This is Popular Front, a podcast focused on the niche details of modern warfare and underreported conflict with me Jake Hanrahan. Today we're speaking to journalist Justin Yow.

He's on the ground in Kiev. He's been there since the start of the Russian

invasion a week ago. He's going to tell us what the situation is like on the

ground there, how the battle is progressing, how civilians are trying to cope with it, all of that.

Thank you to everyone who has been supporting and sharing Popular Front.

We're trying to keep ahead of this conflict and report on what's going on.

If you like what we're doing, please do consider supporting us at patreon.com

slash Popular Front. The more we make there the more we can do our job.

Alternatively you can support us at popular front. co slash support support. you've been there since the start of the invasion maybe just give us a

recap of what you've seen in this last six days so starting from the invasion I

think all of us were were shocked that, you know, it actually happened. A lot of us, you know, saw the signs, but no one, especially like the Ukrainians on ground, could really believe that such a thing could happen and I mean the only way I can

describe it as I woke up on a different planet almost everything changed. We left Buckmoot, went through Kharkhev and we documented a smursh missile strike that hit, you know, the courtyard of an apartment complex that I believe injured over a dozen people and killed two.

And since then we've been covering

what's going on in Kyiv.

And it's honestly night and day from last week. And now I remember when I first arrived, I was taking photos of, you know, people buying flowers for their loved ones on Valentine's

day.

And now the streets are absolutely empty, there are, you you know people with guns territorial defense

forces in you know police Ukrainian army there are checkpoints everywhere It's a really tense situation that the streets are empty. A lot of gas stations have closed because they have just run out of gas to give. People throughout, you know, the Kiva are joining

territorial defense. They are, you know, building check-style hedgehog tank traps by welding together scrap metal.

They are, you know, making petrol bombs that they're calling, you know, bandara

cocktails or bandara smoothies. Yeah, and they're all just bracing for, I think,

and the inevitability that the Russians will arrive

...