Fox News’ Steve Harrigan On What Happens If Russia Moves Into Kyiv: “It Could Get Very Ugly Here”
25.02.2022 - 01:09
/ deadline.com
Fox News correspondent Steve Harrigan, reporting from Kyiv as the Russian attacks on Ukraine unfolded early on Thursday, warned of a much more dire type of conflict “that could get very ugly here.”
“Missiles are hitting now and they’re hitting military buildings,” Harrigan said in a phone interview with Deadline. “That’s powerful. A lot of people are scared, and they’re driving out. There’s a lot of traffic. But when [the Russians] come in, that’s when it could get really bad….They’re probably going to try and capture the President and to do that they’ve got to get in here. I’ve seen urban combat before, in Grozny in Chechnya. When armored vehicles come into cities, they often don’t do well at all. They get attacked from apartment buildings and windows and balconies.”
Harrigan, a veteran of past Russian and Middle East conflicts who has been with Fox News since 2001, reported from a hotel rooftop early Thursday, local time, as the first explosions were heard around the city.
“We had been warned like six or seven times, ‘The attack is going to come now,’ so you’re pretty much ready for it. And I told a security guard to wake me up if it happened. And he just knocked on my door [at the hotel] and said, ‘Oh Steve, the explosions are happening, you have got to come upstairs now. …It was really sort of casual. You put your vest on and you go up and that’s that.”
So far, Harrigan said, even with the imposition of martial law, Ukrainian officials have not restricted journalists’ movements. In fact, Harrigan said, it has been just the opposite, as foreign journalists don’t need accreditation, as “they want the word out as much as possible.”
“So they basically said you can go anywhere and do anything and you don’t need