Hello and welcome to Changes. My name is Annie McManus.

Hello folks, I hope you're doing well. We've changed the running order of the podcast

this week to bring you a very important episode, a conversation which I will never ever forget.

My guest is Danila Komotowski. He is a 38-year-old Ukrainian man, a husband and a father to

a 70-year-old son. He's worked in radio all his life and has lived in Kiev for the last 10 years

and is now the co-founder of an online radio station called Aristocrats.

In the last three weeks, Danila's life has been completely upended.

As I speak to you right now, Russia has been at war with Ukraine for 21 days.

Despite peace talk efforts, Russian artillery and warplanes are continuing to pound, cities and towns across Ukraine.

Russia is invaded on the north, south and east sides of the country and we see their captured territories on maps coloured in pink.

Every day we look, there is more pink.

More than 3 million people have now fled Ukraine since Russia began its invasion, a rate of more than a million people per week.

The international organisation for migration has said.

Danila is now taking shelter in the Ukrainian countryside and working for ICTV Channel as a voice of the civil defence programme.

Volunteering for state agencies and private studios, recording voiceovers in four languages to help win the war.

He reached out to me on Instagram as a listener to my radio shows and to changes and we got to talk him.

I spoke with him on the morning of Friday 11th March for this podcast.

Danila is going to tell you his whole story now. It was a hugely enlightening, occasionally upsetting and very inspiring conversation.

Please welcome to the podcast Danila Kometovsky.

Danila, hello and thank you. First of all, thank you so much for giving us your time today.

Thank you. It's a big support for us, for every Ukrainian to know that people out there is interested in doing something to help us.

It's very supporting. How are you?

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