DAY 1: Arriving in Ukraine During War (24 hour train)
Vladimir Putin has launched a major —— operation again. Today this building was ——. Sounds you can hear behind us is Russian artillery hitting the city. Just wanted to destroy this civilization. - This is my house. - This is your house?
So, what you're saying is this —— is more scary than World War II? Every man will fight. Bits of ——. Explosive smell. This is Russian world. Destruction everywhere. When they go outside, they feel like they're playing lottery with their life.
You and your heart are near. Unexploded —— here, destroyed buildings everywhere, the air raid sirens going off in the background. This one's completely burnt out. It's probably one of the —— cities in the world at the moment.
Let's see how this goes. It's really quite hard for me to convey how many —— holes are here. Now we've been told to stay right here because they expect that a Russian counter artillery...
So as you can see from the title, I'm about to cross into Ukraine, a country at ——, sadly. It's funny, I was there exactly one year ago today. So, I'm gonna head over, currently in Budapest, Hungary, I'm based in Hungary, been watching the —— unfold, got contacts on the ground, gonna go in and see what's going on, you know, we see on the news the clips and things, I'm interested to see more on the ground perspective and meet people, and, you know, see what they're going through, there might be some sticky situations, I have a flak jacket and helmet, protective equipment just in case we get into some dicey situations. Cross the border, get on the train, it's an 24-hour train right now from Budapest to Kyiv the capital of Ukraine.
Let's do this! So, I'll be getting two trains on this 24-hour journey. I'll be getting a train just to cross the border into Ukraine, a standard train, then I'll be swapping over into a sleep train, which will take me all the way to Kiev. The crazy aspect of this journey is going to be that a few of the stations have been —— in Ukraine, even in the west, so luckily, the tracks itself, I've heard are operating, so we're gonna go ahead and there might be some delays, but hopefully, we'll get there, about this time tomorrow morning, it's about 7:20 right now, it's gonna be a hell of a journey, let's go. Okay, so we've been on the train for about four hours now, we're just arriving at the border town, the last town in Hungary called Záhony and then we're gonna cross the border. Hopefully, it goes smoothly, hopefully I'll see you on the other side.
So, this river separates Hungary and Ukraine, so right now crossing into Ukraine here. So, here we are in Ukraine, crossed over, go through passport control now. Just got questioned for like 40 minutes, the train leaves in like two minutes. Okay, so I made it through passport control, it's pretty intense in there, I didn't expect it to be right off the get-go. There are sandbags on the walls because some of the stations along this line that I'm going along today, overnight have been —— and there were sandbags blocking the window.
There was a woman in a wheelchair that just looked completely shocked, I'm not sure if she was coming from the east down to the west to flee into Hungary, but super intense, and the soldiers looked through all my stuff, asked me what I'm doing and things. I do have like a filming permit here, so yeah, that's really lucky that I had that, otherwise I don't know if they would have let me in so, they checked that, they called to Kyiv and everything. Here we are with the yellow and blue trains, very iconic.
Train's open now, two minutes to spare very lucky, otherwise I don't know what would have happened, I would have to go by road maybe, and I know the roads are blocked in places. Anyway, I've got to jump on the train, let's go. So, I made it to my cabin, there's four beds here. Nobody really here, but I presume that once we get to Lviv, because this goes through Lviv, which is the main city of the west, that will pick up lots of people on the way to Kyiv, but of course, there's still lots of people coming this way, not going that way because the worst of the —— is in the east at the moment, but it has been terrible around Kyiv as well, so you know, I'm not sure if people are comfortable with going back there. It was touch and go if I was going to get into the country for a second.
Really nice people, and of course, I understand the security, it makes complete sense, right? I mean, what's going on here, they have to be really strict and make sure the people coming in are the right people with the best of intentions. Let's start this journey all the way to Kyiv. So there was quite a strong —— presence at the border crossing there, a few guys with the —— and things, but I can imagine the further we go in, the stronger that presence will get especially as we start to go east of Kyiv which I plan on doing in these videos. so it's going to be getting more, and more —— filled, and more destruction and things I can imagine. Had a few interactions with people, the —— was super kind at the border crossing they were just making sure everything was in an order like I was saying but, you know, I asked for some directions from some locals, and they were very forthcoming, the woman checking the tickets on the train is very friendly, really feel the strong sense of camaraderie here, it's quite beautiful. Okay, so here we are, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Last night we went through Lviv on the way here on the train, and there were air raid sirens going off. There is like lots of signs of normal life and things, like it seems, feels quite peaceful, you do see sandbags and things around, but there was an airstrike here yesterday that —— somebody and injured several, right in the city, so it just goes to show that you never know what's gonna happen, so yeah, gotta be vigilant and things. The cops pulled me aside in that train station before and like told me to delete some of my footage, they weren't happy at all, so yeah, gotta be cautious of that. I have been to Ukraine many times in the past, but this is a different Ukraine. So, I'm gonna go and find my apartment, check in, then we're gonna meet somebody, go meet some more people, let's go.
Okay, so we're here with Stas, Stas is going to be showing me around while I'm here in Ukraine. Where are we heading now, Stas? We're heading out to the place that got hit by airstrike last night, it's in Kyiv city center. So we've just arrived at the street and all the windows are smashed on this building up here they're replacing build it, they're replacing glass to the left of me, so this has just happened, and the main part of the —— was over here, we're crossing the road, lots going on here. So you can see the building behind me here, all the windows are smashed out, but I believe the —— went into this building here. You can see it's just completely taken out this concrete wall, not the street, the street they're already cleaning it up so quickly though, it's pretty incredible how fast they get to the cleanup and there's guys in there, ——, and people with I think explosive detector to find out if there's any remnants.
So right here just next to the building there's bits of —— literally just sitting on the side of the road here, it's absolutely insane. So Stas, you said that like you're kind of desensitized to this? Yeah, I am desensitized because it's just a building, I mean if I would see people, and their pain, and their emotions then later, I could understand it myself better, but for me right now it's just a building, we can make better buildings. You just went past your university on the way here right? So, you grew up here, you went to university and now in 2022 there's buildings getting hit by missiles and there's pieces of —— on the ground in your city where you grew up isn't that, I don't know like how you can put that into words, you know. I can't believe that someone did that on purpose, for me, definitely was not on purpose, but I can't believe that it was planned, so for me in my mind I'm thinking that, okay someone's just flying and thought, okay I'll just —— one rocket anywhere and that's it. Probably it was more like they want people to suffer, or what did you achieve with such act, it's hard for me to understand, like probably he want to terrify people, like a terror just to show that you can ——, that's why I think more than someone randomly put this just while passing I don't know, from Belarus, somewhere to the southern Ukraine on the plane because their base is there, their —— base they start their planes quite often from Belarus they were passing, maybe they decided just to —— it because it doesn't make any sense.
So we've come down the road a little bit and there's an even more destroyed building. You can see the bottom here, it looks like it's going to collapse this way, so we don't want to spend too much time here, pretty extreme. Quite a modern building as well, just at the bottom a huge hole in it.
We just briefly spoke to a man that owns that bakery there and asked him if he wanted to talk, but he said he's just emotionally distraught. He's been talking to the ——, and lawyers, and things all day. So this is like a look-out here, and I've seen these all over the city some of them are old checkpoints and then some are set up like this I guess just in case here has a —— hole there, I guess. There's an old lady here cleaning up the glass from the blast out from the windows. What's really impressive is how fast the cleanup is, like they're already cleaning up the roads and everything and just trying to get things back to normal as fast as possible. So we're just driving to get petrol because there's quite a desperate fuel shortage in Ukraine at the moment, Stas.
Yeah, right now in Kyiv it's a bit difficult, you need to spend more time to get some gas, probably need to stay in the line more. You need to know where to go to save some time, otherwise you can stuck badly. Right now, it's around one o'clock afternoon, not sure if there are still some petrol in the gas stations probably by two it will be all out, and you need to wait until tomorrow. We're running out of petrol now, right? We are running out of petrol, yeah, now and we know also why it happens because Russia keep on —— the oil storages on the territory of Ukraine. So we've got zero Ks left of petrol, and how far is the petrol station? - Two kilometers, one kilometer. - Okay, cool.
So we've passed a few petrol stations, and they're all just like huge lines everywhere and like people just lining up to get fuel, there's somebody filling up a huge water jug full of petrol here but there is a limit, and sometimes you can wait for hours for petrol. So we're here with Stas friend, Ifgeni. You were just telling me something interesting about why we have to take this bridge and not the other bridge. Yeah, we are taking this bridge but not the Paton bridge because everybody thought that Russians will try to cross the bridge from the left bank of River Dnipro from the left part of Kyiv to the right where all the governmental buildings and structures are located, so because of that, they closed this bridge, put the barricades and iron stars, so —— cannot pass through and —— are also there, so it's closed, and some other bridges also closed, and we need to take this bridge with stop control where some policemen, some other guys made some kind of fortifications, so we're just crossing this bridge. Now because we could manage to throw back Russians to the borders they are not around Kiev right now, and it's actually not —— right now.
Just gonna go meet some —— guys who are gonna tell me about the area and things, and what to be careful of because on the outskirts of Kyiv there's like booby traps because we're going to be venturing to some destroyed towns and things, so we're going to meet them and get their advice of roads to take because there's —— underneath toys and things like this, but we'll learn more soon. Streets of Kyiv are really quite quiet, this is one of the busiest cities in Europe in terms of traffic, some of the worst traffic in Europe here. there's lots of —— and sandbags, especially around the central area, it's normally quite busy with people, there's sandbags around statues and things, but it does seem somewhat calm, anyway, you can see I'm out of breath walking, gotta go pretty quick meet these guys then we'll go from there. We've come to this kind of base area and there's sandbags here, right? Yeah, yeah, a basement is inside and all the names actually covered, so for example, if Russian drones will try to photo something in order to know where it's located or something like... - Then they can't know the location. - They can't see, yeah, yeah. This is made by just ordinary Ukrainian people, it's not —— stuff, but it can help, Russian white —— vehicles cannot pass.
Let's go inside. And then we met one of Stas friends who works alongside the ——, and he was explaining what happens in this base, so they train new members of the —— and get them ready for the front line. —— squad for soldiers where we sleep a little, train. He was mentioning the biggest threat to Kyiv at the moment is air threat, he was also saying that Russian —— drones are a big problem because they're lacking some of the equipment that they really need to —— down Russian drones. We have a problem with drones, with Russian drones, we don't have tools, and we cannot —— drones.
Understand. He's saying that they really need equipment from the international community, then he offers to take me upstairs to see the monitoring of radio frequencies. In radios there's Russian speaking, we choose radio waves. So you're trying to intercept the Russian calls. We listen Russian calls. You're happy for me to film in here because you're leaving this location, right? Tomorrow you leave.
Yeah, this is the last day of this location, and you can to film free because it's the last day. He was a really nice guy and really welcoming, and seemed very proud of the work they do here. - Well, thank you very much for your time, I know you're busy. - Good luck. - If we need to help you... - I appreciate it. And how often do you intercept a Russian call? In the night you can come and listen with us with Stas here.
- Radio is more bad in the days and more good in the night. - Okay so they're talking more at night. Cool, so Stas, would you like to just ask what this man does exactly? We go around with our group and carry out orders as part of the Ukrainian ——. He's been fighting on the front lines, would he like to describe some of the things that he's seen out there? We have prevented Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city from becoming occupied, now the task is holding the position. The Russians try to push through the defense, we need to offer resistance in that direction not to give it up, so that we would not have to take it back later. Basically, this is the fighter's mood now, the fighters have a good fighting spirit now. We want to ——.
Can I ask one more question? Can you ask why is he proud to be a Ukrainian? Because Ukrainians are a talented nation with history. We are warriors, we've got it in us, it lives in each one of us, we need to try to protect ourselves. Pride really is a feeling, it's hard to describe in words. So we've come right into the center of Kyiv basically. Here is Independence Square behind me here, pretty amazing to be here. There are signs of life coming back, but there's sandbags and there's the ——, heavy —— presence everywhere, all over there's guys in camo in black with —— and things, so this is obviously a very vital high security area for obvious reasons.
Amazing to be here, really, after what's been going on the past months. So we've come for a walk, and there's statues that have been covered in sandbags just in case it gets —— because you want to save the statue right? Yeah because it's a part of Ukrainian culture and these monuments are quite old, and it's like a symbol of Kiev, one of the symbols, so we don't want our symbols to be destroyed and Russians are such a nation which want us to be a part of their culture, and they don't want us to have our own culture. So, they're trying to get rid of yours.
Of everything, all culture, there in Mariupol they have stolen many pictures of famous Ukrainian painters, so we are afraid that they will destroy our culture, we are trying to protect it. - You are a food delivery guy, right? - Yeah. - You work for like an app that does delivery. - Yeah.
And so, you know the city really well. Because I live in Kyiv from my childhood, I was born in Kiev, so I know my city. On the 24th of February, when the Russians invaded, can you describe the difference? It's just from my perspective the city I always used to, you know, the traffic was really frustrating right? Because you spent hours, and you wouldn't get, but now I'm here and there's no traffic. No traffic and blocked posts, and a lot of sandbags on the roads, so right now it's much easier for me for example to deliver.
Yesterday some missiles fired in Kyiv and landed, and kindergarten were ——. What do you think is going to happen over the next few months? Right now, our —— forces threw them back on the Donetsk, Lugansk territories which are occupied right now, they are saying that they are part of Russia or something like, they don't want to be Ukraine it's not true because I know many people from Donetsk and Lugansk which are living there, and they say that they're occupied, that they don't want to live this way they need protection of Ukraine, they want to be a part of Ukraine, they don't want to be a part of Russian world. Maybe if east or west, or other countries will provide us with new technological ——, good —— we will fight for our freedom and take our territories back, and give freedom for our people who live there and want to be a part of Ukraine as it was for years, and they feel themselves Ukrainians. We will remember that we need to help our —— forces, we will fight, everything will be great, and we will win this —— and our freedom. Classic street food in all soviet countries, you can buy it in almost all railway stations. Welcome home.
So here's my little house in Kyiv, I think it's costing me like $20 a night or $30, super cheap. Obviously, there's not many people looking to stay in places, but it's right in the center. So we just went and had some dinner, and then we went back to the —— office, luckily we had access to that, and I was allowed to film there because it's moving tomorrow which means that they don't have to be super cautious about the location and things, so that's like a huge honor to be able to get access to a place like that.
We heard them interfering with Russian radio waves, listening to Russians communicating and sending messages out so people in Ukraine can maybe hook onto it in the radio, and then their job is to kind of corrupt that file, so they'll play music over it, or they'll say something into the microphone and try and get it to play over it, check it out. They send in short waves the Russian propaganda, and our radio destroys this Russian propaganda, and we search, we listen, we check. Can you give me an example of some of the things exactly that they're saying? They say about Mariupol, a Russian position now in Mariupol. They are saying that they, for example, —— activities, or what they achieved, or what are they going to achieve.
They're saying they're winning Of course, it's about their achievements, doesn't matter whether it's true or not, it's just a propaganda that everything is going good and for Russians they're achieving good results. I think maybe 10% of it, it's true, but usually, it's lies. Absolutely fascinating and amazing to get that access and yeah, heavy day, starting with the 24-hour train trip going through Lviv as soon as we get into the country almost, and we hear the air sirens and then getting here and hearing the news that there was a —— strike while I was on the train, in Kiev, sadly somebody was —— and people injured and things, and you saw the scenes it was horrific, but you can see there is like a bit of normality coming back to the city even with these things going on, these extreme events.
Quite the trip because it does feel quite relaxed, but you know there's this energy and there's a lot less people, people have fled their home, so it's obviously very sad. In the next video we're going to be going to some brutal places, Bucha is one of them, and Irpin, these are places being investigated for —— crimes, there were horrific things went on there, I'm sure a lot of you know about them. We have to be careful driving and things, of land —— and stuff, and getting into some of these places in the city, there might be things set up, booby traps and whatnot, that's what I've heard. We'll see you in the next video, it's gonna be heavy, that was just day one, I think that's easing into it, but I think it's going to get significantly heavier. We've got the protective equipment if we need it with the bulletproof vest and the helmet that's if we go further east, but yeah, that's the plan at this stage, so thank you for watching and in case I don't see you good afternoon, good evening and good night.
All right guys, it's 11 pm, air raid sirens going off now in Kyiv.
2022-05-17 22:10
