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Article snippet: We asked 10 New York Times reporters to tell us about the most memorable interviews they conducted this year. ANDREW KRAMER, Moscow correspondent AMINA OKUYEVA, volunteer soldier in the war against Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine It was Amina Okuyeva’s first interview with a foreign journalist since an assassin posing as a foreign journalist had tried to kill her and her husband during an interview. We chose to talk in the lobby of the Intercontinental hotel, since it was a well-lit, well-guarded public space. Ms. Okuyeva was a minor celebrity in Ukraine for, along with her husband, joining a volunteer paramilitary force fighting Russian-backed rebels in the eastern part of the country. Her previous interviewer had said he was a reporter with the French newspaper Le Monde. In fact, he was a Chechen assassin. Midway through their interview, he opened fire. Ms. Okuyeva pulled out her own gun and shot back, saving herself and her husband. There had been clues something was amiss. “He had a notebook, but he wasn’t writing anything in it,” she said. In the Ukrainian news media, Ms. Okuyeva was portrayed as a fierce heroine for fighting back to survive. I saw a frightened woman. In my notebook I wrote, “furrowed brow.” A few months later, I filed a brief story noting that Ms. Okuyeva had died in a subsequent assassination by a gunman hiding in bushes on a roadside. By coincidence, I wrote the story in the lobby of the Intercontinental hotel, where I had come ... Link to the full article to read more