once we get across this wall we're going
to be in Mainland Ukraine and the reason
we're taking a train is because people
have been trying to cross the new
Russian checkpoints between Crimea and
the mainland have been stopped and uh
arrested and taken down to the security
services in sevastopol the train is the
safest option right
now this is chunar this is where the
Russians have put up their new
checkpoint and defense um but we're
going to go to the other side of it so
that we can film it from the Ukrainian
controlled side because it's safer that
way
not in Crimea anymore this is mainland
Ukraine
[Music]
so we're here at the uh Ukrainian
checkpoint um before you get into Crimea
I think the Ukrainian Army is just come
down here in the last couple of days
they're digging in because the Russian
army has brought their forces into the
Ukrainian Mainland so they're actually
outside of Crimea already and they're on
a small Peninsula jutting out of the
Ukrainian Mainland and this is a sort of
No Man's area between this checkpoint
and the checkpoint of the Russians 12 km
that way
so the Ukrainian military uh has
announced uh a Countrywide military
drill there's a lot of um Columns of uh
machinery and artillery heading south
towards Crimea but this is the last
point at which they're sending the
troops and so forth and we're we're
going to interview the commander here at
this
checkpoint for
I want to see what the view of the road
is like from the inside one of these
armored personnel carriers
holy
crap this is a pretty heavy
gun
wow I don't know where you could put all
those people
so this is the inside of a Soviet built
armored personnel carrier it's got a
pretty heavy machine gun over here a lot
of ammunition and all of it's pointed at
Crimea
these soldiers they seem like nice guys
but you got to take into consideration
that over the last 22 years since the
collapse of the Soviet Union Russia's
been involved in a number of conflicts
on its own territory and Beyond and
Ukraine has been totally peaceful so few
of these soldiers are going to have any
real battle experience
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the commander just told me he didn't
want us filming their forward most
positions those are their little secrets
we're not going to get in their hair
so it's all smiles here on the Ukrainian
side now we're going to head to the
Russian checkpoint see what the vibe is
there
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a week ago this was just a highway
between one Podunk town in Ukraine and
another and now it's turning into an
international boundary the Russians have
put a barbwire fence and Min that
field I'm a little bit more nervous here
because because some journalists who
have been going through the Russian
checkpoints have had their equipment
stolen and have been
arrested there's been two groups already
that have gone missing and then showed
up in sasto in the office of the
security
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services and I'm hearing the beut riot
police officers who were fighting the
protesters in Kiev a lot of them came
from Crimea and the beit has been
disbanded but now that they're back home
the Russians have reinstated it and
they're Manning this
checkpoint they wear the blue uniforms
preee
hey hey hey
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the governor man the barrao they
just grabbed us they grabbed Freddy they
took us behind the corner yeah
questioned us went through our pockets
took all our stuff looked at our
passports I think we were saved by the
fact that I'm American he's British and
they didn't want to create an
international incident and I was telling
them how can you grab us like that we're
unarmed we're not a threat all we've got
is cameras and he was like one of the
guys in a mask he's looking at me and
he's going how do I know you're not
unarmed I saw your cameraman with a
knife I saw the other cameraman he had a
gun and you're trying to tell me you
were unarmed we know you're not unarmed
we know what you're up to that kind of
talk basically just bracing us um
eventually it calmed down a little bit
and they they let us go we're very lucky
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