May 3rd 2024

Yuriy heads to a frontline combat zone, where he captures a day in the life of the relentless battles, moments of respite in a peaceful town, and the stark realization of the thin line separating wartime chaos from everyday normalcy.

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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)

It is 3rd of May. 

Full scale war in Ukraine has been ongoing for exactly 800 days now. These are 800 days of pain, despair, unbearable suffering, and incredible heroism. The Russians intended to conquer us within a month to subjugate and then destroy us. We've been resistant for a third year now and have no intention of surrendering.

Now, let me tell you a story that I find fitting to share on this bloody anniversary while you take a look at the description of this podcast there are GoFundMe and Buy Me A Coffee details to help me and my loved ones. Remember, the only monetization of this podcast is your support, which is always necessary and always welcome. Thank you. 

So the story, I spent some time with a unit holding positions on one over hot sports over front the guys' positions were in a semi destroyed building a few hundred meters from the Russian invaders. The battles there were constant; five people who could fit into this building fired several crates of ammunition and RPG shots per day. Every two days, the fighters were replaced. The exhausted five in the early morning while it was still dark, left the position and fresh five soldiers loaded with crates of ammunition, took over the position and began fighting the Russians. 

Those who were replaced, got into a Jeep and drove to rest. They had two days to recover and return to hell. They rested in a regular country house on the outskirts of a small town. From the positions where bloody battles raged, it took only 30 to 40 minutes to drive to this house no more, and it was truly impressive. Here you are in a ruined settlement, much of which has already been ceased by the Russians, where you can only move stealthily, where the gunfire never ceases for a second and just a half an hour's drive, you are in a town where cafes work, where a supermarket where people are busy with some ordinary things working: going on dates, buying ice cream for their kids. 

Shells from Russian artillery don't reach this town, so it leaves relatively peaceful despite the fact that the battles are region very close to it. Relatively peaceful because there are no longer any cities or towns in Ukraine where the Russians could not reach. We wear ballistic missiles. A shell from a howtizer can fly 30 miles and that's it. A missile flies thousands of miles and it's very difficult to intercept. But that's a story for another time. Now, it's about the guys who rested in an almost peaceful town and returned to the war hell every few days.

I will probably never forget the feeling that struck me when I rode with them in the dark to their positions. At first, we drove along a well lit street surrounded by billboards of pizzerias and Japanese cafes. The guys in the Jeep joked and laughed, but as soon as we left the town, the jokes stopped. The street lights disappeared, and the road became worse and worse- heavy military vehicles going back and forth had destroyed it. Soon the driver turned off the headlights and drove in the dark, as if guided by some sixth sense as if he were a Jedi, who felt the way even when he could not see it. If the headlights were left on the enemy would see us and try to hit us with fire from mortars and heavy machine guns. In an un armored Jeep, that would be certain death.

The last few hundred meters of the journey we covered on food hiding the Jeep in a small ravine. We reached the positions unloaded ammunition and replaced it with soldiers who had been there for the past two days. 

You know, it's unbearably difficult to sit on the fire, literally under the enemy's nose, and know that only half an hour separates you from ordinary, normal life. But if you don't sit there on the fire, don't hold positions right under the enemy's nose where won't be any normal life, where won't be life at all.