How a radio journalist learnt a lot about Ukraine

We hear the pounding of a heart, beating very quickly, conveying tension and uncertainty. Then a voice says: “This is the racing heart of a soldier in battle – somewhere on the thousand kilometre-long front in Ukraine.” The man’s sonorous voice softens the oppressive nature of the sounds and words, taking away much of the frightening quality that surrounds them.

The voice belongs to Peter Voegeli. It can be heard in an SRF radio broadcast, produced by the long-standing foreign correspondent for the programme ‘Echo der Zeit’ in January 2025. He presents a project by a Dutch artist who made recordings of Ukrainian soldiers’ heartbeats that bring the horror of war to life in a different form.

Getting to know the challenges

Over the past few months, Peter Voegeli has been taking a more in-depth look at Ukraine. Not as a journalist with a microphone, but as a student at BFH, where he completed the CAS Rebuild Ukraine while still working. The continuing education course provides participants with the knowledge to plan, design and implement projects for the restoration of destroyed infrastructure. He was the only one of the 25 graduates without a Ukrainian passport.

How does an established Swiss journalist who has worked as a correspondent in Berlin, Rome and Washington, among other places, end up enrolling on this CAS on the reconstruction of Ukraine? It was neither a personal connection nor a particular affinity with construction and infrastructure issues, as Peter Voegeli makes clear at the start of the interview: “The CAS was an excellent opportunity to familiarise myself with Ukraine’s pressing challenges in a short space of time, to make valuable contacts, and to network with people who will hopefully one day be able to play a role in the country’s reconstruction.”

Travelling to Ukraine

As a journalist specialising in foreign affairs, based in Switzerland and who mainly covers seven countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, he has been supporting SRF’s Eastern Europe correspondent in Warsaw since last year, who is also responsible for reporting on Ukraine. “I want to travel to the country as soon as possible and report on its state.” The war issue is and will of course remain important, Voegeli adds, but there are other topics that are worth informing the public about.

For instance, what it means for the population to have to live in partially destroyed cities with collapsed public utilities for energy or health. Or in areas that are littered with mines. And what it will take to repair the colossal damage left by the fighting.

“If I’d had to learn Ukrainian first, it would have been too laborious and would have taken too long,” Peter Voegeli explains candidly. The CAS Rebuild Ukraine gave him the opportunity to immerse himself in issues over a period of six months that he would otherwise have found difficult to get into.

Learnt an enormous amount

“I’ve learnt an enormous amount about the country and its people, about its needs and hopes, the opportunities and risks,” Peter Voegeli states. His fellow students had a thousand stories to tell and he gained an insight into the perspective and mindset of architects, engineers, planners and scientists. As he had hoped, he was also able to build up a contact network inside Ukraine and meet the main people involved in helping Ukraine in Switzerland.

Incidentally, the decision to attend the CAS Rebuild Ukraine was made on a rail journey from Bern to Zurich. On the train, Peter Voegeli met with a colleague who had produced a report for the radio about the first edition of the degree programme in 2023. After travelling together and hearing what his colleague had to say, Voegeli was convinced: “I had to take this course myself. That would benefit me more than just talking to the participants, as I had originally planned.”

Setting up a water treatment system

He has learnt a lot not only from the stories of his fellow students, but also about specialised areas such as water and electricity supply, urban development, construction planning, and construction technology for timber and hybrid buildings. Peter Voegeli points to the Building Information Modelling (BMI) method, which he was completely unaware of beforehand. It visualises buildings with all their data and information as a virtual three-dimensional model and is used for the planning and execution of all kinds of buildings. This type of knowledge will one day help him to better understand the problems and dimensions of the reconstruction of Ukraine, says Voegeli.

However, the CAS did not just consist of theory. In groups of five, the students worked on a project designed to make a tangible practical contribution to the restoration of infrastructure. Peter Voegeli was part of the group that focused on systems for treating drinking water. In various regions of Ukraine, especially near the front line, the supply of clean water to the population is unreliable at best.

The CAS students examined how the existing system could be used as cost-effectively and energy-efficiently as possible. If sponsors from Switzerland can be found, the plan is to install a solar-powered system at a hospital near the city of Kharkiv. “We hope that this pilot project will not be the only one of its kind, but that more sponsors will be found to finance such systems,” Voegeli stresses. The course has clearly left an emotional mark on him.

Lifelong learning

After decades as a radio journalist in many countries, to now be taking a CAS with a focus on reconstruction: besides the ostensible benefits, does this also reflect a commitment to the principle of lifelong learning that the business world values so highly? Peter Voegeli reflects for a moment before answering: “It’s part of a journalist’s job to keep on developing professionally and learning new things.” As an experienced radio journalist, it is the only way he can keep up with the times and get things across to listeners in a credible and understandable way.