Poland to send 74 tanks to Ukraine | Ukraine: The Latest | Podcast

I'm David Knowles and I'm Ukraine, late today we discuss the

latest

updates from the front line, look at Western thinking on Ukraine's increasingly complex logistics supply train, and interview Richard Woodruff, a British volunteer chef who spent most of 2022 cooking food for Ukrainian soldiers. the front lines in Frontline Kitchen in the Viv this appalling and barbaric undertaking of Vladimir Putin must end in failure Putin's war in Ukraine has destabilized energy markets around the world no one is going to bankrupt us we are strong we are Ukrainians all weekday afternoons sit down with top journalists from the Telegraph's London newsroom and our teams reporting from the field to bring you the

latest

news and analysis on the war in Ukraine.

It's Friday, January 27, day 338, and I'm joined to discuss the latest developments in Ukraine and around the world by our assistant comments editor, Francis Stanley, Brussels correspondent Joe Barnes, and from Frontline Kitchen in Leviv, Richard Woodruff. I started by asking Francis to tell us about the latest news from Ukraine. Thank you David and welcome back to all our listeners. Around the world, on the battlefield, we hear that Russian forces appear to have carried out probing attacks near the Ukrainian towns of Orakev in the Zaparizia region and Volda in the Donetsk region; However, according to today's regular British intelligence update it is unlikely that they have made substantial progress. now I must add that both sides Ukraine Russia have recognized activity in these places the heads of uh, the head of the Russian controlling part of the Ukrainian region of Don Yes, said on Wednesday that units of the Wagner group were advancing in the city of Bakmut and according to a senior ukrainian official yesterday fighting on the secondary route and in volodar was getting fiercer in other news in the military space it's all

tanks

again this morning so we hear that the UK has confirmed that British

tanks

will arrive in Ukraine in time for the long-awaited Russian spring.

Join the offensive, of course, the German-made Leopards will receive a key in a few weeks. We'll have more information on the exact tank count on Monday, but the other big update this morning is that Poland has confirmed it will be

send

ing 74 main battle tanks, a slightly larger number. I think what people were initially hoping for in Ukraine in an attempt to further advance the country's defenses ahead of this expected offensive. Now Joe has written more about this and I'm sure they will have many more details. I'm just giving you the core data here, so Warsaw is planning to

send

14 German-made Leopard Twos, as well as 60 modernized Soviet-era tanks from their stock, now just to contextualize this, of course, Poland was the first country to NATO in donating tanks.

Initially, Ukraine, when the invasion began, sent, I think, around 260 Soviet-made T-72s to its neighbor, so there were some pretty interesting developments this morning that will no doubt continue to be updated, heard over the next few days and, in fact, weeks, as I mentioned. in the zapariza region and this seems an opportune time to return to the issue of their nuclear power plant, which of course we were discussing at length late last year due to concerns of military activity around the plant, things have been quite quiet there lately. weeks, but there is an update this morning: The UN nuclear watchdog has reported powerful explosions near the Russian-occupied Ukraine power plant, Raphael Grossi, head of the international atomic energy agency, said and I will quote in his Yesterday, eight loud explosions were heard around 10 a.m. local time, which made the windows of the plant offices vibrate and today more were heard the establishment of a protection zone is increasingly more urgent than necessary this is an active combat zone this nuclear power plant with six reactors is in front line I don't know We know how long we are going to be lucky to avoid a nuclear accident, so his very strong words were that Russia has denied accusations that they are not respecting nuclear safety at the plant in their controlled territory, now The other thing is that I was saying several similar comments were made a few days ago and there were some quite interesting comments that came out of other European capitals, so a German MEP, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in that country, said that for months the Russian armed forces have been using Ukrainian power plants as safe havens to store ammunition and launch attacks in neighboring areas.

The French MEP also said: "We do not expect negotiations. We hope you're sorry. We hope that the negotiations will conclude shortly allowing for the prompt establishment of a protection zone and it seems that the concern of the United Nations is that Zapariesia remains a potential flash point in the war that is their term, not mine and Grossi again made other comments this week where he said it's been a pretty strange situation. A Ukrainian facility in Russian-controlled territory run by Russians but operated by Ukrainians, we have had serious cases of direct shelling, especially at the end of August and then in November, when we had another two days of direct shelling, so of course we will keep informed listeners on this question sometimes, if we don't cover it on the

podcast

, that doesn't mean we're not, we haven't kept an eye on it, it just means there's no big things to say, but clearly there are some growing concerns about an increase in the activity there, so it's something we'll all inevitably return to at some point, David. thank you Francis yeah I think if this charisma we will definitely talk to Himisha Bratton Gordon who is a regular on the

podcast

and has a lot of eyes on what's going on in Zephyrha so thanks Francis can I just ask you to do it? let's talk about one more thing before we talk to Joe, we've talked a lot about the delivery of Western tanks to Ukraine this week and last week, there were a few, we saw the initial Russian reaction in the last few days, but there's been a little bit more and I think which is worth commenting on because you can see how the Russian narrative propagates the propaganda narrative that frames this, um, Francisco, can you talk to that?

Yes, well, some pretty interesting comments from Moscow this morning, so Russia has said that the promise of delivery of Western tanks to Ukraine is proof of the increasing direct involvement of the United States and Europe in the war and I will read the quote from Dimitri Peskov , of course, the Kremlin's mouthpiece in full, there are constant statements from European capitals and Washington that the sending of various weapons systems to Ukraine, including tanks, in no way means the participation of these countries or the alliance in hostilities in Ukraine. I have to say that I don't think that's true, but that's the way it is anyway. what you say, we categorically disagree with this and in Moscow everything that the alliance and the capitals that I mentioned are doing is considered direct participation in this conflict, we see this growing now.

I wonder if the wording of this in which you allude to David Es is to tap into the German anxieties that we talked about at length last week, we understand that they may have wanted American coverage once it became clear that they had no choice but allowing other countries to send their leopards to Ukraine, in addition to, of course, sending their own, Russia is ultimately frustrated. I think it's fair to say that the Western strategy and the gradual increase of ammunition donations in terms of their grade, their number, their quality and quantity, has worked in a way that there has never been a crisis.

Trigger Point According to this, there has never been a time when Russia has been able to rightly say that this is a step too far because it has happened incrementally. If that had happened when tanks or planes were sent in from day one, we could be in a very different situation and, as I have said before, there is a part of me that thinks this could be a broader Western strategy and, drop By and large, that means Russia can never justify the nuclear threat, but of course I think it's important to say that it works both ways. has done its own form of gradual escalation or drip drip drip and when I say escalation I mean an increase in the number or quality of weaponry or tactics adopted Russia's brutality has increased especially in its attacks on cities the absence of red lines This war has consequences for both sides, so I just wanted to touch on this interesting topic again and, as I say, we will definitely return to the Intuit course.

Thank you very much for all that, Francis Joe Barnes, our Brussels correspondent, may I? I come, is there anything before I continue with my first question? Is there anything you would like to add to something Francis said? I know you know that you wrote the story about the Polish tanks. Yes, good. Hello everyone, I'll start with the tanks. For a long time, while Germany was resisting and refusing to make a decision, Polish Prime Minister Moravechke used to talk about how we will send tanks anyway, regardless of permission, so I guess the Soviet era of the 60s.

Tanks built by the Soviets that have been improved in Poland since they left and got better armor, better stabilizing mechanisms, better guidance systems and things like that, so it's not an improved um t-72, I think that's interesting. probably what the polls were talking about and they said we were going to send tanks anyway and this is a 60. of these were sent on top of the 14 leopard two, the German made tanks that sort of caused all the controversy in the last few a few months, but yeah, it is what it is, it's a good sign, so Poland was the first country to technically send tanks when it sent the T-72s last year, it's kind of checks that the Slovaks have done the same , so it's kind of like while I'm sure the Ukrainians would want Western main battle tanks.

They will not disdain any type of heavy armor that can be delivered, especially those for which they have the parts and the knowledge. they're probably going to be in the country a lot quicker than the Leopard Two or the Challenger Two or the US Abrams tanks because they're going to get some degree of training on them so maintain them and operate them so this is uh. Yes, the good news for Ukraine and what it does is show you the strong commitment of Poland as one of not only the main contributors in Europe, but also the main contributors in the world of those types of weapons and Aid to Ukraine.

Of course, one of the big questions we've addressed this week has been the question of logistics with Ukraine receiving or who is going to receive tanks from different countries, different types of tanks that have different logistical types of supply trains. to a British MP, the chairman of the defense select committee, Tobias Elwood, it was a fascinating conversation, a fascinating interview, Joe, can you tell us about that? What did he say? I wanted to make it clear that the West is obviously right to continue donating weapons. and should continue donating weapons. But ultimately it is an unsustainable practice, because you have to do it, you don't just want to help Ukraine in the short term, you actually want to guarantee its long-term defenses in the future and ultimately Ukraine chooses its path away of Russia, moving away from the Soviet type of tactics, doctrines and military systems and moving towards a NATO type based operation and potentially one day joining NATO, who knows who has applied to do so, but that is obviously Um, a discussion that will unfold after the war is over, but what Tobias Elwood highlighted was that potentially the West cannot maintain its support for Ukraine forever, so it should consider creating a massive weapons factory and He, um, would do it. proposed for Poland, but it doesn't have to be there.

Poland obviously only makes logistical sense because it is a neighboring country that most of the West's military aid passes through, it goes through Poland anyway when it arrives by plane to Poland and then it trains in Ukraine and he said that the Ukrainians in Ultimately they could choose what this factory makes and they should be able to do things like make artillery howitzers under license, potentially make two Leopard tanks under license, but then they could do that. choose what is made and then build systems that are coherent and collaborate with each other because right now we are sending you different artillery systems that don't all use the same type of tools to fix them, they don't use the same type of tools. the same ammunition, but what we can get to a point is that we can.

He was saying we can build these reserves for Ukraine, that's going to be all sorts of yeah, we'll work together, essentially, they'll use the same, the same systems, um, because one thing. Just for just kind of a note on tanks, which isfun, fun, um, kind of an inter story- it's the challenge of two that Britain has donated, you need two sets of tools to build because the hole I create appears in Imperial. measurements, while gun type and turret area is a metric, so that's something the Ukrainians will have to deal with, but it won't be unique.

The Leopard 2 tank will have its own systems to fix and its own ammunition, Abrams uses a different one, I think it uses aviation or an aviation type of fuel, while the other tanks use diesel, so it's like thinking about these logistical questions and um Tobiota was basically saying that what we should do is build Ukraine. items and equipment for their, basically, for their specifications, what they need and how they can fix them and uses like sort of 155 millimeter individual ammunition for artillery and various ammunition, whatever.necessary for tanks or other or maybe small arms , but then he also said that this is actually part of the West coming together to come up with a real, genuine strategy for how it supports Ukraine, but also for its own Western benefit.

It is no surprise to our listeners that one of the most worrying elements of the gift of weapons to Ukraine from Western countries is that those arsenals are low and the US, the UK, France, Germany, whoever you ask obviously will say they won't be. able to do this forever because they are depleting their own reserves drastically and dangerously low in some cases and would argue that they could only get a limited amount because they actually ultimately need to have their military's weapons just in case in the unlikely. In case they need to go to war, that creates a double edged sword, while helping Ukraine is what everyone wants to do, everyone doesn't want to have military reserves there, the military reserves are drastically low, so having this type of Ukrainian factory on NATO soil. and in Poland, so it can basically be built by the West made by Western engineers, you can bring in Western arms companies, you would give Ukraine an independent source of weapons, but you would also allow other factories around the world to start replenishing weapons to Western countries. and the reserves are built up again, whether it's building new tanks, new artillery systems, uh, I like the bow, so The Archers, they will be new Patriot systems that have been moved to Ukraine and then need to be replaced, but and so, so it is. that's the other element of this and I'll stop there now, that's absolutely fascinating.

I mean, at the moment, just to be clear, at the moment, this is just Tobias Elwood's idea and he would like to get some support. he wants, he's posting this to see who else is going to say yes, it's true or the plans are a little further along than that. It's his idea. He was inspired by Taiwan, which has built microchips. Factory in the United States and obviously we know the concerns around Taiwan is that they fear that China could invade any day and once China has control of the tiles, the world's leading microchip producing country will be isolated and everyone will be um, they will be.

Here, yes, in pawn, in pawn, in China, and China would basically have control over the kind of international chip market that we need so drastically for everything from you know, refrigerators, freezers, computers, mobile phones, kettles and everything. So, yeah, that's one element that he's basically drawn on, but the conversation has gone further and he's basically trying to pressure the British government to take a leadership role in this and basically saying there's a gap in Global leadership on Ukraine when it comes to really thinking about a genuine long-term strategy and said Britain can fill that gap and take advantage of this.

I think the polls have been talked about and they didn't like it. They have not rejected the idea. They really like the idea of ​​having a factory in Poland that could support Ukraine, but ultimately it would just create jobs there and it's not a bad thing on that front, so yeah. they're still very, very nice in the early days and you would be hard-pressed to find any kind of concrete plan on this because they're underway, they're obvious, obvious concerns about um, people would say why, why, why. Would you like to build a Ukrainian military facility on NATO territory when it is not a NATO member and not covered by NATO's Article 5 Defense Clause?

Yes, that obviously worries you, but I think we can then allay those fears by saying that the Jhov airport in Poland, near the border with Ukraine, is used as the main kind of logistics center for getting weapons into Ukraine. It is detected by numerous batteries of Patriot systems, Patriot air defense systems, so it is probably one of the most guarded airports in the world. It's also home to a US military base, so we could look at those concerns and things like that and they can be easily addressed, but yeah, it's still very early. Thank you very much for that, Joe, just one more question from me first.

Let's go with Richard and Levin. Thank you very much Richard for listening to all this. Don't worry, we will contact you very soon. Joe, you've been writing about this ongoing story, this diplomatic conflict between Türkiye and Sweden. During the burning of a copy of the Koran in front of the embassy in Sweden, you discovered much more about the people who did this. Can you tell us what you found? Yeah, so I won't. I won't take credit because Roland Oliphan, our senior foreign correspondent who is in Ukraine for us right now, wrote the story for today's newspaper and it's available online for people who want to see it, but basically there's this that I've been following. as part of my job is to cover NATO and I was in Madrid when Turkey allowed it and finally relented and said it would support Sweden and Finland joining NATO after years and years of military neutrality ended to decide if it wanted join the transatlantic type of alliance, but Turkey basically made them sign and the Nordic country signed a kind of Joint Declaration of Memorandum of Understanding that said that they would fight, they would do more to end this type of terrorism and basically, Turkey's fears are that Sweden and Finland have become a kind of safe haven for Kurdish militant groups and the PKK is one of the types of groups that they allude to, so there have been a number of types of incident since that time, we have had protests in Sweden where there was talk about the alleged treatment of the Kurds because they have occurred as a community that is quite large in Sweden, field in which suddenly they were going to deport people to Turkey. and extradited to Turkey as one thing because part of the memorandum of understanding was going to be Ankara Sweden and Finland would discuss more about what they can do regarding extradition.

Recently there was an effigy of President Erdogan, the Turkish leader subjected to a mock execution. was hung in Stockholm and then more recently there was this moment literally a few days ago and I know Francis talked about this yesterday about a copy of the Koran that was burned, but actually what we found out is that the person behind this is a member far right. journalist with ties to the Kremlin and organized this stunt that is supposedly essentially threatened in Sweden's attempts to join, so this is a guy named Chang Frick who previously worked for Russia Today and his sister agency abruptly paid the administrative fee for the the demonization was so the sorry demonstration outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm where a man, yeah, basically burned the Koran, so your feed has shown him posing with Putin t-shirts and calendars and stuff, but it's basically this this guy and it seems to be some kind of Kremlin-linked attempt to undermine Sweden's attempts to join NATO and that's one of Russia's main fears is that NATO will expand and there's always talk about how we didn't want NATO . to grow more and, well, it was one of Vladimir Putin's stated reasons for invading Ukraine at the beginning, instead he didn't want to see NATO grow, but obviously that's kind of a massive slap in the face, um. because, yes, NATO has now become two members stronger in that, but yes, it seems that this is some kind of Russian attempt to undermine Sweden's application for NATO by having a Kremlin simplifier, yes, involved in the burning of the Koran outside. the Turkish embassy in uh in um in Stockholm well thank you so much Joe and Francis for all those updates um I think we've covered a lot in a short time uh Richard Woodruff thank you so much for joining us thank you so much for waiting for us to come see you.

I'll let you introduce yourself. Could you tell us a little about yourself, where you are and what you are doing? Hi everyone, thanks so much David for having me and Francis and Joe don't care about weight at all, it was interesting to hear a bit more about tanks and I laughed when Joe talked about the two different metric and imperial tooling systems we have. Now we have to send to Ukraine so they can repair these tanks, but yes, I'm Richard Woodruff, originally from Cobra Tunbridge in England and I've been in love for years for eight months volunteering at La Viv Volleysky. cook, which is just a kitchen for Frontline soldiers and, indeed, I founded the Twitter space for that, which is Frontline Kitchen, where we cover everything we are doing in English because everything before had been done in Ukrainian and this just connects to the Western English speaking audience, so we'll come back to Richard, your story and how you got there and how you ended up live, but could you tell us a little bit more about Frontline Kitchen, how big it is, who makes it and Where do you send the food you make?

The Frontline kitchen was founded by Luda and Oxana nine years ago and initially it was to supply the guys in the East with dry rations because there was not enough food on that road and now we are sending back and solidarity mode and before that we were supplying the guys who freed their son and each of our meals goes directly to the front, there is nothing that goes to a barracks and where it is. It's not necessary, it's just for the guys on the front line and it should be a big operation. Could you explain to us?

I know this is audio so it might be a little difficult, but could you give us an idea of ​​what's going on? The Frontline kitchen seems like yes, very simple, it's 50 people crammed into a very small kitchen in the heart of Leviv. We are all standing around a metal table chopping beets, cabbage, carrots and everything else that is used in borsch, halopsy and various. different soups and then those ingredients that we have chopped go into a grinder to drying racks and these dryers are about the size of a washing machine at home and then they are set to dry for about 12 hours and once all the ingredients are dry we take them from the kitchen in downtown Leviv to an undisclosed location a little further away, where we package all those dry ingredients into a very specific recipe that the founders have been working on for the last nine years. and then once it's all packed up, we take it back to the kitchen where every 30 minutes we have a member of the military or one of our guys who is driving towards the front lines, so yeah, every 30 minutes we have a different One car comes to pick up the finished meals and we have another car that shows up to drop off raw produce and ingredients.

Looking at your social media feeds, it seems like you've recently branched out from Just Foods into things like drones. Well, could you tell us a little bit about this, what else have you been doing? Yeah, so the Drones funding really came up around the Christmas period and the only reason it came up was because we had one of our Dry Earth breakups just before I went. I came back for Christmas for a week and when that dryer broke, I posted on Twitter and said: Hey guys, our machines just failed, we're losing a huge percentage of our drying capabilities.

Can anyone help? Someone has a dryer that they know in their living room and the response was immediate and amazing, and we had some generous donors who reached out right away and said yes, order it now. So in about six or seven hours we had a new dryer on. came to us and then once I managed to fund it, the founders realized and said, "hey, like we have guys in back mode who are constantly asking us for various pieces of equipment, but because they had only been targeting a Ukrainian ". audience, they had never had anyone who could donate a large sum of money to be able to help, so once I showed them, look, there are people who want to help Ukraine, they instantly said, Yo, hey, Rich, one of our drones just dropped into rear mode, we need another DJI 30 mattress.

And that's about twelve thousand dollars, and I instantly thought I need to do this and I need to do it now because any second, that drone is not in the sky, uh, at least every time would be to lose another man becausewe don't have sites on what's happening or we can't correct our artillery fire in the right direction, so when they told me that Christmas I didn't sleep I think it was about four days of fundraising. But after those four days that we raised the funds, we immediately pressed the button on the order and now there is a video with the guys on the front line holding the batteries watching. very happy just saying thank you so much to Twitter and everyone who made it possible because that's really the best thing we can do to save Ukrainian lives is give them eyes in the sky so we can know when the Russians are coming, but we can also actually make sure that the $100,000 in artillery shells we're sending that way will hit the target instead of an empty field.

Could we talk a little about yourself and your journey over the last year? Could you take us back? Until last February, what made you decide to go to Ukraine and how did that trip unfold? How did you finish?On Lev, it sounds a little crazy that you say last February now instead of this February because, yes, it really has been almost a year since the start of the war. I started just watching what was developing on YouTube from the same night of that. 20 February 24 and I watched the news for probably 10 days straight 24, 7 uh or 24 hours a day.

I had them playing on YouTube next to my bed so I constantly knew what was going on and after about 10 days I realized that wasn't the case. It was too good for my health to consume so much media about everything that was happening and it was destroying me so after those 10 days I turned off the news and started planning exactly how I was going to get out of where I was. At the time, I was renting a room in an apartment at the time and how I was going to go to Ukraine and how I could help.

Initially, when zelinsky made the call to come fight, i instantly said yes, yes. I'm going to go, I'm going to go and then, I think it was on the second day, the lens turned around and said, well, we don't have enough, we would have enough body armor or weapons by now, so sure enough you're I'll be there with a Molotov cocktail on the streets of kyiv, so I thought maybe I shouldn't. I shouldn't risk my life and die in the first few days. I will be more useful to Ukraine if I can. I thought of a way to help them in the long term, so I started planning and researching on the Internet how I can help in Ukraine and there was not a single article, not a single website that said, "Oh, you can volunteer in this kitchen or rebuild, but I saw on Facebook quite a few posts saying just go live as a volunteer, go to the Leviv train station and there will be someone there and you can ask them and that's exactly what I did.

I got on a plane and then a train came to Leviv and there were some ladies standing outside the train station who told me about the kitchen and that's how I ended up getting to the kitchen, but luckily now a whole website has been created, volunteering in Ukraine.com and it actually has a kitchen volunteering and a couple more opportunities so that people don't have to do the same thing with me, which is just showing up at a little train station and saying "hey, how can I help?" I don't know if that covered everything I had. you asked David, no, not at all.

I mean, what was the initial reaction of the Ukrainians you worked with as a volunteer? How do you react to this man who came from England and said: I want to help? What are they? What do they do? They tell you that when I arrived, in the first minute or so, I met one of the co-founders, Luda, but I remember Luda standing by the door talking to an older gentleman and I walked up to him and said, uh, volunteer, can I? can I be a volunteer? and she just gives me a very strange look of who is this Englishman, um, who just showed up in our garden asking for help and yeah, she just pointed to a table with a box of carrots and gave me a knife and said yeah, a cut how to cut them and he showed me how and then I started cutting carrots and yeah a few hundred boxes of carrots later and a week later they finally realized that this strange man was not going to leave his car. park, which is where we do most of the cutting, and then yeah, they decided to take me into the family and could you tell us a little bit about some of the people that you work with?

I mean, there could be other volunteers from all over. the world and Ukrainians too, yes, most of the people who volunteer there are Ukrainians before my arrival. I think there were only one or two Americans who had come through the kitchen, whereas now it's about half the volunteers. from abroad and that's just by posting posts on Facebook or Twitter saying please can people come help? So we've had people come from New Zealand and people come from Australia. It was fun with those two countries because they kept arguing about who went further. uh and we've had people from Germany France England uh honestly all over the Georgia store but yeah, the people who are always there and obviously won't leave are the Ukrainians because the foreign helpers come for two three months and then obviously they have to go back to home to their normal lives with their visa-free allowance exhausted, so you have the two co-founders Oxana and Luda, whom we affectionately call Big Boss.

We have Julia, who is my number one friend in the kitchen, she is my translator and Actually, it was after the first week I was there and no one spoke any English. She came and speaks relatively good English and obviously Ukrainian because she is from Zapparesia and she was my translator for the first month and every conversation with the babusias was through Julia and yes, all the other volunteers there, they are between 60 and 70 years old, approximately, all the babusias and the most loving and attentive people in the world and they are from, you know, from all over Ukraine as of now. occupied territory we have was and Ola de Hassan and the day his son was released, they brought us a bottle of champagne and we had a big celebration and we hugged and cried and it was emotionally very difficult to deal with that and quite a few of them have family and friends in First line, one of the babusias gave me her phone number last week.

Halfway there she was cutting carrots and said, this is my son, please can you talk to my son? and I said, yes, yes, of course he could. introduce your son and she said he's in the woods and my heart completely stopped and I froze and I just said I had no idea at the time what to say to this guy so he was literally on the front lines giving his life for us, so yeah. I just suggested saying hi to him for a couple of seconds and he was pretty shocked as to what to say next, um, if that answered everything, David absolutely.

I mean, there's one thing I'd like to mention to you again, but before that you mentioned. At that point you know you spend a lot of time talking to people who are fighting and you have contact with the military and everything, can you give us an idea of ​​the kind of stories they tell you? What is your impression of what combat is like? It's like what you hear from your Ukrainian friends and contacts, fortunately Oksana and Luda, the founders, I mean, they have every single military contact you can imagine, they are the ones who constantly receive news from the front and Fortunately for everyone Ukrainians and for the foreign volunteers in the kitchen, they protect us from everything that is happening because it is absolutely horrible and of course we would like to say that everything was roses and gravy on the front. and that we are kicking ass and not taking any losses, but yes, the reality is that it is absolutely brutal.

One of the craziest stories comes from a guy I met in my early days at Levieve named Dimko and runs. a military fund for the boys at the front called diggersport and he said that he no longer sleeps in hotels or lodgings when he makes these aid trips to the front because 50 of the time they would find out where he was. and then they would blow up the hotel or accommodation you were trying to take a break at, so that becomes your task of driving for 20 or 30 hours straight without sleep, just straight to the front dropping off what you need. and then we come back and it's the harsh reality that if you try to stop or take a break for a second in those environments you will lose your life and we have lost some of our drivers who go to the front to deliver our food and other help so yeah it's really horrible and tough on the front, just an observation of mine that will turn into a question, you know, when we hear you talk about this, you tell us, our guys, it's clear that you feel. part of it as much as them I was wondering how you would think about it, how you would talk about it, there was a moment when you felt like you were involved as a Ukrainian.

I was talking about this. About one of the other volunteers yesterday, it's strange that in the first instance he used to say oh the Ukrainian army or the Ukrainians and now it's like oh guys it's like oh our guys, you know, and I think it mainly came actually. from the complete acceptance of Ukrainians that I am one of them, that I am now a complete family to them and this is with, you know, some words that I say wrong to them in Ukrainian and mainly just hugging and laughing at my poorly spoken Ukrainian. Yes, they are completely family to me and, after volunteering for almost eight months, every day and every moment, I have spent more time with these people than probably with my real family in England and I don't think I could do this if it weren't Ukrainian, if I didn't feel Ukrainian now and we always like to joke in the kitchen because I wear five treasures at all times, so I have my belt, my style bracelet um, I have my zelenski top on my zelenski, well, not my necklace Lensky, but my treasure Valenski, uh, no, I said it wrong.

Trend necklace, sorry I'm missing now and a t-shirt, like that I'm all trezorated work and that's the symbol of the Ukrainian alternative, yes. I really feel like family and they have made me feel that way and, yes, there are European neighbors, I don't know how I could do it. I don't feel Ukrainian right now after everything we've been through together, the tears we've shed and yes, I don't know if I've answered that correctly. David no, I think I mean, I think it's kind of like, It's a hard thing to approach, isn't it? Thank you very much for doing that.

I mean, I just talk about it a little bit more. Have there ever been moments of culture shock for you? Have there been moments when you found yourself? It is difficult to be accepted by people. Do you know that you have described it? It sounds like a very positive experience. Have there ever been moments that weren't like that? No, from the first second. Although they did look at me. Funnily enough, who is this British guy who showed up on our doorstep? There was never animosity if that's the right word. There was never any type of negativity or lack of acceptance.

I think they just saw how dedicated I was to helping them. and they were completely depressed by my presence there and uh yeah, now they say it doesn't feel the same even if I'm gone for a day from the kitchen um yeah, it's a completely different environment and there's not as much laughter. or you know, music that sounds um culturally different uh, there's some fun things like women in the kitchen, regardless of the weight of the object that needs to be lifted, they'll say Richard, can you take this somewhere else because in their minds? If men pick up anything and then when you want a coffee, women always say no, no, like we're having the coffee, we're making the coffee or making the food or you know, washing something in the sink, uh, no matter how much you try to fight it and say no it's okay I can do it they say no we are taking care of you and you always lift the heavy things or a van is coming like you always want. to do the unloading um and there was a time when I had just finished a 12 hour day or something in the kitchen and it was 10 at night and one of the ladies has been volunteering in the kitchen for five years.

She calls me and she tells me Richard, like you have to come back, after I just finished, I changed, so I was going to get some food, um and I said, "Okay, I'll come back because she said there's a van with two tons of cabbages." that needs to be unloaded from the sand I was like geez, well obviously that's hard work, lifting heavy things, so I'll run back and help and it turns out these lettuces or cabbages were individual, just stacked in the back. of this van, so it was really the weight of a cabbage that had to be moved from one place to another, obviously only a thousand times, and she was completely capable of doing it herself with the others, but no, this is for men . work, so you have to go, you have to come back, you know, after your long shift and then you know, do another long shift, um, which I laughed about with her afterwards and uh, I took the mix saying you know you could have done this with equal ease. as I could, but that's the reality of the difference in the culture of the terms of lifting things, well, thanks Richard for explaining that to us, Joe and Francis, you've been listening to all this, would you? do you have any questions for Richard about his life at Viv in the kitchen vault Frontline yes hi Richard, very interesting to hear your experience, you have your finger in two news pies if you'll excuse methe culinary metaphor, uh, you hear the Ukrainian stories.

When you hear the British and Western perspectives on the war, I wonder if you have a sense of maybe or can you comment on the differences between what you've seen in Ukraine and what maybe, how people might report on the war, if they are cultural, if it can be political, any nuances that we may not see as easily and easily as you would. I think the most important thing for me is that every piece of media I absorb now is largely pro-Ukrainian, of course, and it's Ukrainian sources, whereas every time I watch Western media, um, yeah, they talk about the war that's happening, but they highlight Russia a lot and they talk a lot about Russia, um and what's going on with Russia, and it's very different than The media is here because all we want to hear is about Ukraine and what Ukraine is doing. to win the war and how we will win and what we are going to do.

The world's media seems to be talking about both sides. of the equation and we don't really care what is happening on the Russian side or the harsh Russian side, all we want to know is that we are doing the right thing and that the rest of the world is supporting us and Russia effectively . Can you just, you know, close yourself behind the wall and leave it there and we just want to hear how Ukraine organizes its green wedding and how we're going to take the next steps? So yeah, it seems like the global media is covering a lot of what's happening in Russia and we don't want to hear about it, we just want to know how we're going to win the war and, um, yeah, if that makes any sense, yeah, absolutely and only one.

One other thing from me, if I may, which is obviously that a lot of the conversations now are about the length of this war and the idea that there's a long way to go, unfortunately, what are your long-term plans? ? Are you committed to staying there for as long as possible? as long as it takes, yes, I have told myself the fact that I will be here until the end of the war, um, when I returned to England very early for Christmas, um, it is so strange talking to people who just say Oh. Yeah, I like Ukraine, oh um, that's terrible, what's going on there and I don't really understand it, and even the people who are amazing and they've brought Ukrainians into their house, uh, and they're like, yeah, yeah, we have some Ukrainians living with us and me.

Say that's great, thank you very much, um and where are they from in Ukraine and they say oh uh, I'm not really sure, uh, and you just think that these people live with you and you haven't asked the most basic questions. and it seems like every time I'm outside of Ukraine, anywhere, people just don't understand, and I think the only exception to that would be Poland, where they are, they're obviously so, um Pro, everything that's going on. in Ukraine and so anti-Russian that you can really understand that they spend every second of their days thinking about us and what is happening here and I can't go back to being in an environment where every conversation is not about Ukraine and our battle for victory and neither I can leave Ukraine because that would take food away from the Ukrainian soldiers and reduce our ability to win and now that we are funding drones for the front lines and medical supplies and even supplying medical equipment to local hospitals which means we are actually saving lives just with that medical kit.

I could never leave now until the end of the war. And I wouldn't want to, I can't imagine it. There's nothing worse than lying on the beach right now with a beer in your hand when our guys are still dying. I can't, yeah, I can't take a second to answer your question. Thank you very much Francis for your questions. Joe would do it. you like coming in no, that's really really fascinating, I must say I quite like your uh, your little friend and the uh, the shiba inu and the chef's heart, um, but no, what you're saying is really fascinating, um in terms. to say that our ability to win has adopted the Mantra and has almost adopted the Ukrainian nationality.

I realized that on many of my trips around the country I have met Western volunteers and they and many. of them have said that after this is over we will stay in the country and make our homes here because um, I don't know what it is, I can say it's the great hospitality that I had. We were always made to feel at home thanks to many lovely people, even strangers we met on the street took us for tea, coffee, cakes, fresh bread and stuff, just to, to, just tell. to tell us their story and how they're dealing with what's happening with the scissors, so do you get the sense that a lot of Western volunteers actually become adopted Ukrainians and that's reflected in the language and stuff? use yes, so any volunteer that comes to the kitchen with us, most of the time they end up not leaving or they keep reaching out and reaching out and reaching out because they don't want to leave because they've been made to feel so incredibly. at home, even if you are there on the first day, the ladies in the kitchen will prepare you the most amazing wash of your life and will constantly offer you fresh cookies, biscuits and cakes and coffee, so there they are grade 8 experts in hospitality um in terms of uh uh if I plan to stay in Ukraine um I'm really just here for the war uh I'm here to help uh and then once the war is over I'll go back to life in Spain or try to visit some of South America because I really need a warm climate in my life.

I love the Ukrainian people, but it is not a place I plan to live in the future. Of course, until we liberate Crimea and then I can lie on a beach there or spend some time in Odessa, but yes, I'm your standard Brit who needs a Spanish climate, so yes, my plan is to get back on that track, immediately. after we have won the war, but probably only for two or three weeks, because then I need to return to Ukraine and start rebuilding the houses in the liberated areas, that is my next plan. do some rebuilding and do you think the kind of generosity that Westerners will extend will extend to that kind of moment? um because it's obviously one thing, yeah, helping Ukraine, um, during the war, but then Ukraine.

It's going to take years and years and years of assistance and it's, do you, you've said you're going to go back and build houses, but do you get the sense of your kind of other, uh Western? friends who are in Ukraine helping who will do the same. I'm not really sure if the Western press would also come back, because I don't know in terms of their level of engagement with Ukraine. um I think some of the people who came and volunteered will definitely come back and help cook in the kitchen, but I don't know if they'll volunteer all their time to rebuild afterwards because maybe once the war is over.

If it ends, Ukraine will disappear from the radar in terms of volunteering, but I think in terms of tourism and the people who have now discovered that Ukraine exists and have seen the incredibly beautiful videos and photographs, effectively, the country's tourism campaigns. The country is incredibly beautiful, just talking about, uh Leviv, that architecture is kind of Polish Austrian, uh, and every restaurant and bar is designed to the highest possible standard that you probably wouldn't even see anywhere in London and the people I probably wouldn't have seen. I've seen that, uh, talking about Ukraine before, you may have thought it was run down in some ways, um, but it's a beautiful, beautiful European city in Leviv and I visited the little key island that's also incredibly beautiful and the mountains of the Carpathians.

So I'm sure that immediately after the war ends there will be a rush of people from a tourism point of view who will come to Ukraine and then see everything they need help and what they need to do, talk to the locals and participate. love for the country so I'm really seeing massive growth in Ukraine and everyone wanting to flood here after the war and then I think from that obviously Ukraine will get more help but yeah in terms of the volunteers that we've had um, I think only a few of them will come back for the kind of reconstruction process, but we have a lot of strong Ukrainians, so I'm sure we can do it ourselves.

Thank you so much. Richard, um, now we're going to do some final updates with Francis before we get back to all of you, just ask for his final thoughts before the weekend and that, of course, I think as part of his final thoughts on Richard . I'd love to hear from you that we've discussed this before you came, but what have you learned about making good Ukrainian food and what's your advice for us? But first let's go to Francis for some final updates. Thanks David and I. I'm including my final thoughts as part of this, so I just wanted to come back quickly before we wrap up this ongoing Ukrainian corruption saga that, of course, Roland Olafont, who's been covering this for us and has been reporting on the podcast this week, has another update which is that zelenski's party has expelled an MP for violating a foreign travel ban in the latest example of high-profile measures to end abuse of power, so the MP is in favor of Lindsay's party, as I say, servant of the people who we understand that his name is Mr.

Shushenko traveled to Vietnam last month and is currently in Thailand and what he said was a work trip to obtain support for the nucleus ukrainian, but party bosses aren't having any of that, saying today that no one sent him on a diplomatic mission and that he was violating a Security Council order announced by Zelensky this week prohibiting officials from traveling abroad. There have been some very strong comments from the head of service of the people's parliamentary faction in a telegram saying: "I see that not everyone understands how deputies should behave in times of war. I mentioned this because in many ways you could say that it is Quite a small story, but I mentioned it because it is clear, as I mentioned earlier this week, that Ukraine is incredibly sensitive to these charges of corruption and Broadway Salinski is doing everything in his power to eradicate any accusation of it within his own party and within the government, so I don't think this is in any way an example of systematic corruption in Ukraine, far from it.

I think rather it is an attempt to quell any appearance of corruption in Ukraine at what is a moment precarious diplomat, so I think it's worth drawing attention to that and there will no doubt be more updates on this next week. Well, this is being deliberately timed, it's not like all of this has just been discovered, it feels like they've decided that actually some of this stuff has been going on for long enough and they feel like now is a good time. time to clarify everything and, as I say, finally eliminate everything. I just wanted to end with a story that really impacted me, which is the Auschwitz Museum.

They have said that because of the war in Ukraine, Russia. They will be excluded from the next ceremony that I imagine will take place as we speak commemorating 78 years since the Red Army liberated the Nazi death camp. Today is Holocaust Memorial Day and it really resonated with me and I will read the quote in its entirety. The museum spokesperson has said that, given the aggression against a free and independent Ukraine, representatives of the Russian Federation have not been invited to attend this year's commemoration. I hope this changes in the future, but we still have a long way to go.

Russia will need extremely long support and very deep self-examination after this conflict to be able to return to the Meetings of the Civilized world and, as I said, these are unprecedented comments, it has never happened before, but it speaks to the strength of feeling that I believe among many people that the The horrible acts of crimes that we have seen in places like Butcher and other places in Ukraine are beyond what is acceptable and there have to be consequences in terms of Russia's position even in commemorations like this, which for decades have been international in nature.

I should also say that President Zelensky has tweeted some statements about Holocaust Memorial Day. He said that today he honors the memory of millions of victims of the Holocaust. We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred, that is why it is so important for all who value life. should show determination Eternal memory for Holocaust victims now The famous political theorist Hannah Arden wrote a very interesting book, a very famous book called Eichmann in Jerusalem, where she analyzed the banality of evil in relation to the crimes of the Holocaust, what did she want? say with that?

Part of it was the lack of a common measure between the gigantic scale on which the crimes were committed and the smallness of the people who were among those primarily responsible, and I wonder if the same will one day be said of some of the perpetrators of the crimes. crimes. Horrendous war crimes that have been committed in Ukraine that we have had to describe in this podcast, but I thinkIt's also important to remember the banality of good people who are sacrificing their time and of course their lives to do the right thing, they rarely make the headlines, but their actions are just as heroic, if not more so, and I'll end there for today, thank you very much, uh, Francis Joe Barnes, so yeah, my final thoughts would continue again with the tanks and the There's a bit of a rush to get these tanks to Ukraine, but what I would like to caution is that there are a lot of numbers floating around out there. , so Spain could send up to 50 tanks for free, supposedly the Dutch could not.

They don't actually own any of their own Leopard 2 tanks. They're considering shipping 18. I think we have to be a little cautious with the numbers and not go overboard on the high end of those predictions because, um, you don't want that kind of listening. Disappointed Ukrainians who have been asking for three to four hundred main battle tanks when they will only receive about a hundred in the future, so yes, I would do it more or less.ER is cautious when it comes to handing out the actual figures and whether the West will be absolutely so firm in doing so.

It's interesting that we listened to Mikhailo Bodliak the other day. Both Roland and I spoke with him on separate occasions. it was put into a um a story that we all worked on um and that his message was um very interesting that uh while everyone is leaning towards everyone do we give Ukraine fighter jets? Then he said we have to um we have to increase the the army's ability to attack that um bit uh hit back um in the rear those types of targets in the rear of the Russian front lines they want missiles that come they can't just hit targets at 50 kilometers they want to hit targets at 100 200 kilometers, so that's what I think we're going to see turn too soon in Western military support, is the discussion about how to arm Ukraine with longer range missiles and I'll leave that behind, thank you very much , uh, Francis and Joe, uh, Richard.

I suppose you'd like to go with your final four. Yes, I'll provide you with the Porsche recipe you've been chasing me for months. David. While we were laughing this morning, the real recipe is cooking. with love, good humor and desire and the most important thing of course is a very high quality product to review that um but to give you the real recipe you have 400 grams of beef, chicken or pork 400 grams of cabbage 300 grams of potato 200 grams of beet a couple of carrots parsley root parsnip and celery a bell pepper an onion a little tomato puree and a little oil garlic and dill to make it salty on top and then what you have to do with that is simply boil the bush oh sorry Cut the beets into strips, add salt, pepper, pour into a frying pan, oil to fry, add a little tomato puree, halve the cooked onions, carrots, parsley, root, parsnip and celery, everything cut and then they should be fried too and then once everything is ready, throw the potatoes in a little broth, bring it to half cooked and then put the cabbage and cook for another 10 minutes and then season with all those vegetables that finish frying and let it boil for another five minutes once everything is ready, garnish with a little garlic, green dill and parsley, let it rest for 15 or 20 minutes before serving, this is how to make the perfect ukrainian wash .

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