Kitbag Conversations - Episode 12: Live From Ukraine

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

This week Daphne Wesdorp and Chase Baker return to talk about their observations during the Russo-Ukraine conflict. We discuss (but not limited to):  - Journalism in Ukraine  - Too close to call stories  - Chase lore  - and comparison and contrast between the Middle East and Europe in times of war

Hello everyone and welcome back to Crow It's On before this week we are joined by two previous guests Daphne Wesdorf a Dutch journalist and Chase Baker an American journalist they both are recently returning to Ukraine after some hard art and I'm really interested to see what they have to say based on the last in Daphne's case she's been in Ukraine for a little while now and Chase just got there has been hanging out with some interesting people so I thought it'd be fun to get everyone back in the same room and have a conversation so everyone how you doing? Hi yeah thanks for having me um yeah doing well I'm in Luziv now I came back yesterday so I'm pretty tired like I'm a train ride um yeah doing well yeah excited to go further

into Ukraine uh I'm I'm hanging out on the Polish border right now so I'll be heading into country tomorrow going to Lviv and then I key up for a little while and then eventually out to Karkev again so it's my final stop and Daphne you're gonna head immediately just back to your old checkpoints before like I know you went to Odessa and um the Nipro are you gonna head out there again or are you gonna like do something different? No I'm gonna go back to the Nipro like I became pretty good friends with the owner of the hotel there so I'm just gonna go there I and I think the Nipro in general like it's a good base to be in like it's kind of in the middle but it's it's you know like um it's easy to get east as well you know where everything is happening

right now um so I'm just planning to do that and Odessa it's also like I want to go there um but I just have to find the time you know because it's such a different area yeah it's a very different front there as well so I think I'll just stay in the I'll stay in the Nipro and in the east maybe go to Karkev uh for the first week or something like that and then after that I'll just uh yeah check with like Nikolai Abizat at this point and Chase what have uh since you've been in country the last three weeks to a month what have where have you been at for the listeners who haven't been following you on Instagram um I've been hanging out mostly in uh Karkev so in in the city itself um there's a couple

times I went uh further south along the um along the frontline area um but generally in the Karkev for the most part um which I mean in terms of like places I would like to go in the country I definitely want to check out the rest of it um Odessa is definitely on my list of places I want to go to I know one thing I wanted to check out and maybe do a little story on was the uh they have these like incredibly intricate and um deep and long tunnels underneath the city and um they've been used in wars past uh as like a former defense so I was going to see if I could check that out and see what's going on over there yeah it's insane it's I put about it as well like I'm just wondering like X's Y's is it is that possible right now to go into the tunnels

I um I was looking that up actually um but all I could find was stuff before the war of like people who were like it was actually like you know unlike one of those like tourist things where it's like look at these really cool tunnels from like the second world war or whatever and uh I mean I don't know apparently they run throughout the entire city and it's like kind of like a metro and like a normal european city where there are technically like entry points throughout the city but you kind of just have to have somebody with you to get in because it's very easy to get lost down there yeah you don't want you don't want that no yeah you probably just need a you probably just need a local it's like yeah I'll take you down there how much money

but this sounds about right actually but I think also like the place is entirely like militarized right so you probably just need permission as well and like uh I don't know like probably somebody from the army or the territorial defense um yeah I'm not sure what that was that's right oh yeah true I didn't even think about that they probably have started making like defenses down in there already maybe yeah yeah definitely last time I talked to you I think uh Odessa was just about to get essentially invaded I don't know did you spend a lot of time down there because I know you moved around a lot and it doesn't seem like anything major happened outside of some shelling because

as we saw like atlas and all those some ships tried to dock and they just got smoke check so yeah yeah I saw this well well it's just like I I think I came to Odessa um in the beginning of March and there wasn't really much happening back then there was there were these these people because it was very uncertain what was about to happen so there were these calls that they said like oh Odessa is going to be attacked um but nothing really happened because you know like the first thing was Kiev and now it's Domba so Odessa it's just it's a bit of a weird case in general I think also because the defense in Mikolaj is very strong so it's like yeah what are they gonna do like uh yeah uh so now I think they're just like regularly like bombing it in my opinion um and just trying to

like uh like stay there uh and then maybe after like Sofina Donetsk and Alohansk and Donetsk uh yeah after they booked some success there they're they're gonna like uh focus on um focus on Odessa but in general it's just like because I I also heard like that the uh the Ukrainians are planning like a counter offensive to to Persom um so yeah it's it's it's a it's a bit of a weird situation I think like more than just like shelling it it's not really going to happen yeah absolutely this upcoming summer fighting season is going to be pretty intense from both sides it's because the Ukrainians have their own equal footing now and they don't have that essentially a three-front war going on and they could put all their defenses and all their effort

into essentially Kyrsten where there's not a lot of guys and they just the Ukrainians essentially retrograde attack because they said hey we're coming back and then just the war zone which is the Donbass region but yeah it's going to be a pretty intense few months before the the fall yeah no definitely and especially if you see that even in um well office like Sofina Donetsk is going to fall like at some point but even there like they booked some like the Ukrainian forces booked some progress into the city if I if I'm correct so even there it's going way slower than yeah then people are always saying like it's it's just yeah it's it's taking a long time so in that sense it's going to be a very long summer I think so Daphne are you planning to uh stay in Ukraine

for like for like the foreseeable future like you know the next like two or three months or what's your plan yeah no three months I'm not gonna do that no I think I think I'll probably just do the same thing as last time like about two months um still I'm still a freelancer but I'm writing for Dutch newspaper like regularly um so I was thinking like six to eight weeks um but you know like last time that escalated as well so I really don't know it really depends on what's gonna what's gonna happen um and I'm doing this project now with Atlas um it's gonna be like on the ground uh kind of like reporting like doing episodes um short episodes about different places like you know like wherever I'm reporting from um so yeah in that sense I think six to eight weeks

but if something happens in the meantime and I want to stay longer like it's uh I'm flexible like yeah I don't have like a set date to go back or anything right right no return ticket I remember that was so freaked my mom out she'd always she's like you're going to Ukraine and you have no return ticket my mom needs it and she's like when are you coming back and I'm like I don't know uh yeah but she kind of accepted it though at this point right right I mean I'm assuming the I mean going back in like you probably noticed already well actually when did how long ago did you leave Ukraine don't let me ask him wait so you what what was the question so how long ago did you like before you just re-interred when was the last time you were in Ukraine uh it was three weeks ago

yeah I uh I was with uh with the Dutch journalist and with uh with an American journalist at the time so photographers and we went to Sofia Donetsk uh and you know at the time it was already really tense uh and access was really bad like you know like you could just drive there you could just get in um but the military was really pissed off that we were there like we got held up so many times and like questions and at a certain point everyone was just like yeah fucking like it's not worth it um we should just uh take a break and go back so we drove like from Sofia Donetsk that last time straight to Poland and yeah that was about three weeks ago yeah okay I believe it's sorry sorry my bad yeah no it was just like Sofia Donetsk at that time it was a very different

situation from now like now there's just no way of going there like it's just too dangerous I think well in my opinion especially you know what after what happened to the French during this that went with the um with the evacuation buses like it's uh not just a shit show yeah I was uh leaving the day I left Kharkiv when um when he died but it was uh you probably noticed like I'm assuming it was like that whenever you're leaving but the country is like everything pretty much east of sorry west of Kiev is like incredibly calm but it's uh it's remarkable yeah Lviv like I'm sitting like in front of my hostel right now and it's just it's like uh it's like a camping ground you know everybody's just too late because it's just like back to normal uh yeah I think it's going on to be honest

you know yeah it's also a difference like the last time it was in when I was in Lviv it was it was in like beginning March so back then it was still pretty tense and also like it was winter you know so last people were on the streets anyway um but yeah it's an insane difference yeah and Odessa as well by the way uh have you been there Chase? No I haven't made it to Odessa yet but you know one day yeah but I'm assuming that's what it's like because it's like it's so bizarre and that's something that the most jarring thing about the uh short period of time that I spent in Ukraine um the past time was uh how concentrated the fighting is and how like quickly you go from like a really hot spot where like there's active shelling and you're like in a live fire zone to

within quite literally a 30 minute drive and you're in like a really quaint town where you could go and be groceries you know? Yeah you're absolutely right like you you saw it in Karpi probably but you have like in Sontivka and in those districts like there's active shelling it's you know like people dying every day well every day like yeah maybe actually and then on the other side of the city in south you have like people like gymming outside and people like running and so even like the contrast is just so big yeah yeah so I mean am I uh the what my first time um like being like a really tense situation was also these humanitarian workers right and um we were uh the guy I was with he uh I'm not gonna mention any names or anything but he uh he spoke really he spoke

broken English but um so I said hey so where are we going today like what's the plan right and he goes uh first stop uh no war second stop no war third stop little war fourth stop very big war and I was like okay cool so um anyway we get to uh our third stop and and uh he goes uh first line so he would always call the front line the first line he goes first line is uh one and a half kilometer and he like pointed in one direction right so I'm okay the front lines a kilometer half that way and you know you can kind of hear some some explosions in the distance nothing too intense and then um it was getting later in the day so and and we were like hanging out this this third stop and um and so we get back in the car

and uh oh we also we did go to the front line there was this like a forward little outpost thing where these seven training soldiers wore but anyway it was super quiet and we we get back in the car and we leave and so for some reason I thought okay we're going back to car key right so I took my whole kit off like I took all my helmet my my body armor and everything and uh we we stop at this little he's like there's a super like uh the completely destroyed apartment building and um he's like you want to make photo and I was like yeah sure I'll take some photos like I thought we were off like the front line and they off like any area that was like you know any kind of dangerous area because I thought we actually driven back to where we came from

so I get I'm taking photos and he goes at night this area controlled by Russians and I was like what do you mean and he goes oh this is zero line so what he what I ended up realizing is that somehow he decided to take us like slightly past the front line in Ukrainian positions and so we were in this town that had been like controlled completely by the Russians a week ago and it had just been um semi liberated I suppose and um anyway uh like everything started lighten up like within a half an hour like lots of shelling and everything I that was one of those moments where you're like oh I don't know if I'm gonna get out of this but the funniest bit was was like I said 30 minutes after that we we drove off out of there and uh the guys all the military

workers I was with were all Ukrainian and they wanted to go to the sauna and so we go to the sauna and listen I'm American right and uh we like guys don't really like get nude in front of each other um and I didn't realize I should have thought about it but like this is like a like a nude sauna type deal you know and uh so I uh had like a serious cultural experience I would say between like you know 30 minutes within 30 minutes like being like shelled and stuff in the 30 minutes later being in like a totally nude sauna the size of like a walking closet so I don't know it was like very it was very bizarre to me to like have that like contrast within such a short period of time you're on there hanging out with free willy just you know doing his own thing

no there were some real cowboys for real yeah that's insane yeah but like the time uh we went to the front line in uh the first the first line in uh between Zaporizhia and the Mets and it was pretty quiet back then like we went uh well the same thing with you like he was like okay this is the third line this is the second line all up um and the third line and the second line it was like Village is completely destroyed by shelling like everywhere just also like random in the fields and I'm like why are the Russians like wasting all this money on artillery uh to just like hit a blank field like nothing is there but anyway um so we drove there and went to the first front line um and while we drove there there was lots of shelling uh but when we actually

came to the first front line there was there was nothing really there and this guy the soldier he was sitting there he was like yeah this is actually a better place to be than the second and the third line because they're shelling most like like uh like over us uh so we were sitting there in the trenches and we saw like the the shelling like going over our heads the whole time um so it's strange yeah like from is very it's very fluid as well you know it's there's because the dangerous that mostly from the air especially in those areas like not if you look at ground battles like that's in everything but in most places like it's just dangerous from the air um yeah so in that sense like the first sometimes safer to keep them the second in my opinion yeah and well that

would I hate the most about being in those spots is like whenever you're around artillery it really freaks me I mean it freaks anybody out but like what gets me the most about it is that it it's just all chance to a certain extent like you can't do anything about it and you just gotta like stay there and hope that it doesn't come your way yeah exactly it's just random yeah we got we got shell ones in the in the north of the car keep uh it's latin I don't know if you've been there um but it was it was so fucked up we were following an ambulance and uh we already knew like okay because we're on our way back to car keep and then we saw the ambulance or like all right let's you know let's see what's what's happening and um then we went more and um we came to this house and

it was a it was a beautiful sunny day by the way it was like one of the first warm days in Ukraine and um this house was hit there were three like bodies on the ground um and it was hit by two mortars I think um and we were there and I think we were only there for like five to ten minutes like not that long uh with the the red cross with the ambulance and then just out of nowhere like the another mortar hit like right next to the ambulance we were like taking shells there we were like like fuck all right um just lying like next to the wall uh then a second but at those moments it feels so random you know because there's nothing you can do like well we actually like after we went uh after we saw the shelter like in the next to the wall we went inside the house

with one of the the persons that died um but yeah those moments it's so random like it's terrifying to be honest yeah I uh I have to definitely completely agree with you on that um it's just like spinning the roulette wheel you know it's it's all yeah it's just like everything feels safe and fine until it isn't you know and that's the anxiety part for me is it's like you don't know when it's just like anticipation of like when something's gonna happen so it's like very hard to enjoy the quiet moments you know yeah exactly yeah and it's also like the only thing that you know like nothing really keeps you safe but the only thing is just like don't stay anywhere long in the five minutes and just like well at least if you're like in between front lines or the areas

that are like heavily hit or whatever just yeah just don't hang around like that's the only thing that can keep you like slight think yeah did you see that video going around um of that uh it was a thing it was a Vietnamese journalist and then a journalist from Hong Kong and they were in there they got um they were with their fixer and uh they got showed yeah it was fucked actually yeah and they were just like hanging around the checkpoint I think or just like on the road I don't remember if it was a checkpoint or not um yeah it was fucked yeah I saw it yeah that was an intense video how Chase I understand that that you've been hanging out with some uh interesting individuals out in uh Karki you want to talk about that yeah man um I I'll be kind of like

I honestly can't mention any names or anything but I've been introduced um to um very graciously introduced to some very uh interesting guys I I haven't really met any regular military um Ukrainian military all just kind of you know uh volunteer groups who uh who are in the Karki area so like guys that are in uh Freikor um Kraken and uh yeah but those are basically the two main groups but uh those two groups are kind of are like really in they've been in Karki for a long time and that's kind of like they're stopping grounds and I've been uh um I've met them uh done some interviews and uh there's some there's some interesting people I would definitely say and the craziest thing is that whenever you meet them

you know some of them are like those hardcore looking dudes that like with a full beard that look like if you saw them out in public you'd be like oh that dude's like definitely seeing some stuff but then some of the guys look like you know they look super nerdy they were they were like glasses and like you know they're full on assassins yeah yeah right exactly I don't know man but yeah I've been uh meet some of those guys and talking to them um probably the most interesting day that happened for me was uh backing uh some some of the listeners might remember this it was back late February the actual date was February 27th there was this uh there is this um Russian ground forces attacked in Tkarkiv so there was like there was that battle on the street where like it

went viral where the it was like from the video was taken from Ukrainian positions and they were firing on a uh on a school and um then there was that one of the everybody was confused by because it was just like a Russian convoy that had rolled into Tkarkiv with like no armor or any other support or anything just kind of like pulled up and just got like smoked um but anyway I was with these with these guys from fry corps and they took me out and they were like we're gonna show you where we had a battle in Tkarkiv and I'm like all right cool let's go and I was like wait was it this battle and I pulled up that video that um that went viral and the guy goes one of the guys that I was with goes no I recorded that video and I was like no way man that's wild and they explained to

me how there is this um how Russian they believe that they were spetsnaz because of um the context of how they were sent in and what their mission was so there is this uh there's a school that run that um is on the side of a road of the main road that runs to the north of uh the north outskirts of Tkarkiv and the Ukrainians were using it as their supply route for the front lines in the north and so they uh um like a small group of uh when I say small I mean like about approximately 30 men of Russian forces came in took the school and it turns out there's actually somebody in the Karkiv area or however I don't know exactly who did it or they believe that it was somebody in Karkiv that did it themselves but the school had actually been prepared for

them to come in and for them to occupy it uh they said that all the doors in the school were unlocked and there was actually uh food and water and ammunition already stored inside the building for them and the objective of what they were going to do is they were going to take the school and it would be like essentially a choke point maybe able to cut the uh supply route to the north um so yeah I mean they they taught me through the whole battle and they walked the walked around the school and everything it was uh it was pretty interesting yeah isn't the school where the guy took the selfie and almost like an auditorium with about a platoon's worth of Ukrainians right behind them when he was like hey I guess where we're at

where's um or am I thinking about a different one I'm I'm not sure I haven't seen this photo you have to send it to me yeah I'll have to dig it up but it was like a yeah just a selfie of the guy doing a full profile the entire auditorium with Ukrainian soldiers posted up and then he posted it and then school got attacked or something like that and everyone was like hey dude what the hell oh was it the one where the dude was playing the violin or whatever or is that a different one I think it might be there was a lot of schools man I don't know yeah yeah there was that yeah so Daphne last time you were out here you were hanging out with Colin are you going to link up with him again or you guys doing your own thing yeah no Colin Colin went back to the states yeah

it's sad though but we're still doing the the documentary thing together because Colin like he filmed a lot when we were in Kharkiv a lot of schools as well I think like because we're editing everything now like we have like four different schools that come bumped as well so yeah no we're still doing the documentary thing together but yeah I don't know I hope he comes back yeah yeah you guys were out there doing some good things Chase you're gonna link up with anyone I know sorry about that what was that Daphne oh no nothing no we did some good work yeah no it was really uh it was good like working together with Colin um yeah we went to be I think we mainly spend our time in in Kharkiv I think

like three weeks there yeah dude probably sorry sorry no I was just gonna say I remember when I contacted Daphne the first time she was like I'm on a bus and I'm on my way to Kharkiv so if it's choppy you know where I'm at so yeah when I when I spoke with you last time like it was the first time that I was in Kharkiv and then our fixer you were still like no it's too dangerous you can't stay in Kharkiv or what and then you know like in the end after we went actually into the city and we went with a different fixer we kind of realized like as I was saying the contrast that it's you know like a lot of journalists like it's fine to stay in the center uh you know in the southern areas but yeah like you don't want to stay salt of scout obviously um but yeah it's uh yeah it's a

big difference like having spent so much time there now but uh so I you know I don't think I've ever told this story to anybody that knows who Colin is um I knew I met Colin um through Instagram about a year ago um when he was still in college and he was and we were we you know we would chat all the time and we kind of you know got became the kind of buddies of her the internet and uh he messaged me um like mid-February out of the blue and he goes hey I just dropped out of college I'm going to Ukraine and this is before the the main invasion started so I was like in my mind I was like you know I was going to like you know not be supportive I was like really supportive and I was like man that's a lot of cool all that stuff but in my mind I was like man if Russia doesn't invade

you know it's gonna be like out of pocket like a lot of money type deal right so I was at work when my friend texted me who's like uh who is who's like really into news and everything he's in the military he just texted me like one you know one sentence he goes Russia Russia just invaded and um I immediately as soon as I had opportunity I FaceTime Colin and he was like walking around car key and I'm like oh what are you doing he's like brother Russia just invaded I was like I know what are you doing outside he's like they're bombing the city I'm like okay what are you doing yeah and then I guess the rest of history in terms of following career in Ukraine but it's so insane at the time like when he was there like nobody had any idea

what was happening he was there with Finn uh and they were just like for a couple of days they actually thought that Russia was about to invade the city which you know like I would thought the same probably you know it's scary um but yeah it's kind of cool how we saw like the whole car key story like running from the beginning to the end because he stayed actually until the Russian troops like pushed them back into the to the border yeah no it is it is incredible it's not only was he in Ukraine like when the war kicked off he was in car key but it's all like right up wild yeah yeah I remember seeing that and back then because I think all other journalists they left car key because they were like you know it's too scary like they were sketched out uh and

Colin was still there you know like and that's a good thing about freelancing as well I think you don't have to like discuss with your editor like a thousand times and everything you can just you know like do whatever feels right you get a rock roll isn't it Finn who in the I think it was within the first week of the invasion who got picked up by a national level Canadian broadcasting company they're like hey can you do an interview about the war he's like yeah sure I'm the only one here so oh I have no idea yeah probably by uh by the tv thing right yeah yeah yeah it was definitely uh like a FaceTime interview yeah yeah and when he was because he went back to Armenia like uh some weeks later um I think he's still broadcasting for them like they picked him up

so yeah I can turn that's pretty funny yeah I um I remember my last my last day in car cube I stayed at the um at the uh one of the one of the bigger hotels there and I walk in and the only people there were like news teams and my other journalists it was very bizarre to be there and like having the only other people inside the hotel being like people who have like I mean these people were kitted out they had like some insane camera gear like it was it was it was bizarre but I mean now like you know the fighting is so concentrated like going to car keep it don't get me wrong it's not like super safe but at the same time it definitely wasn't what it was back when uh you know everything first kicked off you know Russians only left a few weeks ago like what two

three weeks ago where they actually did the retrograde because they just camped out in the east in the north for something like 75 days they got pretty close and just hunkered down so yeah and the things is I've been I've been hearing also from people that are still there and I've been getting some videos from from people who are in car cube apparently the uh shelling and like artillery strikes in the center of the city have really really picked up yeah we gotta think of it psychologically here if you leave you're just gonna keep pressure on those pressure points and all those choke points where hey the civilians think the war is over hey guess what it's not so it's almost psychologically targeting the support base for the guys going east and the

guys going south they're like hey your family's still on the line don't think you're uh don't think it's over yet so yeah yeah and like that they're like okay fuck if you know we can't take the city so we're just gonna like bomb it yeah we'll shell it like assault have got the other you know all that was like yeah I think about three weeks ago something like that's four weeks they were hitting solvus got so bad you know like it was just we were there we were standing and we just saw like I think it was like 10 rounds of artillery like coming in and we were like the incoming uh uh like the we heard it like exploding like the the buildings but you know like luckily most people have left there so that's a good thing but yeah I think it's ours like Barbie frustration

yeah and I was I was talking to some soldiers about the state they were they were making the point that a lot of civilians are returning to car cave um because they think it's it's all over and you know the soldiers made the point like you know the fight is far from over it might be relatively safe now to come back and you know live your life again but in the long run it's likely not going to be like that well the same thing you could look at Libya or Syria or you know Afghanistan where the fighting's not here today but it's still going on six miles away 30 miles away so there's going to make the most of it I guess yeah yeah it's also the fact that like you know if you serve a house that stands like I can kind of I can kind of understand that you're

coming back especially in the safer areas um but you know like if if your house is ruined like you just what is the reason you know to come back like I don't know for me it would be like I would probably sit it out a bit longer um because it's so young like you literally didn't push back like just you know like some weeks it's not that long actually that raises a pretty good question is the who's going to help repair houses is it coming out of this Ukrainian's pocket is the government going to bail them out is there an NGO showing up to help repair the cities have you guys seen anything like that well I think it's uh the government is doing a decent bit um but I don't think because you can see like you probably saw it as well but like the streets in Kharkiv like

the moment they get bombed they get cleaned as well so they're pretty good in my opinion like they were saying one of the soldiers said like we don't want this to be a second Aleppo so we went like for example one of the streets that was completely bombed there were like burned out cars all all over and a week later we came back and it was just clean so yeah I think it's probably it's probably the government as well but also a lot of like local NGOs that are helping out with the cleaning but I think their worst fear especially from the civilians themselves is that it's going to be you know like something like Mosul for example which you know after five years is still just in ruins the government is doing nothing so I think they're trying to avoid that

yeah just take let's take that a step further and see how the Russians have tried to clean up Mariupol because that city is gone yeah it's just gone it's uh yeah I don't know like I would love to report from the Russian side but it's just it's too difficult like I heard from a friend that it's actually like you can get the Russian accreditation but getting a visa is just impossible but yeah if there's any way if there's a if there's an opening I would love to report from the Russian side as well we'll ever talk to Jessica Daly she was out in the trenches in Donbass for eight years I think and I'm pretty sure she'll know some people out east who know some people yeah maybe I've no idea but I do think that even then like a chance is just so small like if you're

not if you're saying like oh I'm an independent reporter like there's no way you're gonna get it to into those areas yeah especially if they censor everything and I don't know how many I could probably count on my hand how many Russian journalists have come out and actually said anything that was not state-approved yeah you saw like the the theater I forgot the name again but there was like shelves and I think hundreds of people died and they posted some pictures that it was like all cleaned up and everything but there was one report that said like yeah we could still smell the the bodies over there so yeah you're not going to see anything out of mario pool that is like closely related to what is actually going on there

mm-hmm there's gotta be one or two running around in kerson I can imagine there's at least one saying something very deep in telegram very deep in telegram just dude I love telegram and but like I had there's so many channels I'm in now or like yeah channels that it's just so difficult to sit down and go through them all I really like uh how Wagner dropped the z like the reverse side of z-metal and they went right back to the almost like they know they're losing or uh ciloviki which is like security forces those guys are just I wonder what what they throw up in bench press to be able to carry that strong accusations they have it's just it's insane and I've really seen much out of you know intel slavo

but he's you know doing his thing but if there's one person I would like to talk to it's him who okay now that's one person I want to know like what is his backstory who is intel slavo like because if you read his post his grammar is too correct for him in my opinion to like be uh like I don't know you could y'all he could be russian but like I feel like he's probably like either born in the u.s. or some other english-speaking country he's probably and initially I thought it was like oh intel slavo he's you know like lord intel or whatever I was like he's probably a a russian intel analyst because there's a whole lot of conflict journalists on instagram that are also like intel in the military our military so I thought that at first but yeah

it was like his english was way too good I know russians and they're it takes years to master what they're doing so it's probably like an english conspirators from like one of an anglo nation just out here just maybe his parents came from the soviet union in the 90s after it collapsed and he's just all but hurt or maybe he's actually someone in the military who has or collegiately trained I don't know but yeah his he's got the strongest claims in the game what's the name of the guy again like the guy from texas that is the big of the separatists for uh how many years now advice made an item about him once he's this uh this is a communist from texas and he always oh yeah yeah isn't really fat what's his name again is isn't he really fat is that the guy you're

talking about yeah yeah he's really fat well he wasn't the first like yeah I remember I think I think they call him tex I really think that's what I call him oh is that the one who uh is with the russians right now helping repair trucks and stuff I think that's the one yeah yeah because he's like yeah they call me tex and uh slobber receipt by the way you're like okay but because of social media that it gives off like all these people that are like involved in this war the opportunity to make themselves like uh like celebrities and it just like it is given way to so many characters it's ridiculous what happened to that one that one frenchman who said he was ex french foreign legion and now a volunteer in ukraine and he got doxed to be just playing lark

out in the safest part of ukraine and everyone's like bro you're not a war hero but there's so many of them to be honest like there's so many fake accounts out there on instagram and whatever and these are just guys that are pretending to be solo viewers and are like oh can you help me fundraising the ball up but they're just you know like they're not doing anything there have been so many just on instagram stories or twitter where it's like oh by the way this account's been siphoning cash and extorting people don't uh don't talk to them and as soon as the war started i just knew that there was going to be some some carpet bagging profiteers running around over there going oh yeah i'll clean up half the city yeah i got a bunch of trucks they're in

france but yeah we can clean it up you just got to give us a disgusting amount of money so daphne where are you heading from here are you uh going to hang out in levy for a few days or are you linking with anybody i remember you were one of the first ones talking about the train station and how everyone was cramped up and uh was it crack out and they were just hanging out there in malls and sleeping in sleeping bags and whatnot but to be honest like when i arrived now we're the same train station there was just one like people waiting in line so you can you can really see that the whole rest of the screen to the west is kind of like ending and i think the people from the from the east that are feeling

now that's being inside of the train whatever it's just you know the map this is kind of over i think but then i'm not saying it'll be it's uh yeah as i said there's nothing really here no i'm going to go to Benito um and then i might have uh i might link up with an american and i want to do a story in the in the north but i'm still not sure like you know as you were talking about that before my you know and i know there's like young battles like happening now like outside of the city so i still i'm still not sure if it's a good idea um also finding a fixer i think very difficult because all the fixers that are like saying like oh i could take you there like 19 years old

it never is not too war they're just like oh you know i i think you're saying i don't think very so now i'm just ready to take you there but yeah i'm not gonna explain them like it's suicide so i but i wanted to say there there's been this this beautiful cathedral uh it's been burning now actually like i think the last shelling was like uh six hours ago um it's not too bad yeah but the funny thing is actually like the last time i was there because i was there before i left uh and i spoke to some people and um some of them because it's like uh it's a uh it's in korean orthodox church there's a lot of like russian orthodox people there as well and they were saying like yeah we're waiting for the russian liberation so they were like yeah

people die like we blame the ukrainians instead of like we blame on the russian you know which was kind of interesting to me because that was the first time some of you was like speaking so openly about it um so i'm just wondering like what the situation there is now and yeah if these people still think the same i wonder if they do because it's very much interwoven with religious lines where the russian orthodox church refused to condemn any actions from the russian state and if there's some russian orthodox uh a church out here just going oh yeah we're just ready for the liberation i wonder i don't know you could just get into that psyop where they've been talking to a congregation forever and everyone on their sides getting pretty dialed in drinking juice you

know but oh yeah you're right and the funny thing is actually like when the when the church released the statement um they said that they uh they didn't say this russian artillery they said like yeah we're not sure if it's russian or ukrainian but they were also like very vague on that point so yeah there's definitely and i do think that's something that is not you know like people don't talk about it enough but there's also people in the next well that uh you know like they're doing things in the training it's not on the russian i mean it's not it's not the majority of the people you know who's too far there yeah that's um something uh i noticed whenever i was in car cube and i did not really think about

before is how there is actually a significant pro russian uh since certain people have there's significant amount of people have pro russian pro russian sentiments in the city and i'm assuming that's probably a thing throughout the east of the country is that they're you know it's kind of divided and just because of the proximity to russia and since the majority of the people especially going to be get really far out east speak russian yeah yeah i think in car cube like 90 of the people they just speak russian and they speak ukrainian no they understand it but like a whole mystery russian um when i was in uh like the the front line between carousel and nicoleia we went to some villages like next to the front and there were like boundaries

so there was nothing there like no civilians uh but we went inside like one of the the regional administration buildings and uh there was like a soviet flag hanging there was leaning with the head of leaning on it and so many like there was a clock of leaning there was so like soviet uh you know like like things and that's the point when i realized that i was like all right you know like you're bringing people like no matter if they're russian like pro russian or ukrainian or whatever um they are like attached to their their history like their cultural history um so yeah that was pretty interesting and i think that's a that's a thing you really see in the east that people are more connected to um to their soviet history even though they sometimes

like want ukrainian independence like those things can go hand in hand so this leads me into a topic i wanted to ask you guys so chase you and i are both americans and i don't know if you noticed this before you came out but in my area ukrainian flags are already coming down and it's like oh everyone's going oh the war's still going on we're still talking about that we gotta worry about monkeypox you know one of those things but i don't know if it's like an american psyche outside of europe because europe has thousands of years of history and something like poland can hold the grudge for a long time and it just just all these parts of europe central asia and the middle east they have that deep historic um identity to latch on to you

because america is so new compared to the rest was it 200 plus 250 plus years do you think that has something to do with it maybe because and something i've noticed is like driving down the road i mean i live in the dc area and i'm like oh everyone there's not a single protest anymore they used to do these every wednesday at 11 and now no one cares and then all the the real thing the real winner of this war out here is amazon because everyone just automatically had a ukrainian flag so um but yeah i was wondering if you've noticed anything yeah i mean before i left the u.s people didn't really know it was funny because when the war when the when i won't say that it works the war's been going on but when the main invasion happened in that first two weeks to

like a month it was like everybody and their aunt was a military expert um and they all knew it was going on ever i was like paying attention to the war but i mean in terms of americans i just think that um we're pretty uh pretty monkey brain you know like we're just like you know our attention spans are so short and we have some smooth brain criminals running around no without a doubt yeah so i mean it's just just how the american culture is we like cycle through um you know what what's holding i mean okay listen let's be the real the reason why people don't are thinking out of your ukrainian flags in america is because of it was because of the amber herd giant depth trial let's be real well 100 but not not max well from six months ago let's remember that one but

i mean it's just americans really are i mean i'm sure it's like this in other countries as well but so but you know i can really only speak for americans i'm not the dog dog them but they're very uh the majority of them like uh they're like uh they're like cattle um and you just a lot of group think and stuff so i mean i think that it's just it doesn't hold the same interests anymore and another another thing too is like you know the war's been at a somewhat of a stalemate for you know like a month and a half now so you know i suppose a lot of people have lost interest in it which is unfortunate because you know for me what's really touched me since when i was in ukraine is you know the humanitarian side of it all like of course you have the people who are you know

scammers and charlatans who are just trying to make a buck and all but then you know i've seen people like you know ucranians who are who are like you know i'm guessing since upper middle class and they're they're like you know humanitarian guys and they spend their own money to you know buy gasoline just to uh drive around the front line areas the south of the south of karki when they go to some really hot zones just to deliver things like that's insane it's like i do think that the whole volunteer like the whole like chain of supplies and everything to the front lines it relies on individuals mostly i've met so many people that are um like potting up like uh like needs and and stuff like that that they're just bringing by themselves without any organization

or whatever um to the front lines or to people that need them and that's really insane like for me to see yeah and that's what i'm saying is it's like uh you don't i i suppose okay so there you kind of broke up oh i can hear you now okay but but but sorry um yeah i probably should have mentioned this i'm running this off a hot spot so it might be in and out but you know and in the west you know you you don't really have any like absolute poverty or incredible conflicts that devastate people's lives and so i mean in a in a certain sense you know something like this gives the opportunity to have people who are in their heart truly good it gives them the opportunity to act

that out in the world around them and and to see that being done is really like i said it's super heartwarming yeah it's inspiring like i always wonder if um well very hypothetically like imagine germany would invade the Netherlands like i have no idea what dr people would do um if they would react in the same way as ukraine people did um like for me it's very hard to imagine that my uncle people around me that he's like picking up guns and you know like uh split teams like like uh start this volunteer action and stuff like that so one thing i noticed before the war happened and i know a few ukrainians and they moved to the us within the last several years or whatever and whenever i bring up the war they would go oh the war is far away we hate the russians but hey what are you

gonna do you just gotta keep moving on and now they they're the most patriotic people i've ever seen and that just feeds right into that idea of like oh i'm gonna go help clean up or i'm gonna go fight the russians like there is no option number two and i don't know if you guys have noticed that we're maybe met a ukrainian who prior to the war were like yeah i really don't like russians but what are you gonna do i don't i don't know that's what i've seen but also i know them here in the us so sorry i didn't i didn't touch the question what do you think you broke up cool i was i was gonna say that i don't know if you've noticed this or talked to any ukrainians at

the moment but i know a few in the us who moved to the us within the last several years and they would say something like oh there is a war yeah we don't like russians but they're far away and then now they're the most patriotic it's not yeah i don't know if it's so much a question but if you've met them well i understand i know i understand i didn't know from it um but yeah but it's also like what am i thinking and i can speak for the meadowlands then you know this meme right that you have like this one thing first it was corona and it was like kicked into your brain and then is ukraine right so it becomes like a trend it's like oh this is the thing that we should focus on now so it's an interesting thing right just um like i don't i don't think that

most of the dutch people that are saying like oh i need brussia but they actually or they actually know like what is happening and that they know like why do they brush up because they're authoritarian you know and everything but i just i don't know if they actually realize it or that they're just doing it because it's just a trend well we probably always have those uh those counterculture kids who are throwing up z's in public just trying to look cool because it's different but yeah i would say you know it's uh something something as intense as a war for an entire country as a pressure cooker and it it it brings people together i mean i just kind of going on my earlier my earlier what i was saying earlier about the unitering workers um it it

definitely emboldens you know patriotic feelings because you know you're all in this together fighting one common enemy because i feel like people you know to have like a more it's more like a like a tribal mindset you know if you could just focus on one thing that's like we all dislike and is ruining our lives it can definitely bring people uh some uh more fraternal feelings yeah tonight yeah definitely so i want to look at this like as a different angle because we just talked about the americans and kind of like a and not to doggone americans or anything but like a short time frame of their window of focus where isis was really big in 2013 14 time frame and there was like a split divide down the middle of the us we're on one half they were like we

got to take care of this issue they're shooting up people in paris and the other half are going well we created them so we really got to reconsider our actions for the future and it was this weird dynamic instead of like a uniting idea and of course the us wasn't directly getting attacked by a peer nation but it was like a cultural divide right down the middle and it was definitely i don't know if you encounter anything like that back where you're from but it was this weird weird quasi like political statement and of course everything in the us gets very political but yeah well i think it's when you compare the Netherlands to to the States it's very different because we we don't really well most people they're pretty apathetic towards politics

yeah um there's not this huge fragmentation um but you know as yeah as you were saying like this this unity that happens when one country invades the other like um if you look at isis for example it was just as you were saying like it's just this fragmentation is there's always when the when a crisis is there but it's not like directly uh attacking your uh your life like it's just you can have an opinion about it and you know people form opinions very quickly like without definitely like the right resources and everything um so yeah it's just like this huge fragmentation that is that is created like we have this thing in the Netherlands like with the ice right so they're coming back um like well some people don't really care about it but

other people have no idea like what what dash is done or like what the international community has done like to you know like to kind of create these type of extremist organizations um there's it's i don't know uh it creates this black and white thing in society but it's not as politically like loaded as in the States and yeah i'm sure about that yeah i would say i mean well going off what we were talking about earlier talking about how you have there are Ukrainians especially out east that are pro-russian you know it's it's not even though you know i've seen that this war has brought a lot of um brought a lot of Ukrainians closer together they're definitely it's still not completely black and white you

still have that undercurrent you still have those people that have uh it's definitely the minority point of view but it's still you know an opposing point of view that's this pro-russian and you know i i think you know in the States i don't think we could ever have an issue in the States where it would be like something incredibly unifying anymore like i don't i don't think that that's the thing i feel like in the culturally and uh i feel like America right now right now at least right now is two divided um maybe like pulling teeth to get a 912 movement going you know on one single issue yeah without a doubt without a doubt i mean you also see like the the the school shootings and everything right like

um like things just get more black and white whenever it happens it's like either all guns are bad or you know like um there's just no in between anymore yeah there's never any nuance in like thinking in the in at least in America i'm assuming it's probably relatively widespread but in the west but there's no there's no nuance it's not there's no ground there's nothing like okay well you this this point of view does have some correct opinions and the other side does as well can we like come together and like make something great and like you know a new opinion but no it's it's just like you're either on this side or the other one time i have seen it pop up and it was more of like a comedic sense is i don't know if you guys

saw that meme where it was saying like countries in europe where if you were a guest they would offer you food in sweden was an absolute no and every americans like dude that's just rude like why wouldn't you offer them something i think the Netherlands they prefer an absolute no as well really yeah and i think like if uh if for example because i was in in the in Kurdistan in Iraq for for quite a while um and it was the exact same opposite and i was so surprised because i come from uh from a country in which if somebody is like lost in the streets or whatever and he's like hey i'm hungry like we would think like are you trying to sell us something like what do you want from me and they would just like well in Kurdistan i think if you're like on the streets

for like five minutes people would like invite you in like no matter who you are and stuff so yeah like i saw i saw that meme yeah and it's it's very accurate um the US was like a weird 50 50 and i could just think of it was like yeah you got your city dwellers where if you look someone in the in the eye you're like what do you want and then you got people outside of the city like yeah you want to go like you want to get a beer i'll cover the tab like it's one of those yeah kind of yeah yeah but if you're an immigrant in Milan it's like no way no way no no they're like sink or swim bitch like hey Daphne what what um so i don't i don't know if you noticed but i grew i grew up in Kurdistan

as a kid what uh yeah what cities were you in i lived in Duhok yeah i loved it oh so you're on the uh okay wow so you're up in the border area okay yeah yeah it was like i originally came there to report on like Turkish bombings uh i think like a year ago or something like that and um i was thinking because i i don't know like i was thinking and i had friends in Duhok um so i was like yeah it's probably good place to be but then i realized the KDP you know like it's not a great place to be if you're going to report on the the Turkish bombings um yeah but it was still uh no i i love it like there's mountains and everything and i moved for a short while to Erbil um i hated it there so yeah like after i was like done with that piece um and i wasn't like as critical on the

turkey and the KDP like am i in the pieces that i wrote like i look back i got you wow okay that's pretty cool yeah so whenever i was in the Duhok area that was during like the like full scale american uh like occupation war in in arabac so you know the Turks weren't really doing anything but it was still like a super tense border crossing whenever you like cross the border up there into a turkey but did you ever go out do uh like Sulemenia or anything yeah yeah also yeah i went to the i think Biyari is the name uh yeah i went there a couple of times and Suley you know it's it's a very different different area you know it's it's uh yeah well obviously you know it's it's a bit more loose and everything but i moved like quite quickly

i went there i was there for i was in Kurdistan for three months and then i went to Iraq and then i'd report from there um but no Duhok was always like my place to be so used to hot like Duhok was a bit more quiet like a bit more cool down in the summer all right right it was a it was a good place in the day yeah did you ever go to that um in Sulemenia they have that uh did they call it like the red house or something yeah yeah or the sorry the red uh once again it was uh it's it's the old like torture chamber yeah yeah yeah they have a beautiful museum there uh they're not like the last time i was there they had this um this installation or this uh and you said this exposition uh with all the

the ypg and ypj fighters that had died uh during the battle with ISIS uh and it was insane it was like all the walls that you saw uh there were just like full of portraits like small portrait pictures of uh like the the men and women that died um yeah it's beautiful when was the last time you were there uh i left Kurdistan in 2013 so i was there from 2003 to 2013 so he speaks planning of kumanji uh yeah it's really weird so i haven't spoken it in a long time but the uh about a year ago i was uh one of our Kurdish friends visited us in the states and uh he he i i hadn't really heard Kurdish in like seven years or whatever and he said something to me he said and uh which is like you know go ahead mr chase yeah i hadn't heard that forever and it was just

like the most bizarre thing like i just exactly was saying like if i was told to change that i probably couldn't do it but i was like wow it's like this weird thing and like the depths of my brain but i used to speak it pretty well when i was a kid and like you know i would i just kind of grew up around and i like picked it up um which is easy to do as a child but you know like if i could if i was to do it now i could just get by with like basic phrases unfortunately but i grew up i grew up um half of my whole time i was there i was a little weaker cook from 2007 and then in 2007 the insurgency in the country got really really intense so we moved to sulmenia so that's what took us to sulmenia

yeah but are you Kurdish no no no i'm an American my uh oh look at that sounds dumb um but uh i was born in america i'm not Kurdish ethnically no um i uh my parents my dad was a civil engineer and he was a relief worker uh he did a lot of work with the um with the army corps of engineers because americans we have an amazing policy of like blowing things up and then using our tax dollars to rebuild those things so um yeah yeah no i haven't i haven't been to character unfortunately um i wanted to but there was just there wasn't any time um but yeah it's uh what's the situation there like now like because there are the kurkuk like especially the outskirts there was in one village i remember uh it was in between um kerfuk and well like the the Kurdish border now um that

was under uh isis application actually for a very short while um are there any like how many isis cells were left in terkel do you think i have no idea actually i it sounds bad but i haven't kept up with with like uh with with iraq and Kurdistan like like super in depth and you know some time um which is unfortunate but i definitely i definitely do want to go back to uh i was actually planning to go back before kovat i was going to go back to uh to Kurdistan yeah you know i i think you know i wanted to do some stuff up do some reporting now at least since you know kind of falling into this career path i want to try and do some stuff up towards like you were saying do a hook area but yeah yeah same dollars also like one of the places that i

really want to uh like try to do some reporting from i guess it's pretty difficult um have you been to shangal like when you were young you remember um i i i don't not sure no i mean the thing is is like we know when i was a kid i was just trying to drive around by my parents so like i don't remember exactly i do remember i went to bagdad twice so that was like the big thing it's like if you go to bagdad it's like you know you have to go like iraq proper and all that stuff so yeah yeah it's uh how old are you left by the way i was uh 13 yeah 13 yeah yeah it's interesting to you probably i don't know like all these fake memories about like bagdad or whatever if you go back i don't know i don't know if you yeah if you recognize it or something like that

yeah i i want to go back to uh i want to explain that would be the big thing for me because that's like you know i would be able to see like what's changed and all um yeah but i remember yeah it's just it's it's a super beautiful place and now like looking back on it it's just like very there especially whenever you get out of the city and i'm sure you know like the countryside is absolutely gorgeous yeah did you went to the to the like about the name zawa mountain i think but there's this place in tsunami uh when uh like everyone in the weekends they go up to the mountain and you can try there and like there's shisha and what it's just looking like over the city all these like yeah of course so actually crazy story when i was a kid um i was uh

i was i was in that mountain range area you're talking about um and it had just snowed um up there so we were like oh my my family let's go let's go look at the snow and all right and so we i don't i don't exactly know how long we drove for but apparently we got like somewhat close to the iranian border and uh i ended up accidentally i was probably like 11 or 12 i was just walking around in the snow like stomping and everything right having a good time and i turned around and there was this big like you know that like minefield sign like that like with that like that sign on it so i like i accidentally like wandered into a minefield um and i was like yeah yeah so here's the crazy thing so like i back then um i couldn't i didn't have

like cable or anything so like whenever i had to watch and this is before like i got like on internet and everything so whenever i wanted to entertain myself i would just watch my parents dvds like movies and stuff and there's this old american tv show called mash um and it's about the the korean war and it was like a show in the 70s but anyway it's it's about this uh mobile like medical unit and so it's about like the doctors and about how it's a comedy but it's also like a drama at the same time but anyway there's this one episode where uh the uh one of the protagonist hawkeye that's what was his name he's like um he's talking to this soldier who got his like legs blown off by a mine and he said well i was just doing what they told me because i was

following the footsteps of the guy in front of me in the snow because i knew this where he stepped and so like as a kid i was like oh i remember that scene and so like whenever i like backtracked out of the minefield i like purposely like took in this like took the steps because it was like a snow had just fallen so i could see where i'd stepped which was safe and so oh it's the same yeah like probably if you didn't see that show like you know it might be a bit different yeah maybe i wouldn't be in a park in the months there yeah i mean the best part about mash is uh it went on three times longer than the war actually did so yeah yeah that's what's great i was watching some like social commentary on that and i didn't realize this but like you know now i realized

that i'm older um looking back on it but that was it was it was it kind of morphed into like a commentary on the vietnam war which was ongoing whenever the show was created i'm i'm sure you yeah i've seen i've watched a few it read about mash and they were like yeah that was just their uh the public's voice on the situation because they're watching the war on tv they're like hold on i'm a writer for a tv show hey daphne chase i really appreciate you coming on we're getting to about that time is there anything you would like to plug uh no i'm good okay yeah i'm good as well we'll have to come back on and uh shoot the breeze with some cool people anytime thank you so much for coming on and if there's nothing for me i guess i'm gonna call it

that yeah thank you all right anytime yeah and chase i'll see you maybe anything yeah let's definitely get together do some cool journals and okay all right thank you so much you