This is the Popular Front podcast with me Jake Hanrahan.

We're focused on the niche details of modern warfare and underreported conflict

all across the world. Popular Front is

completely independent. Today we're speaking to journalist Connell Cieni. He's going to

be talking to us about his time recently in the midst of a very brutal 14-hour

gun battle which occurred when Russian forces ambushed the position that he was in.

He was filming with Kefariki group if you know about

our documentary frontline hooligan about Hutchut clan an anti-fascist Ukrainian

football hooligan firm they have now built up a battalion they're fighting on the front and they're known as Kefereki group. They got ambushed and somehow managed to fight their way out. Very very wild stuff. Support us at Patreon.com slash Popular Front.

So I think before we talk about this insane fucking ambush that you were in the middle of

just to be honest lucky to live through let's talk a little bit about your work for

anyone that doesn't know I think you're very

underrated in terms of being out there just because you're just out there doing your

thing and kind of not involved in the whole promo shit as much as like a lot of

people are myself included so

let's like maybe just introduce you like what kind of what kind of what kind of

what do you do what you've been doing so I'm a freelance photographer and

videographer and I've been covering the Ukraine conflict since the first week of the full-skin

inclusion almost three years now and I make pretty regular trips to Ukraine and particularly in the Dombas region and the front lines around there.

For me I just like to focus on Ukraine as a topic because I'm very interested in it as a conflict and is a in history and as a country and

compared to other journalists I don't see the point parachuting in and out of different conflicts.

So for me, this one I'm most intriguing and I'm just best situated to kind of cover this conflict because I spend a lot of time with the same groups.

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