Photo courtesy Peter Zalmayev 2026
In a world increasingly weighed down by militarism and violence, the attractions of order and peace might prove infectious.
-Michael Kimmage, NY Times, 3/27/2026
People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently to others, to place common interests above their own, to respect elementary rules of human existence.
-Vaclav Havel, President of Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992
As the year turned to 2026, Ukrainian-American journalist Peter Zalmayev had made his way from the Global South back into Europe. He'd been away 15 months talking to the press, the politicians, ordinary citizens, and the Ukrainian diaspora in 43 countries. "When I started out I wanted to find out if the echo of the Ukrainian war had reached across the globe, even to small countries, and it has," he says.
A tall, bearded Ukrainian in town caught everyone's interest. Peter was interviewed for newspapers and on local television programs, was invited into Ukrainian ambassadors' residences, and had meals prepared lovingly by the Ukrainian diaspora. He played soccer with children on drought-baked red dirt fields. He collected a closetful of interesting shirts and a plethora of friendship bracelets. And he's maintained his cool, his curiosity and his hope throughout his travels, surviving a bout of Malaria, a 7.0 earthquake, and an arrest in Johannesburg, South Africa when he impulsively graffitied a wall mural of Putin with the words, "war criminal," then got into an argument with a passerby who objected and called the police. Peter was briefly detained. He was offended, he explained, that the portrait of Putin was next to one of Nelson Mandela. Peter's anonymous travel companion videoed the encounter which then went up on his Facebook page. Friends commented. They understood the intensity of Peter's reaction, but also worried he could get into trouble and not get out of trouble. I hypothesized that after living and working as a journalist in a war zone for such a long time, pent up rage, exasperation, and worry requires an occasional outlet. As a man, as a father, Peter allows his feelings to show. As a broadcaster his words are strong, but measured and well chosen. He's an expert, his opinion is solicited. He has regular gigs with the BBC, France 4, Al Jazeera and his program in Ukraine, "The Week."
I caught up with Peter on What's App this week as the war in the Middle East intensified. There will be implications for Ukraine: reduction in armaments, faltering negotiations, and Russia's intensified belligerence as the United States is preoccupied elsewhere.
Either we have a live Zoom, or I prepare questions which Peter answers on What's App audio. This has been our routine since Russia's invasion of Kyiv in 2022 when I reconnected with Peter. We had met each other when we lived in the same apartment building in Washington Heights in the city. He had turned up at a tenants' meeting carrying his first-born, and was finishing up his Masters at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. He returned to Ukraine soon after and quickly became a well-known broadcaster, fluent in Russian, Ukrainian and English. He grew up in Donetsk when it was still part of the USSR, and the enclosure of that childhood felt like an incarceration. "As a boy I imagined traveling to unreachable islands," he says. Friends warned him that traveling to New Guinea, for example, would not be safe. But he never felt endangered anywhere. He's a transnational internationalist, which seems redundant, but is not. At ease anywhere, he is an attentive listener, and also has a gift for language. On Basque television the other day, he answered questions in Spanish.
Peter has often reminded me that it is the 14th anniversary of Ukraine fighting for its survival, not the 4th anniversary. Have we forgotten that Russia invaded Crimea in 2012? He has not. Neither have any Ukrainians. And neither should we. The war in Ukraine has become a lynchpin in the struggle to maintain world peace, more so as the US war in Iran has exploded and is seemingly out of control, a gift to Putin.
His family still safely out of the country, it's not clear if or when Peter will return to Ukraine, or if he'll return only briefly. I am sure it will be both a shock and a challenge: more destruction in Kyiv after the winter missile attacks, friends lost, and a war weary albeit still determined population to maintain their sovereignty.