383. Odesa Mama, Port of War & Surviving Russian Occupation

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Day 1, Julius of Battleground's third trip to Ukraine.

The second you've been part of.

We've also got your wife, Kim Rechick, on the trip.

And James, the producer of course.

But not Patrick, sadly, couldn't make it this time.

So you're going to be full again for him.

And I know you're going to do a more than adequate job of that, Julius.

What do you think we've got ahead of us?

You know, it's strange to think that we were here just when Trump was being in all your aid.

Which is a little over a year ago.

And yet it seems like a completely different world that we're now living in.

You know, of course, there's all this stuff going on with Iran,

which is a huge distraction from Ukraine.

Afghanistan is fighting against Pakistan.

It's Venezuela.

There's the fuss over Greenland just so much is happening.

And so I'm really curious as to see how things have changed in Ukraine in the interim.

I was back here last summer, fairly briefly, in August, July August.

And went to Clamador, Skonista, Ukraine.

But you know, it's been nearly nine months since then.

And so we've obviously been following the news really, really carefully.

But from afar, and it's going to be fascinating to see how that translates

into reality on the ground, the sort of things we've been hearing.

We were chatting yesterday, Julius, about how all of us are feeling,

just as image and optimism in the sense that it's, you know,

we've been up and down to the whole course of this podcast over the last three and a half years.

But we are beginning to feel a little bit of a sea change

that the Russian economy might really be in trouble.

We've forecast it's imminent demise for so long now.

And on the other hand, militarily, the Ukrainians do seem to have got things together.

They're causing a lot of Russian casualties, as we've been mentioning, of course, on the pod.

But at the same time, they're managing to husband their own resources too.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you know, the Ukrainians have almost fought the Russians to a standstill.

Not quite. They are still losing land.

But they're also gaining a bit here and there.

I mean, it's always difficult to, you know, look at a sort of a microcremble

and say, that's the way things are going to go from here on in.

But I think, at least from the outside, that sense that Russian victory was inevitable.

Just we didn't know when it was going to happen.

That has changed.

And, you know, I certainly wouldn't want to call this one right now.

Yeah, we're just arriving in at Odessa now of first stop.

Brief interruption, Julius, because we've just arrived at Odessa.

But the ever-charming of Odessa bus station, I remember it from last time.

But the city is incredibly beautiful, isn't it?

It's one of the highlights of the trip.

It's our gateway into Ukraine.

We're going to go from here to Harkiv, Kiev, and then Lviv out by the Polish border.

Which bits are you most looking forward to?

Because we've got quite a packed program, actually, haven't we?

It's going to be busy.

I mean, I love Odessa. I've always loved Odessa.

It was actually, you know, we came here last, at the beginning of last year,

and then I came back last summer.

And it was quite surreal then, because there was a really busy, buzzing nightlife going on.

And there were a lot of people outside drinking cocktails.

You know, girls in their sort of fancy dresses.

I remember I saw a Lamborghini in some other Italian sports car.

And then at night, you'd be sitting there having a drink,

and the drones would start coming in from the sea.

And you'd hear the anti-aircraft begin to engage them, and you could watch it.

It was incredible.

See, it was almost like a fairground.

And so there was a threat, but it felt slightly kind of not comic,

but slightly surreal, slightly playgroundy.

And then, of course, we know, we haven't been here, but we know that this past winter

has been really, really horrible in Odessa, power cuts, heating cuts,

lots and lots of drones.

So it'll be interesting to see how people are feeling right now.

Yeah, and the Russians have made a specific target of power supply.

They've been relatively successful.

I mean, some of the statistics we've heard, something like 50% at any one time

of the Ukrainian power supply has been knocked out.

That's obviously not just in Odessa, but Odessa has been targeted.

And also, listen, as my whole remember,

Asgolds are a good friend who sadly won't be joining us on this trip.

Big friend of the podcast, he's appeared many times, was actually targeted,

or he wasn't personally targeted, but his hotel was.

So, you know, those care-free days you're talking about last summer,

things do seem to be ramping up a little bit all over Ukraine, don't they?

Absolutely. And, you know, we've talked a fair amount to Olga,

who we hope to meet tomorrow through the winter.

And, you know, she's been really depressed and upset.

And, you know, she talks about these endless days with no power and no heat.

And we're finally coming out of that winter to spring.

So, this is very much a kind of a false feeling, I think.

We've got off the bus. The sun is shining.

It's 12 degrees, and everybody looks relatively positive.

But that might be because they've just come out of this horrible tunnel of winter,

and they've survived it.

I think the assumption is that the so-called spring offensive,

Russian spring offensive is going to be underway in the not-too-distant future.

And therefore, they're going to change their targeting closer to the front lines.

We'll see if that's going to happen.

It will be interesting to see what the next couple of days are in a desert are going to be like.

I mean, one of the things we are planning to do is look at the damage that's been done to the power supply.

I mean, it's going to be interesting, isn't it?

Actually, talking to people whose job it's been to keep this city running.

Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, really, we can't imagine what it's like.

What is it like working these, you know, cold, dark holes?

When the place has been hit last night, and you know it could be hit again at any time,

and you're not doing that just once, but you're doing it again and again and again and again.

And, you know, we think of soldiers freezing on the front lines,

and they deserve our sympathies, too.

But, you know, there's this whole sort of network behind Ukraine's survival of these unsung heroes.

So it will be, you know, we're very, very, very, very interesting to see that.

And also to see how things have changed in, you know, Harkiv is, I don't know now,

25 kilometers from the front line, maybe 30 kilometers from the front line,

you know, see what the feeling is there.

And then also, we heard a lot about Kiev this winter, and how, you know,

as we know, from most of the war, Kiev was pretty livable and pretty okay.

Yet to be very unlucky to get hurt or killed in Kiev.

And suddenly last winter, that, that mood changed.

So it would be interesting to see that as well.

Yeah, just a couple of the highlights moving ahead,

when we get to Harkiv, we're hoping to speak to the same group,

actually, we chatted to last January.

That's the Hartea Brigade.

That's the unit that actually took a central role in the recapture of bits of Kupians.

I think Kupians pretty much has been retaken, hasn't it, which is also in Harkiv region.

They're also responsible for the defense north of the city.

And one of the things we've heard is that the first person view drones

are getting, which are operating on fiber optic cables.

They're actually getting a little bit closer to Harkiv.

So we're going to find out a little bit more about all of that.

And then we get, when we get to Kiev, we might go out,

we might have an opportunity to go out and see some of the air defense,

which will also be interesting.

Absolutely. And you know, Kupians for me is going to be fascinating.

Yeah.

We've heard these little rumors about the Ukrainians using different tactics.

We won't preempt it now because we'll find out so much more hopefully

when we're in Harkiv talking to Hartea.

But it's, it's really interesting because it runs against that narrative.

And we have to remember, you know, we have to remember a lot of the sort of

the standard narrative out there is just not true.

You know, the whole thing about NATO expansion causing the war,

the whole thing about Russians being on an inevitable path to victory.

These are Russian talking points.

But a lot of us in the West, hopefully not us,

but people have picked up and they just say this again and again and again and again

until it sounds like a truth.

And hopefully, you know, we'll be looking at some of those narratives

and seeing how they're actually standing up to what's happening on the ground.

Yeah, we've called them many targets on the podcast.

Maybe unfairly, in some cases, the useful ideas.

The people who are parroting the Russian line,

not because they, you know, they're Russian Asians.

Just because they've taken a position quite early on.

This is also something we were chatting about yesterday.

Wasn't it Julius?

They've taken a position earlier on about how Russia's bound to win.

It will probably win quite quickly and it's been very difficult for them to pivot from that.

Unfortunately, I mean, you as a journalist,

almost all inevitably is going to take a much more objective line.

And we were very much on a wait and see what happens.

So we didn't dig our hole for ourselves in that sense.

Yeah, and of course, let's be honest, Russia might still win.

It's a massive country. It's got much bigger resources.

And it has the support of China, which is very, very significant.

Ukraine is much smaller.

It has fairly decent support from Europe, not total support,

and limited support from the US.

And the world is changing around us.

We've got this crisis in Iran.

We've got Zelensky talking to the US and saying,

I have the technology to help you in Iran.

Everything is sort of playing into everything else.

This very much reminds me of what we've anticipated many times,

again, with our optimistic hats on.

And that is that Ukraine's military capability,

what it's learned on the front line in the case of national emergency,

is going to be a tremendous use to NATO, to Western militaries.

And already this idea that actually they can,

without spending vast sums of money,

use anti-drone drones to take down the Shahes,

of which, of course, hundreds are still being sent out every night in Ukraine.

It's just fascinating, because

Trump has very much made a point of,

there's not a lot for me in Ukraine,

apart from possibly doing some deals and maybe getting some minerals out of the ground.

But there clearly is a lot that they can benefit from Ukraine.

And that's just another of those little moments

that gives me a little bit more optimism to think that,

you know, there's something in it for Ukraine in the longer term.

And it may even change the way Trump and his group think about Ukraine.

You know, I think for me, one of the reasons

that the Europeans are changing,

obviously, the sympathy for Ukraine.

Obviously, they don't want Russia to win.

But they're beginning to realize something slowly, I think,

which is this, Ukraine's military is around 800,000 people.

You know, Finland, interesting, you know, I was last week,

is wartime capability is 700,000,

but it's peacetime capability is much much smaller than that.

That 800,000 is the major roadblock to Russia's coming west.

So that's one thing.

And the other thing, as you mentioned,

is the technological advances that have happened here.

You know, often in people's garages and that kind of thing.

And, you know, things happen because,

things happen at times when they need to happen.

You know, things don't happen because planners are thinking in the future

about what might possibly happen in 15 or 20 years time.

Necessity makes things happen.

And that's what's happening in Ukraine.

And Europeans are looking at that.

And even if it seems Americans are looking at that and saying,

hmm, maybe we need a bit of that.

A bit of that.

It was a great example of that recently, Julius,

which I'm sure you've heard of,

which, and you may have even written about actually,

which was that a Ukrainian drone unit took part in a NATO exercise.

Somewhere in the Baltic, I think.

And they completely wiped out their opposing force.

I mean, in a very short space of time.

And apparently the NATO commander on the ground said,

if that's what we're up against.

And we have no real understanding of capabilities to deal with it.

We're f***ing busy with the words he uses.

And that just absolutely sums up how much NATO can benefit

from a close association with Ukraine.

Yeah.

So wouldn't it just be strange if Ukraine went from being seen as this total victim

as to, you know, in a more mixed picture,

as something in a country we can help,

but also a country we can learn from.

And perhaps even a country that's integrated into the West,

a little more in these terms.

We'll have to wait and see.

Yeah. Good stuff.

Okay. All systems go then for the trip.

And we're going to get James.

Actually, you're going to contribute a little bit.

I hope as we move forward,

we got James to speak a couple of times.

Some probably on the train, actually, wasn't it James?

But yeah, and also Kim as well.

So our little tight group of four, it should be a fun for.

And don't forget, Boris Jardin Hungary.

And Boris, who is going to be showing up any minute now,

to pick us up from a stranded place at the edge of Odessa

and take us into town.

Yeah, yeah.

So just to stress that,

Boris Giori, who again, very good friend of the podcast,

appeared many times,

is your protégé would you speak to him?

I'd like to say a little bit.

But you know, I feel more like he's the young wolf.

I'm the old wolf.

He's sort of snapping at my heels.

So actually, they're going to be five of us.

But Boris is going to be following us in the car.

And actually, we're going to be on trains quite a lot

which sounds like we're living the dream.

But yeah, I mean, logistically,

I hopefully it will all come together.

It sounds like it's going to be great fun.

Looking forward to it.

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So we're close to the ports here,

Baldi. Welcome.

By the way, great to see you.

Thank you. Great to have you here.

Guys, finally.

Baldi, we would have done this on the Potemkin steps

but there's a bit of a racket going on there.

A bit of a rock music.

So we're just a little bit down from that.

But we're overlooking the port.

This is significant for two reasons.

One, the rations claim Odessa as their own.

The connection with Katyn the Great.

Potemkin, tell us a little bit about that

and how the Ukrainians who live in Odessa see that history today.

Yes. So first of all,

thanks for having me in the show and it's great to welcome you

on the ground in Ukraine.

So Odessa has a nickname Odessa Mama.

Locals call it their mama, their mother.

And if in this relationship Odessa,

the city is the mama then the port is the father

because Odessa really couldn't have

become what it is today without its port.

Because back in the days at the end of the 18th century,

there was a Tatar fortress here.

It was called Fortress and the village.

It was called Haja Bay.

And the expanding Russian Empire conquered it.

It was one of their westernmost conquests actually.

And they erased the fortress and the village to the ground.

And Empress Catherine gave an order

to establish a new city here.

Very much akin to St. Petersburg on the north.

Basically, this city was drawn on a map and then built

akin to St. Petersburg or most of the cities in the US.

They wanted to give the city this ancient historic look.

So they gave it a Greek sounding name Odessa.

Also, if you look around, most of the architecture is very

classic Greek style.

And so, yeah, behind us is the port which is still

a crucial element of the city up to this day.

Because Odessa grew big on being a trade note

between east and west, also between north and south.

Much of the grain export of Ukraine,

which is one of the biggest in the world,

mostly in the world, is done through the ports of Odessa.

So, behind us, actually, I was talking to a lady

just in the morning, a local Odessaian.

And she said that at the beginning of the war,

it was very strange because there were just ships just disappeared on the horizon.

And they were used to see tankers and grain ships going back and forth.

They disappeared. However, they disappeared.

However, now, after the grain corridor was established

by the brokerage of the UN and Turkey,

ships are going back and forth again with the little caveat

that Russia pulled back since then from this green corridor agreement.

And now, warships are escorting these ships.

It's not without danger.

I think yesterday afternoon, one of the ships,

I think, sailing under the flag of Sri Lanka, I'm not sure.

Very hit by a Russian drone.

But it's so vital, the grain export here,

that it still goes on.

Julius, would you like to add something?

I mean, just to be personal for a moment,

no exaggeration. This is my favorite city in Europe.

There's something about it.

And naming aside the present war context,

it feels like quite a Russian city.

And it was established by the Russians.

And it was a project of Yakutva Rina.

That doesn't make it any less Ukrainian today.

But you know, recently as 2014,

this city was really fought over by the residents.

There was a lot of pushing and shoving as to which

where it was going to go.

And now it's very firmly in the Ukrainian camp.

What do you think I love about a desk?

First of all, every time I come here,

I sort of think back to previous visits.

The war probably about a week or two before the war started,

feeling that tension growing.

So there's that.

But also for me, there's a thing about Odessa.

It reminds me very much of the best of Eastern Europe

in the early 1990s,

before it was all kind of smartened up or gentrified or abandoned

or whatever it was.

This still feels like that.

It's got that kind of slightly...

Shabby?

Shabby.

I was thinking of the Hungarian word.

Of that slightly shabby feel to it,

but somehow classy as well.

You know, in terms of the identity,

look, I fully sympathize with the Ukrainians.

Today, you know, after everything they've gone through

from the Russians,

of course they don't want to see pictures of Russian colonial statues

and quote unquote,

great Russians in the middle of their city.

I get that entirely.

But it does have that very multilayered identity.

You know, as you said,

lots of Greeks,

a very Jewish city,

until the Second World War,

when the Romanians were in charge,

and they took away a lot of the Romanian...

a lot of the Jewish population,

and they took off to the camps.

But also lots and lots of different nationalities,

Spanish, people from all over.

So you had...

Opinions, Bulgarians, Greeks.

So you had that big port city,

melons going on.

And then you had, you know,

during the Soviet era,

it was one of the crime capitals of the Soviet Union.

You know, this very famous Odessa Mafia.

Odessa Jewish Mafia,

in the early days,

and no doubt later,

became more multi-ethnic.

It was the place that you could smuggle things out of the Soviet Union

on big scale, you know,

down to Turkey and so on and so on.

So it's this sort of center point of so many different things.

So for me, it really resonates.

And just to add to that,

just to...

I mean, the Odessa Mafia,

it's still a thing today.

Said by true,

a couple months ago, Zelensky deprived the mayor of Odessa

to Hanov of his Ukrainian citizenship

because it turned out and was proven,

eventually that he had Russian citizenship.

And he was very much the head of the local mob,

countless Ukrainian activists were beaten up here

for speaking out against corruption.

Maybe this will open a new chapter for Odessa.

For the development of Odessa,

we will see, it's up in the air.

You can...

This is just another example of Odessa shaking off its Russian heritage

that the mayor was the pride of Ukrainian citizenship

for holding a second citizenship, namely Russia.

I mean, just sorry to interrupt,

but we need to orientate listeners with the reality of Russian thinking,

which is that this is a bit of...

This corridor is new Russia, isn't it?

Mikolaya, all the way to Odessa,

this was definitely one of their major war aims.

I mean, they want to take the whole country,

but if we don't take the whole country, we've got to get Odessa.

I mean, this is a major target for the Russians still today, isn't it?

Absolutely.

If we go back 200 years,

this was the westernmost conquest of Russia

and the rest of it,

this kind of half-cressant stretching from Odessa

all the way up to Harkiv,

Sumi, that was called Novorossiya, new Russia.

And they are claiming it as theirs

just because back in the day, they conquered it

and the local population, the Kozaks,

and which were the proto-Ukrainian inhabitants of the land,

were assimilated into the Russian Empire.

I'm not sure how much seriously they think about this part being actually Russian,

but this is a good claim to lay conquests on...

Because this is very much the industrial heartland of Ukraine.

These are very lands.

They have the ports here, which are crucial.

So I'm not sure if they seriously think about people living here being Russians,

but it's a very, very, very important piece of land for Russia.

I mean, I think that maybe after Crimea,

Crimea is definitely the place that Russians consider the most important

that they have in Ukraine.

But I think that Odessa is really high on the list,

probably higher in a way than the Donbass.

The Donbass obviously has its industrial proletarian roots,

but Odessa was part of their glorious empire.

That's how they felt it.

The other thing, of course, which is very important,

is just look at the geography.

And we're not that far here from Moldova.

And if you could seize Odessa,

you are going to cut Ukraine off from the ocean,

and that economically, you know,

you're going to have to look at the problems that Ukraine has

exporting grain through Hungary and Slovakia,

and other countries that are relatively pro-Russian,

to realize just how important this access is here.

Have the Russians cut this off?

It'd be very difficult to see Ukraine surviving this long.

It's actually incomparable to think about exporting this much grain

on land corridors, just impossible.

You can only do that on ships.

That's why it was so crucial that the UN and Turkey

broke a grain corridor deal back in the days.

It's interesting what you said about the deal not standing,

but nevertheless Russia doesn't really,

it certainly doesn't have the naval capacity to do anything about it.

So then drones and missiles are really the only other option.

Ukrainian naval drones are keeping the Russians at bay in the Vorozisk,

and even sometimes their day managed to hit the Russians.

Not ahead, I think last couple of days.

Exactly, even maybe.

That was the aerial drones,

wasn't it rather than sea drones?

Yeah, you might be right.

Just one last thing I forgot to add,

and maybe you can cut it together,

that one of the things that made Odessa pretty rich

is that when the city was established,

they managed to make the Odessa port a tax-free port.

It was a port of Franco,

a so-called port of Franco,

which was a magnet for business,

and business is still very much a local,

and commerce is very much what Odessians still pursue today.

So we've just met two young Ukrainian girls,

extraordinary coincidence,

and one of them lived through Heson while it was under siege,

and the other one lived through Butcher for the two weeks,

that was under siege,

both pretty traumatic experiences,

as you're about to discover.

They didn't want to be filmed,

but they were prepared to talk to us,

have the audio recorded,

and this is what they said.

Can you just please say, again,

what your name is, and where you're from?

My name is Katarina,

originally I'm from Heson,

and now I live in Kiev.

And you're from Heson,

and were you in Heson when the full-scale invasion began in 2022?

Yeah, when the full-scale invasion began,

I was in Heson,

and we stayed there for two months,

and then we relocated here to Odessa for several months,

and later we were traveling around the world,

and at the beginning I stayed in Kiev.

Could you just tell us in a few sentences,

what was it like in Heson under occupation?

Mainly it was depressing,

really, really bad,

because the main reason for depressing mode

that you cannot live alive as you lived before,

you cannot go for a walk,

and all your shops are mainly empty.

There was some memory in my head

that when we get to the Ukrainian control territories,

and we went to the shop,

and so there are a lot of products,

a lot of sausages, cheese, etc.

It was really surprising for me,

because for two months long,

our shops were empty,

and there were some Russian products

that were really bad in quality,

and they were not tasty at all.

The real changing moment

when you cross the border

between the control territories

is that the people's behavior,

because our soldiers were more friendly to us,

more like, I don't know, caring,

because when we were in the occupied Heson,

sometimes Russian troops were coming to our homes

for checking how much people there lived,

and there was a situation

where some Russian soldiers came to our house,

and started to threaten us,

and our dog was his gun,

and it got a bit messy,

but fortunately everything was good,

but it was really scary.

And the most scary moment in my life

when we were getting out of the occupation,

and there was news that Russian soldiers

checked all the information,

all the phones, notebooks, etc.

And I remember that I do not deleted the telegram

from my notebook,

and there was a moment

where they were checking my notebook,

and I was thinking that my whole family

would die in that moment,

but fortunately they did not found

the icon of the telegram,

and we lived through this situation,

and got out of there.

Do you still have family or friends in Heson?

Yeah, my family lives in Heson,

in the region of Heson.

They live in different areas,

then we lived originally,

because we lived originally,

there is a constant attack of drones, etc.

Our home building destroyed,

our car being destroyed,

and they sometimes come to our original home

for like checking if everything is in place,

but they are mainly living in another village.

Is your friend happy to talk to us about her experience in Buccia?

She would prefer to continue creating in Buccia.

That's okay.

Can you tell us about your experience

under occupation in Buccia?

Can you tell us about your occupation in Buccia?

I'm stressed out because it's time to go to Buccia.

The day before the occupation of Buccia,

they ran to Buccia to visit her parents there.

They were afraid there was a lot of traffic jam,

and they heard that their Russians are already shouting

the world to Buccia from Kiyos.

They ran to Buccia for two weeks,

and they lived in the basement the whole time,

except when they emerged to take some products from the shop,

which was exactly next to them,

and the owner of the shop allowed them to take food

and their medicals from there.

She was most frightened not for herself,

but for her grandparents in her occupied her son.

For example, because Russians were shooting rockets

and hearts of those first captured across the territory

and people blew up by stepping on them.

She was also very frightened because next to their building

was a sanatorium where Russian soldiers were stationed

and they also had their tanks and heavy armor parked there.

A lot of traffic was going back and forth by tanks

and there were these heavy equipment on their garden.

Even Chechen showed up one day to try it in a very bad manner

to get into the basement, but they got lucky

and they eventually did not go down to the basement to visit them.

Can I just ask, the war has been going for four years now?

We've been to Ukraine several times since the war began,

and every time there's a little bit of change.

But we haven't been now for six or eight months.

How do you, I'll ask you, Festival?

How do you feel now about the future?

Are you optimistic? What do you feel?

Well, I cannot say that I am quite optimistic

considering the situation in the war generally

because I'm sorry, but it's terrible.

So, considering that the United States

are now engaged in the war operation in the Middle East,

it means that we as Ukrainians would not get supplied

with the armor to defend ourselves

and it will be more difficult for us to defend

and considering the economic state of the world at all,

we will be in very, very difficult situation.

And I hope that this will, like, and good for us,

but I'm quite realistic.

And I think that we're at this shattering

and we're all gonna die soon.

And can I just ask, I mean, this has been a very long hard winter for you.

Probably the hardest since the war began.

And now, finally, spring is coming.

It's warming up.

People are a little bit more,

they're coming out a little bit more.

So, a sense of some kind of optimism,

maybe not politically, geopolitically,

but just in human beings or in people in Kiev or...

It's like, you know, it's like a parade during the vlog.

Like what?

It's like a parade during the vlog.

I play it.

Yeah.

But yeah, I tried to be more optimistic

and at the moment, feeling like green and etc.

If I'm sitting down in my apartment

and thinking about the future,

I'm not optimistic.

I'm sorry.

How do you feel?

Are you optimistic or pessimistic?

Yes, I'm not.

I was here, probably, but no.

Oh.

When I was in Russia, I was like,

I would like to get better,

but I have the feeling that it won't come back to you anytime soon.

And sorry, one more thing.

So, this is slightly unconnected.

You've just come from Kiev to Odessa.

How does Odessa feel to you?

Well, Odessa, from my perspective,

it's a more quiet place to live.

It's more chilling and relaxing,

because in Kiev, they're more traffic,

more people rushing through their work,

and people here just walking and enjoying their lives.

And I'm chilling here too, relaxing,

before I come back to Kiev.

And considering that I'm here not for a long time,

I cannot tell for everybody who lives in Odessa.

But I can tell from my perspective

that it's quite good.

I like it here.

Mostly because a lot of Shahed attacks

are being dealt with in the sea,

and not about the city.

It's more quiet than the Kiev attacks

on the electricity generating points.

Because I've been through all of them in Kiev,

and it was quite frightening.

And here I have not witnessed any of attacks yet.

Have you been in Odessa before?

Yeah.

I visited Odessa really often

to visit my sister to go to the sea in the summer.

So yeah.

And does the city feel different

than it did one or two or three years ago?

Well, for me, Odessa felt like a safe space,

because I came here right after her son occupation.

And I felt like I'm free again.

Here I can speak frankly,

and I can go wherever I want.

So it's like safe space for me.

And they still feel the same.

And one last question from me.

Are you going to stay in Ukraine?

Yeah, of course.

I had a lot of opportunities to go abroad.

I lived in Turkey for eight months.

And it was the most depressing period of my life.

I wanted to come back.

I wanted to be at the air attacks with my friends,

because I feel connected to my people.

I feel being in the context of what going on with my country,

because I love my country with all my heart.

And being abroad, it's like tearing me apart.

I don't like it there.

And I'm going to stay here for a living.

But yeah, I'm planning to travel a lot.

And just your name and your age, please.

My name is Katarina.

I'm 23 years old.

My name is Diana.

I'm 24 years old.

Just one last question from me.

It's fascinating what you say about needing to come back

and be connected and experience the

what everyone else is going through.

But not every Ukrainian is doing it.

Some young people have left.

Do you think after the war

and when they come back,

will this be a problem at all for society?

Or will that's just their choice?

Yeah, of course it will be a problem

where already facing a demographic problem

with people fled from Ukraine.

But I cannot blame them.

They want to live their safe life.

We live only once.

And it's me, my choice,

to stay here and to work here

and build my family here.

But it's also their choice to choose any other safe place

to live because they can.

And answering your question regarding

whether they are planning to return.

I don't know.

Maybe some of them will return

because they will not be able to assimilate

their quite right or some other reasons.

But I think that Ukrainians are

really comfortable people.

And they would be able to assimilate

and to contribute to the society they live in.

And I don't think that they will return.

Sorry, one other thing.

What do you do in Kiev?

What is your job or your profession?

I'm a junior associate in a law firm

and I work in commercial arbitration.

It operates on your project manager.

She's a project manager

and they are organizing events

of study opportunities for doctors.

We're very impressed with both of you.

Thank you very much for the interview.

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