Colombian journalist Catalina Gómez has been living in Tehran since 2007. She ended up in Iran due to her obsession with the Middle East. Her specialty is reporting on military conflicts in the region. She has written articles about the war in Syria and the Gaza Strip, the fight against ISIS in Iraq, and the bloody battle for Mosul. Gómez has also covered several presidential elections in Iran and the mass protests during the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009. When Russia started the war in Ukraine in 2014, Catalina did not come here. She was unfamiliar with the region and was exclusively reporting on Syria and Iraq at the time. However, after the full-scale invasion, she regularly travels to the frontlines for reports and even partially resides in Kyiv. She compares her first month of living in the Ukrainian capital in May 2023 to "Star Wars." During that time, Russia launched missiles at Kyiv almost every night to detect and destroy air defense systems. In June 2023, the journalist survived a Russian missile strike on the "RIA" pizzeria in Kramatorsk. Her friend, Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, who was sitting at the same table with Catalina, was killed.

Journalist Natalia Gumenyuk talks with Catalina Gómez about how she returned to work after the death of Victoria Amelina, why Colombians come to fight in Ukraine, what Ukrainians can expect from the new president of Iran, and why Gabriel Garcia Marquez remains a prominent journalist for Latin America.

New tracks tagged #president elections in Iran