99 days of war in Ukraine
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2022
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on Post Reports, we bring you to the frontline of the war in Ukraine, as Russian forces encircle Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Plus, a teenager coming of age in the war finds purpose in helping fellow displaced Ukrainians.
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Nearly 100 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian forces have suffered significant setbacks: President Volodomyr Zelensky says Russia has now taken 20 percent of his country.
Foreign correspondent Siobhan O’Grady brings us into the trenches of the eastern Donbas region, where Russia has focused its military advancements. Ukrainian battalions are digging trenches, desperate to turn the tide of war.
Later in the show, we meet 16-year-old Anna Melnyk, whose life changed overnight when her family was forced to flee their home in Kyiv and head west for the transit city of Lviv.
Now Anna –– who volunteers as a guide for the displaced at a train station in Lviv –– is undergoing a drastic transformation alongside other Ukrainian teens, who are trading high school concerns for work that will shape the kind of nation they will inherit once the fighting ends.
“She said it makes her feel like she's doing something for her country. That it's a role for her,” says reporter Hannah Allam. “She’s not 18. She can't enlist in the military and then take up arms. She’s not even old enough to drive. So, this was something she could do.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before we start today's show, a warning that some of the audio in this episode could be |
| 0:07.7 | difficult to listen to. |
| 0:09.7 | So please keep that in mind as you decide when and with whom you listen. |
| 0:22.2 | Wednesday morning my colleagues and I were invited to embed with a battalion called NEPRO |
| 0:28.1 | 1 that has several key positions set up in the towns close to the front line. |
| 0:36.8 | We arrived and the scene was rather calm. |
| 0:39.7 | There were about five or six soldiers who were sitting around looking pretty relaxed. |
| 0:47.6 | Shavano Grady is a foreign correspondent for the post. |
| 0:51.0 | Earlier on in the war, Shavano reported from Kiev, a main target of Russian aggression. |
| 0:56.6 | And now the fighting has shifted elsewhere to the Donbass region in the east. |
| 1:01.8 | And it was there she met these soldiers. |
| 1:04.8 | At first they were just waiting. |
| 1:08.9 | They had dug trenches into this area. |
| 1:11.1 | It was a wooded area and they had dug trenches and were showing us around the position. |
| 1:16.6 | My colleague Nastya Khulushka and I were standing on top of a small hill next to the trench |
| 1:22.2 | to see more of the position. |
| 1:25.8 | We heard the boom of an incoming artillery. |
| 1:32.9 | It's a different kind of boom that you hear when it's coming from the Russian side. |
| 1:37.4 | And immediately after we heard this whistle which signals that a shell is going to land. |
| 1:48.4 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:52.5 | I'm Elahe Izadi, in for Martine Powers. |
| 1:56.0 | It's Thursday June 2nd. |
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