Sunny Days in Kramatorsk (Part I)
Ukraine: The Latest
Louisa Wells / Francis Dearnley
4.8 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 December 2023
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In June 2023 Ukraine: The Latest presenter and host David Knowles accompanied a group of volunteers delivering aid and vehicles to the Ukrainian armed forces. Over 10 days they drove around 2000 miles from suburban south London to a Ukrainian front line city.
On the journey, David spoke to the volunteers, civilians and soldiers to understand why ordinary people would commit to their extraordinary mission, and what it means to the people on the front lines.
In Part I, David and the volunteers drive from London, through Belgium, Germany and Poland and into Ukraine, spending a night in the western city of Lviv.
A message from the volunteers:
'If you would like to donate time, equipment or money, or are interested in buying your own vehicle and delivering it to Ukraine, you can get in touch at: ukraine.supply@proton.me’
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Email: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the evening of the 15th of June, the sounds you're hearing is the Viv. |
| 0:07.0 | Here we go. |
| 0:17.0 | I was driving down a heavily forested mountain now in mid-German to, I'll be spending the night. |
| 0:19.0 | And when we stopped on the hard shoulder there was smoke coming out of the engine, |
| 0:22.0 | so we lifted the bonnet and stood back. |
| 0:27.0 | What I notice in the checkpoints that we passed through is how young the soldiers were and the sight of those boys, those sort of quivering teenagers with their AK-47s and brand-spanking new uniforms made me absolutely |
| 0:46.7 | determined to do what I can to make sure that more boys aren't called up. |
| 0:52.4 | The cars are done, materials are packed. Now, off to Harkiv. Every single house here, |
| 0:59.0 | the roofs have been destroyed. It looks almost completely abandoned. |
| 1:02.1 | She's very, very grateful. |
| 1:05.0 | She's very moved. |
| 1:07.0 | My friends, which were gone and these days you cannot ever ever forget |
| 1:17.9 | because I lost lots of friends. |
| 1:25.0 | We've just passed on the left another destroyed Russian tank. It does very much feel like we're getting closer. |
| 1:29.0 | We're actually doing this to help them, but more importantly on top of that to stop Putin. |
| 1:37.0 | So I'm now in suburban South London, just trying to find the rendezvous point now, trying to find where these are. |
| 1:49.0 | That must be them. |
| 1:51.0 | Yes, that's definitely them. And I'm no great believer of pathetic |
| 1:56.4 | fallacy, but I've just seen a flash of lightning in a deep roll of thunder up ahead. |
| 2:11.0 | I'm David Knowles and welcome to a special two-part episode of Ukraine, the latest. In summer 2023 I travelled with a group of British volunteers all the way from the UK to Ukraine. |
| 2:17.0 | The volunteers are taking material and aid to Ukrainian units fighting on the front line. I'll be with them for their journey |
| 2:25.0 | to understand their motives and what their aid means to the troops receiving them. |
... |
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