Привіт! Salut in Romania so greetings from Bucharest I evacuated here on Friday from Chernivtsi
in Ukraine and it's now let me check the date it's the 28th of February's it's the last day of February 2022
and it is day five of Russia's full-blown invasion of Ukraine and I want to make this short video
to explain how Putin's war on Ukraine is actually galvanizing the Ukrainian people and
I think we're seeing the beginnings of a really unified Ukrainian state and people this is a
unifying act you know something that defines a nation the fact that they have a very clear
adversary an enemy at the moment which is Russia unfortunately for Russians that's the way it's
turned out with this war with Putin's decision to invade have a full-blown invasion on three fronts
of Ukraine so you've probably seen some of the already iconic images of president Zelensky
on the streets of Kyiv obviously the mayor of Kyiv itself Vitali Klitschko also the former
president Petro Poroshenko out with a gun in his hand ready to I guess man the barricades
of Kyiv and defend the city these are all iconic images these are nation building and it's the
direct opposite obviously of what Vladimir Putin wanted when he made this decision to invade
so it's pretty surreal to see how coming in and invading trying to crush the country
that Vladimir Putin does not believe has a right to exist it doesn't exist in his speech
it's not allowed to be independent it doesn't have legitimate borders and what he's doing is actually
helping the Ukrainians to consolidate and unify as a nation so I just want to give you also a
few examples that are personal anecdotes of people that I know in Ukraine and how this conflict has
changed their attitude towards Russia and Ukraine as a country and obviously here you
can see behind me some of the beautiful architecture in the center of Bucharest
a city I've been too many times and I wasn't expecting to come back to in these circumstances
so soon so I have a friend from Odesa who's in fact Russian she wasn't born there and she's
actually Russian but she's been living for a very long time in the city in Ukraine obviously in the
south Odesa mama one of my favorite places and now before this full-blown invasion in spite of
the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in spite of Russia supporting these separatists in the
east of the country in Donbas and the fighting that's gone on they claimed already the lives
of about 14,000 Ukrainians in Donbas since 2014 she has still had a positive image of
Vladimir Putin as a president of Russia because she goes and she visits it pretty regularly and
she thought well you know would life be so bad if Odesa became Russia right if Ukraine just
got absorbed into Russia or rejoined kind of the Russian sphere of influence that it's been trying
to get away from as a country at least since 2014 and you know I was looking at her instagram post
and just how outraged she is by the invasion how personally offended and attacked she feels and
just how suddenly she is incredibly pro-Ukrainian and the idea of being Ukrainian it's the complete
opposite obviously I guess what Russia's military commanders and politicians would have expected
I don't know if they were expecting to be like greeted with people cheering giving them flowers
you know greet them as liberators since that's the narrative that Vladimir Putin has tried to
create for you know domestic consumption domestic propaganda is that they're going there to free the
Ukrainians from freedom as far as I can see he's claiming they're going to be denazified and get
to choose their own leaders complete rubbish the whole thing very weak propaganda because it's like
anyone's ever been to Ukraine would just laugh at it but I guess that's for domestic consumption so
there you go someone who's actually even born in Russia and goes there regularly has now flipped
completely their opinion because he's taking this decision to invade the country or have an
extended invasion of Ukraine that is obviously also threatening now her hometown Odesa mama I saw
the images they were reminiscent of 1941 and the defense of Odesa the siege of Odesa
with Nazi Germany and actually Romania remaining was in the Axis collaborating with the Nazis
they invaded Odesa the city and occupied it it's actually Romanian occupation same image juxtaposed
with how they have the sandbags around the opera house in Odesa now defending against a Russian
attack something that would have been unbelievable when I first came to Ukraine that Russia would
attack such a historic and beautiful city which the majority people actually speak Russian as
their first language so that is anecdote number one anecdote number two I have a friend and his
his partner is from a town that just got seized by the Russians one of the very few towns
that has been seized so far and that is Enerhodar I think is how you pronounce it and it's there on
the Dnipro river and you know the reports from the cities because the internet is still working in
Ukraine communications are still up which really shocks me because that was one of the main reasons
I wanted to get out is I was fearing that I wasn't going to be able to vlog and communicate with you
at all you know in the event of a war so we got all the information out and basically the Russian
troops who are now in control of the city have started effectively looting so they've robbed a bank
they're robbing shops they're commandeering people's houses kicking them out
because they didn't have fuel or food or really have any clue where they're going apparently
because I don't even understand why they chose that town it doesn't look to me they'd be the most
strategic from Melitopol to go up there I really don't know unless there's some other plan that
they have but think about the reaction of the local people I already saw some clips on
been set out through telegram locals have gone to the town hall where they're obviously the
armored personnel carriers and the Russian soldiers and
they're standing outside unarmed civilians singing the Ukrainian national anthem
making it clear they want them to get the hell back out they're not welcome
They look like a group of bandits basically trying to loot the place to be clear I haven't gone
around smashing up the entire town and looting everything but you can see right this is not the
way that you get the locals on your side if you're invading to liberate them so the complete opposite
and these kind of events are as I said nation building they're going to unify the people around
being one common idea that Russia is a big threat even if they speak Russian as their first language
even if they have family members on the other side even if their grandparents parents
are Russian they're going to have this unifying narrative of them versus you know the inside group
against the outside group which is Russia so it's pretty tragic for Russians to have to watch
this I feel also bad for Russians and Belarusians who most I don't think are in favor of this war
whatsoever have to watch all this clownishness from especially leaders like Lukashenka
and Putin looks demented and mad at this stage even suggesting that he needs to get
his nuclear forces ready I know there's again more brinkmanship but I thought
you know I couldn't decide before whether it was you know in the previous videos whether it
was brinkmanship and he was just a really good actor or he's just got a bit mad and it looks
increasingly like that's the conclusion that he has gotten a bit mad so a unifying
narrative is really important and sometimes you can flip people like we've seen in these very
extreme situations I remember just in my home country Ireland that there was an uprising
in 1916 that was not popular they basically tried to kick out the British government to simplify it
they took over buildings in Dublin and a lot of the center got wrecked when the British took it
back by shelling the center of the capital of Ireland and whilst people in general were
not in favor of independence they wanted more autonomy in general at that time because
of this failed uprising which was unpopular the British then started to crack down very heavily
on Ireland and the Irish people as a result in the next elections that they had it flipped and
a pro-independence party became extremely popular so these kind of extreme situations when there's
kind of a lot of violence an invasion or you know a crackdown can flip people from being
you know maybe they were bit well maybe not exactly pro-British but a lot of the people
were fine with staying in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at the time and
it flipped them and they wanted independence so we're seeing that same national identity
been really I think developed here as a result of Putin's war it's no longer going to be east
versus west Russian speakers versus Ukrainian speakers I think you're going to see a lot more
unification of the country and going forward if Ukraine does survive which is not clear
unfortunately at this point and I really have to say kudos to the Ukrainian military for their
incredible bravery and success on the battlefield against all the odds against all the expectations
they've done incredibly well we're on day five I'm sure Vladimir Putin thought that Ukraine
would no longer exist with its current government by day two or three probably and we're on day five and
while things are very tough in Kyiv it looks like it's being surrounded at the moment
and i really really feel very bad for the people who are there especially and I have friends who
are in Kyiv and also in other cities like Kherson and Mykolayiv and things are very grim looking at
the moment but they have held out against all you know against all the odds of the against
what is supposed to be I think the third world's third biggest most professional military just my
my deep respect and on top of that you have the images of the citizens of cities like Kyiv and
Odesa putting together molotov cocktails to resist the Russian troops if they enter the
city making it absolute hell for them I've been watching telegram a lot of yeah obviously the
videos of people sending from the battlefield and lots of cities I've been to seeing them
wrecked seeing them shelled seeing strewn military vehicles and dead soldiers it's all terrible
unfortunately this is the reality the horror of war but Putin has galvanized the Ukrainian people
and I will be trying to do some interviews live with people I know who are there in those cities
in the coming days so I'm going to put up a little maybe a little bit of a timetable so
watch out for those in the coming day or so and in the meantime Слава Україні! Героям слава!