendly, it’s also clear he is
peeved with the querying of why “the
bloke off Mastermind” is reporting from
the front line. “Actually it’s part of my
bloody job,” he says, stressing that his
BBC News title is “chief correspondent”.
“It really does piss me off,” he adds.
(A consummate professional on screen,
off screen he has a potty mouth.)
As Russian forces massed on the borders
in February, the call came from higher-ups
for Myrie to head to Ukraine — “There’s“We all have extraction plans. It would be
crazy to go into that kind of situation and not
have some way of getting out”
absolutely no pressure whatsoever for you
to go, but obviously I’ve covered conflicts
before and it’s part of what I do” — so he left
his wife, Catherine, at home in Islington,
north London, and arrived on Wednesday,
February 23. He recalls the “cheap as chips”
Ryanair flight and lunch at a trendy Kyiv
restaurant. “The disconnect of this amazing
free spirit, people moving around, fabulous
food in this restaurant, go to bed, wake up at
five in the morning and the Russians have
crossed the border,” he says, still incredulous.Myrie reporting for the BBC from Kyiv in February. Below: a Panorama episode on the killing of George Floyd