Note: Transcript fully created by automated AI
[00:00:00] Jesse: Hi everyone. I’m Jesse Lin
[00:00:01] Angela: And I’m Angela Lin. And welcome back to another episode of, but where are you really? From today? We are very honored to have. Another guest on our show to provide a very important perspective. Um, we’re following up on the Ukraine war and this time with a Ukrainian that is on the ground.
[00:00:23] Angela: So we are very lucky to have Alex Zev with us. Uh, hello, Alex.
[00:00:31] Alex: Thank you for inviting me, which means we’ll anywhere from Ukraine.
[00:00:36] Angela: Thank you so much for joining us. Um, for listeners wondering how did we finally get someone from Ukraine on the show? This is the magic of the internet guys. So. We, uh, had posted clips from our first episode where we had mentioned that our original goal was to have both a Ukrainian and a Russian perspective.
[00:00:58] Angela: We weren’t able to secure both in time. Um, so we had posted some clips from that episode on social media. And Alex happened to comment on one of our clips, uh, saying, you know, if there’s anything you don’t understand, I’m happy to provide some additional color and context. And I was like, well, would you, would you be able to provide that on a follow up episode of our podcast?
[00:01:22] Angela: And he was very quickly like, yes. So this is how we got connected guys, TikTok of all things.
[00:01:31] Alex: Yes. That’s, that’s magic of, uh, nowaday. Way of leaving that we can be connected and share firsthand experience so that that’s, uh, that’s kind of great. I’m really happy to share, um, this, uh, experience to people who might not, um, fully understand this.
[00:01:48] Alex: Uh, so I kind of realize that it’s difficult sometimes to explain, and even before we start, so I want to send all the us citizens and for all the people around the. To heaven, their time to dig into topic and support the truth in this war. It’s not a matter of picking aside. It’s. Spending your time on, uh, this topic is really important for us.
[00:02:10] Angela: Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us. I, um, we definitely agree very important topic, and I think we’ll talk about it a little bit later, but it is very difficult. I think nowadays be almost because we’re so connected and. There are so many ways to get information. It is hard to get the kind of like right information.
[00:02:29] Angela: Yeah. A lot of ways. Um, so we will talk about that as well. Um, but, but before we dive in, I wanna ask you our kind of signature question, but where are you really from, uh, go
[00:02:40] Alex: ahead. Yeah, that’s a great question. So I will, uh, answer that in kind of romantic ways that I’m from the cities at one and a 5,000 years old.
[00:02:50] Alex: And it that keeps changing with. so that’s, that’s um, where I’m from, I’m from ki Ukraine. And I was actually born in Soviet union. I four years older than Ukraines and I spent, uh, all my life here and it keeps changes and I keep changing. And that’s, that’s where I’m from. From here.
[00:03:13] Angela: I love it. And yeah, that is, is just so special to have someone literally on the ground, in the capital with us.
[00:03:21] Angela: So again, thank you. Um, and before we go into any topics, how are you, how are you doing
[00:03:29] Alex: well, relatively fine. Uh, I would say, and I would say some routine changed, so I don’t remember much from where started. Uh, obviously, uh, everyone is in Ukraine is not fine in global nowaday terms. So we don’t have feeling of complete safety and this basic sense that people have in, uh, modern world.
[00:03:55] Alex: Uh, however people get used to anything. And so we, we are getting on track with that. So, uh, I’m fine. I can, I can tell, uh, from, as. um, to the extent as it’s possible in, uh, living in countries that he’s at work
[00:04:14] Jesse: what’s, uh, so what’s kind of your daily, daily routine or daily life look like now,
[00:04:20] Alex: all the people in Ukraine are touched or affected by the war.
[00:04:24] Alex: So everyone takes some part it’s, uh, not that army ISIT and people are just waiting to outcome it’s that everyone is. And so the last three major groups, I would say, uh, one is that, uh, armed forces and is territorial defense is kind of division of armed forces that protect local communities and help police help, uh, fire department help, help present.
[00:04:51] Alex: And so a big volunteer movements that people who live here and, uh, try to help out that too. And the citizen who, who, who need, uh, help. So I would. Uh, all the people are divided in these three buckets. Uh, one way or another. I personally am not in I’m I’m forces. I’m not in territorial defense. So my decision was that I continue working.
[00:05:16] Alex: I’m a software engineer and my income is higher than, uh, operating Ukraine. And I decided is that if I can, can donate couple thousand dollars per month to army, that would be better place for. For now to support this situation and, uh, this might change. Uh, so maybe it’ll be a point when I will need to go to get new trainer and stuff like that.
[00:05:41] Alex: So I’m ready to that. Uh, so currently routine, my personal team is I work and volunteer a little bit with putting my skills the most effective way, and every person tries to do that. So you try not to get new skills, but to you want to. Most of what you can do already. Let’s say a person who was a project manager, then he can organize volunteer movement or person knows, uh, how to cook it, his secure hobby and, uh, people are making food for, for people.
[00:06:13] Alex: So that’s, that’s kind of it. Uh, so that’s, that’s kind of routine. I mostly work and do a little stuff, uh, in, in walk out community. Before
[00:06:25] Angela: we hit record. You had mentioned that you have some friends that are kind of in the hotbed of the current, uh, situation. How are, how are those friends doing and how are you staying in touch with those folks and knowing kind of what’s going on with them?
[00:06:40] Alex: Um, firstly say that’s, uh, I’m in capital, which is kind of target number one for Russians and. That’s kind of crazy. I would say from the other side, it’s most projected city. So closest I physically was to work is that, um, uh, missile heated in 500 meters, uh, from me. And, um, that was kind of scary. So I even saw for a second, so that’s it.
[00:07:08] Alex: Um, but luckily it was not. And, uh, and as day I, um, went back from central railway station where it helped people to get on a train stuff like. and on ground combat was happening. Uh, so I had a chance to get to B and, uh, luckily I know my city, so I managed to make a de two let’s name it that. So if there are two things that I personally was the most close to work, and I realize that my experience is nothing comparing to what people in suburbs had.
[00:07:44] Alex: So my friends, uh, lived. For two weeks in a basement, in a city that was taken over by Russians. So they managed, uh, to flee couple weeks ago. It was just luck. Um, now we say in a safe place, we keep this contact. They check on each other. And that’s, uh, kind of, uh, a lot of every Ukrainian’s daily routine to, to check on friends and, uh, relatives to, to figure out, do they need something?
[00:08:12] Alex: Do you need something and, and keeps this, um,
[00:08:15] Angela: connection. And sorry for any kind of like ignorant questions we may ask, because I guess there’s just a lot of stuff where I’m like, I don’t understand how these things function. So, um, during war time, like, is there any break in telecommunications or internet?
[00:08:33] Angela: Because I saw, like, for example, I saw, you know, star link was sent over to make sure that there’s like internet coverage and whatnot. So like how was there any, um, Patchiness and ability to communicate with people, especially in areas where it was like heavily destroyed or, or taken over directly, anything like that.
[00:08:55] Alex: So there is a case with, uh, no communication at all. So in terms stands that, uh, not to have seller, you need to destroy some sex cell coins. They are destroyed actually on the south, in the city of Mar. So they don’t have any connection except for Starlin. So thanks for that. That’s uh, really great to have ability, uh, to communicate in one first days of war.
[00:09:22] Alex: Uh, missile heated to our, um, TV center. And it’s not only TV it’s, uh, spreading radio signals and, uh, stuff like that. So we, we didn’t didn’t have shortages with communication in Kiev. Luckily just, uh, good luck, uh, as the cities do. And, uh, some districts of our city didn’t have like communication, uh, of, um, water or electricity or stuff like that.
[00:09:48] Alex: And when you don’t have electricity, you don’t have. For sure. Yeah, you have mobile internet, but uh, some of infrastructure objects were heated and, uh, they get kind of quickly repaired. So I’m now looking at this guys who work in this city structures and they, our superheroes, you know, it’s a war time to fix, um, something it’s great.
[00:10:11] Alex: Great. But we, we didn’t have that shortages in, in capital, like, like big shortages. We didn’t have it yet.
[00:10:19] Angela: I think you mentioned that you don’t quite remember exactly the before or after of the war starting and, and now, um, I wonder if you can comment a little bit about what you can remember, but also, I guess I know obviously this is de poor time, but I also understand that you have already been.
[00:10:40] Angela: At war with Russia in some capacity because of the Crimea yeah. Situation for the last like eight years. So I guess question being like how drastic of a difference or like how bad was it before already? Because it wasn’t like you guys were just in like total peace time, like everything’s chill beforehand.
[00:11:01] Angela: Um, and versus like now, um, after like full, full scale or being, you
[00:11:08] Alex: know, breaking up. I will try to make this story short. So feel free to interrupt me and get some details. Cause I, I was physically involved in a lot of, uh, scenes that were going on in Ukraine cause I’m 34 years old. So, uh, I, I kind of met this, this scenes.
[00:11:25] Alex: So, uh, matter of fact, it was two revolutions taking place in Ukraine. Uh, one was in 2000. Which was called orange revolution. And, uh, it was kind of on the topics that president’s elections were made up. Uh, and it was kind of obvious that president was not erected by a proper counting of both, but it’s, uh, was just made up through the administrative resources.
[00:11:50] Alex: And that was the revolution with a leader. You know, it was historical period of time when we needed a leader to, to represent. It was a political leader. It was kind of a lot of gathering on central, um, center, square and center and people who are protesting on, uh, taking Revo, taking, um, people from outside to make sure that, uh, calculations are not done in a way that it’s made up and stuff like that and stuff like.
[00:12:20] Alex: And, uh, it did happen. I was, um, in the college at the time, I was kind of 16 years old, but for some reason I was, uh, felt that, uh, okay, we, we need to kind of establish real democracy here and it’s not going to happen if we just close our eyes on the fact that, uh, someone can make up something because, uh, they can make up something else if, uh, they’re capable of making a presidential election.
[00:12:46] Alex: So, uh, reelection took place. And that leader became a president. And, uh, with him actually Ukraine started to be recognized among other countries as a equal C. It’s not, not some place from former Soviet union. Right? So that’s that guy, he knew English at least. Uh, so he managed to kind of establish this communication and after that, so another, the election took place democratic way.
[00:13:13] Alex: uh, that as a pian candidates did, uh, win, but this communication towards west was established already. So it’s it. So, um, was going that direction now it’s like in any election election system, like us election system or whatever, maybe we from outside or not understand us election, but what we do understand is it system.
[00:13:38] Alex: He’s designed in a way that if you make a bad decision on president or on Congress, on something, you cannot break the whole sin in the chance where, uh, this and that government is, is in power. So that Perian, uh, president was selected since we’re going on towards west. And we had this social let’s say event.
[00:13:59] Alex: We had European football final that took place in Ukraine and in. Uh, and a lot of infrastructure changes were happening. You know, we got funding, you got, uh, this and that. And, uh, I was not a software engineer at that time. I was a construction engineer and I actually worked on construction of airport in, uh, Kiev.
[00:14:22] Alex: So we’ve got a, like really beacon, modern airport that is capable of accepting, uh, lots of travelers and tourists and stuff like. . And what happened after that is that people from Europe who came to see the final, they realize that Ukraine is kind of, um, it’s not scary place and it’s relatively cheap. And it’s really common to Europe.
[00:14:47] Alex: And people from Europe started to see Ukraine as a touristic destination, because we have a lot of, uh, sense to see in citizen, in nature and stuff like that. So, Started to happen and Ukrainians started to travel more, uh, to Europe and see what’s going on there. And, uh, at one, uh, point that president turns over the next integration with Europe and he turns over to Russia and protest starts because, uh, yes, your operation.
[00:15:20] Alex: Yes. You were elected in, um, democratic way, but we didn’t sign for changing the direction fully. and that protest in 2016 closely, nobody took it serious. Even me, it was where mostly students, it was, uh, fun for them to protest against some. And sure, since students want to travel to Europe, students want to have ability to get education in another country or just to see other people.
[00:15:47] Alex: So it’s, uh, but it was not taken that serious. You know, most more adult people who work, congratulate myself, we thought, okay, And says government. And we, we, we are not capable of doing that. And at one point government, uh, decides to remove this protest with police force brutal, removing from, uh, pH physically from the square.
[00:16:12] Alex: And that’s how that forces started. We were not against president. We were not against government. We were against the fact that, um, police force was used to remove peaceful protest. It was not acceptable for us. And I would say it’s similar to black lives matter movement. Like, uh, this happens and everything is on fire cause of that, what people wanted is just to remove people from police who were responsible for that.
[00:16:42] Alex: And that’s it. We didn’t want to remove government. We didn’t want to kind of any political changes. We didn’t have a leader. We just were against. The situation, right? And, uh, that protest involved and people started to figure out that as this brutal removing of, of this peaceful protest was only part of corrupted system.
[00:17:04] Alex: It took more and more and more and more at, and the, of the day, this corruption president fleet from Ukraine and temporary government was established. And at that exact time, when it’s temporary government, you don’t know what to do. You kind of need to figure out. How to make a legal way to this, that, so countries still respected by other countries because if you make a co that is not accepted by everyone else, right.
[00:17:32] Alex: Then how do you proceed with that? How do you proceed with, with your politics if it’s not accepted? So, uh, our government looked for a way to establish the new election and stuff like that. And at that exact. Uh, Russia takes the situation and takes over the premier. So it puts military forces to premier, and there is no fight back because, uh, government is temporary.
[00:17:58] Alex: And if you fight back with aren’t forces, you have a high chance to kill civilians. Uh, and you were not prepared to, to do a, take a war in 21st century. And Ukrainian army, I would say it was just name of army, but it was not real army Russia takes STR and makes an activity called referendum referendum with, um, with guns.
[00:18:23] Alex: And they say, okay, people from premier voted to go to Russia, but it’s not how it happens. Right. It’s, it’s not by agreement of governments and of people who live there. And it’s, um, it’s quite the same time. Uh, Russian troops go to Dan. and, um, support separatists. And it, it was not that number of separatists.
[00:18:45] Alex: Actually. It was just this a little bit Russian vibe that was heavily backed up by, uh, Russian military. We have this famous video when, um, a soldier. So separatist from Ukraine, uh, tells in Russian for, for civilians that they need to go beyond some, some point. And he says, And, uh, the cases, uh, we don’t call this eBIC we call it.
[00:19:14] Alex: So our Russian is a little bit different. And when people says it means he’s definitely not from Ukraine, he’s, uh, definitely a Russian soldier. So they take over it and start this kind of military presence. And, uh, Ukraine was able to gather small amount of people who join the army and started to push back.
[00:19:35] Alex: That’s that’s how this war started. It was back and forth. It, there were some agreements I, myself didn’t follow up on all the eight years. Cause I, I had my. Since to do as well after the revolution, like I changed my profession. And so a lot of kind of things changed, but it was kind of the beginning that, um, Russia used the situation to start this invasion and start this, um, making the environment where Ukraine cannot.
[00:20:04] Alex: Go faster in, uh, its progress. I would say thank you
[00:20:08] Angela: for all of that context. I think especially the Crimea part is really interesting to hear from the Ukrainian perspective, because I think a lot of the way the history is written in Western media and also how we heard it from the, the Russian civilian we had on the previous episode.
[00:20:28] Angela: Obviously not cool that that happened, but it sounded like it was more, it sounded like the separatist movement was stronger than something that was kind of propped up, um, by the Russian government. So,
[00:20:42] Alex: so you need to understand that a lot of Cian population are Russian soldiers or post soldier soldiers.
[00:20:49] Alex: So it was an activity in the. S R they tried to remove, you know, national identity from different groups of people and, uh, Shon not only Ukrainians were affected by that same happened with ukranian TAs. It’s like native population. They were deported and military basis were established. And, uh, a lot of nowadays, um, Cian populations, It’s actually, uh, Russian soldiers and their families, or post Soviet soldiers and their families.
[00:21:22] Alex: So you cannot even tell it’s in the first place. And so, yes, a lot of people did support this, let’s say pro Russian movement. And, uh, I see that is that they associate Russia with Soviet union and they remember Googled days of Soviet union. And they were only seen that was good, that they were 30 years.
[00:21:43] Alex: Uh, and ever since was fine for them. They were treated good, uh, by the government, they had good living, but it’s, it’s, it’s not, uh, it has nothing to deal with, um, modern lifestyle. Right. You cannot, um, kind of put ideals that were okay. Saudi or 40 years ago and, and say it was good because of all.
[00:22:05] Jesse: When all this first started, did you guys actually believe it?
[00:22:09] Jesse: Because the way that you’re telling kind of the series of events, it almost sounds like a slow boil and. When you kind of like incrementally step towards those things, it’s sometimes hard to perceive the next thing as like the full escalation. So what was that like? Were you and your friends actually like, oh my God, this is like a war?
[00:22:28] Jesse: Or do you think it was just a kind of, um, another opportunist thing that Russia was doing? It
[00:22:34] Alex: was, uh, it was unbelievable for sure. You cannot wait for that. I have actually return. From Poland on 20th of February. And, uh, on 24th of February, I woke up and I looked up my, uh, cell phone. I had kind of certain missed calls from my mom.
[00:22:52] Alex: it? It was clear that Russia invaded. It was, uh, like you could physically hear that our Cub strikes and stuff like. So what was that? It was about to contact friends and families and, uh, figure out what to do. And, uh, are we doing something? Are we not doing something car one, will it lost? Will we fail right now?
[00:23:14] Alex: Or maybe is it good idea to go somewhere by train or not, or, or buy a car and stuff like that and stuff like that. My decision at some point was not to go anywhere and it’s not related to the fact that I’m kind kind of. so also men at the age from 18 to 60, uh, potentially go to army. And so, uh, if army will kind of reach me out in terms of that, I will join it’s now it’s, it’s kind of clear, but even if it was not the case, I would not, not go anywhere.
[00:23:48] Alex: Because from here you see what peop what is a real. Right. Mm. So if you, uh, in another country you can kind of contact with someone or rely on use or rely on something, but being in key, if you kind of understand that, okay, electricity is fine. That is fine. That is fine. What is not fine? And you can address that for instance, for, for CS like Kiev.
[00:24:15] Alex: So we, we had this, uh, community established in my. And what we have discovered is that, um, CT is not doing so well with, uh, help for elderly and, um, kind of that, um, really basic, uh, human stuff. So, uh, we established to, to do that. And so like makes this, uh, rips for that elderly people easier. It was shock for everyone.
[00:24:43] Alex: Nobody understood what is going on. And, uh, I would say it was too many information in the first two week, two weeks. And after that, all the people, uh, found their places in the situation. So somebody went to more safe place. Somebody didn’t. And now people just proceed to, to do small tasks in where they are.
[00:25:06] Angela: It’s really, really cool to hear that essentially, everyone just stepped up and it became like a truly, truly community driven effort. I just, uh, I’m like thinking if something like this were to happen in the us, if we would even have that level of community feeling to like do that, I’m not, I’m not sure we would.
[00:25:30] Alex: Uh, frankly, I, I was in the United States once in my wife and I had this community feeling. So I, I, I believe, uh, yes. And, uh, what, um, I wanted to discuss is that, um, You know, I was really against of the idea of Kevin weapons in Europe. We don’t have that. And so we were kind of thinking we are civilized enough, uh, not to have that.
[00:25:52] Alex: And now this changed. So, uh, us is way better prepared for that. That kind of, since I would say that it’s hard topics to. but so my take is that, um, it’s not Russian government. You know, we hear this a lot that, um, Russians are fooled by propaganda and stuff like that. But, um, it’s an excuse to some extent, right?
[00:26:17] Alex: If person is 20 or so assault, how can you be affected by propaganda from TV? And what I realized is that if they don’t share the idea of, uh, this after government does not necessarily mean they don’t share imperialistic. First days of war, we tried to reach out to people from Russia to, to tell them what’s going on.
[00:26:39] Alex: So we expected them. Uh, we don’t need them to oversaw government. It’s not necessary. Right? So, uh, you just, there are different ways to, to remove armed conflict without overflowing government. You can go and strike on the factories that serves, uh, that. So we are trying to reach them out and what we figure.
[00:27:02] Alex: Now is that Russians won’t kind of be in this imperialistic vibe when they, their biggest, their strongest and stuff like that. That, since that did matter in 18th century, they want to be in that. I don’t know why, but, uh, it’s it’s matter of fact. And so let’s say the best case scenario is that any war AR ayin and civilian unsecured by accidents, right?
[00:27:27] Alex: What is going on in reality? Kind of in this place where my friends from butcher it’s kind of 25 kilometers of some means 15 miles. Uh, so it was taken over by Russian army. And what they do is terror against civilians. So they tire hands and kill them, literally execute. They execute them in one room and live in another room.
[00:27:52] Alex: Almost all women erect, multiple times, children erect. What kind of words? Is it for some political scene? Is it for some economic supremacy? No, it’s just, it’s just a terror to show that we are to make decisions because we, we are aren’t, you know, and, uh, now I’m getting to the idea that was not acceptable for me before that every man needs to be military drain, at least the basics to protect ourselves.
[00:28:21] Alex: But now I’m currently fully support this idea and. I’m pretty sure that our country will, will establish that. So we, we will need to have this more powerful territorial defense and local related things. So all the people at least know how to use the weapons because civilians get in a situation when they cannot actually do anything.
[00:28:45] Alex: You know, you feel that if you don’t aggressively act against soldier, then you will be safe, but it’s not true at this world. I have a question
[00:28:54] Jesse: regarding the work crimes that are being committed on the ground. Is this something that is sponsored by the state, meaning that there is kind of like wide. You can do whatever you want.
[00:29:07] Jesse: Or this is kind of just like a situation where soldiers are being in that environment brings out like the worst of people, because let’s be honest, like many, many different, um, members of different armies, including our armies have committed war crimes as they’re there. And not all of those situations are like necessarily sanctioned, but I’m curious to, to know if that’s kind of like the case where the Russian government’s kind of just like, do whatever you want.
[00:29:31] Alex: Um, it’s obviously done intentionally yes. As RA war grants in different historical areas. And since Russian media, they call liberal media or not government controlled media. They refer to world war two that, that also did take place. But world Wari was 80 years ago. Right. Mm-hmm what’s um, I kind of realize, you know, army is the top of every.
[00:29:57] Alex: So even soldiers or officers and stuff like that, maybe they’re not best people to discuss Shakespeare or whatever. Right. But, um, you have no doubts that let’s say us, uh, soldiers, they really want to save and protect it’s it’s. That is what drives them to, to, to become, uh, army right. To, to get recruited, to get trained.
[00:30:23] Alex: Uh, and yes, there are military crimes and they are investigated by a government of that country after all. So government accepts that, uh, government says we will punish people who are responsible for war crimes. Right. And, uh, here, uh, Russian government says it’s all made up. Guys, we don’t have perfume studio to make this made up of that size.
[00:30:49] Alex: It’s kind of impossible. And, uh, what is scary to realize is that if that is the top of society, what society is.
[00:30:58] Angela: Uh, wow. Very heavy. A lot of stuff to unpack there. Um, I think something I’d like to dig into a little bit more is as you’re describing the work homes that are happening, I guess it reminds me of one of the topics we wanted to discuss was kind of like different sources of news and.
[00:31:19] Angela: Is trustworthy, blah, blah, blah. So in this specific case, are you hearing that through like direct people, you know, on the ground that have witnessed this stuff? Or is it like select news sources that you know, are really reliable? How are you getting your information about the war?
[00:31:37] Alex: So, uh, direct couple of justice sources.
[00:31:40] Alex: I will share links with you later on and shoes in its first can experience. And people who know people who know people who know people. And, uh, some since I, I kind of guarantee it’s not made up, uh, some people I just trust and some people I don’t trust. Uh, so I, I believe there, there are maybe some over emotional stuff happening.
[00:32:04] Alex: Uh, but, um, the, that kind of big sense, like, you know, missile, heated to railway station, you cannot hide that. It’s, it’s matter of. Right. And it was a recorded case when, uh, when a guy, uh, approached to this place and asked a volunteer, he had a relatives, uh, that were possibly killed by that hit. And, uh, she told a volunteer, I would want to try to find them and a volunteer replied.
[00:32:33] Alex: How do you imagine that? Do we. To open every package. So you recognize the person, can you call, make a call? And he makes a call and phone rings in one of packages. So this thing you, you cannot make up. Some of things I can visually see the missile heated that I told, uh, before and half of building missing there.
[00:32:56] Alex: So you cannot make up. That’s that’s kind of, uh, how I get it. we, we try to rely not only media, but stories from people. And once thing you need to realize that cases with killing is one thing, cases with rape is another thing. Cause even if, uh, um, there is no war, it’s difficult to confirm the case, even in real life because witnesses, they cannot.
[00:33:27] Alex: They, they need to go through therapy and we, we will get that, I believe in, in a month, if they will be able to talk. But now some of people, they literally, they can talk at all, not about the case. They do not talk because of what they, they, uh, been through.
[00:33:45] Angela: Of course. Yeah. Makes sense. Hey listeners, wondering how you can support us the biggest way is by increasing our visibility by following us on Instagram at where are you from pod on TikTok at, but where are you really from subscribing to our YouTube channel under, but where are you really from pod rating and reviewing us on apple podcasts and telling your friends the more people we can get to listen to the show, the more we can continue spotlighting different perspectives and stories.
[00:34:11] Angela: And if you feel so inclined, we’re also accepting donations@buymeacoffee.com slash where are you from? Thanks. Y’all. That’s how you get your sense of truth, um, from actual people, you know, from seeing literal things happening outside your window, and some certain trusted sources, um, dialing back for a kind of global audience.
[00:34:34] Angela: So because we are, we’re not on the ground and we have. I guess we’re bombarded with many different potential sources of information and in the us, we’re very, uh, you know, those are very different depending on left, right. Lean and what they wanna focus on. How do you recommend that? We , I guess stay as unbiased as possible and learn what is really going on.
[00:35:00] Angela: And. So if you have any like, kind of top lines, if you could give us of like how the war is actually going, because I think depending on which sources we listen to, it’s kind of like, oh, Russia’s like dominating or Ukraine’s totally fighting back. Like Russia has no chance. Like, I think there’s a very different narrative depending on which source you’re listening to.
[00:35:23] Angela: So I’m curious if you have any kind of like summary. Top line summary of like currently how it’s actually going and, and how long, I guess you perceive it might last.
[00:35:37] Alex: So we cannot project that. We don’t know how long it’s, it’s going to last. We don’t know the ideas of governments that, uh, how things going on.
[00:35:48] Alex: Is that, uh, you, you need to understand that how since is going on currently, it’s only known by, um, Ukraine defense. So our government even tells that you don’t post any news about any movement of our army, because by doing that, you can do harm for army. So since. Need to be taken retro retrospectively only.
[00:36:09] Alex: So from, since that’s happening now, it is a really bad situation in city of ma and a couple places I have, uh, my colleague from previous work who lives in Lia and from what she says, it’s not, not that kind of grad from other staff. So we had this eight, uh, eight directions where Russian. And so now it’s two time.
[00:36:34] Alex: So, uh, Ukraine was able to block six of the eight directions, which is kind of good. Uh, however, from the ground it’s, it’s not like in a movie, right? When there is a front line and there is fighting. It’s not like that front line is changing every day and small groups of people moving back, back and forth.
[00:36:56] Alex: So you, you cannot get this, um, on ground experience from. Because they hiding their positions from, from both sides. Uh, so it, it can be only done retrospectively you take one particular battle and then you kind of figure out what was happening there. Exactly. But you cannot get live information. It’s kind of a.
[00:37:18] Alex: It’s kind of a problem actually, with nowadays technology, we get used that we post every single line. Uh, right. And so there has some scenes that where’s the proof, uh, right, because you have a smartphone, you can record that, but how do people imagine this? So people is in city where dead parties, everywhere, and person thinks of how to get out of the situation, not, not to provide.
[00:37:47] Alex: Like exact, um, documentation of what is going on. And now I realize that actually war journalism is a tough job. Wh why I say is that change in Russian government might not change. The situation is similar to, um, war Vietnam when, uh, it was intentionally, even once government indeed understands it. There is no, uh, reason for that.
[00:38:13] Alex: And then Washington. Uh, posted this investigation and this is how this anti-war movement rolled out. Right? And in the past you could make an article or series of articles through a trusted source, like Washington post. And that will change the situation. Now we have too much information and, uh, now it knows that just solves that you can trust and everyone can discuss, is it true or not?
[00:38:39] Alex: So it’s kind of opposite side of living in this informational kind of. When, uh, we have too much information to, to pick, uh, truth from.
[00:38:49] Angela: Okay. I think that last main topic is around something you’ve already started discussing is kind of, um, how you see the Russian people, which is a very sticky. Subject, I think we already get a, a sense of, of how you see, um, them, but I guess I wanna just highlight some, some gray area.
[00:39:12] Angela: Um, you know, which is that there, as we heard from the, the Russians fill in that we interviewed it is. Common for family friends to be kind of like divided a across the, the country whose borders, like it was not like only Ukrainians live here, only Russians live there. It was a little bit more mixed like that.
[00:39:32] Angela: And also, I guess, forget the propaganda piece of, you know, Russian government, the laws that they’ve enacted kind of prohibit real protesting and real, you know, Fighting back metaphorically or, or physically of the government because literal jail time for just saying the word war, like how, I guess, how do you see the Russian people knowing that there are definitely some people that are pro war that are imperialist, like you said, and our committing war crimes, if they’re in the army, but there’s also this other sect of people.
[00:40:12] Angela: Are not pro war, but are afraid for their own lives. If they, they do something or, or try to do something
[00:40:19] Alex: right. Uh it’s um, it’s not me to, uh, educate people how to protest, right. Uh, we had exactly the same situation in 2014 and, uh, that sin needs to be kind of understood that some civil rights are not given away by governments.
[00:40:38] Alex: They are taken by people. So. Uh, yes, there is issue in with protesting in Russia, but how did they end up in a situation like that? It’s not, it didn’t appear yesterday. Like not changing government for 20 years kind of is, um, made, made up for that. And, uh, yes, there is issue with, uh, peaceful protest, but peaceful protest in after governments, it’s like playing chess with a bird.
[00:41:05] Alex: It’s kind of, it doesn’t make. Right. Maybe, uh, people could, um, do something else to stay safe, you know, go, go and strike on a factory or, uh, make, make a group of people that, uh, that are, um, able to fight back police. Like you see the protest. One people person get arrested and then other people are few that humans that on their phones.
[00:41:30] Alex: What kind of protest is that? What, what is the goal of that protest? . And so I believe that in years to come, Russia will get on with this Imperial, it will end and they will re realize that it’s not a way to go in nowaday nowadays world. And maybe it will even become a real Federation. It’s not real Federation.
[00:41:53] Alex: Now it’s a kingdom. So it’s called Russian Federation, right? Uh, Federation means you have separate states that have their own laws. And then you have a federal, uh, Texas or something or army, and, uh, that’s not true. And it’s to them to, to decide that we were asking to them to just stop one, not over throw government, do something with your government.
[00:42:19] Alex: So your soldiers, don’t not come to our land. They’re not capable of doing that. And it’s not us to educate them to do that. Our mission now is that soldiers who came to our land stay in our land. that kind of thing. What will happen with Russia? I personally don’t care at all. I do understand that we need to be armed.
[00:42:42] Alex: And so, you know, my childhood, it was like Russian, uh, Russian media saying that the, um, uh, rebel sank is a Republican Russia ons and they were shown as, uh, as terrorist. You know, the core narrative was we are fighting terror. and, uh, now we see the attractions by terrorists fighting every nation that just want to be free.
[00:43:10] Alex: So in 2014, our concept was it’s our protest. It’s what we do. Just leave us alone and we will be partners. We will not be cause as friends, what we can discuss something. We know Russian language now it’s, it’s kind of done. We, we are done with our past. And, um, that says come covered, goes, I believe, um, Russia buys this activity, cut all the tires to its culture from ukranian because how you imagine even not matter what outcome of the war is.
[00:43:45] Alex: Right. Uh, imagine I know someone with Russia, we are colleagues in the past. So I had colleagues in the past and we discussed this, um, historical period and he says, so she. Uh, well, we had issues about sanctions, so apple pay didn’t work. And another person said, uh, well, my parents died. How do we imagine that discussion?
[00:44:07] Alex: It’s um, kind of get to its end. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I guys, I understand. It’s hard topics. That’s why I’m discussing them. It’s war is not easy topic and we, we are getting perspective. Uh, and I understand it easy. Uh, it’s not easy to hear, but, uh, it knows that I wanted to make a take on, uh, common culture. So, so we kind of understand each other when we say about common culture.
[00:44:36] Alex: Yes. We have something in common from Russian empire, from Soviet union, but it’s that we as Ukrainians, we understand Russian and know something about Russian culture. It’s not that Russian’s no Ukrainian and understand Ukrainian culture. if people person from bill will speak to me in bill Russian and I will speak in Ukrainian, we will understand each other.
[00:44:57] Alex: Totally. It’s like 80% of similar, uh, Lexis with Russian. It’s not the case. It’s just, we know Russian it’s. No, our cultures are integrated is that we have a part of Russian culture integrated, not, not opposite.
[00:45:14] Angela: so that’s a really good distinction actually. Um, yeah, I hadn’t thought about it that way, but that makes total sense because of the Russification and whatnot.
[00:45:25] Angela: Um, wow.
[00:45:26] Jesse: So obviously this has been a really, um, heavy episode, but thank you, Alex, for taking us through all of these topics. I think it’s just really important. Why we wanted at the beginning to have both sides represented. So thank you for volunteering your time and, um, being open with us about what’s what’s happening right now, um, on the ground, we wanted to end the episode and just ask you, like, what’s the best way for somebody listening to our podcast right now to help you guys in, in
[00:45:55] Alex: this war effort.
[00:45:57] Alex: First of all, big sent to everyone who, uh, stepped into the topic that’s, uh, kind of big support. So, uh, sheen, I would say, donate to Ukrainian army or push your governments to help us more and stuff like that and stuff like that. But, uh, that seems, um, up to government and for us as a people, uh, just to understand the war is not only that images that you see, it’s actually peoples life destroyed from both sides actually.
[00:46:26] Alex: And, um, just keep that in mind. Uh, maybe the best outcome is, um, when, when people see refugees right. Or something like that. So treat them nice because, uh, their situation is really best. So I would say it’s, uh, it’s the best way, uh, to support us as Ukrainians. So we are not victims victims this time. We are kind of pushing back, uh, as called as, um, As possible.
[00:46:54] Alex: And when people around the world understand what the case is really about, then it’s, it’s the best support for us because this is the way how people can affect their government. So governments really represent people, you know,
[00:47:08] Angela: while listeners you heard Alex, best way to support is to keep talking about it.
[00:47:14] Angela: Stay informed. And be loud, um, so that hopefully our government will also help in, in a stronger way. Um, I would say to help, uh, with what’s going on there and hopefully we see a close to the situation sometime in the near future, though. None of us have a crystal ball. Um, if you have additional questions for Alex, We’ll see if he has time and energy to respond to you, but you can write us in what those questions are at.
[00:47:48] Angela: Tell us where you’re from@gmail.com or comment on our social, because we will be posting lots of clips from this episode as well. Maybe Alex will even engage with you directly on TikTok. like he did, um, for our first clips. Um, Alex, thank you so much for joining us. Truly. This was really enlightening.
[00:48:08] Angela: Heavy conversation, but really important to have, and really special to have firsthand experience. So thank you. Thank
[00:48:15] Alex: you so much. Yes. Thank you for inviting me. And so, yeah, that’s, that was a hard to talk hard to hear, uh, but necessary to do. Right. But, um, So thank you guys. Of course,
[00:48:27] Angela: listeners come back next week.
[00:48:28] Angela: We’ll have another episode for you then, but until then,