Conflict Journalist Tamamoto Eiko Shares the Reality of War in Ukraine

The first impression of Tamamoto Eiko is one of petite, gentle femininity. Her Osaka upbringing shows through in her sense of humor, as well, as she sparks laughter even when lecturing about war. It can be hard to picture her wrapped in a 10-kilogram bulletproof vest and helmet, camera in hand, as she trudges through active warzones, documenting them for the world.

Tamamoto Eiko reporting in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, in 2022. (© Asiapress International)

Tamamoto started this work in the 1990s, after quitting her job at a design firm. She says the inspiration was her shock at seeing a 1994 news story about a man who set himself on fire in Germany to protest Turkey’s oppression of Kurds, the largest stateless population in the world. “I was driven to find out why anyone would go so far out of protest. I felt no hesitation at taking that next step.”

She was also influenced to focus efforts on war journalism by her father’s survival of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at age five. “I read an anthology that my father contributed to when he was a child, and I listened to him talk about his experiences. From childhood, I could feel for myself how the misery of war seeps into the body.”

When she started, her father seemed to understand her dedication and saw her off without a protest, despite the danger of the work she had chosen.

At first, she worked as an agency temp at corporate reception jobs to earn the money for her on-location trips. She learned the basics of reporting from experienced journalists and began gaining her own experience. In the 2000s, she went to Syria and other regions in the Middle East to cover the war in Iraq and conflicts involving extremist groups like Daesh, the so-called Islamic State.

Innocent Victims

She has spent several months a year in Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022, basing her activities in the eastern and southern areas closest to the Russian border. She sometimes visits the front lines, where shells cross the sky overhead, but her focus is on those left behind in the warzone—the elderly, women, and children—and she has born witness to countless civilian victims of the war.

One of her most painful reports was from February, 2024, at the scene of a missile attack in the town of Selydove in Donetsk Oblast. Katja Gugova, eight months pregnant, was admitted to a local hospital when she was feeling unwell. Her husband accompanied her, but that night, her mother called to tell them that their neighborhood had been struck by Russian missiles. Katja’s husband went to check on their home.

Roughly one hour later, the hospital itself was struck by missiles. It appears to have been a two-stage plan, with the Russian military targeting those transporting wounded victims of the first attack for medical care. Katja and her unborn child were innocent bystanders who fell victim to the war.

Tamamoto visited the scene a few days later and talked to Katja’s widowed husband. “She was an older expecting mother, at age thirty-nine, and her husband had been overjoyed that she had finally managed to get pregnant. Now, he struggles with the guilt of having left her at the hospital, unable to help her in the end.”

Olga holds a portrait of her late daughter, Katja. She says she had been excited to see the grandchild Katja had been about to deliver. (© Tamamoto Eiko)

The body of a young child was pulled from the ruins of an Odessa housing complex destroyed by drone attacks. (© Tamamoto Eiko)

Drones an Unseen Menace

Reporting from the warzone means dealing with constant danger.

Tamamoto tells of one experience in Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, in southern Ukraine. As she and her team entered the city, a Russian shell whistled as it passed right over the heads of her reporting team and exploded nearby.

Tamamoto’s lifesaving bulletproof vest and helmet. (© Tamamoto Eiko)

Other Japanese journalists have died reporting on wars abroad. Some may make the mistake of thinking Tamamoto does not value her life, but she denies it, saying, “I’m actually a bit of a coward.” After practical training from professionals in warzone reporting, she says she has become able to judge the level of danger and often cancels shooting because of it. She takes thorough precautions to protect the team’s local interpreters and drivers from danger, as well, and she also says she avoids walking in open meadows and fields due to the danger of landmines.

And then there is the particular hallmark of this conflict, Russian remote attacks using drones. The Iran-built Shahed drones the Russian forces use are two or three meters long and are nicknamed “kamikaze.” They fly in formation until they identify their target, then strike it and explode. At the front, smaller drones come flying down to attack and drop bombs.

Tamamoto discusses the terror of an aerial drone attack she experienced herself: “There was this loud high-pitched sound, but looking up, I couldn’t see anything. I immediately evacuated into a nearby building along with a Ukrainian soldier escort, who told me, ‘When you hear the drone sound, you should understand that you won’t know when it will come.’ The remote operators observe you from the sky and might decide to target you. It’s a totally different kind of fear than with shelling.”

An Iranian-built Shahed drone used by Russia to attack the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. (© Getty Images)

Nuclear Threat

Tamamoto’s greatest fear, though, is of nuclear weapons. None have been used in war since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, Russia has occupied the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, and teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency have gone in to monitor it. Russian President Putin has announced a new doctrine guiding Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, and the threat of the war going nuclear is growing.

Tamamoto is painfully aware of the terror of nuclear weapons after hearing of her father’s experience as a hibakusha. He spent time bedridden as a young child, struggling on the verge of death. Even today, television programs dealing with the bombing of Hiroshima can bring him to tears. “Nuclear weapons do not simply kill the people there at the time. They invade the bodies of the survivors, giving them radiation sickness or leukemia, and carve trauma into their hearts. We should not accept governments holding nuclear weapons and power plants as some kind of trump cards.”

Even aware of such dangers, her work reporting from warzones is driven by her conviction that “no matter what the country, only the most convenient news is shown. We cannot know the truth of war without going to see for ourselves.”

She also says there is one more vital thing that she must remember as a journalist. “There have been many bereaved loved ones left weeping over the graves of Ukrainian soldiers killed in action, but there are also many in Russia. I have to share not just the state of the war, but what war has taken away, and who its victims have been.”

The Perils of Fading Interest

As we go into the third year since Ukraine was invaded, international interest has started to wane. Still, she insists, “It is when interest begins to fade that danger grows.”

Tamamoto warns against the danger of fading attention on the conflict still underway. (© Hanai Tomoko)

The international community is beginning to call for a ceasefire, but Tamamoto explains, “When I interview soldiers, they say ‘If there is an end to the fighting, then the dying will stop. But then those living in the occupied lands will go on suffering, and it will be our children or our grandchildren dying to take back their lost homelands.’ They continue to fight despite their own conflict. War itself, that brings such destruction and slaughter, is wrong. But we also need to think about what invasion takes away.”

There are new developments, as well, with soldiers sent from North Korea, and the United States expected to distance itself from Ukraine with the inauguration of Donald Trump for his second term in office. Tamamoto insists that “it is always the powerless civilians who are tossed around” by the international situation, but she plans to continue keeping her attention on Ukraine and sharing what she sees.

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: Tamamoto Eiko being interviewed at a Tokyo gallery hosting her photo exhibition, “Ukraine: People Living in the Flames of War.” © Hanai Tomoko.)