So, Julius, day one in Parkive, we arrived after a pretty civilized overnight train from Odessa.

And look at the conditions, beautiful weather. People out in the streets. It's International Ladies' Day. A lot of people with flowers. It's got a kind of not quite a festive atmosphere, but it's pretty, pretty encouraging, isn't it? I think you might get picked up on that. I think it's an International Women's Day, and my millennial friends will correct you, but it certainly is. And, you know, compared to two nights ago, we were in Odessa and the generators were going, and it was dark, and it was a bit depressing and a bit sad, and, you know, suddenly we've got sunlight, lots and lots of people out. And the other thing, of course, you've said this before, but it is quite amazing, you know, in this war-torn country or parts of the country is certainly war-torn, that you can have this sort of almost luxury overnight sleeper from one end of the country to the other, which is what we just had in great luxury.

Ukrainian Railway is famous for their sort of stoicism, their determination to keep going. There have been a couple of attacks on trains, actually, in the last few months, which is pretty unusual because the Russians don't tend to target them, but they've been hit by a couple of drones. So even that way isn't entirely safe. But we're looking around the city, it seems benign, but we can see directly ahead of us, can't we, Julius, the sign of a bombed out

building, all the glass has been blown out. We heard an hour ago explosions. We don't quite know

how close they were to the city, certainly not that close to our hotel, but still, let's not

forget this is the city under attack. No, absolutely. And this place was really, really pounded at the

beginning of 2022. And of course, all the international attention was in Kiev. So it didn't really get its due in terms of coverage. But it was hit much, much harder than Kiev. And since then, things have definitely calmed down in terms of sort of danger levels for residents. But, you know, only two days ago, there was this attack on a tower block in the north of the city

that killed somewhere between five and ten people, we think,

possibly up to ten.

And we'll be going there later to have a look.

But walking around here, you'd think it was just a normal city.

But there have been reports of a first- view drone, fiber optic, getting as far as

the outer ring road of the city.

So, I mean, the danger is coming closer from all different angles.

And yet, the streets are full of people who are just living their lives.

Yeah, and we should mention that, you know, there are cities like Gerson in the south that have pretty much been, you know, most of the residents have been pushed out by the Russians doing this thing that they call the human safari, which is that they just try and kill as many civilians as they can until life becomes untenable.

And they tried the same with Kharkiv, but just thankfully they haven't succeeded in any meaningful way yet.

Lord of me, it's very good to see you. It's been just over a year since we were last in Kharkiv.

Quite a lot has changed, which we're going to come on to in a minute.

What's your kind of general feeling? You're off duty today, but you're never really off

duty, are you? Not really off duty, just not in my uniform.

Well, the feelings are quite bright, just like the weather outside. I mean, we finally got through winter, which has been hard.

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