Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here. UM. Obviously, as I'm sure
Speaker 1: everyone is being bombarded with, the war in Ukraine is
Speaker 1: uh in its fifth day right now something like that. Um.
Speaker 1: We just passed ninety six hours. By some accounts, more
Speaker 1: than three hundred thousand people have been made refugees. Those
Speaker 1: are going to be very in exact numbers, but it's
Speaker 1: it's likely to be somewhere between like fifty and a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people per day being made refugees, and it's
Speaker 1: possible that's gonna last for the foreseeable future. Much of
Speaker 1: the coverage that you will have seen at this point,
Speaker 1: UM is going to focus on heroic pieces of of
Speaker 1: of resistance, you know, things that Ukrainian civilians picking up arms,
Speaker 1: throwing Molotov cocktails, Ukrainian soldiers destroying Russian armored columns. Some
Speaker 1: of that's gonna be a propaganda some of that A
Speaker 1: decent amount of that's actually happening. Obviously, we have a
Speaker 1: fair amount of documentation, but what I think has not
Speaker 1: gotten nearly as much play as the situation at the
Speaker 1: border of Ukraine in Poland. UM. Because this refugee crisis
Speaker 1: is enormous, but it's also not sexy, and it points
Speaker 1: to a number of things that are ugly about some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that people like to celebrate this conflict,
Speaker 1: including the conduct of President Zelinsky, who is i think
Speaker 1: handled himself objectively well as a wartime leader, and who
Speaker 1: is also, as you'll hear in the interview that's about
Speaker 1: to follow, made some decisions that have had a catastrophic
Speaker 1: impact on people's lives. So this is an interview conducted
Speaker 1: by a journalist H. James Stout, who is working with
Speaker 1: us on this project and with another project that will
Speaker 1: be launching soon, with a person, an individual, an American
Speaker 1: who was well has a couple of different passports, but
Speaker 1: with a person who was in Ukraine when the invasion
Speaker 1: began and left and eventually wound up leaving on foot
Speaker 1: with tens of thousands of other people for the Polish border.
Speaker 1: So this is a story of what it is like
Speaker 1: to flee a country at the beginning of a war
Speaker 1: um and and the realities that increasing numbers of Ukrainians
Speaker 1: are going to be facing every single day. So please listen,
Speaker 1: Hey Manny, how are you I'm doing well? How are
Speaker 1: you good? Good? It's ready to keep you up late.
Speaker 1: I'm period exhausted. No, No, it's okay, it's okay. Um.
Speaker 1: I actually just arrived at a new hostel in New City. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be up for a couple more
Speaker 1: hours anyway, so it's a good time to talk. Nice. Great,
Speaker 1: do you mind if I record this? Go ahead? Cool? Excellent,
Speaker 1: and let me explain what we're gonna do. So I'm
Speaker 1: I'm bringing the piece for NBC on the the refugee
Speaker 1: situation that's emerging, and then I'm also helping to make
Speaker 1: a podcast for I Heart Radio about a similar thing.
Speaker 1: So it's okay with you. We'll use the audio for
Speaker 1: one and then some of your words for another. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: how is my audio coming through? It's great, Actually, it's
Speaker 1: really really good. But you wanted to telephone or you
Speaker 1: on a computer. I'm on a telephone right now. I
Speaker 1: don't have a computer with me. Now, you're doing really well.
Speaker 1: If you're on a computer, i'd ask you to record
Speaker 1: it back up, but this is just fine. I'm recording.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like, um, it seems like you've had a
Speaker 1: pretty exhausting forty eight hours now. So if we go
Speaker 1: back to when you were in Kiev, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I was in Kiev a few days ago. I was
Speaker 1: in Kiev, um eight days ago. Um. And then I
Speaker 1: went to Lviv four days ago. Okay. And had you
Speaker 1: been how long have you been in Ukraine? I had been.
Speaker 1: I've been in Ukraine or I had been in Ukraine
Speaker 1: in total for one week, okay, so you have not
Speaker 1: that long. And you so you're riding Kiev, you went
Speaker 1: to Leviv. Can you remember, like where you were when
Speaker 1: you found out that the invasion was happening and that
Speaker 1: it was going to go past don Bass and into
Speaker 1: you Grane, Yeah, of course. So I woke up on
Speaker 1: the morning of twenty four February to the sound of
Speaker 1: air raid sirens outside, and it was a very confusing sound.
Speaker 1: I had never heard it right, sirens in real life.
Speaker 1: I just heard them in movies and television shows and such.
Speaker 1: And I knew immediately what had happened. I didn't even
Speaker 1: have to check the news, um. And I did check
Speaker 1: the news soon afterward, and there were bombings all over
Speaker 1: the country. There were reports of bombings in Ivana front Kiss,
Speaker 1: which is a city one south of le Viv, where
Speaker 1: I was, and there were so many rumors flying around.
Speaker 1: There were rumors that the Russians were coming coming to
Speaker 1: Levv at that moment, which was not the case but
Speaker 1: can still be the case very soon. Anyway, So we
Speaker 1: heard I heard these these air raids sirens as I
Speaker 1: woke up, and I shook away my roommate, who was
Speaker 1: a British journalist, um, and I told him we might
Speaker 1: be bombed any minute. So we went outside to try
Speaker 1: and find a shelter. Um, pretty much still in our nightclothes,
Speaker 1: we went outside to try and find a shelter. They
Speaker 1: were a loudspeakers saying, uh, everybody remained calm, fine shelter
Speaker 1: helped the elderly stockpile water, and it was repeating this
Speaker 1: on repeat, and people were shuffling along. There was a
Speaker 1: sense of muted panic. So it was an outright panic,
Speaker 1: but it was a sense of urgency, I guess you
Speaker 1: could call it. And um, we were at war and
Speaker 1: that was when I realized that Ukraine was being invaded
Speaker 1: at that very moment. Wow, yeah, it sounds dramatic. And
Speaker 1: at that point you went to the shelter, I'm guessing,
Speaker 1: so did you spend some time then before making the
Speaker 1: decision to head to Poland? So after about fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: the air rates I would stopped. The news generally came
Speaker 1: around the city that Lviv was not about to be bombed,
Speaker 1: but nevertheless, massive exodus of people began from Leviv at
Speaker 1: that moment. Because okay, we're safe for now, but for
Speaker 1: how long are we safe? Was the general sentiment that
Speaker 1: was around. So Um, everybody just started making for the
Speaker 1: trains station, the bus station. They got into their cars.
Speaker 1: People were just leaving. There were huge lines at the
Speaker 1: A T. M s. There were huge lines at the
Speaker 1: grocery stores. People were buying non perishables. Um. It was
Speaker 1: just not a panic pull out, I want to call it,
Speaker 1: but it was an urgent departure. It was an urgent
Speaker 1: exodus that was happening. And so me and my roommate
Speaker 1: we went to the train station, waited in the line
Speaker 1: for two hours to see if there were tickets. There
Speaker 1: were no tickets. We went to the bus station. We
Speaker 1: waited in the line for one hour to see if
Speaker 1: there were tickets. There were no tickets. Um, And so
Speaker 1: then we started to get a little worried because it
Speaker 1: was noon on the day of the invasion. Russian forces
Speaker 1: were everywhere in the country of our bombings. Everywhere in
Speaker 1: the country and we had to leave, and there was
Speaker 1: no viable means to leave. The airport was closed. Of course,
Speaker 1: the airport was being bombed a few hours later. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we tried to look into car higher. We
Speaker 1: tried to see if we could rent a car. We
Speaker 1: tried to see if we could take an uber or
Speaker 1: a lift or a blah blah car, which is the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian version of Uber. And none of those options were available.
Speaker 1: Because everybody was thinking the same thing, and in a
Speaker 1: sense of almost resigned despair, we decided that it would
Speaker 1: be best to just start walking west and see what happened.
Speaker 1: And there was around noon when we began to walk west. Wow. Um.
Speaker 1: So when you you set off to walk, did you
Speaker 1: just sort of take what you could carry and that's
Speaker 1: sort of what most people were doing, or did you
Speaker 1: get the sense that at least the people were like
Speaker 1: preparing for a long period of time away when they left.
Speaker 1: The people certainly were not preparing for a long period
Speaker 1: of time away. The people were not preparing for war. Um.
Speaker 1: For the longest time, President Zelinski and the Ukrainian government
Speaker 1: maintained that there would be no war. They called indications
Speaker 1: of war alarmists, they called them ludicrous, and uh, it
Speaker 1: was only in the final twenty four hours that everybody
Speaker 1: sort of woke up and said there's going to be
Speaker 1: a war. So I remember the last day before were
Speaker 1: the invasion. People were getting ready, people were waiting at
Speaker 1: the A T. M s. People were buying groceries, people
Speaker 1: were packing. But it was not before before that time,
Speaker 1: nobody was getting ready for the war. And so when
Speaker 1: the war struck, everybody, uh, everybody just sort of left
Speaker 1: hastily and it was a terrifying departure, of a sudden
Speaker 1: and terrifying departure because people didn't know what to do
Speaker 1: and they just sort of grabbed what they had and
Speaker 1: they ran. Luckily for me, in my roommate, we were
Speaker 1: traveling with, you know, just one pack or so because
Speaker 1: we were not living in Ukraine, um, and so we
Speaker 1: were able to just carry what we had on our backs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he told me through that walk then it's I
Speaker 1: think that's sort of like forty three miles is a right,
Speaker 1: That's that's right. So we did take a municipal bus
Speaker 1: a little bit of the way, which are the municipal bus.
Speaker 1: I believe it was five kilometers down the road road
Speaker 1: UM five kilometers being like three miles down the road, UM.
Speaker 1: And the total distance from LVIV to the borders eight
Speaker 1: eighty kilometers, sorry eighty kilometers. Uh. So that really did
Speaker 1: not make a dent at all in the distance. And
Speaker 1: it was noon when we started, and we knew for
Speaker 1: a fact that UM, that we would not make it
Speaker 1: before nightfall. And we knew that and we were terrified
Speaker 1: at that. So at first we walked along the countryside
Speaker 1: was picturesque, it was beautiful, It was indistinguishable from holiday
Speaker 1: during springtime. There was a fair, fair weather, it was sunny, UM,
Speaker 1: and no one could even tell that the nation was
Speaker 1: at war. There was really nobody else walking on the
Speaker 1: road besides us in the beginning, and the first twenty kilometers,
Speaker 1: I would say, UM. And then we started seeing long
Speaker 1: lines of the petrol stations. Every everywhere was out of gas.
Speaker 1: There nobody had gas. UM. There was just no ability
Speaker 1: to fuel cars. And as a consequence of that, UM
Speaker 1: cars were running out of gas and they were being
Speaker 1: abandoned on the side of the road, which caused further
Speaker 1: traffic pile ups, and soon the road was impenetrable to vehicles.
Speaker 1: UM and so because of this, everybody started getting out
Speaker 1: of their cars and walking, And so these families who
Speaker 1: had planned to escape Mukraine to Poland in their cars
Speaker 1: and carry their lives with them were suddenly faced with
Speaker 1: the hard decision of taking what they could carry with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that just sounds terrible. That sounds really difficult. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure you saw like older folks and younger people as well,
Speaker 1: with people sort of and struggling to do. That's a
Speaker 1: long walk, right, that's nd a walk and everyone can
Speaker 1: do it, must be very dear. It's a difficult walk
Speaker 1: for a young man. And many old women and little
Speaker 1: children under the age of five or forced on this
Speaker 1: march because there really was no other option for them.
Speaker 1: It was either go back to Ukraine and risk being bombed,
Speaker 1: risk being under Russian occupation, or it was get out
Speaker 1: of your car and walk in the wintertime with no
Speaker 1: food or water, no toilet, four fifty miles. And it
Speaker 1: was just this nightmare scenario because all these people were
Speaker 1: on the road. There were people in wheelchairs who couldn't
Speaker 1: negotiate the mud. There were mothers with strollers who couldn't
Speaker 1: get get the children um out, and the children were crying,
Speaker 1: and the children were asking why are we here, what
Speaker 1: it will be doing? Why did we have to leave
Speaker 1: home and stand and walk fifty miles in the middle
Speaker 1: of winter. Um. And the old people were sort of
Speaker 1: resigned to it. They There was one old woman I
Speaker 1: passed to was using a cane and she was hobbling
Speaker 1: along jade to backpack and I asked her, where are
Speaker 1: you going, because we were a part, we were a
Speaker 1: long long way from the border, and she said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to Poland, very simply. It was a very matter
Speaker 1: of fact, um statement. And so these people walked with
Speaker 1: a sense of duty and a sense of urgency, and um,
Speaker 1: it was just a very tragic humanitarian scene. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can imagine. And that was a major that was a
Speaker 1: major route that year on right, like a major road
Speaker 1: that just become impossible. It wasn't one of the bigger highway,
Speaker 1: but it was I believe the M eleven, the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: M eleven and it runs east west throughout the country
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, it's one of the major roads and
Speaker 1: it had become completely clogged. Yeah. So on arrival in
Speaker 1: im Poland or the border, and I understand that there's
Speaker 1: some men like broadly defined as like military age or
Speaker 1: eighteen to sixty. I think aren't allowed us and leave
Speaker 1: because they they have they have to stay in it
Speaker 1: and enlist. Is that right? Did you see? Yes? The
Speaker 1: border was absolutely the worst part for that reason. About
Speaker 1: five kilometers from the border, at the end of our walk,
Speaker 1: we were feeling relieved. We were feeling like, finally we've
Speaker 1: made it. Ukrainian military patrols started walking by and driving
Speaker 1: by and announcing through loud speakers and announcing with their
Speaker 1: own voices, Um, all men must stay. All men between
Speaker 1: the ages of eighteen and sixty have to stay. Get
Speaker 1: out of line now. And so the fathers naturally asked,
Speaker 1: because there were a lot of fathers who were there
Speaker 1: to protect their families, to safeguard their families, and to
Speaker 1: provide for their families. Uh, these fathers asked, how about us,
Speaker 1: we have to we have little children, We have children
Speaker 1: under the age of five. How are we supposed to
Speaker 1: provide for them? If you conscript us right here? The
Speaker 1: Ukrainian army did not care. They pulled them away physically
Speaker 1: from their families. There were a lot of tears, There
Speaker 1: was a lot of crying, There were a lot of
Speaker 1: hurried goodbyes. Brothers left, sisters, mothers left, husbands, um, lovers
Speaker 1: left each other. People, people just left. It was terrifying
Speaker 1: to watch. Um. Yeah, all these men were conscripted immediately
Speaker 1: into the army. Yeah, I can imagine. And what people
Speaker 1: at that point like it seems like that we're ready
Speaker 1: to be stoic. Up to that point, were people sort
Speaker 1: of resisting that like gift with aid, like sort of
Speaker 1: sad but resigned to it. That was that Well, that
Speaker 1: was when the panic began because everybody was sad but
Speaker 1: resigned to their faith of walking to Poland. But nobody
Speaker 1: was prepared for losing all the on Um. So when
Speaker 1: all the men were lost, when all the men were
Speaker 1: taken forcibly and this was public, everybody could see these
Speaker 1: men being yanked from their families. Uh. People first started
Speaker 1: yelling at the soldiers that didn't do anything obviously um
Speaker 1: and they were they were so angry at the soldiers
Speaker 1: and the soldiers were didn't care. Um. And then panic
Speaker 1: began because people realized, oh my god, this this person
Speaker 1: who was here with us, who was a travel companion,
Speaker 1: who's a relative, Now we have to leave without him.
Speaker 1: And even more, he's going to the front now and
Speaker 1: he is in great danger at the front. So people
Speaker 1: began pushing, they began shoving, they began being rude to
Speaker 1: one another. Um. There there was no sense of empathy
Speaker 1: among the people at all because it was a panic
Speaker 1: to get across the border at that point. Um. So
Speaker 1: there were people fainting, uh, and that was really just overlooked.
Speaker 1: The people who fainted were sort of dragged to the
Speaker 1: side and left there and I think they they made it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they made it out. Okay, they
Speaker 1: certainly didn't die. But there were people who were fainting.
Speaker 1: There are people who were sobbing, There are people who
Speaker 1: were hyperventilating. That was vomiting going on. It was just
Speaker 1: this sense of absolute human panic as people just tried
Speaker 1: to escape. In the last in the last five kilometers
Speaker 1: and especially in the last was the very worst. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: terrible thing to see. If you hadn't say you stay
Speaker 1: in touch. One of the lads who was conscripted right, yes,
Speaker 1: that that was a development from tonight. So while we
Speaker 1: were walking about this was about fifteen kilometers out from
Speaker 1: the border, we met a young Ukrainian man um and
Speaker 1: we just got to talking to him because I mean,
Speaker 1: we could relate to him. We were about I'm about
Speaker 1: the same age as him, um, and so I we
Speaker 1: were just like sort of talking about our lives and
Speaker 1: it was almost as if the war wasn't going on.
Speaker 1: And then we got to these army checkpoints um, and
Speaker 1: they started calling all the men you have to you
Speaker 1: have to leave, um. And so my friend said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not leaving. I don't want to fight
Speaker 1: in this war. And he tried to, you know, sort of, um,
Speaker 1: stay with us. Because we were foreigners, we were not
Speaker 1: we were not eligible to be conscripted, so he sort
Speaker 1: of tried to stay with us. He was he was
Speaker 1: a student. He was trying not to fight in this
Speaker 1: war because he had a life elsewhere. He had a
Speaker 1: girlfriend who who was traveling with U. And so we
Speaker 1: we were walking with him and I said, hey, do
Speaker 1: you want to do an interview? He said sure, um,
Speaker 1: and I started talking to him on camera, and then
Speaker 1: the soldier came by and yelled in his direction, hey,
Speaker 1: you get out of line, and um. He said, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I have to go, and he just gave me this look,
Speaker 1: like this desparing look, and he went with the soldier.
Speaker 1: UM the two days later. Today tonight, he messaged me
Speaker 1: on Instagram and he said, because we by the way,
Speaker 1: we had exchange contact information where we were talking. Um.
Speaker 1: He messaged me on Instagram and he said, hey, I
Speaker 1: saw that you mentioned me and uh in your Twitter
Speaker 1: because I told him about the Twitter as well. UM,
Speaker 1: and he said, just letting you know I'm safe if
Speaker 1: I'm not in the East fighting the Russians. Um, I
Speaker 1: am in Leviv and I am safe. And it is
Speaker 1: my knowledge that he may have escaped conscription because he
Speaker 1: would otherwise be in the East. But um, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I just know that he was safe right now, and
Speaker 1: he confirmed that he was safe. Okay, So so yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not sure whether he's doing training or whether he's
Speaker 1: in Smresti role or if he's managed to get out
Speaker 1: of it. To himhow I know that he has managed
Speaker 1: to escape the brunt of the fighting of the Russians,
Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, okay, yeah, good for him, But it's
Speaker 1: still a terrible thing to have to do with. So
Speaker 1: it's my understanding. It's a visa. There's visa free entry
Speaker 1: into Poland right now? Is that right? That people can
Speaker 1: walk aggressively. Yes, the entry into Poland was an absolute
Speaker 1: priest compared to the exit from Ukraine. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but you have to wait in a long line and
Speaker 1: rain for an exit piece, just for permission to leave
Speaker 1: the country. And so, as I mentioned, that was the
Speaker 1: worst part because they were only letting ten people out
Speaker 1: every twenty minutes. That ten people get an exit visa
Speaker 1: every twenty minutes, and there were at least two thousand
Speaker 1: people at the border with US, and so that's that's
Speaker 1: where this panic happened, is because every time they opened
Speaker 1: that gate every twenty minutes, and by the way, this
Speaker 1: is like two in the morning in the cold weather,
Speaker 1: and people are as I mentioned, crying, vomiting, fainting, um.
Speaker 1: And so every time they opened that gate, there was
Speaker 1: a human crush to get to that gate, and it
Speaker 1: closed it and they forced the people back, and then
Speaker 1: it was another twenty minutes before it happened again. And
Speaker 1: this happened all night long, um. And this was literally
Speaker 1: just to get permission to exit the country. It was ludicrous,
Speaker 1: it was insane. UM. So yeah, I'm sorry to divert
Speaker 1: from your question, but it's very interesting. Poland was extremely
Speaker 1: easy to enter. There was no visa process. They understood.
Speaker 1: They let us through. I think they just barely looked
Speaker 1: at our passports. UM. So yeah, it was it was
Speaker 1: easy when you at that point, like obviously had no
Speaker 1: plans or places to go, and they could they house
Speaker 1: you with some kind of refugee housing that they put
Speaker 1: you in. Uh not when I was there, Um, they
Speaker 1: did do that. They did implement that about twelve hours
Speaker 1: after I arrived. Um. But when I arrived, we were
Speaker 1: greeted immediately pretty much right out of the border facility
Speaker 1: with donuts and tea um. And so they gave us donuts,
Speaker 1: they gave us tea UM. And then they said, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a bus to Premishill, which is the city about
Speaker 1: fifteen kilometers west of the border, um where all the
Speaker 1: refugees are gathering. And they said there's a bus the
Speaker 1: Premiership at least every fifteen minutes. And we got on
Speaker 1: that bus um and then we end up we arrived
Speaker 1: in Premiershill and at that time refugees were responsible for
Speaker 1: their own accommodation. We managed to book a room in
Speaker 1: a whole tell with eight other refugees um in the room. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so I was sleeping in this this room with
Speaker 1: eight other refugees. They didn't want to talk to me.
Speaker 1: They were kind of despondent. They lost everything, and so
Speaker 1: they were just very sad the entire time that I
Speaker 1: was there. Yeah, but to answer your question about housing
Speaker 1: real quick, uh, about twelve hours after we arrived, they
Speaker 1: began setting up tents for the refugees, and that is
Speaker 1: where many of the refugees are living now. Intense Okay,
Speaker 1: it's that you know, that's a Polish government or the
Speaker 1: Red Cross or is that citizens of Poland. I have
Speaker 1: no idea which organization did that, but I can tell
Speaker 1: you that I did not see a single Red Cross
Speaker 1: or United Nations representative while I was in Poland. Okay. Interesting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they can be sometimes a little slow to react and yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So you then stayed in that hostel, you weren't able
Speaker 1: to really talk to the people there because understandable, they
Speaker 1: probably had a very very difficult twenty four hours and
Speaker 1: we all had had Yeah, I mean, no talking was
Speaker 1: being had pretty much. Did you get a sense when
Speaker 1: as you met the people walking there, crossing the border,
Speaker 1: et cetera, where people did they have plans to be gone?
Speaker 1: From Ukraine. Were they thinking where can I stay for
Speaker 1: a long period of time? Were they thinking I'm going
Speaker 1: to wait this out in Poland and see? Um? I
Speaker 1: was pleasantly surprised that a good half of the people
Speaker 1: that I spoke to in that in that convoy, in
Speaker 1: the refugee caravan had relatives either in Poland or elsewhere
Speaker 1: in Europe. Um, And so they were all they had
Speaker 1: all called their relatives and they had arranged them to
Speaker 1: go to Western Europe and meet their relatives. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: and they've got a place and they're planning to at least. However,
Speaker 1: another half of them have no plans whatsoever, and they're terrified.
Speaker 1: And those are the refugees that I stayed with the
Speaker 1: hotel last night. Um. Is that they're terrified and they
Speaker 1: have no place to go. Yeah, right, and no one's
Speaker 1: really provided them with one yet. No. Yeah, that's difficult.
Speaker 1: And it seems like I don't have to be interesting
Speaker 1: to see how the United States three acts because it
Speaker 1: hasn't really done very much so far. Um. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: I heard that the reason I crossed at that place
Speaker 1: rather than any other places that I heard that the U. S.
Speaker 1: Army was there and I did not see the U
Speaker 1: S Army, and I searched for them and I did
Speaker 1: not find them. So I don't know where the U
Speaker 1: S is. Okay, Yeah, you haven't seen any any evidence
Speaker 1: of like any seeing no sort of n POS or
Speaker 1: government sort of aid for refugees yet then it's kind
Speaker 1: of surprising. As I mentioned, I haven't seen any U
Speaker 1: N representative, any Red Cross representative, any WHO representative. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen any NGO or governmental representatives. I did see,
Speaker 1: of course Polish government representatives at the border, but that
Speaker 1: was about it, right, it said from Polish people. Do
Speaker 1: you get a sense of sort of solidarity? How I
Speaker 1: think talking about so it was actually amazing to say,
Speaker 1: it was heartwarming to see the citizens of Freshman Dell
Speaker 1: are now swamped. Their population has been doubled or tripled
Speaker 1: by the incoming Ukrainian refugees, and yet they are showing
Speaker 1: great amounts of solidarity. I actually attended a solidarity rally
Speaker 1: today um where the citizens of Freshman Dill got together
Speaker 1: and they said ukraine Is are our brothers and putin
Speaker 1: us clearly in the wrong, and we will stand with them,
Speaker 1: we will show solidarity with them, and that that was
Speaker 1: hard warming to say. I talked with a few of
Speaker 1: those Poles at that rally and they said, yeah, we
Speaker 1: knew this was coming and we prepared for it and
Speaker 1: we're ready to take in as many as is necessary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really nice to herrity that these people are sort
Speaker 1: of showing solidarity with each other, in support with each other.
Speaker 1: And yes, yeah, so when you were on your way west,
Speaker 1: I presume that, like the conflict didn't catch up with you, right,
Speaker 1: You weren't to be said, act like indirect fire or
Speaker 1: you see any of that. No, However, there was about
Speaker 1: fifty behind us a bombing. As I mentioned. We did
Speaker 1: not hear it, but there were reports of the fighting
Speaker 1: going on all the time. But it's not catch up
Speaker 1: to us while we were in that h while we
Speaker 1: were in that caravan, and um, it would have been
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying if it had. But I'm glad that it
Speaker 1: did that, right. Yeah. And then so you've been there
Speaker 1: for about a week. Had you previously been doing some
Speaker 1: reporting in Ukraine. I've never done reporting in Ukraine before,
Speaker 1: But when I came to Ukraine and the war had
Speaker 1: not even started, I was mostly just doing interviews with
Speaker 1: civilians about what they thought about the possibility of war,
Speaker 1: about what they thought about the war, and don Bass
Speaker 1: um most a lot of cultural stuff. It was kind
Speaker 1: of boring. I mean not that not that war is
Speaker 1: interesting or fun, but it was not really much of
Speaker 1: a story um So. I was just doing interviews with
Speaker 1: people about basic Ukrainian things, and then the war found
Speaker 1: us so and it seemed to have come as much
Speaker 1: a shock to them as it did to the rest
Speaker 1: of us. As I mentioned, nobody was prepared for war
Speaker 1: until about twenty four hours before it hit, and that's
Speaker 1: when the Ukrainian government said, yes, there will be a war,
Speaker 1: and everybody began sort of to have a sense of
Speaker 1: urgency about them. Did you see any of the citizen
Speaker 1: militias and citizens preparing for defense the people who decided
Speaker 1: to stay. Yes, I didn't see any of the militias.
Speaker 1: But I was went into a Ukrainian gun shopping Kiev
Speaker 1: and there was a line almost off the door. People
Speaker 1: were buying guns, um And I asked one of the
Speaker 1: people on the line, why are you buying a gun?
Speaker 1: And he said, if the Russians come, I want to
Speaker 1: be prepared. So a lot of people are buying guns
Speaker 1: privately in Kiev at least as of last week, okay,
Speaker 1: so that they weren't wait for the government to supply
Speaker 1: then they were supplying themselves with guns. I believe. I
Speaker 1: believe the government supply was a rather um my sudden decision.
Speaker 1: I don't think the ukraining people were counting on it.
Speaker 1: And so they were supplying themselves and then buying like
Speaker 1: like collectionkov To rifles, and we talked about hunting rifles
Speaker 1: and yeah, you can't buy flashing cobs in the gun store.
Speaker 1: They were buying sort of hunting rifles and shotguns Jesus. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: really under equipped, all right, So they were just prepared
Speaker 1: to trying to get anything they could get their hands
Speaker 1: on to look after themselves and their families. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: bought peper spray. Yeah better than nothing. Uh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah there was there was Did you see, like
Speaker 1: the people you walked with with it, did families tend
Speaker 1: to leave as a whole or did did some folks
Speaker 1: so say I'm going to stay behind and fight, or
Speaker 1: I'm going to stay behind to stay and look after
Speaker 1: a house and you should leave. Didn't get the center
Speaker 1: that the vast majority of people traveling were families as
Speaker 1: a whole. There were very few single travelers or partial
Speaker 1: families traveling. It was I think that people wanted to
Speaker 1: stick together, and so it was the vast majority of
Speaker 1: people traveling were families. Okay, yeah, yeah, so they all
Speaker 1: stayed or left. Do you get a sense of how
Speaker 1: many people you said about two thousand people at the border,
Speaker 1: like of what protortion of the city decided to leave
Speaker 1: for Poland? Not all the people that the border were
Speaker 1: from leviv Um. A lot of them have been traveling
Speaker 1: since that morning from Kiev, uh in other cities in
Speaker 1: uh central western Ukraine. Um So, yeah, I was talking
Speaker 1: to people at the border, and a lot of them
Speaker 1: were from Kiev, A lot of them were from zephyr Ziza.
Speaker 1: I'm pronouncing that wrong. A lot of them were from
Speaker 1: turner Pill or Ivana, frankisk Um or Odessa and uh
Speaker 1: so I would not have any sort of conjecture on
Speaker 1: what percentage of the city. Also, still pretty early in
Speaker 1: the crisis, uh because it was still the first day
Speaker 1: and it was fewer than twenty four hours after the
Speaker 1: invasion began. So I imagine the numbers are a lot
Speaker 1: higher now. When you were getting us, right if you
Speaker 1: were traveling, et cetera, where you like on what Apple?
Speaker 1: What people on Twitter? Like, how are they getting news
Speaker 1: of what was happening? Everybody, and absolutely everybody was completely
Speaker 1: dark during the walk, um because I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but there was no sense of cell reception, there was
Speaker 1: no sense of data reception, there was no sense of
Speaker 1: Internet connection at all during the walk. And so everybody
Speaker 1: I met, we we asked, we asked everybody we met,
Speaker 1: do you have any news? And they said no, do
Speaker 1: you have any news? Um? So nobody had any news
Speaker 1: until we got to the border. Some people had news,
Speaker 1: but for about about sixteen hours we were completely in
Speaker 1: the dark about what was going on. And that was
Speaker 1: terrifying because when we left the invasion had just begun
Speaker 1: and we didn't get to be updated on the first
Speaker 1: half day. So yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, and then on
Speaker 1: arrival you're faced with this news of this like sort
Speaker 1: of blitzkre egl lifed right bombing and right yes, um,
Speaker 1: I mean we we saw a little it of it
Speaker 1: in the morning that day, well when we when we
Speaker 1: started out, um, but it had really accelerated and amplified
Speaker 1: by the time that we arrived um and the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: were absolutely terrified at this because they did not realize
Speaker 1: what happened on such a large scale. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: very few people did. Okay, imagine if it's in your
Speaker 1: own country, it's petrifying. Were you there when the fighting
Speaker 1: began in the Chernobyl exclusions? I know, were you in
Speaker 1: Poland by then? When did the fighting began in Chernal?
Speaker 1: I believe about twenty four hours after the fighting began,
Speaker 1: big period. I was crossing in the Poland twenty four
Speaker 1: hours after the fighting began, period, So I was probably
Speaker 1: crossing into Poland when that fighting began. Okay. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to know, especially how sort of the older
Speaker 1: people or people who have been alive, like the nuclear accidents,
Speaker 1: you know. But it's wondering how I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: talking to plenty of plenty of older people, and as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, the older people especially were resigned to this
Speaker 1: because during the Soviet times, during the cold for the
Speaker 1: sort of thing was common, um, And so the older
Speaker 1: people knew what was going on, and the younger people
Speaker 1: were the ones who were more panicking. That's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they said they've been raised with a fear of that
Speaker 1: I suppose, right, and this happened in too, like this
Speaker 1: is the biggest refugee crisis since nineteen eight nine, because
Speaker 1: in nine nine, when all the republics fell in the
Speaker 1: Warsaw Pact, so many people starched to the roads, and
Speaker 1: so the older people were used to that kind of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: But as I mentioned, the younger people were not so right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, it's different reactions, I guess. And it's
Speaker 1: very young people obviously unable to understand what's going on,
Speaker 1: and beyond their leaving their homes, which is said right,
Speaker 1: and especially the little children had no idea what was
Speaker 1: going on, and it was impossible to explain to them,
Speaker 1: so nobody did, um. And so I can't imagine how
Speaker 1: terrifying this must have been as a child, not knowing
Speaker 1: why you had to walk dozens of hours in the
Speaker 1: cold carrying everything had. Yeah, it's always the saddest thing
Speaker 1: to see children in those refugee situations when we obviously
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on and didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 1: And right, yea, hopefully they're all safe, Hopefully they're in Poland,
Speaker 1: hopefully they can go to safe places. I made several
Speaker 1: contexts during this trip. And as I mentioned, only one
Speaker 1: of one of them has gone back to me, So
Speaker 1: I hope the others get back to me soon. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's tough, but you've got the sense of everyone since
Speaker 1: they weren't turned back, per say, they just might be
Speaker 1: sort of not in touch because their phones don't charged
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's either their phones aren't aren't charged,
Speaker 1: or in the men men's case, they were sent to
Speaker 1: the East, or they're too busy trying to arrange accommodations
Speaker 1: or food for themselves or something. I mean, everybody was
Speaker 1: just very busy trying to survive. Yeah, so I don't
Speaker 1: blame them if they don't, if they don't hop on
Speaker 1: social media, Yeah, yeah, of course. And of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did very very stressful time for everyone. Did you
Speaker 1: did you hear of anyone who has been sent to
Speaker 1: the east the second hand or like three people you
Speaker 1: met people who are at the front already. Um, I
Speaker 1: do not have any contacts of anybody who was sent
Speaker 1: to the East. From what I understand, the Ukrainian Army
Speaker 1: has a strict uh communication social media sort of policy,
Speaker 1: and so none of these soldiers that I met one
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to me. I did not talk to
Speaker 1: any Ukrainian Army soldiers in uniform because they had a
Speaker 1: very strict policy. They could not talk to me, and
Speaker 1: too I could not get their contacts for much of
Speaker 1: the same reason. Okay, so they didn't want to talk
Speaker 1: to you, an, I didn't want to talk to anyone.
Speaker 1: They were just looking for you know that, they were
Speaker 1: just they were very stern and they did not want
Speaker 1: to talk to anybody. So I talked to zero soldiers
Speaker 1: in uniform during this experience. Okay, yeah, so where are
Speaker 1: you now? You've you've gone further west west? Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's right. I took a long bus ride to crack
Speaker 1: Off today. Um, and so I'm now crack Off, Poland. Okay,
Speaker 1: how folks dealing? Is it different there being a little
Speaker 1: bit more distant. I already talked to a few people,
Speaker 1: and uh, well it's a Saturday night. They're going out
Speaker 1: to drink, and they they're saying, well, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: terrible that this war is happening two fifty niles east
Speaker 1: of us, but what are we supposed to do about it?
Speaker 1: So they're going out and drinking. So it's this very
Speaker 1: detached sense here and crack out. Not the same as
Speaker 1: it was in freshmanvill Yeah. Interesting to people are living
Speaker 1: their normal life and it's just it's a news item
Speaker 1: for them. It's they're not worried about any potential spill
Speaker 1: over a fallout, right, Okay, yeah, they're not worried. Nice
Speaker 1: and well you do you plan to stay there? What's
Speaker 1: what's next to you? So I actually just booked a
Speaker 1: flight uh an hour ago. I'm going to be flying
Speaker 1: back to the States on Marsh the first. Okay, great, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can. You can come back and presubably you're
Speaker 1: like your US passible holders that you could just get.
Speaker 1: That's how you go through being conscripted, etcetera. I am
Speaker 1: not I'm not carrying the US pass right now. I'm
Speaker 1: carrying an Italian passport um because I'm also a citizen
Speaker 1: of Italy and I was told before I left by
Speaker 1: some friends in the intelligence community that it would look
Speaker 1: significantly less suspicious to carry an EU passport than an
Speaker 1: US passport. So I bought the U passport. Nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you can travel free d d yes, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you know if Yukrainian people can creble once? Because
Speaker 1: once they're in Poland. Can they then move through the
Speaker 1: Shangan's own freely. Ukraine is not a member of the EU,
Speaker 1: They're not a member of Shangan. I do not believe
Speaker 1: they can move really, right. I just wondering, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they would be I don't know how their passports would
Speaker 1: be checked if they're going across some of those land
Speaker 1: boarders that I think. I do know that this was
Speaker 1: it was an emergency situation yesterday, and so that's why
Speaker 1: they work just very personally checked, but I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: strictor usually. Yeah, I wonder what they would be like
Speaker 1: if they tried to exit Poland or if Hill right,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going to happen to them, No,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I'm guessing there's been no communication of
Speaker 1: that that you've seen, either right leg of what they
Speaker 1: should do or how to apply for asylum or anything
Speaker 1: like that. I have talked to a few people. They
Speaker 1: say that they're banking on those countries being empathetic to refugees,
Speaker 1: and I understand. I think that countries will be empathetic
Speaker 1: to refugees. Yeah, yeah, said, do you certainly hope they will?
Speaker 1: So they're just gonna hope that those countries, the ones
Speaker 1: who don't have a country to go to. You get
Speaker 1: the senswer Yeah, that they'll they'll apply for asylum wherever
Speaker 1: they can find a safe place. That's right, um, And
Speaker 1: I believe that countries Western European countries that have been
Speaker 1: very vocally pro Ukraine recently, UM, will take them in.
Speaker 1: So I think that they'll they'll be safe. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: good to hear. I know I've seen estimates of up
Speaker 1: to five million refugees, which would be I mean, Germany
Speaker 1: absorbed a million people from Syria, right, it's not Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not impossible for Western European countries do that at all,
Speaker 1: but it will, but it would still be a catastrophic crisis,
Speaker 1: the worst than I needed. So yeah, I have to
Speaker 1: hope it doesn't get to that. You get the sense
Speaker 1: people are still flowing across the border. I know you're
Speaker 1: a bit yes, I think for me, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: weird because you want to believe that what you experienced
Speaker 1: and what the people around you've experienced was a one
Speaker 1: time thing, that it was a one time incident, that
Speaker 1: it was one caravan. But this is happening constantly and
Speaker 1: it will continue to happen constantly for weeks. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: trains and across the border, things like that that people
Speaker 1: can take or is it solely yes. So when when
Speaker 1: I said that, I went to the train station and
Speaker 1: the leave and there were no trains, what was really
Speaker 1: happening is, yes, there were trains, but all the trains
Speaker 1: until March March were booked so okay, so yeah, people
Speaker 1: can't take those trains across that kind of thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: if they tried to book right now, they won't be
Speaker 1: able to find a booking for a while. Okay, they're
Speaker 1: already booked up. And by the way, here in crack Out, Um,
Speaker 1: the first two hostels that I went to, the first
Speaker 1: two places to stay that I went to, were all
Speaker 1: booked up. And I asked why and he said Ukrainian refugees.
Speaker 1: So there are Ukrainian refugees here and crack Out Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: people are moving for it. I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 1: people want to get far aways they can. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: people are just constantly moving lest right now. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they have friends of a family that they try to
Speaker 1: get to it because yeah, and I've been hearing the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian language just constantly on my trip so that's interesting too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for that. It's a really really interesting insight. Is
Speaker 1: there anything else you think from your experience that people
Speaker 1: ought to hear about? Um? No, I believe I've told
Speaker 1: you everything. I've I've really told the story dozens of
Speaker 1: times since it happened, and I really hope that I
Speaker 1: hit all the all the right notes here. UM. If
Speaker 1: you if you had to tell anything to the people
Speaker 1: who were reading or listening to this, Um, Ukraine really
Speaker 1: needs weapons, yes, but they also need humanitarian aid. When
Speaker 1: I was walking all that distance with all those people,
Speaker 1: there was not a single sense of food being provided
Speaker 1: to anyone, water being provided to anyone. There was no
Speaker 1: chance to go to the toilet, there was often no
Speaker 1: chance to sit down. If we could give even a
Speaker 1: chance for these people to eat something, to drink something,
Speaker 1: to have a minute of solace, UM, that would mean
Speaker 1: the world to them. And so I think that we
Speaker 1: need to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees as soon
Speaker 1: as possible. And you you said you didn't see any
Speaker 1: organizations you'd suggest people donate to that you you didn't
Speaker 1: see any of that? Is there anyone you can know?
Speaker 1: And I don't know. I haven't actually done the research,
Speaker 1: and that I probably should. Um, but I I know
Speaker 1: that the Welcome committee in Poland were private citizens. They
Speaker 1: were not part of any energy or anything. They were
Speaker 1: private citizens. Are welcoming awesome? Yeah, I've seen some of
Speaker 1: them organizing on Facebook, so alter I maybe linked to
Speaker 1: some of those or something like that. So people going
Speaker 1: to support right and all right, and then is there
Speaker 1: anything like you'd like to to plug, like do you
Speaker 1: have a you have a Twitter? Right? Is there anything
Speaker 1: else you could tell us what your Twitter is? Um?
Speaker 1: I mean, so the Twitter that I'm using for this,
Speaker 1: which you've probably seen as a temporary one, it was
Speaker 1: not only to cover this crisis. I guess my private
Speaker 1: twitter plugged that. Which is you've seen that as well, probably,
Speaker 1: Um it's just my name. Um, yeah, I guess just
Speaker 1: plugged that. And uh, I mean thank you for everything. No,
Speaker 1: of course, Um it's Mannie Routta with two T s, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: m A r O T t A great. Okay, we
Speaker 1: got that, and yeah, thank you very much. Thanks for
Speaker 1: taking the time to talk. I appreciate a pretty difficult
Speaker 1: couple of days to get some rest. And if there's
Speaker 1: anything else in any developments, please do let me give
Speaker 1: me a shout tyler. Thank you? All right, cheeers mate?
Speaker 1: Do you have a goody me? It could happen here
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