MAY 30 2022 - THE NIGHT TRAIN TO ODESSA
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Summary
This episode is recorded in various points along the route from Lviv to Odessa, and from there to Mikolaev in southern Ukraine. It's a story about how a reporter and his crew were able to get across the border from Ukraine to the EU, and how they managed to get through some of the most difficult border crossing points.
Transcript
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a very special episode for you today something that was completely unannounced and a little bit
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unplanned but here we go this episode is entitled the night train to odessa and is recorded in
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various points along the route from lviv to odessa to mikolaev in southern ukraine you guys
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are really in for something special here before we get into that i want to mention very quickly
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what's going on tposa.com we have the conservative response to the great reset book that's out by
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charlie kirk you go to reset.tposa.com and then if you want to register for turning point the student
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action summit it's tposa.com slash sass use promo code poso all caps p-o-s-o for 25 off that's going
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to be july 22nd to 24th 2022 and president trump of course is a confirmed speaker i've also heard a
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ladies and gentlemen welcome aboard for a very special edition of human events daily
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powered by turning point usa the sound you hear in the background it may sound suspiciously like
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the noises of an ongoing train and the reason for that is because i'm currently recording this
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from the forward compartment of an overnight train between odessa and lviv in ukraine
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so to get everyone up to speed after the events of the detention in davos that happened last week
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we continued to report on the world economic forum we continued to report on the world health
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organization's assembly meeting in geneva having driven about three hours to get there three hours
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back and one day myself and the crew were filming a documentary called the great global
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reset that's going to be available at tposa.com when we get the whole thing up
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i then had originally planned to fly back on friday evening from switzerland directly to the u.s
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but then you know just something about being over in europe already i didn't want to not stop and visit
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from my family's home country of poland so we stopped by to visit poland and to see family for the weekend
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and while we were there i was reaching out to a few contacts on the ground local journalists local activists
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who said essentially that if we wanted to they would be able to get us into lviv
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and then get the necessary approvals to travel all the way forward from lviv where it's quite safe
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into odessa and then into mikolaev and from odessa to mikolaev you're only a little bit further away
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from herson probably about 15 20 miles at the closest point from russian occupied territory
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and when we saw that opportunity and saw that it was being done safely and conducted
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in a legitimate proper manner with proper authorization the ability to get us through
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checkpoints we decided to take them up on the offer and so we did it so we took an overnight train
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uh into odessa from lviv we then took a car we met with local journalists in odessa traveled around
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odessa we're able to visit with a few people then traveled from odessa over to mikolaev and we're able
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to see firsthand the effects of this war up close so let's take it back to the beginning we left my
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cousin's house in poland and traveled to the train station uh shamsil which is just across the border with
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lviv at that point we probably had to wait so we had an eight o'clock train but we probably had to
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wait an hour to an hour and a half in line with the sheer amount of people that were standing there
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waiting to get back into ukraine now these were ukrainians that were on their way back in and we've
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got photos you've got videos on a lot of this but really the entire train was completely sold out
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of people heading on their way back into ukraine now we were told anecdotally by some of the activists
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who uh helped us arrange the tickets and get across they were saying that if you took the road so if
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you tried to take by bus or by car uh and try to drive across the border that you could be facing
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travel times of a six hour wait to a 10 hour wait some people even seeing 12 hours more or longer
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weights and they said the train really was the fastest way to get across and so we took that
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option um wholeheartedly because i've taken the train even in peacetime from belarus into poland and
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one of the big issues there of course obviously is belarus is not a member of the eu it's not part of
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the schengen zone and i've tried taking that border both by bus and by train and clearly clearly by train
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it was absolutely the best way and that was even of course in the time of peace about five years ago
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where there was no war going on whatsoever now interestingly enough uh at the time of this
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recording i have not yet returned back into the eu or back into schengen zone so we'll obviously have
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to see how that goes but we've been told is that a lot of those uh a lot of those restrictions for
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example covid restrictions have been completely dropped when you're traveling between lviv into poland
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or traveling from ukraine into poland and as an american you we were already allowed to travel
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into ukraine for i believe up to 30 days without a visa prior to all of this um but for even now
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they've made it much much easier to get in we were told actually the city of lviv right now is about 25
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americans and going around with some of the activist networks some of the on the ground networks that we
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met with they told us i mean it was predominantly american american run but of course americans ukraine
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working together some of them were faith-based networks some of them were military-based networks
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when i say military-based i mean veterans volunteers that type of thing not official u.s military obviously
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but that being said a large amount of people were veterans and of course those veterans were then taking
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up leadership positions in all of this so took the train across um train actually was very comfortable
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once we got on even though it was a considerably long time to wait to get on now uh i personally
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am not vaccinated and so i've been able to get through all of the eu and then even into ukraine
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without a vaccination or even anybody asking me for any kind of medical status or tests whatsoever so
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hop on that train and that really only took about three hours um very very slow mind you if you were
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driving and obviously the situation were not what it is it would probably only take you about two hours
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drive but it was a very slow train across from ukraine into poland and all along the way even at that
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point the minute that we crossed from ukraine into poland or excuse me from poland into ukraine we
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immediately started seeing these small villages with defensive outposts barricades volunteers of people you
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know just standing outside the guard you know kind of the entrance road to that village or that settlement
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armed with ak-47s sometimes wearing uniforms sometimes wearing kind of makeshift uniforms
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and soldiers just everywhere soldiers on the train soldiers running the customs checkpoint at the border
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soldiers were ubiquitous throughout the entire time that we traveled in and around ukraine
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uh obviously obviously as you can imagine they've considerably beefed up their numbers and briefed
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up their active presence patrols in order to protect against behind the scenes or behind the lines
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activity being on the lookout for spies being on the lookout for subversives that type of thing
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and so really the military presence with those ubiquitous golden armbands was just everywhere throughout ukraine
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when we were on the train at one point actually uh my brother who i was traveling with he we were facing
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separately because they're in different seats and he saw and recounted to me afterwards that when they
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were going around asking us for passports one individual happened to be of russian descent and because
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they had a russian passport that person was actually taken out of their seat and taken out of the car that we
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were sitting in to some other area on the train it was moving at this point and we didn't see that person
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again so that guy got taken away moving forward get into lviv pretty hectic area as you can imagine
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once we got in hustle and bustle people moving everywhere humanitarian aid and tents all over the place
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and free meals free food some basic humanitarian supplies and we're meeting for local contact
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who would give us an address so we were able to find a local um local taxi driver went with the went
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with the nice looking old guy as opposed to the the younger looking guys who uh looked like they might
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screw you over because well when you're a situation like that you want to go with the friendly looking
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older guy if you can if you have your chance and now they do have and this was something that
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i didn't even realize going into it they do have uh bolt cars which is essentially the eastern europe or
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a lot of europe's part uh their version of uber they also had uber up and running so both both bolt
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and uber rideshare apps were running at this time and are running at this time that i'm recording this
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and as a matter of fact the trains were running as well so we saw in the train station the trains not
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only were running to lviv trains were running to kiev they're running to uh dnepr they're running to
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zaporozha they're running all the way down to odessa that's the train that we took and so even all the
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way up to uh harkov so which is right on the border with russia so the trains on at least the western
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side of ukraine are running all the way across to the dnep river and i think that's something that's
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been lost in a lot of the coverage in the war right now you know we hear this settlement's been taken
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that settlement's been taken we hear that uh russia has stopped their advances on harkov and kiev
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and some of the other locations in the south like uh nikolaev and odessa but has hardened their advance
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and is continuing their advance in the donbass region so donetsk lugansk provinces as well as
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across the line from herson which we'll get to but one thing that you know i just completely hadn't heard
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was that the trains are still running all the way across from the border with poland all the way
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essentially all the way to the border with russia in in harkov so if you want to go all the way across
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and if you so choose you know feel free to um we actually had the opportunity to go to uh dnepro city
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right on the dnep river as well as zaporozha and then continuing further south but we just
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didn't have enough time in the schedule to do this and at some point if uh if this all continues i would
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like to come back and do a further tour um run really focusing specifically on ukraine and what's going
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on there in their fight so we get off the train at lviv huge hustle and bustle and i was going
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to order one of those rideshare apps but i had bought a vodafone sim card while i was traveling
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throughout europe and i've been there for about two weeks and this thing worked completely fine got a
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great deal just as we were transferring across the airport in dublin and from there we were not
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able i was able to use it all the way across europe but yep no such luck when i got to ukraine
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so back to the drawing board and had to use good old-fashioned people skills so once again that's
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a good reason to know people skills boys and girls you want to be able to actually talk to people in
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the real world and be able to have a conversation get where you need to go and have the ability to
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just operate without relying on apps on a little piece of glass in your hand you know just regular
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real world discussions and the other thing was making sure we had cash you want to make sure
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you've got cash on hand when you're going to be in a place like that you don't know where your card's
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going to work or something you know your your debit card's going to get locked your credit card's
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going to get locked for being in a different area or you're going to need talking to somebody who
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doesn't have a credit card but you know what cash is king in these situations so first thing we did
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we got off the train got some cash linked up with the old guy with the taxi and he took us off to
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our first meeting in lviv wanted to take a moment to let you guys know about my friends at public
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now for opsec purposes i'm not going to be putting out any information regarding who we met where
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we met them when we met them anything like that but suffice to say a network of americans ukrainians
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very helpful once we got to lviv we were able to receive documentation we were able to
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get a place to stay and we were able to get transport on further down to odessa and mikoliath
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that's kind of the main thing that we were trying to do while we were in lviv but also wanted to meet
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with people that were plugged into some of these local networks figure out who they were but also figure
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out what they were up to and what was the situation in lviv but before i get to any of that just want
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to say you know the city of lviv i was not prepared for how beautiful it was uh it really is just a
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gorgeous old city reminded me a lot of krakow a lot of the city was built during the time when it was
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poland um also a lot of it was built during the time that was in under the austrian empire so that city
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has gone back and forth again and again over the centuries between who is essentially in charge
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of it later then of course after world war ii it became a soviet city and then following the fall
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of the collapse of the soviet union it was given to the newly formed country of ukraine following the
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collapse of world war ii the excuse me the collapse of the soviet union so traveling through lviv just
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again really impressed really stunned by the amount of churches the amount of orthodox and
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also catholic churches we stopped in a good number of greek catholic churches while we were there we
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even went into what's known as the garrison church that's the church where many of the funerals have
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been held for members of the ukrainian military and the armed forces as well as volunteers who have lost
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their lives not just in the recent fighting but going all the way back to 2014 it was very moving to be
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there uh in those churches and these are active churches i want to keep in mind that uh there are
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weddings going on these churches baptisms services at all times and just really amazing to be able to
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be there and to say prayers to pray for the people of ukraine while they're going through this um but also
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when we got to lviv one thing i i really think that hasn't come across in the mainstream reporting
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because most of the mainstream reporters and people uh who are fakers like malcolm nance are in lviv
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and lviv is quite safe uh lviv is a hustling bustling city there is commerce going on in
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the streets it's the city of courtyards and cobblestones so you're traveling through you're
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walking around your cafes open there's jazz bars open there's people playing music on the street um
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just a whole cavalcade of of human life and lots moving parts lots of things going
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on all happening right there on the ground in ukraine and it almost it almost seems like if
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you if you didn't know right if you didn't know that there was a war going on in the other part of
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the country you would almost think that it was just a regular day in the city in lviv rained a little
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bit while we were there but for the most part the sun was shining it was only brief rain
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and there was still this sense though there was this this heaviness that hung in the air
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and everybody you know everybody walked a little bit quicker everybody sort of picked up their pace
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you know they they held their belongings tighter than you might normally think and you know just
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seemed to be this general tension throughout the entire city that being said people were outside
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people were enjoying themselves they were enjoying life and one of our local contacts there told us that
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that's that's normal for lviv that that's the normal pattern of life for the city that it is a very free
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city very open and uh just has a lot of joy of life can't get over the exquisite buildings and
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architecture that we saw in lviv i mean we're talking stuff that rivaled easily easily uh the cities and
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architecture of budapest of which i'm an enormous fan and we're talking gothic baroque style architecture
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you know even just just apartment buildings that look absolutely gorgeous when you look at them
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not all of them obviously you can tell which ones were built and that's that's sort of the story of
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the city um the patchwork of lviv is that you can tell which cities were built or which parts of the
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city were built during which era so the polish era then followed by the soviet era and now the current
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era one thing that was interesting is pretty much every catholic church that we went into while we were
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there even though they're now part of the greek catholic church uh so many of the murals so many of
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the plaques that were up were all written in polish my polish is definitely not the best but i was able
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to muddle my way through through some of it and could clearly clearly tell that it was uh it was written
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in polish and so we spent the better part of the day in lviv and then once we realized that the trains
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were running and the trains were going at the pace they were we decided that we would buy the tickets
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overnight to odessa and see where we could get from there um just before that though we were able to
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meet with some local local activists we had heard about the recent bombing in dinepro at the barracks
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there something like 38 killed and wounded at the military was the national guard barracks in dinepro the
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night before and we would actually been looking to see if we could get overnight train tickets to dinepro
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or possibly take a drive but it looked like the direct tickets were all sold out for that night
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and so if we wanted to we would have had to take a transfer through kiev stay there for about six
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hours so it really would have only given us um maybe half a day at best in dinepro which just really
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wasn't long enough for us to be able to see anything that was on the ground there so we decided to end up
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going to odessa but after meeting with some of the local activists and kind of seeing some of the
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situations that were there you know you're hearing these stories about this humanitarian aid coming
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in through lviv from the west but really it just seemed like such a hodgepodge and a patchwork of
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efforts on the volunteer front and the humanitarian front so you know piles of tourniquets and quick
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clot and bandages just stacked up on a guy's living room couch and you know somebody else saying that
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they were going to throw it in these are americans and and and people saying oh i'm going to throw up
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my car and drive it down to the people who need it right and so your question of course is well
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where's the normal supply line where's the where's the regular supply chain why you know why are you
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driving it directly and taking that risk on and and people saying well either one that the supply
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chain wasn't working or number two we were told a story from a guy who was able to procure ak or excuse me
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ar-15s from a polish arms dealer obviously much more expensive than usual trade them and bring them
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into poland or excuse me bring them into ukraine across the border then hand them to a local defense
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unit that wanted them for defense around kiev and this was a group of ukrainian volunteers and so the
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contact was saying all right well let me see if i can get you weapons but i i'm not sure if i can get
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the ars because we've sold so many of them lately but i can definitely get you ak-47s but then this
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group suddenly said well if you can't get ars then we don't want them and they said oh okay fine and
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then but then they turned around saying oh you know what though we're going to need some of these
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ars for defense of our apartment building in kiev in case the russians come there
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which of course kiev is a city of you know three million people so if the russians are
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if they're at the point that they're at your house in an apartment building in downtown kiev you're
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going to need something a little more powerful than ar-15 at that point but what the guy said
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back to the contact was you know we we also need some humanitarian aid here in kiev and you know to
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which of course raised a bit of a red flag what do you mean you're you're a volunteer defense unit
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what do you mean you need humanitarian aid and then they said well can you just cut us a check for
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about you know about a hundred thousand grivna i say what do you mean a hundred thousand and then
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it dawned on him that about a hundred thousand grivna was the price for and they've been discussing
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five ar-15 so 20 000 grivna each and so basically what he thinks had been happening was that the thing
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was a scam and they were trying to get the ars off of him so that they could sell them and then pocket
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the money in in you know in the middle but because he was saying no that perhaps these guys had already
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promised people that they were going to be getting the ars and if they didn't get them then they
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obviously had a problem on their hands so they were hoping to buy their way out of that problem
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by getting whatever money they had been fronted up front for the ar so asking for the money for the
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exact price of about five ar-15s so this is the kind of stuff that we that we you know we hear
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anecdotally that's going on kind of behind the scenes coming through lviv obviously a lot of
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weapons a lot of material coming through and that's the big point of it right so lviv is where
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the supplies come in through the west and then they are distributed throughout the country following
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that whether by hook or by crook networks of journalists and activists and partisans
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that are working together to put this whole thing together get it down to people who are fighting
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at the front down the front for the most part right now is the dnepper river and then
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beyond that the front contact line in donbass so a lot of the supplies that we were hearing about
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were coming across the line and then going towards that front line in uh along the dnepper river really
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to to maintain that and if you look just on obviously there's been a lot of conflicting maps and
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conflicting information that's come out in terms of where the lines are where things are drawn
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but if you look on the map really the only place that the russian forces and the rebels have been
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able to establish across the dnepper river is right at the mouth of it at herson and so in some of the
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other areas as you go up the river from the black sea and crimea at which are at the end of the river
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on herson at the end of the river all the way up towards kiev and then you know it eventually goes into
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up towards belarus and the russian border so herson is really the only place that the russians have been
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able to cross the river and so a lot of these towns like dnepro and uh zaporozha you know these are
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potentially what people think may be the fallback positions should donbass go down should donbass fall
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this cauldron situation that the ukrainian army and the russian army are fighting out right now
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should they be forced to evacuate retreat they would eventually head back to that dnepper river and that
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would be obviously as a natural boundary and a fallback line for ukrainian forces and the
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volunteers who are going there some other anecdotes that we heard um were going on was at the training
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right so the the conscription is in but it's not that every man who's you know of fighting age i think
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it's 18 to 65 doesn't that doesn't mean you're all in the military automatically so there is a draft in
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place and it's it's kind of like a selective service system where your number gets called at a certain
00:26:11.300
point for now you can go and volunteer for one of the volunteer units or as a man you can wait and be
00:26:18.260
drafted when your number is called and if your number is called you're sent into a training pipeline
00:26:22.420
and that training pipeline we were told consists of about two months of training in field operations
00:26:29.700
in ammunition weapons training as well as based on basic medical training so this is just some of the
00:26:36.660
the stuff that we were learning in lviv obviously lots of communications lots of intelligence fusion
00:26:42.980
cells and then of course the supply lines are being run through lviv and so our next step though was once
00:26:49.460
we realized we had these tickets that we could take the overnight train from lviv to odessa and that it
00:26:56.740
would really only take about 14 hours which when you think of it isn't really that bad we jumped all over it
00:27:05.300
we said yeah we want to take that train and so 8 p.m to 10 a 8 p.m to 10 a.m right so you're up for a
00:27:11.940
little bit you sleep you wake up you're where you need to be so we decided to take that train the
00:27:17.620
overnight train from lviv to odessa well it seems that in president biden's america criminals are exalted
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and so what can i say the people of aviv treated us very very well and helped us out with the train
00:28:43.540
helped us make sure we get there on time make sure we get some food had some provisions for the trip
00:28:48.020
obviously there's not food on the train but what was nice was that for a pretty low price
00:28:54.100
we were able to get a sleeper compartment with two two bunks um not much bigger than i had when i was
00:29:01.220
in the navy to be able to sleep overnight myself and my brother on uh on this train car all the way
00:29:08.420
across to odessa and so it's very nice great air conditioning by the way which for me huge huge plus
00:29:14.980
and i know i know don't worry folks because i had still even on an overnight train to odessa
00:29:22.820
the best night's sleep in the whole wide world thanks to my pillow.com and the fact that i brought
00:29:27.300
my travel pillow along with me so i'm there sleeping on my my pillow sleeping in my undertax
00:29:34.340
yeah that's right i'm sleeping in my undertax need that comfort especially when you're being frisked
00:29:39.140
by the uh by the world economic forum's police force funny enough i ended up being treated better in
00:29:46.500
ukraine by the ukrainian military and the ukrainian police than i ever did when i was at the world
00:29:51.860
economic forum so go figure but take the overnight train signal was spotty at best getting across
00:30:01.620
all the way down past so through moldova it's a longer train that you would think um going
00:30:08.660
in a straight line because you can't go in a straight line from laviv to odessa via train
00:30:13.060
because moldova's in the way so you've got to go all the way around moldova but i'd always wanted to
00:30:17.540
be able to see the black sea myself when i was in the navy i was a uh i was a paycom guy china guy
00:30:24.100
so doing given all the focus there's been on ukraine all the focus there's been on odessa over
00:30:29.940
the last decade i said i got to go down and see it for myself i got to go see what's going on
00:30:35.300
so we hopped the train probably the whole first car ahead of us was soldiers um and then we got on
00:30:43.140
ourselves and we were in we were in car number two and we're able to go down had an excellent night
00:30:48.020
really great night um of course that's the american in me talking when i say oh the wi-fi was going in
00:30:53.140
and out right so i've got a you know a hot spot set up through my sim card because i was able to get
00:30:57.220
that local ukrainian sim but right the the signal was spotty going in and out as we were coming across
00:31:03.860
and so good night all the way through coffee on board the train you know pretty not the most
00:31:09.940
austere conditions you can think of uh i've been on i've been on overnight boats you know in ferries
00:31:15.700
in china that were far far worse than this but the fact that we were able to get a sleeper compartment
00:31:20.260
really really helped us out for ourselves i'm actually recording this in a sleeper compartment on
00:31:25.540
the way back right now and what i did was because they didn't have any individual sleeper compartments
00:31:33.140
what i did was i bought four tickets there's four beds inside them so i bought four tickets so we'd have
00:31:38.580
the room to ourselves so it's just me and kevin and uh actually the room next to me was empty so i
00:31:44.580
ended up uh i'm recording in there and he's he's resting right now but we took we're taking the
00:31:49.860
overnight train from lviv to odessa great ride all the way through very smooth love the air conditioner
00:31:56.180
had plenty of food you know plenty of water all the way through so we were fine we get in
00:32:00.660
in there the train station odessa and pop out immediately place is crawling police law enforcement
00:32:11.140
territorial defense and armed forces as you can imagine at one point um facetiming with tanya now
00:32:18.180
tanya didn't stay with us uh tanya stayed behind to uh she basically found a hotel room up in
00:32:27.060
the tatra mountains which are part of the carpathian mountain range in slovakia so she stayed at this
00:32:32.500
you know mountain chateau not far from krakow about two hours out of krakow and we uh we've journeyed
00:32:38.580
further into odessa so at that point doing a face time with her just to let her know we got in safe
00:32:45.460
that everything was fine no problem totally on schedule get approached by officers at the platform
00:32:50.580
why are you recording where are you going what are you doing we explained we're media i showed
00:32:55.220
him i was talking to my wife um she was able to speak to them ukrainian explain the situation
00:33:00.500
and they said okay they understood and let us let us go on about our way at that point we were met by two
00:33:06.180
local contacts in odessa and they said what we can do is if you want we will take you around odessa but
00:33:13.540
also we can hop in the car and because we've got the documentation make it through the checkpoints
00:33:22.100
and drive all the way up to mikolayev mikolayev about an hour and a half depending on how you
00:33:28.420
drive looking at the map is closer towards the herson region and herson region is currently occupied
00:33:35.860
by russian and rebel forces mikolayev is really the last ukrainian controlled city before you get to
00:33:44.260
herson and so i said well of course i said at first you know is it safe and he said we're not going to do
00:33:49.220
anything unsafe we're going to go through but you know you have to understand keep your head on a
00:33:54.740
swivel pay attention to what's going on and do as we say said sure no problem so we make it through
00:34:00.980
i can't even imagine i can't even begin to tell you how many checkpoints we had to go through
00:34:05.220
just to get to mikolayev that town is completely on lockdown uh we're talking at least
00:34:12.020
at least half a dozen checkpoints where we actually stopped and had to show our passports
00:34:19.620
um in order to get to mikolayev and probably another you know another half dozen just makeshift
00:34:27.140
checkpoints so we had to drive past where people were still waiting while armed and so keep in mind
00:34:31.780
that the russians have attempted to take odessa once they've also attempted to strike out at the highway
00:34:38.820
that's between mikolayev and odessa and so and they've attempted to take they've uh attacked
00:34:43.780
mikolayev multiple times and so this is a place where now that now just a full disclosure there were
00:34:50.340
no attacks while we were there but we have heard about recent attacks recent shelling uh some attacks
00:34:57.140
going on even counter attacks being reported along the line towards herson outside of the city and so we
00:35:03.780
wanted to get some of that local color and understand what was happening understand what it's like to live
00:35:07.860
in a city that's essentially under siege uh and even the support of odessa although it's under siege
00:35:14.980
itself i haven't talked too much about odessa because we didn't really spend that much time there
00:35:19.220
there's a lot going on there's still you know they have the beaches open for the most part we're
00:35:24.180
downtown the beaches are open if you're outside of town all those beaches are closed and there was a
00:35:29.380
sign up warning about mines on the beach so mine implements that have been installed at many of the
00:35:34.980
beaches so various areas you're not allowed to go to the beach some people still though we're
00:35:39.140
jumping off the docks people are having a nice time in odessa walking up and down the pier
00:35:44.900
getting food getting hamburgers getting ice cream with their kids and again with that same tension
00:35:51.700
and you realize that people when they have the nice uh the nice weather you want to relieve that
00:35:56.660
tension you want to burst that bubble a little bit so being able to go to the shore being able to jump
00:36:00.500
in the ocean be able to hang out with your friends just grasp on to a little bit of normalcy amid
00:36:06.980
crazy times amid war that's what we saw going on people walking around their families and of course moms
00:36:13.300
and dads looking nervous and looking anxious and i gotta say as a father myself you know two little boys
00:36:24.100
i can't even begin to imagine what it must be like waking up every morning i'm speaking about odessa
00:36:29.220
at this point but waking up every morning and really speaking in general and not knowing if you're going
00:36:35.860
to have to run not knowing if there's going to be an air raid not knowing if there's going to be
00:36:42.180
some shell that or other type of weapon that could impact near you right and you're living with that
00:36:50.740
constantly day in day out and it's been going on now for three months for three months into this thing
00:37:00.020
and so what else can you say my heart goes out to the people of ukraine
00:37:06.340
and for those who are interested in raising money for the people of ukraine we're going to find some
00:37:10.980
links we'll put them in the description of this and regardless of your feelings about this war and about
00:37:18.420
which side you know there's obviously very heated discussion of about which side started it or
00:37:23.380
which side's in the right and which side's in the wrong but you got to put that aside for a second
00:37:29.300
and you got to understand that there are real people that are being affected by this thing
00:37:33.380
and there are people who are there just trying to live their lives they didn't do anything wrong
00:37:37.620
they're completely innocent and they are caught up in the middle of it many of them they don't have a
00:37:43.300
place to go they don't have the ability the luxury to be refugees they're stuck they're trying to live
00:37:49.540
they're trying to live their lives while all this is going on around them and so that right there
00:37:55.460
goes to show you not only the tenacity of the people but the real heart that people have they
00:38:04.420
feel like they're fighting for their homes they really do and you see it everywhere you see it the
00:38:08.660
flags up you see billboards up people walking around with pins people walking around clothing
00:38:15.860
you know speaking ukrainian not speaking russian because of course during the soviet union time
00:38:20.660
period everyone was required to speak russian both in school and in business and you know in the
00:38:25.860
workplace but now there's been a big push for the ukrainian language and so while a lot of people are
00:38:30.900
still still speaking both and there's a lot of similarities um you really do hear a lot of people
00:38:35.940
speaking the ukrainian language a lot more and so these austere conditions that you're in
00:38:42.420
living day to day it's has to take a toll it just has to take a toll and that's something that
00:38:48.580
that really struck me that really struck me um emotionally seeing that and just thinking about
00:38:54.980
myself my own situation if my kids were there my wife was there what would i do
00:39:01.060
how would i go about every day and so and there's honor in that there's absolutely honor in defending
00:39:08.100
your family defending your home you can't deny it so even in the city of odessa almost every single
00:39:15.780
street corner pillboxes barricades fighting positions and bunkers bunkers dug in even in the
00:39:24.340
city parks you see that you saw that at some of the city parks in lviv as well why because in case
00:39:29.860
something happens you'd be able to run into the bunker as fast as possible we saw bunkers up and
00:39:34.100
down the highway as we were driving to mikolaev just something hey something happens you're worried
00:39:41.220
that your your car might be targeted or might be hit not targeted but you know hit up caught up in
00:39:46.420
something caught up an explosion park your car run out get into the bunker as fast as possible you
00:39:51.220
might just survive it might be enough to protect you against shrapnel against or if a bomb isn't
00:39:57.540
hitting you um directly you might be able to live you might be able to make it through but just
00:40:03.380
understanding that this is something these people have to live with day in day out they're not they're
00:40:09.140
not just coming in to report on it and then being able to go back home no for them that is their home
00:40:15.060
and for them this is something that they have to live with constantly so last week i got detained
00:40:23.540
at the world economic forum by the police of the world economic forum there in switzerland
00:40:29.300
but luckily for me while i was in detention even though i was frisked i was wearing my under attack
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brand boxer shorts and folks let me just tell you something if you've got to be frisked by the world
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get under attack well i mentioned before about how the minute we left odessa the first thing we had to
00:41:39.940
do was show our documents at the first checkpoint and this went on again and again for the entire hour and
00:41:48.740
a half as we drove along coastal road there towards the city of mikolayev now mikolayev has been attacked
00:41:57.620
already most recently passed in march about two months ago at that point it seemed like the russians
00:42:04.500
fell back tried to consolidate their forces more towards the donbass region but they do still receive
00:42:13.300
intermediate fires in and around mikolayev and mikolayev of course as i said before is the last ukrainian
00:42:20.500
controlled city in the south just before the front line between mikolayev and herson
00:42:28.740
as we drove down that coastal road we could see the black sea to one side salt marshes to our left
00:42:37.380
a lot of open grassland farms settlements here and there little villages dotted the the the landscape cows
00:42:45.620
sheep gas stations still in operation for the most part it seemed as though people were eating
00:42:52.740
it seemed that people had food available when they needed it up and down the roadway but of course
00:42:59.060
multiple checkpoints and even in multiple places along that the road from odessa to mikolayev we saw
00:43:06.900
bollards and hedgehogs that could be deployed you know steel girders in in x patterns that could be
00:43:13.540
utilized at a moment's notice to drop across the highway to stop or at least hinder any type of
00:43:20.900
mechanized advance and as we got closer and closer security grew tighter and tighter and just before
00:43:29.460
we got into the city we stopped we were questioned but again still not detained or frisked like i was
00:43:35.380
when i went into davos to report on there still people just asking for your documents you turn them over
00:43:41.460
say here they are go in so we make it to the city of mikolayev huge industrial city one of the largest
00:43:48.180
shipyards of the black sea is right there uh of course this is where during the soviet times a lot
00:43:55.860
of the black sea fleet was actually built and so a lot of the ships that even uh obviously the russian
00:44:01.460
federation inherited from the soviet union a lot of those ships were built right there at mikolayev
00:44:07.700
the city now controlled by a separate country and so really speaks to the complexity of the situation
00:44:16.660
there on the ground and in this on the situation here in this war that there are these competing
00:44:23.140
claims there's the people who live there there's the government of ukraine there's the government of
00:44:28.260
russia the history there's so many overlapping claims to this area but again i just emphasize the
00:44:35.780
thing that the thing that's not overlapping the thing that's immutable the one factor that's
00:44:39.460
completely immutable are the people caught in the middle so driving around mikolayev our uh our
00:44:47.220
contacts showed us to multiple buildings that had received shelling fire we were able to document those
00:44:53.940
we were able to photo those some of which had just been in recent days um obviously we're not able to
00:45:00.420
tell how the how those areas have been utilized prior to them being hit but we could tell what
00:45:05.700
they were designed for one was one would seem to be a hospital one was a a residential building
00:45:12.500
and another was in an industrial area down by the river now that river that mikolayev is situated on
00:45:18.420
is actually the book river and the book river runs through southern ukraine and then all the way up to
00:45:25.380
right in between poland and belarus the book river forms the current barrier between poland and belarus so
00:45:30.340
one of the largest rivers in eastern europe and it empties out into the black sea there but
00:45:35.220
sort of meets up with what's called the goal of the deneber gulf so that's the gulf of the deneber
00:45:41.380
river the deneber and the bug river both meet and then flow into the black sea eventually right
00:45:46.260
across so mikolayev is right across from crimea in that aspect but atmospherically speaking once we got
00:45:53.140
in to the city of mikolayev um if odessa seemed like a city that was intense this was a team this
00:46:03.300
mikolayev seemed like a city under siege uh military everywhere bunkers everywhere barricades everywhere
00:46:10.820
and yet civilians civilians still moving around um much less people than maroon odessa and certainly
00:46:17.220
far far less people that you would see publicly than lviv but carrying groceries shopping in open
00:46:23.700
air markets almost like uh almost like flea market type situations but uh shopping for groceries shopping
00:46:32.020
for food shopping for the local meats uh one thing that in eastern europe just in general even even
00:46:37.700
outside of wartime even in regular peace time that they do is people will shop for it's not like the
00:46:42.740
american conception of you go to the supermarket on a saturday or sunday and you stock up for the
00:46:48.420
week and you throw everything in your fridge and you just eat it now people in eastern europe they
00:46:51.940
don't do that it's much more farm to table you get up you go out some point in the morning and then you
00:46:56.900
buy the things that you're going to eat through the day you eat that through your day so it's fresh
00:47:01.060
you have smaller refrigerators and then you go out the next morning and do it again
00:47:05.380
so you're buying the food that day food that is either freshly picked uh meat that's freshly freshly
00:47:10.980
butchered fresh eggs it's you know fresh caught fish of course fish being a huge staple of the
00:47:16.420
diet they are rolling the black sea so you still would you still saw some vestiges of that though
00:47:22.660
obviously far diminished from what it would be in normal times and yeah sometimes cars i noticed
00:47:29.540
that cars were um you know not really following the the traffic lights um some car you know some
00:47:35.620
areas you see cars speeding just zipping down the streets um other times cars just putting along
00:47:41.860
saw older cars a lot you know cars that looked like they've been around for 30 40 years
00:47:47.540
but still with original license plates on and they're still going still keeping them running
00:47:52.500
so again speaking to the tenacity of the people the tenacity of the people of this area
00:47:57.140
now we asked at one point of our guys we said well how close can we get
00:48:01.060
you know how close can we get right what's what's the limit um that they put on you and they said
00:48:07.380
look the road to herson is completely blocked off right at the front you need very special permission
00:48:13.220
to be able to get to do that we were on a tight time frame and so we were the closest we were able
00:48:18.500
to get to anything like that was actually being on the road of the herson highway which leads out of
00:48:26.180
mikolayev to herson of course right now cut off by russian forces on that front and we've seen
00:48:33.860
even in the past few hours right before we arrived there was a reported counter-offensive
00:48:40.180
by ukrainian forces along the herson line probably about probably about an hour from where we were
00:48:47.140
driving time and there had been intense fighting along that line and that remains to this day to be the
00:48:54.500
contact line but of course you're seeing artillery fires you're seeing missile fires going back and
00:48:59.940
forth along that line some of which which we were able to document and i'll have the videos and photos
00:49:05.300
from this up afterwards you know just wanted to sit down with you guys while i was on the train here
00:49:10.980
report all of this get it back out while my memories were fresh so that i would have it down
00:49:17.780
and hey gives me something to do while i'm on the train right so even in there even in the city of
00:49:24.980
mikolayev the city under siege families children animals pets you got people there you got people
00:49:38.980
that just really remains for me to be my main focus that for the humanitarian organizations the
00:49:48.180
volunteers that are willing to go in harm's way to put themselves in harm's way to be able to get
00:49:54.100
supplies medical supplies food keep that open and just the workers right we saw so many trucks
00:50:01.220
obviously driven by truck drivers and that goes to show you right even in you know we saw the trucker
00:50:06.180
convoys right being held up in canada some were held in the united states as well and you saw how
00:50:12.100
they were treated well here we are in a time of war and the ukrainian people are are in a time of war
00:50:17.460
and who is it that's keeping the supply lines moving it's the truckers the truckers who are willing to go
00:50:23.460
in day in day out they know they know that they could be headed in to a potential conflict zone they
00:50:29.140
know they could be headed in um in towards receiving fire if they need be but they went all the way in
00:50:35.460
because they want to be able to keep showing up to work doing what they're doing get the supplies
00:50:40.820
to the people who can't get out and so let's just take a moment just take them i'd like to take a moment
00:50:47.940
to remember not just the people of ukraine but the truckers of ukraine the truckers who are keeping
00:50:54.660
this whole thing going from the salt from the the highest ranking general to lowest ranking private
00:51:00.420
right if you're eating something if you're being protected if you're being aided
00:51:07.780
that something came off a truck so you better thank that trucker
00:51:14.900
ukraine is seen in many ways as the bulwark the buffer between east and west when it comes to europe
00:51:25.460
but also the greater west which includes the united states canada and australia and there on
00:51:30.820
the front lines depending on how you look at it is it a war simply between ukraine and russia or is it a
00:51:39.140
war between the east and the west as we now see russia and china are joined militarily although china and
00:51:49.860
the west are joined economically this is a very strange situation for china to be in where they
00:51:57.300
represent a real military threat to the united states and more more precisely in america's allies in
00:52:04.180
japan south korea but also potentially to the united states which has outposts in okinawa guam singapore
00:52:14.260
philippines off and on so the question then becomes which side is the greater threat now i was at davos
00:52:25.300
last week was able to hear the speech by dr kissinger he said
00:52:32.020
that ukraine should sue for peace with russia and be willing to cede territory
00:52:37.540
i also heard the speech from president zelinski in the q a that he conducted with klaus schwab
00:52:45.860
and president zelinski said that he didn't want to cede a single inch of territory and certainly from
00:52:53.380
the fighting spirit that i saw there on the ground of the people defending their homes in ukraine
00:52:59.300
they did not seem like they were interested in ceding any territory either and so it looks as though
00:53:12.740
which they certainly seem intent to that the fighting will continue and the fighting will continue for some time
00:53:18.740
i don't intend to have any specific overall answers as to
00:53:29.620
what this means i don't prepare i don't want to pretend to say that i did anything special in going
00:53:41.380
i saw an opportunity i was literally in the neighborhood and i wanted to see for myself
00:53:46.500
what was going on on the ground to see what i could see talk to who i could talk to
00:53:53.300
and find out what i could find out on my own without having the filters of twitter and telegram and
00:54:02.900
youtube and rumble and everything else in front of me be able to see with my own two eyes
00:54:08.500
i'm very blessed not only to have been able to do so safely but to have a brother who was
00:54:16.420
willing to come with me same brother kevin who was willing to back me up two years ago
00:54:23.780
almost two years exactly when we went into chas out in seattle reported on there day in day out
00:54:32.980
to see what was actually happening on the ground turn that into a mini documentary
00:54:47.220
my observations musings and some of my initial thoughts of having been on the ground in those
00:54:54.180
various places in ukraine at this time three months into the russo-ukrainian war 2022
00:55:02.820
we'll see what happens both sides do not seem like they're quitting
00:55:11.380
neither side seems ready to give up anytime soon russia is drawing upon their fast natural resources
00:55:18.980
and their military strength population ukraine is drawing on their relations with the west
00:55:26.660
the military alliance there and the humanitarian aid but i do want to emphasize this above all else
00:55:37.620
it is the people that should come first when you're a government your job is to defend your people
00:55:46.420
and defend your national interests in in the interest of those people in the interest of the people
00:55:54.260
that are in your care that are in your stead and that means that your decisions should be made for
00:56:01.140
the good of the people not the good of the elites not the good of the oligarchs
00:56:07.140
not the kremlin not washington dc but for the people on main street if no one speaks for the people
00:56:15.940
do the people do the people truly have a voice in government whether that be the lao baijing of china
00:56:24.820
whether that be the hard-working people of the west people who fly over country as they call it
00:56:32.820
or whether that be the innocent men women and children of ukraine
00:56:39.460
it's jack posobic from human events daily powered by turning point usa coming to you from a night train
00:56:51.700
to odessa ladies and gentlemen as always you have my permission to lay ashore