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From L'viv to Sumy; Delivering Front Line Aid to Ukraine · UK Column Radio

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Well, good evening gaming. I'm here in the kitchen with
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a neighbor called Bill, and the other day we were well.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I was in the car park and Bill approached me
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and said what sort of car have you got? And
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I told him the car that I had, and he
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: then said to me, well, I'm going to be driving
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: one of these cars in snow, and I wondered if
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I could just have a little bit of a familiarization
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: with your car to get an idea of what it's
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: like and where all the controls are. So we had
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a look at my car. It's not four wheel drive,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's all wheel drive, not quite as good, but it's
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: still pretty good in adverse conditions. And following that little
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: look around the car, I said to you, where are
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: you going? And to my surprise, you said Ukraine. So
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: you've kindly agreed to come to see me tonight to
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: tell me a bit about your adventures in Ukraine, because
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you set off to take AID supplies out to the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: front line, which is quite something. So we well, thank
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: you very much for agreeing to do this. And my
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: first question is how did you come to get involved
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: with Aid to Ukraine.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I've previously done a couple of trips delivering aid
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: to Ukraine, and these were through a charity called Cornwall
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: and Devon Send Love to Ukraine. And what we did
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: we sent a camp, We drove a convoy of vans
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: out to Warsaw where there was warehouse where we unloaded
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: all the aid. And then from Warsaw the aid was
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: deliver it into Ukraine by others to the specific locations
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: where it was required. We then at that point, having
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: unloaded it in the warehouse in Warsaw, we then drove
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: back to England. So we never actually went into Ukraine.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: That was for a couple of years ago. Did that,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: did it for two years running. But this year I
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: just felt I could do something a bit more more useful,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: and so I contacted a an online charity called Drive
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to Save Lives. I mean, I've got no military skills,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: but I can drive and I can mend things that
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: are broken. So I volunteered with Drive to Save Lives
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: and they soon gave me a job.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And where are they based?
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Want to tell us that, I've got no idea where
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: they're based their online Basically what happens is people donate
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: vehicles to the charity Drive to Save lives, and then
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: volunteers such as I drive the vehicles from England to Ukraine,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and that's the basic as far as it goes, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: the vehicles then handed over to whoever it is in
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Ukraine who needs them.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: This time around, you were using the same people to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: organize your trip, were you, or.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Well the trip As it turned out, there had been
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: a previous driver who volunteered to take the vehicle to
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Ukraine and to deliver it to the end user. But
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: they had, in my opinion, and this is not meant
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: to sound critical, but they had bitten off a little
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: bit more than they could chew, and they had left
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: the vehicle in a rather sorry state in the town
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: of Leviv, which is on the western end of Ukraine.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: It was intended to go to the medics on the
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: front line in the east of Ukraine, where it was
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: going to be used to pick up injured soldiers, and
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: because it's a four by four or an all drive vehicle,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: they could access the soldiers across snowy fields and through
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: woodlands and whatever and take them back to the field hospitals.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: But the previous driver had left the vehicle in Lviv,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: which is where I had to pick it up and
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: start my journey from right. Okay, so you flew out
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: to Ukraine. I flew to Poland. There are no flights
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: to Ukraine for anybody at all, even visiting prime ministers
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: or whatever. The procedure is you fly to Krakoff in Poland,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: which is the nearest place, nearest airport, and then from
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Krackoff you catch the train across the Poland border into Ukraine,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: and then once you're into Ukraine, the train will take
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: you on to Liviv or Kiev or wherever you want
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: to go. It was about a month ago. Yeah, I
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: can't remember the exact date, but it was about a
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: month ago I was there.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Ye, So how long was the flight out to Poland? Then?
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Well, I flew from Gatwick, and I flew from Gatwick
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: to Crackoff, and I traveled up to Gatwick the previous day,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: stayed overnight in Gatwick, got an early morning flight in
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: from Gatwick to Krakoff, which was probably from memory, about
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: three hours i'd think, and then from Crackoff I caught
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: the train to a little place on the border which
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: is totally unpronounceable. The Poles don't seem to use vowels
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: like we do that. Their towns are all pronounced with
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: constants and I can't even say it anyway. This border town,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: which was the crossing, so we had to catch the
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: train to this place and then swap trains go through
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: the border crossing and then carry on into Ukraine.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Now, so we're talking about middle to end
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: of January with you going, I.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Think yeah, I think it was yeah, because I should
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: be able to remember the date, but I can't. Well,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: where I was heading was cold weather, cold weather, cold,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: plenty of that cold in Poland.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: What was the temperature when you got out?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Well, when we first we first went to Leviv where
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: the vehicle was had been left and it was being
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: babysitated by a guy. We had his contact details. We
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: got to Leviv and the temperature then was minus twelve.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: And you've taken your thermals with you, had you?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I was wearing them?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're wearing them? Right, Okay? So what then happens?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: A vagrant check.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: And we arrived in Laviv, we met up with our contact.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Everybody out there uses Christian names only, there's no surnames,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: so we had a Christian name and a mobile phone number.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: We contacted him. He met us just outside the train
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: station and took us in his car to back to
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: where he lived where he had stored the vehicle, which
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: was a Honda, and the Honda was in a pretty
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: sorry state. The previous driver hadn't, in my opinion, looked
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: after it very well, and there were several things that
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: needed doing to get it roadworthy to do the journey
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: that we had to.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Do a right. Okay, so that's a pretty tough start
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: because he had a long trip in pretty adverse conditions.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: So well, what did you end up doing to fix
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the vehicle up right?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Well, the vehicle had English water in the screen wash
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: for the windscreen. Well, English water, as everybody knows, freezes
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: at naught degrees and it was minus twelve, so the
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: screen wash was completely frozen. Now you may think the
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: screen wash is not important, but when it's snowing and
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: you've got dirt coming off the road, you need your
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: screen wash to be working properly. So the first thing
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: I had to do was the d four the screen
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: wash pipes and to put in Ukrainian screen wash, which
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: was good as liquid for minus twenty degrees. So that
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: was the first job. We then had to do a
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: similar exercise with the engine cooling system which hadn't been
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: which was okay for say minus five degrees, but it
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: was no good for any temperature less than that, so
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: we had to change the cooling system so that it
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: was safe to minus twenty five I think it was.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: One of the brackets had broken off the exhaust pipe,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: so that had to be fixed, and the tire pressures
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: had to be adjusted for driving in snow and ice.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: That is to say, they were reduced slightly by a
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: few psi. So we had so once we got the
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: vehicle roadworthy drivable, we then set off on the journey.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Right, So he came with you? When you say.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: We, yeah, I say we. My son had phoned me
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: a couple of days before I was due to leave
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: and told me the bad news that he'd been made redundant.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: And he said to me, well, what news have you got, Dad?
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So I said, well, I'm going out to Ukraine to
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: do this trip, and he said, oh, well I'll come
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: with you. I said, oh, that's wonderful, because I appreciated
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: his company on the journey and I thought we could
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: share the driving. Well, actually it turned out to be
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: even better than that. Because unbeknown to me, my son
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: could speak Ukrainian, which I was flabbergasted by that fact,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: simple fact, and that actually, as the journey progressed, that
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: turned out to be invaluable. Right, the fact he could
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: speak Ukrainian.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I might like him to ask where he learned, because
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Well he had spent when he left school, he had
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: spent five years in Russia, and he could speak Russian,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: which is fair enough, but Ukrainian, although it's not Russian,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: it's quite similar. And he had taken the trouble to
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: learn the Ukrainian. And I think the main difference being
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: in the pronunciation of the words rather than the spelling
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: of the words, a little bit like the difference between
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: South Coast English and say Scottish, which is basically the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: same language, but they just can't understand each other because
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: of the pronunciation.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So that's interesting. And so you've got this
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: man that you know by his Christian name. He's the contact,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: he's the minder of the vehicle. Did you meet anybody
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: else before you set off?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: No? No, No, that was it.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And had the vehicle already got supplies in it at
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that stage?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: No, it was just an empty vehicle. We arrived, we
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: had brought from England certain goodies which we were hoping
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to hand over to the troops on the front line.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: And these goodies included things like pot noodles, bags of sweets,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: chocolate bars. We bought some vitamin tablets and some and
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: some lempsips and things like that which we thought might
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: be useful to guys on the front line who were
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: desperate for home comforts, as it were.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Right, and do you set off as a single vehicle
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: or were there.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we set vehicle No, No, we set off as
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: a single vehicle. The previous driver had crossed the border
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: from Poland into Ukraine as a visitor or as a tourist.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: What we were instructed to do by the charity was
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: to return to Poland and then recross the border into Ukraine.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: But this time we had to import the vehicle into Ukraine,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: so it's exported from England, imported to Ukraine, and the
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: paperwork all had to be in accordance with the proper
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: procedures for importing a vehicle, which they hit the previous
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: drover hadn't done. So it meant, of course that we
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: had to return to Poland before we did anything else,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: basically do a U turn and then come back into
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Ukraine and import the vehicle officially, because if nothing else,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: what we learned on this trip was that the Eastern
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Europeans love their bureaucracy.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, that must have been a bit of a
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: surprise to you. You get out to Ukraine, you've got
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to you've got to sort of mess around with the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: vehicle and and.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Get it sorted. So the first two days we spent
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: basically getting the vehicle a roadworthy and be legal.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: We called him your host there, Laviv. Was he curious
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: about you were tall with something?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: We chatted. We chatted about stuff, to be honest. Meeting
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: him from at the station and going to pick up
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: the vehicle, the whole thing took us, say, for an
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: argument second hour, and I can't although we chatted quite
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: a lot in English, I can't really remember much about him.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: He was a nice guy, but I can't really tell
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: you much about him.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, you get to the point where the vehicle's
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: fixed up, when you set off, where do you go next?
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Right? So, having imported the vehicle into Ukraine officially, we
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: then faced with the journey across Ukraine. This involved driving
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: from the border with Poland in the extreme west of
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: the country to a town in the northeast of the
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: country called Sumi suny And where we were supposed to
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: meet the medics that we had to hand over the
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: vehicle too, right, supposed to Well, that was the plan.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: That was the plan. So we now faced with approximately
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: a six hundred mile journey across the country, which is
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: covered in twenty inches of snow. We saw on the
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: map that they had motorways, so we thought, oh jolly good,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: we'll use the motorway. So we got onto the motorway
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: and followed it as far as Sumi. The motorways turned
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: out to be quite fun. Actually, they've been kept basically
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: clear by snowplows. However, there was black ice about an
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: inch thick over the tarmac. And the other interesting features
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: that they had zebra crossings every half a mile approximately,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: which made the whole process of driving on a motorway
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: quite fun. Not like we would know as driving on
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: a motorway in this country.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: You could do U turns on the motorway. There's roads
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: coming in from the sides. There was zebra crossings. They
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: weren't what we would call a motorway, but officially we
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: drove down the M three I think it was from
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Kiev to Karkiev basicially, Yeah, And were you on on.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Snow chains on the tires.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: No, we didn't have snow chains, but we had we
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: had winter tires on the car which were suitable for
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: driving in snow. Now I didn't know this until I
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: got there, but basically, the two types of rubber used
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: in tires, and the type of rubber for driving and
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: snow is a very soft rubber which doesn't go hard
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: like the rubber were used to in this country. So
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: it's a very soft rubber tire. And then we drove
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: on those. Yeah.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: How long did that trip take you to get out
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to some Me?
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Then? Well, we left. We left the Polish border on
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: about eight o'clock one evening and we arrived in assume
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Me about ten o'clock the next day, so the journey
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: took approximately twenty six hours.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Well, and did you do that in one go?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: We did it? No, No, we stopped overnight at some
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: We found a sort of a country retreat type hotel
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't even tell you
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: where it was where we stayed the night and slept
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: for about six hours, and then we carried on in
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: the morning.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: And in that drive, I mean you obviously got opportunity
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to see a lot of countryside, but were you aware
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: you were in a country at wall.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: No. What we saw for twenty six hours of driving
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: was white snow and that was it. We saw nothing
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: but white snow. The only exception to that was when
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: we drove across the with east west to east weather
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: of Kiev Kiev itself, I must have called it Kiev
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Kiev itself that which was like driving through London. It
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: was a major city with tower blocks everywhere, major roads,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: major intersections, lots of traffic, lots of shops, lots of houses,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: lots of buildings, and there was absolutely no sign of
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: the war at all. We didn't see any damage to
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: apartment blocks or even the power station at that point
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: was quite intact. And yeah, we saw no sign of
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: it being at war other than there were lots of soldiers.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: On the streets and you get to your destination and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: SIMMI were the medics there to meet you right well.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Before we got to Summi, we had to pass through
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: numerous army checkpoints. These were inevitably through tunnels of netting
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: which were the anti drone defenses, and my son thought
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: it was really really cool to be in these anti
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: drone netting tunnels. I wasn't quite so sure it was
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: quite as cool as he thought it was, but he
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: thought it was great. But basically we got questioned quite
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: severely by the army checkpoint soldiers. And basically all we
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: knew was the name we'd been given and the mobile
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: phone number of our contact who we were supposed to
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: meet in Sumi, and we didn't know any addresses or
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: anything else or any other details at all. But what
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: we did we gave the soldiers his phone number and
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: they rang him and then they had a conversation in
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Ukrainian alls or whatever. And as soon as they've done that,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: it was all smiles and we just got waved through,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: no more questions.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And had you got the sort of medical supplies You've
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: got goodies with you which.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: You'd sorted, No medical supplies, so we were simply delivering
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: the vehicle. There was no medical supplies in the vehicle.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: We were just delivering the vehicle and the chocolate et
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: cetera that we surprised eyes ourselves was purely just from
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: us personally.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay? Was that delivery point in Sumi? Was that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the closest that you got to the front lines or yeah?
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Well we the we rang the art contact. He was
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: called Daniel and with his mobile number, that's all we
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: knew him by is Daniel, and we said can we
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: meet you at the station, which we did. We met
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: him at ten pm at the station and my plan
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: was to catch the midnight train back to Kiev. So
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: we met him at the station. And I was quite
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: surprised when we met the two medics because they turned
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: up in a car. So there's two of them, one
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: to drive our car and one to drive their car back.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: One of them was American and the other one was Latvian,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: and I was quite surprised, but it turned out they
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: were both medics working for Special Forces, which were volunteer
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: medical backup to the army. So I was expecting to
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: meet a Ukrainian medic. It turns out they were American
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: and Lappian. But anyway, we handed over the vehicle. They
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: were extremely grateful and pleased, and it's sort of their
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: sincerity actually was quite gratifying because we felt we'd done
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: something useful and worthwhile, right, What you had, you had,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: and you've given that time and effort. Really, yes, that's right. Yeah.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: The charity we were working for didn't pay our expenses,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: so we had to fund our own accommodation, our own meals,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: and our own train back and our flights and everything.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, I'll just a few months ago I got
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to speak to an individual who was working
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: with one of the Ukrainian aid agencies in Plymouth and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: we just had a brief conversation about the sorts of
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: things that they were collecting to send out to Ukraine.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Now they weren't specifically saying it was to go to
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the military, so a lot of it was to do
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: with essential needs for a family, So it could be
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: everything from food to useful household items or nappies for children,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: those sorts of things. But your trip out, I initially
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: thought your trip out to Ukraine was going to be
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to deliver that sort of material. But the delivery of
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a vehicle, this is fascinating.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I said to you previously, I had done two
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: previously with aid, which we took to Poland and dropped
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: off at a warehouse in Warsaw, and the items of
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: that aid, and on those convoys we were delivering medical supplies.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: We were delivering walking frames, wheelchairs, cat food, dog food,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: children's nappies, warm clothing, camping stuff because they're camping out
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: in basements, so it's camp beds, warm blankets, sleeping blankets, pillows,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff we had previously delivered as
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: aid on the two trips I was telling you about. However,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: this trip was purely to simply deliver this vehicle to
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: the medics on the front line and Sumi. As you
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: may or may not know, it's about twenty five miles
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: from the Russian border. And when we were in Sumi,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: we could look to the southeast I'm going to say, yep,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: we could look to the southeast towards the actual front
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: line itself, and we could see what appeared to be
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: like a fantastic firework display, which of course was the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: ordinance exploding and on the actual front. But that was
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: that was I'm going to say, twenty five thirty mile
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: away southeast from Sumi.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, nevertheless, you you went close enough to the
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: front line.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Well, we were in twenty five miles of the Russian
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: border at Sumi, or approximately anyway, and we got there
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: at ten pm and conveniently there was a train back
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: to Kiev at midnight. So my plan must give these
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: guys the vehicle, jump on the train and high tail
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: it back to Kiev as soon as possible. Well you
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: can imagine my disappointment when we discovered that the train
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: was fully booked and we couldn't get tickets for the
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: midnight train. So at that point I thought, oh BLI,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is this is it. We've given them
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: the vehicle and don't get back. So anyway, my son,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: using his Ukrainian language skills, managed to get us two
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: tickets for the six am train the following morning, which
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: was huge relief, which left us about eight hours in
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: which to do nothing. And it was at that point
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: probably minus fifteen and one. It's eighteen degrees. So we
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: managed to find a hotel. At how we did it,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but we managed to find a hotel
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: and it's a lovely hotel and we booked in for
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: the night. Basically, the hotel receptionist was great and she
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: showed us where the lift was and told us whe
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: our room was on the second floor, whatever it was,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: and then she proceeded to tell us where the air
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: rah chater was. Well, suddenly I looked at each other,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: We've already need that, you know, We're just going to
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: go to bed. We're lacquered, we've just driven six hundred miles.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: All we want to do is sleep. So we went
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: to bed, and then about three am, the air siren
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: went off. So we stumbled out of our rooms in
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: our pajamas, absolutely knackered at this point, and stumbled down
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: into the air raid shelter, wondering where the hell we
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: were going and why was it so bloody cold anyway,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: and we spent a couple of hours in the air
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: raid shelter before the all clear was given and we
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: got back up to our rooms to warm up, just
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: as our alarms went off to catch the taxi to
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: the train station. As it turned out, the taxi was
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: cash only. And I'll never forget the kindness of the receptionist.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: She was only about a young girl, she was only
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: about sixteen years old, and she gave us the taxi
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: fare from her own purse, which she took from her handbag,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: and gave us the taxi fair to get to the station.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And I thought that was so lovely. So I happened
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: to have in my rucksack some kitkats, so I gave
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: her a KitKat and she said to me me that
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: kit kats were of all the chocolate bars in the world,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: were a favorite. And I thought, oh, that was lucky.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: But this little little things like that actually formed a
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: really lasting memory of the trip, Just little moments like that.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: You said when you drove through Kiev, it was a
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: big city, and you didn't note any particular damage. Was
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: some showing signs of damage from the wall.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Brian, I must correct you. It's Kiev, not Kiev. Now
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: we all know from the seventies Chicken Kiev, which is
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: where we've got the pronunciation from. But Kiev is the
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Russian pronunciation. And if you say Kiev in Kiev, they
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: give you very dirty looks. They don't like that pronunciation
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: at all. So we had I had to learn because
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I kept making the same mistake. I had to learn
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: to pronounce it Kiev as in the word English word leave,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: but with a sea on the front, a Kiev. And yeah,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: so if you pronounced it the Russian way, you're not
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: very popular. But yeah, but.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Any signs of damage.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: There there was in Sumi, Sumi. Well, we got there
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: late at night, so it's a bit difficult to tell.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Didn't actually see any crumbled buildings or any bomb damage,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: but I just got the feeling the city was deserted.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: There are very very few people there. Now, it might
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: have been because it was late at night, or it
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: might have been that they'd all emigrated or run away.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: But well, of.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Course they do clear the areas before the actual front.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: So we although we were Summi was quite a big city,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: we only saw a very small number of people. But
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: we were only there from ten am, sorry, ten pm
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: to six am the following morning. So I mean, if
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: you walk around any city, any any village in.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair enough, I think just for the audience.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: The point I stress is that we did have the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: chat before you went, and I had a number of
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: things in my head, not least I wondered how close
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: you might actually get to the front line, because the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: key thing in this war is the drones are the
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: very dangerous element, and the rones are operating behind the actual.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: We were advised to change the sim cards on our
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: phones because we were told the drone operators could recognize
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: an English sim card or an English mobile phone, so
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: we bought Ukrainian SIM cards for the duration we were there,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: and so that we would appear to be an ordinary
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Ukrainian person rather than an english person coming over, because
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: we were told that they would no doubt target an
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Englishman driving through Ukraine, so we used Ukrainian simkuides for
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the reason.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: And the drone netting does work to a certain extent,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: but there are plenty of videos of covered roads closer
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: to the front where the drones have got inside. So they,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: like anything, they're not one hundred percent protection when you
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: were lining up to go. And I've followed well, okay,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: from my Navy time, I at least have some military background,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and I've followed a lot of things happening on the front,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and I thought the man's got some guts because it's
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: a very fluid front line in some places, and the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: drones are a big problem.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: They are they are. Indeed, recently, I don't know if
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: you've heard, but the Russians had been using Musk satellite system.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: It's got a named space light or something it's called anyway,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the Russians have been using that to navigate their drones.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: But Musk in the last week has decided in his
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: wisdom to turn off Russian's access to spacelight technology and
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: the satellite system. Now why I didn't do that four
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: years ago, I don't know, but basically he's eventually decided
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: to turn that off. So that's given the Ukrainians quite
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: an advantage on the battlefield because the drones are not
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: as well targeted as they were. Yeah, you may have
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: read that, may have read that on the BBC.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I saw it in the pressed actually when I had
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: seen that, Yeah, and some basics. Then did you manage
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to eat anything that wasn't a chocky bomb?
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, we are Ukrainian food all the way through.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Well I say that. Yeah. In Poland they seem to
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: have a propensity for pizzas, so there's any unlimited number
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: of pizzas you could buy in Poland, which I thought
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: was a bit bizarre. But in Ukraine we actually went
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: for where we could proper Ukrainian food, which was very
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: wholesome and hearty, sort of home cooking style of food.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Looking back, you did what you did, Would you do
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: it again? Well?
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I would, but two things. First of all, there's the
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: time that it takes, and secondly, there's the cost because
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: the trip I volunteered to pay for my son, so
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: I paid for his air flights and his hotel and
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: his meals, et cetera. I also paid for the diesel
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: in the car and any other ancillary costs. So the
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: whole trip costs me approximately fifteen hundred quid, which is
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: not is not a huge amount of money, but it's
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to be doing it every fortnight. Shall
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: we say?
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Have you had any contact with the people running the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Ukrainian agent Puma?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I think that's the right title, Yes, Puma. Yeah, I
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: have contacted PUMA a couple of times in the past,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: but I have to say they never got back to me. Right.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: But there are a few Ukrainian individuals now living local
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: to've come over here.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know three.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: If you've been able to talk to them, Do they
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: live here waiting to return or do they not want
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: to return back to Ukraine?
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Well? I only know three. One of them married an
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Englishman I want to say, fifteen years ago before the
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: war started anyway, and she's happily living here and wouldn't
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: want to go back because she's made her life in England.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, another lady I know he's working
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: as a carer in a village nearby, and she's only
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: over here earning money that she can then send back
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: to Ukraine to help support her family. And she would
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: probably go back to Ukraine when it was safe to
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: do so and when they didn't need the support that
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: she's already given them.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting, And I think the last figure I
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: was looking at was something around eight, possibly ten million
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Ukrainians out of the country.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: There's a large numbers. I don't know the figures. But
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: when we crossed the border the first time to go
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: into Ukraine, there had been a train just arrived which
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: bringing emigrants out of Ukraine into Poland. And this really
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: was quite a harrowing experience for me because if you
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: can picture the scene, it's five o'clock in the morning,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: pitch dark, minus twelve degrees. They're all queuing to go
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: through the border, and if you've ever been queuing to
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: go through a border, you know what these cues are like.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: They're so slow moving, they're like a snail. So they've
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: been in this queue for an hour or more as
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: temperatures they were wrapped up in blankets, they had all
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: their earth worldly possessions wrapped up in parcels, tied up
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: with string, and they were just so pathetic really, and
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: it was just reminded me something out of a Second
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: World War film where the Jews were being shunted down
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: to Olschwitz. To who were these people, Ukrainians they're coming
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: out of, coming out of Ukraine to move to emigrate
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: into Poland.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And that was that, both men and.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Women, Yes, it was main and women. Mainly women, I've
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: got to say, mainly older women, but there were men. Women,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: There were children, but these in some cases presumably whole families.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: But I'm just curious as well.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't men would be leaving Ukraine because everything we
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: see is about.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: These These would have been older men, right, not not
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: not men of military age. No, no, no, not men
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: of military age. In fact, on our final journey into
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: back into Poland, the Army was on the train and
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: checking to make sure there was no men leaving Ukraine,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: right yeah, yeah, interesting, Yeah, they checked my passport and
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: a couple of times, and their sniffer dog showed particularly
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: interesting in my trousers because I think the dog, the
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: sniffer dog could smell my dog, My trousers, and I've.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Had that experience visiting somebody in prison and all of
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the assembled visitors had to sit on these chairs fixed
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: at the floor in a room, and in came the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: sniffer dog. There was about twelve fifteen of us. I
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: suppose the dog went around everybody, and then it came
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: back to me twice, and I just said to the warden,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: who'd got it? Cocker spaniels, and he said, that's fine.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, probably that was it. Well I had
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: I had my toilet bag searched and they found some
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: aspiring but that's that's as far as it went on
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: the drug slat. That was quite relieved about that. But
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: the the humility and stoicism of the Ukrainian people was
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: very moving and in my opinion, you know, deserving of
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: every ounce of support we can offer them as their
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: country has been attacked by the basically the jack booted
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: dictatorship of Russia.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much for coming and telling me
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: about your your trip, because it's subtly fascinating and you
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: read obviously you can read in the press about people
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: doing aid trips, but to hear it first we counted firsthand,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: is really excellent and hopefully your vehicle made a difference
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: to some.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe somebody saved somebody's life.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Hopefully it's got back from the front lines.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Yea, hopefully it did. Yes, you so great credit. Thank
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: you very much, thank you, thank you.