I'm Francis Dernley, and this is Ukraine, the latest. Today, we join the dots of coordinated efforts to destroy Putin's war machine. Discuss the opportunities of a Europe no longer dependent on Russian energy, hear about a mysterious ship trawling the coast of Great Britain, and learn about another podcast about Ukraine.
Bravering takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory. It's the worst carnage that this world has seen since World War II. Absolutely fascinating. We are with you, not just today or tomorrow, but for a hundred years. Nobody is going to break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians.
It's Thursday, the 30th of January, two years and 335 days since the full-scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by our Associate Editor for Defence Dominic Nichols, our Senior Foreign Correspondent, Memphis Barker and dialing in from the United States, Nate Darling and Terrace Malay of the Cleveland, Ukraine podcast. But first, over to Dom for the latest from the battlefield.
I will start with the latest from Battlefield in a moment Francis, but I'll just offer our condolences to anyone affected by the plane crash in Washington, D.C. overnight.
seems to have moved west into some open ground, just the southeast of Chassiv-Yar, seemingly no further through the town itself. I mentioned that because it's slightly contradicts yesterday's report from the Moscow Times that Russia has taken the whole town. Otherwise very little movement on the ground, the slow, grind west in the Donbas continues, but very little ground to the south of Picross.
Ukraine's defence ministry say for all that lack of movement, nearly 1,300 Russian casualties were added yesterday. And as Tim White, independent journalist Tim White says, that's nearly one every minute for the last 24 hours.
Now overnight, Chernihiv, Odessa, Poltava, Sumid, Dnipur and Krematos were all hit by drones and other ordnance. Russia launched 81 drones last night. 37 was shot down. 39 brought down by electronic warfare or otherwise decoys and just piled in harmlessly. Five minutes to get through.
Four people, two elderly couples, were killed in Sumi, acting regional governor of Vladimir Atyuk there, said a Shahid-type drone had hit a residential tower block. Emergency rescue workers were still on the scene as of a couple of hours ago, searching for any more potential victims under the rubble. Sumi, you'll remember, is very close to the border.
With Russia, it's regularly hit. The Sumi Oblast military administration said that just yesterday had seen 106 separate attacks across the region. A bit further south of the Sea of Azov, and global maritime risk management firm Ambray Intelligence have reported explosions in the port of Burdiansk. According to Russian-affiliated media, drones
were deployed in the area and were reportedly intercepted by Russian forces, although local sources reported explosions and a fire within the port premises. Now, based on location data, Ambray said no merchant vessel was docked in the port at the time of the incident, but they do say that merchant vessels often withhold their AIS signals, the automatic identification signal, when calling it Russian-occupied ports and generally operating in that area.
Now elsewhere, a couple more from Ray France. This Russia is said to have depleted much of its Soviet-era military industrial stockpile with the remaining equipment in poor condition. This comes from independent media outlet The Insider. They say loss is now account for about 50% of Russia's total stock with much of the remaining equipment in storage being in very poor condition, making it unlikely they'll be able to be repaired and deployed to the front lines.
That's worked by the insider, but reported there by Keiv Independent. Now, the insider estimate, the number of combat-ready vehicles Russia still has and could send to the front to be about 2,000 tanks, 2,000 infantry fighting vehicles of the BMP family, boy of I am a Shina Peccotti, I seem to remember.
And 3,000 armour personnel carriers, the sort of BTR, the Brony Transporter family. So what? So what does this mean? Why do I raise it? Well, Ukraine's MOD stats today, and as I say, the stats are generally thought to be pretty reasonably accurate. Ukraine's MOD say that since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has lost 9,890 tanks and another four yesterday.
and over 20,000 AFE armoured fighting vehicles, which I think looking at their stats and the way they used that, I think they count the BMP and BTRs, which are infantry fighting vehicles and battle taxes, if you like, just to get troops safely into battle. I think they're counting both of those as armoured fighting vehicles for the sake of their statistics.
So what does this all mean? It means that Russia, if these stats are correct, has burned through 10,000 tanks out of a total of 12,000 and 20,000 armored fighting vehicles out of 25,000. Now, of course, there's a bit of wiggle room with the figures and the definitions of the vehicles and older stock is being replenished, but much of that is untenable, as the insider says.
They also may be getting some vehicles from North Korea, although what we think they are getting from North Korea is mostly heavy artillery. Now, I'm not suggesting there's any imminent collapse here of the Russian sort of material, but there ain't a lot of heavy metal left. And hence the prioritization, I think, by Russia of the Donbas.
using meat assaults and their general need for the dodgy deals to get North Korean troops into the fight. And I would imagine there would be quite keen to start negotiations, albeit in a very flawed one-sided manner initially, once Donald Trump starts making those kind of noises. But basically, the material is a point of concern. It has to be a point of concern for Russia.
Elsewhere, yesterday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutter met with Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. She's also Minister of Justice, Ms. Olya Estefanishnaya. They met at NATO headquarters in Brussels. She also took part in a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. I met Estefanishnaya in Kyiv on one of our last reporting trips there. I think she's definitely a politician to watch.
Now, NATO's Deputy Secretary-General, Radmila Shakrishinka, chaired the meeting of the NATO Ukraine Council. She highlighted the ongoing efforts to bring Ukraine closer to NATO, including with that new NATO security assistance and training for Ukraine command in Vice-Bardin. That's being set up. It's going to take some of the load of the Ramstein Group, and perhaps one day all of the load of the Ramstein Group, if the US changes position.
Also discussed was the comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine, that big pot of cash, rather than the gifting of equipment. The Deputy Secretary-General indicated that NATO allies are on track to deliver on the pledge made at the Washington Summit to deliver €40 billion in security assistance. She welcomed allies increasing investments in Ukraine's defence industry.
Now, sticking with NATO and a senior NATO official has acknowledged that Russia is escalating the sabotage and destabilization campaign against European NATO member states in an effort to deter further military assistance to Ukraine. So, speaking to the European Parliament on Tuesday, NATO Deputy Assistant General
James Arbatorei said NATO states have faced acts of sabotage in recent years, including trained derailments, arson, attacks against politicians' property, and assassination plots against defence industry figures, including a plot to assassinate the Ryan Mattel head arm in Papagia, Ryan Mattel being a big German defence manufacturer.
Mr. Aptoreye said the Kremlin aims to, quote, create, disquiet, to undermine support for Ukraine. And he called for NATO states to more assertively deter Russian sabotage acts. That report in air from the Institute for the Study of War.
Okay, so just finally, what haven't I mentioned? What haven't I mentioned today that I've been talking about quite a lot since the start of the year? Well, there were no overnight strikes by Ukrainian forces on Russian energy infrastructure. Nothing to report today, which is notable for the number of strikes. However, the Kyiv Insider
has done an analysis and summary of Ukraine's January strikes on Russian territory. So, into Russia, not in occupied Ukraine, which they say paints the picture of efforts primarily focused on Russia's huge nationwide petroleum industry, which is the heart of Russia's economy and the war machine. Now, there are too many to list. Each one, it would be quite dull.
But there have been 14 such strikes, long-range strikes, inside Russia alone in January and who knows what tonight will bring. So as a flavour of what we've been talking about, what the key inside looked at, Russia's largest seaport is Lugar in the Leningrad region was hit a distance from Ukraine of 900 kilometres. Angles, the fuel depot supplying the nearby base from which the big tubular bombers fly, was hit at a distance about 1000 kilometres.
Also, the poor area of Novoresisk, located 500km from the border. That was hit. The Tamboff Gunpowder Plant, 400km, aircraft manufacturing facilities in Kazan, 1000km, military industrial sites in Smolensk, 300, Rezan or refinery 500.
And on January the 29th, Ukrainian drones successfully hit one of Russia's largest oil refineries located in Kostovo in the Nizhini Novgorod region. That's about 800 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. I mean, these distances are vast and they are getting there, they are getting through and they are causing damage. So anyone who says that this war is just about the westward grind and the donbas.
that Russia is clearly winning and unstoppable and can carry on indefinitely, just I would suggest does not deserve your attention. They are not serious observers and analysts of this war.
And that's us up to date, Francis. Well, thank you very much, Dom. And continuing on that theme, it feels like we have covered the Russian economy, the Russian war machine, the so-called energy front, too, for a very long time. But rarely has it been so much in the spotlight as it is at the present moment. Clearly, a concerted effort has been formulated in Ukraine and greenlit by the wider West.
Once so cautious, of course, about this, because of the implications for global energy prices. Two target Putin's war machine directly. The war machine that's, of course, bringing material to the front lines, but also is funding the country and funding its enablement to wage this war. As that article in the Keiv Insider puts it,
In terms of Ukraine's strikes on Russian territory, January was the month that the gloves finally came off. With Ukraine's homegrown defence sector now rivaling any Western nation and seemingly no U.S. German or French politician willing to risk uttering the long-standard call for de-escalation, Russia's most important cash-generating assets are now vanishing at an almost daily rate.
Now, in another potentially major development connected to this, the European Union's Foreign Policy Chief Kai Callis and the US Secretary of State Mark Rubio agreed on the need to keep maximum pressure on Russia to move forward to a just and sustainable peace, according to an EU official familiar with the phone conversation. Carlson Rubio also talked about strengthening EU-US cooperation, shared foreign policy priorities and challenges posed by China.
said the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to Bloomberg. In an interview with that publication this month, Callis raised the option of using joint EU debt to finance the heavy spending required to bolster its defences against Russia. She said, we have to put the political, economic pressure on Moscow. We have a lot of economic might on our side.
which is what makes this next story doubly extraordinary. The Financial Times report some European officials are debating whether Russian pipeline gas sales to the EU should be restarted as part of a potential settlement to end the war, according to people familiar with those discussions.
Advocates of buying Russian gas, argue it would bring down high energy prices in Europe, encourage Moscow to the negotiating table and give both sides a reason to implement and maintain a ceasefire. Now, unsurprisingly, just raising the idea of reopening flows of Russian gas into Europe, even in preliminary discussions, has sparked a backlash among Ukraine's closest allies. Three of the officials briefed on the talks, said the idea had been endorsed by some German
and Hungarian officials, exactly the country's one would expect, let's be honest. As the FT writes, floating the resumption of pipeline sales from Russia has infuriated Brussels officials and diplomats from some Eastern European countries, many of whom have spent the past three years working to reduce the amount of Russian energy being imported into the bloc. Its madness said one of the officials, how stupid could we be to even think about that as an option?
To many, it will appear as a textbook case of disguising greed as pragmatism. German businesses in particular would benefit from reopening Nord Stream. It would hardly be an altruistic act to benefit world peace.
Mooting such a prospect will be damaging in and of itself to efforts to undermine the Russian economy at this pivotal moment of the war. If investors think this is even on the table, it may deter investment in other energy avenues, which would be wiser in terms of European long-term security, let alone morally.
And don't take my word for it as the Financial Times goes on to say. The revival of the debate on gas sales has unsettled some US LNG exporters seeking to sign long-term supply deals with European companies. They fear that any restart of transit could make their products uncompetitive according to two of the officials.
One of the European Commission's top energy officials is in the US meeting LNG exporters this week for talks that will touch on long-term potential supplies.
So who in their right mind, given how disastrous the EU's energy dependence was on Russia, would rather invest in a future where it returns to that failed model rather than alternatives, especially when there is an opportunity to make the new transaction-driven Trump administration see the investment opportunities for a Europe no longer chained to Russian energy. You'd have to be
ignorant, gullible or compromised, surely, especially when the EU's stated target is to rid the bloc's energy system of all Russian fossil fuels by 2027. It's an idea so insane that only a supposedly clever person could come up with it.
Now many would argue all efforts should now be on trying to make Washington see that an end to the war, which sees Russia isolated and diminished, is in its own interests, not the reverse. This is a precarious moment, as the Guardian explores today, and we intend to cover further in due course.
Ukraine is reeling from the decision by the Trump administration to pause all U.S. foreign aid programs immediately for 90 days as a variety of projects in the country from military veteran rehabilitation programs to independent media and anti-corruption initiatives have effectively stopped overnight.
On the media point, last night I spoke to the Media Development Foundation in Ukraine, a media hub for sustainable independent media in the country, and many journalists there spoke candidly about their concern of what that loss means for their work on a daily basis. The Guardian actually quotes the founder of another online news portal as saying more than 80% of that site's funding came from the US, and now that outlet is in serious trouble.
They quoted me saying there is no viable advertising market for war reporting, leaving us with community support or paywall models. However, raising money in this way during wartime is difficult, because most citizens prefer to use their money to support the military.
Now, as far as we can tell, no plans in Europe to fill the void left behind by the United States if it chooses to permanently withdraw from funding those kind of programs, which of course are separate from the military aid, further evidence if needed of European dependence on Washington for its own security.
But I want to end with something else entirely which will bring me neatly onto our first guest which is a story connected to the Russian Navy. Last week, Hamish Bretton Gordon reported that he believed the Russian naval bases in Syria would be forfeit with the installation of the new regime. Of course Hamish was just recently in Syria talking to officials there.
Today, there is further evidence that a permanent withdrawal is likely, with the BBC confirming that Russia has removed vehicles and containers from Syria's Tartu's port. A major blow, suffice to say, to their military presence in the region. We will continue to monitor that closely.
But staying on the Russian Navy, we're delighted to welcome Memphis Barker, the telegraph senior at Foreign Correspondent, into the studio today to discuss a story he published about a mysterious Russian trawler off the coast of England carrying an array of high-tech equipment. Memphis, welcome. What can you tell us about this ship and others like it floating around Europe? And why did it prompt a rare display of British naval power?
Well, Francis and Don, thanks so much for having me on a long time listener, so it's a pleasure to be here. What the first thing to say about the ANSAR, which was built in 2015, is that the Kremlin maintains its oceanographic research vessel, and that at all of the kind of array of technical equipment on board, which includes
high-tech sensors, large radar, dome, all of that, they say, is part of Russia's research into ocean currents, into sea life, and various other mundane activities. The trouble is that almost nobody, I'd say, believes that to be true at this point in time.
the ship has been operating for about ten years and its position is quite easily tracked on its various journeys around the world over that decade. Now it is not going to the parts of the world where you might expect a humble oceanographic research trawler to travel to. Instead if you track that trail you'll see that the ship
is broadly heading to the sensitive parts across the West where it thinks that there may be undersea internet cables, data cables, which it can spy on, potentially tap into, and in a worst-case scenario, sever.
The ship in the last couple of months has made a few extremely curious outings, two of them into British waters, one in November and one in January. But just as a kind of sign of some of the other operations it gets itself up to,
Just before it came into British waters this month, it was dispatched to the site of a crash, a Russian cargo ship, the Ursa Major, exploded just in the Mediterranean, not too far from Algiers and Sank. Now, the ship was sent there because it has on board two submersibles, the Russ and the Consul, these are known as, and they can dive to around 6,000 meters very, very deep, allows them to explore the ocean bed,
and this is where the trouble could really start. Now in this case with the Ursa Major, there's lots of theories for what the Yantar was doing above the position of that wreck. But people say it could have been involved in destroying sensitive equipment that cargo ship contained. Potentially it was trying to retrieve some ice breakers for Russian efforts in the Arctic.
But in truth, everyone knows, and as John Healy said, this is a spy ship. It is part of Russia's dark fleet. Now, when it's coming to England, the fear is that it is essentially mapping out the network.
of cables in and around the country off the coast. So there are about 60 people say that of this network, about 500 cables that make up the global internet connections rely on. If it can provide a kind of effective map to the Kremlin, they will then know which of those cables to target
should conflict flare up now Russia knows that we know it's a spy ship and it is signaling two things by sending these ship on probing missions into British waters it's saying we're mapping this out and if things get really really hard we could cause major trouble for your connections to the outside world now imagine
that it was as Tom Sharpe, a telegraph contributor, told me it was dropping charges on those cables. It could knock out our internet connection at what would be an extremely tense moment on the verge of a full blown war between Russia and the West. But even if it's not doing that, even if it's more pursuing a kind of more simple mapping intelligence gathering operation,
It is attracting the attention of the real Navy, of our intelligence services. It is threatening to cause damage to the UK, and it's almost having a propaganda purpose for the Kremlin, saying, you know, we are here. We're unafraid of pushing the limits in terms of where ships can travel and what they can do. And you're going to have to deal with us, because if you don't, we can carry on with this nefarious activity. Now, what actually happened on January the 20th was that
The ship was confronted by three Royal Navy vessels, the HMS Somerset, which is a warship, HMS Tine, a patrol ship, and most interestingly, RFA Proteus. An auxiliary ship completed in 2019, I believe, at a cost of about £65 million. And what this ship was doing in the operation was saying to the Kremlin,
Well, you bring your spy ship to our waters. We've got our counter-spy ship. And you can see it looming over this old trawler in the photographs released by the Ministry of Defence. What our process has on board is its own submersibles. And should the Anantar be dropping craft down to the ocean bed trying to explore our network of cables running in and out of Britain,
RFA processes and submersibles have giant claws basically and these could sever the cables connecting Yantar to its deep sea roving mischief-making submersibles. We don't know what happened beneath the waters. All we saw from the images was a confrontation between these three vessels and the Yantar being escorted out of British waters.
But what Tom Sharpe and other analysts suggested to me is that whether or not they are deep sea sort of skirmishes are happening, it's certainly possible that they are happening at this point in time. Mr Sharpe actually called for the UK to get more aggressive with ships like the ANSAR and consider either barraging them with sonar sound to disrupt their communication systems or indeed going ahead and snipping their connections to their submersibles.
And it is quite likely that at some point, in the two years since the start of the war and going into the future, that some of these deep-sea conflicts will take place. And we may never hear about them. It's not the kind of things that are published, publicized by British security services broadly. I'd rather keep them under wraps. Interestingly, I think that last time that it was confirmed that there was one of our ships involved in the skirmish like this was actually in 1982.
conquer a submarine which had just fired the torpedoes that sank Argentina's Belgrano in the Falklands War. It then scurries off to the Baltic Sea and cuts an array that was being trailed behind a Soviet trawler. Very, very daring operation. Margaret Thatcher was reported to be absolutely jubilant when it was
completed and it shows you from the Cold War till the conflict we're in today these kind of operations have been known to be occurring far away from the eyes of the media in the world.
Well, thank you, Memphis. That really interesting overview of this, as you say, issue that's not really widely talked about and one could say for good reason. I wonder if you could comment further on where international law or naval war or the law of war even stands on boarding these kinds of vessels. I mean, could
British commandos be called upon to board it. If this kind of snooping continues, it seems extraordinary that you can't, just if you know that this is going on, that you can't do more to deter these kind of actions. Because we've had numerous stories of cables being allegedly cut or snooped on, and it just seems amazing that they can get away with doing this. Interested on what the rules of engagement allow you to do.
Vladimir Putin is playing quite a deliberate and provocative game with Russia's dark fleet. Civilianships under the laws of freedom of navigation can travel through international waters. They're not allowed to be boarded, and even the Antar as it goes around the world, as long as it's kind of in international waters, even if it's intelligence gathering, that is covered under the laws of freedom of navigation.
So Western nations are broadly very careful and considerate and dubious about the merits of just gung ho going on, boarding it, and causing an immense ruckus. Partly because if we start doing it, people say, what about our ships? What about our ships travelling through
the South China Seas. China's already showed itself to be quite willing to push the envelope over there. They actually hauled to the surface a submersible being run underneath a US Navy ship and brought it right out out of the sea and clearly we're very unhappy with that kind of exploration happening in what they consider to be their own backyard. But that doesn't mean, given the situation we are in, that there is nothing that can be done at this point.
And I think that if you see, for example, the Finnish operation, when Finnish commandos boarded the Eagle S Trolo, which was suspected of severing the Essling 2 cable in the Gulf of Finland,
Now, the legal basis for that operation, kind of unclear, they'd have to have done quite a lot of legal work in order to make sure they were covered under international law. The simple fact is they did it, they boarded the ship and proof was in the pudding. It was absolutely bristling with spy equipment, according to a report in Lloyd's List, been spying on NATO aircraft, NATO ships, and then obviously been hauled into port and pretty much what many would consider to be a
pretty bold and potentially quite useful display that the west is not just going to sit there anymore and let these ships cause havoc or threaten havoc in our own waters. Now Tom Sharpe said to me that our lawyers should now be working on the basis that providing the legal justification for a potential boarding operation should Yantar not get the message from
this recent confrontation should it return once again to British Waters? He certainly could envisage a world where you get the SBS going ahead and boarding it. At that point, I assume that that kind of work is going on inside government. I mean, I spoke to Matt Weston, who's chairing an inquiry into
Britain's undersea defences, he said we are looking at everything we can do and explicitly mention the Finnish operation. So I would be, I would certainly it's not something we can't do and expect that work is going on now to provide the basis for it. Should a boarding operation be required?
Well Memphis thanks so much for your time and of course we will have a link in the show notes to those who wish to read Memphis' article. In full there's lots of diagrams, maps and photographs of the ships as well. It's a really interesting read. Members I know you have to dash off back to the foreign desk but thank you very very much for your time today.
And to end today, something a bit different. Of course, there are countless Ukrainian communities around the world, and today we're going to zoom in on just one in a single part of the United States. The history of how that community formed is fascinating, as is the service that's been set up by and for them. Dom, you're going to lead on this, so over to you.
Thanks Francis. What we're going to talk about is the Cleveland, Ukraine podcast. They primarily cover the Northeast Ohio Ukrainian diaspora. They also cover Ukrainian non-profits and Ukrainian art and culture. They sent us an email last September, two days after David died.
Nate Darling, the host of the Cleveland Ukraine podcast, wrote, I can say with 100% certainty that David Knowles and the whole team at Ukraine, the latest, inspired me to create the podcast. I'm not Ukrainian, nor do I speak the language, but David inspired me to help support my local Ukrainian population in a way I could. I want to say thank you to David for all his work.
Nate Taras, welcome, welcome, welcome today. Delighted to have you on. Now, your background is marketing a multimedia creation, Taras, or Dr. Taras Malay, to be correct. Your president of the Cleveland Maidan Association and Ukrainian Museum archives. You've been a physician for over 30 years in the Cleveland health care system. Welcome to the podcast.
Now, your show is recorded at the Ukrainian Archives of Cleveland. You partner with the Cleveland Maidan Association that a nonprofit sends over huge amounts of humanitarian aid. Before we hear about your work, please first tell us why there is such a large Ukrainian diaspora in Cleveland or in the Cleveland area. And he tells us a little bit about the group.
Thank you so much, Don. We're very happy to be here and thank you as well, Francis. So Cleveland has a huge Ukrainian population and the history of Ukrainians in Cleveland began during the 1880s where many Ukrainians immigrated to work in many of the steel factories in the region.
When World War I was brewing and many started sending for their families and churches, a Ukrainian community started really popping up in the historical Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland. After that, a large wave of Ukrainian immigration came post World War II, as many Ukrainians were now living in displaced person camps throughout Europe, and now faced political and cultural persecution from the Soviet Union.
We saw the now thriving Tremont Ukrainian community eventually spread to nearby Parma, Ohio in the 70s and the creation of the Ukrainian village where many Ukrainian businesses, churches and communities thrived at this very day. With the fall of the Soviet Union, 91 and Ukraine gaining their independence, immigration opened up between the United States and Ukraine in freedom of travel really began. So people were going back and forth and saying families.
And Parma, Tremot, and Cleveland have been enormously supportive of the Ukrainian refugees during the full-scale invasion in 2022 and served as a cultural hub during a time where Ukrainian identity was really under siege. So Ukrainians have been in America for a long time and made many hugely positive contributions to the growth of America.
Thank you. I mean, it's really interesting and we will continue to look at the historical ties between the US and Ukraine. A fascinating that there's the town of New York in the Donbas. We could do that another time. There's so much to dig into. But can you tell us a little bit about your cultural seed bank at the Ukrainian Museum Archives and how you worked to protect and preserve the Ukrainian identity?
Yeah, hello. I'm excited to be here. I'm Dr. Terras Malay. Actually born in Cleveland, Ohio, right here, Tremon, just actually probably 500 feet from the museum. My parents escaped from the Soviet Union during World War II. The Ukrainian Museum was established back in 1952 by displaced scholars that escaped from Ukraine, leaving their homeland.
Their mission was collecting and preserving Ukrainian history and culture, which was deliberately destroyed by the Soviet Union. This archive was formed with extensive collection from those Ukrainians that escaped the Communist regime. Many of them were diplomats and leaders of Ukraine and brought with them these precious books and documents. The Ukrainian Museum archives as one of the strongest and unique collections of materials outside of Ukraine.
We store over 5,000 rare books, many that are not found anywhere in the world. Over the past 30 years, we've been working with the Library of Congress, different museums in Cleveland, the Cleveland Public Library, Ohio State University, Cleveland State University, Notre Dame University, the Holocaust Museum, and with many academic institutions in Ukraine. After Ukraine attained its independence, we were planning on slowly returning all these treasures.
However, we're kind of waiting for these institutions to organize their collections and be prepared to accept ours. I believe we're fortunate that we did not rush this process. Russia is actually targeting those institutions that we're going to send these materials. I'd like to accent that Russia does not only bombard civilians, but specifically attacks hospitals, humanitarian location, and has purposely destroyed cultural, academic, and historical sites.
Our museum, our campus here, has the museum building. We hold community meetings, conferences, academic scholars, come visiting to us and we have educational events.
I would also like to give the community's gratitude to Andrei Fadinsky. He was the previous executive director and presently our resident scholar who has worked tirelessly for the past 40 years to transform this museum archive into a priceless institution. Read about us, take a look at us by visiting our website. Yep, and that's umacleveland.org. That's the website for that umacleveland.org.
Lovely. Thanks, Taras. And thanks for clearing that up, Nate. Now, I'm going to ask about your audience in a moment, and what would you got coming up on the show this week? But how you've been working with the Cleveland Maidown Association's combat medic training program? How's that been working in Ukraine? What have you been doing to support it from Cleveland? How have people in Cleveland been having an effect on combat medic training in Ukraine?
The Cleveland Maidan Association was actually foreign back in the winter of 2013-14 by Ukrainian Americans here in Northeastern Ohio. They wanted to support those students demonstrating for their freedom in the cold on the Maidan. Later that year in 2014, they became a nonprofit and they have been shipping aid to Ukraine and also financially assisting many of the families that were tragically affected by the war.
With the full-scale invasion in 2022, our efforts really have exploded. We probably have around 20 Ukrainian churches, and all their halls, churches were packed with humanitarian supplies, and we were just trucking them out to our warehouse and then shipping them. We have many organizations here that do ship assortment of humanitarian aid. However, our organization, the Cleveland Maidan Association,
really is focused on medical needs, hospital supplies, supplies for surgeons, trauma surgeons, having the capability of getting a lot of this medical equipment from wonderful partner hospitals here. Also an organization like MedWish, which is a nonprofit that repurposes medical supplies. We pick them up and then we ship it to Ukraine.
and we deliver it to the hospitals in Ukraine. Our focus also is in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, areas that are being continuously attacked. The container goes to Poland and then our truckers pick it up in Poland and deliver it to our warehouse in a smaller city in Western Ukraine. We make sure that the hospital is still functioning because we ship it to areas close to the combat areas.
We make sure that everything is delivered because we have continuous communications with the physicians there at the hospitals. Our mission is to help the casualties of this unprovoked war. Our motto is saving lives once shipment at a time.
And I want to say a special thank you to Terras and the Cleveland Midan Association. You can learn more about their amazing story at Cleveland Midan.info. They've been a day one supporter of my show. I've been to many of the packing days where we're physically packing the medical equipment that's going to Ukraine, and it definitely changes you as a person as you're going there. So Cleveland Midan.info, fantastic organization, and they absolutely are saving lives.
As Ross mentioned, the capacity building, they're not just sending equipment, they're training the next generation of life-saving combat medic in Ukraine, and it's truly impactful work. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Taris. Nate, talk to us about your podcast. How did it... I'm just amazed at how all these groups can get going, like this podcast and your podcast, how just the community can get going around the world. So how did you start it off? How have you found it? Who's listening to you? Who's engaging? What's it been like being a podcaster?
Well, it's been an amazing experience, honestly, and I've produced podcasts in the past and smaller projects as well. This is certainly the largest one. The Cleveland Ukraine podcast started after Russia's full-scale invasion to highlight many of the amazing untold stories of individuals supporting Ukraine and Cleveland in the wider world. It was already a lot of fantastic organizations like Ukraine, the latest that was providing the best day-to-day
actual like combat updates and i wanted to take a little bit of a different angle so we feature really intentional mix of non-profit organizations community leaders historical experts elected officials and more we try to keep it a little not overly political just because it's more of a community focus you know our show really protects and democratizes Ukrainian culture to non-Ukrainian speaking communities as well.
That's one thing that I've heard many Ukrainians, both in the AFU and working in non-profit organizations as well, is that a lot of Ukrainian culture just wasn't democratized to America during the Cold War. Maybe as much as some other cultures were, so a lot of people are still learning. We're still going to figure each other out as a culture a little bit.
And so we wanted to show that Ukrainians have a long and cultured history, both in Cleveland and America, and that supporting Ukraine was an American issue, and not purely a Ukrainian one. I believe having a media background, Americans tend to care about things that they can see themselves. And if they think they're fighting for their neighbors, it really is a much better cause for them that they want to support. And so most importantly, we really wanted to show to Ukrainians that they are not alone. They are not abandoned, and they have an outpouring of support.
in Cleveland in northeast Ohio. None of this, like I said, would be possible without the Cleveland Midan Association and the Ukrainian Museum Archives where we record our show. It's a very special experience to be surrounded by the history. And I do want to give a special thank you to the late David Knowles and Ukraine the latest as they serve as a direct inspiration for the creation of the Cleveland Ukraine podcast. It is a international show. We have listenership all over the world.
a lot of it in America, a lot of it in Ukraine, some in Germany, a lot over Europe. We're going to be going down to Washington here next week for Ukraine week. And so we're going to have some, if we can pull in some interesting guests there as well. But we've spoken to US senators, you know, Sherrod Brown, Max Miller as well.
So we engage people on both sides of the aisle. It's not a partisan show. We just want to focus on helping Ukrainians both in the Northeast Ohio area and in Ukraine as well. So lots of exciting guests coming up. It's been certainly a privilege. One thing that I talk about on a lot of the show is that supporting Ukraine really serves as holding a mirror to the world and asking who we are going to be.
As a people, this war is shown some of the most evil that can happen in the world, but it's also shown some of the best of the world as well. And you have a whole bunch of people that didn't know anything about Ukrainian history, didn't know anything about the Ukrainian language, but they just wanted to help. And they saw people that were willing to fight and put their lives at risk for many of the same principles that in the West we enjoy every single day. I don't have to think, is my power going to go out? I don't have to look for
air raid silences are privileges that we enjoy and so we want to you know as a collective Cleveland community show Ukrainians in Ukraine that we're here with you every step of the way and we're here with you no matter what happens and we support you through everything.
Well, thank you both very much for your interesting answers. It's been such a pleasure speaking to you both. Let's go to our final thoughts now, then. Dom, where do you want to start? Thank you and an apology to you, the listeners. I want to say thank you to Juanita. I met in December. She came over, managed to make some time, a few of the team here.
went out to a local pub and we had a nice beer with Nita lovely to meet you. We need to then send us a load of peanuts and I've been chomping through the peanuts quite happily for the last few days and that was why I was choking at the start of today's offering to you so I apologise that my voice was going to be a bit creaky and squeaky and all the rest of it but blame one eater but thank you for the peanuts.
And secondly, I want to say thank you to Natasha and Jeff from Ukrainian Action. You may remember they came on the pod two weeks ago talking about the film that their charity Ukrainian Action had co-produced, so the film Taras UK Premier last night in Bloomsbury here in town. I was delighted to be asked to moderate the Q&A fantastic night.
Do have a look at Ukrainian action and the work they do supporting Ukraine. And their initiative this year is to help set up a rehabilitation centre in the Carpathian Mountains for veterans and their families. So the film Taras was about a professional snowboarder Ukrainian.
snowboarder who volunteered, fought in the war and suffered psychologically for it. And he's gone back to the mountains where he finds peace and beauty in the snow, in the wind and the sound and the fresh air. That's what their work is this year. Do help go and have a look at them. And we're hoping to follow up on that story. So it won't be the last year here of it. But just thanks again to Natasha and Jeff and thanks, Winnita, for the peanuts.
Thanks, Dom. Since I was a baby, I have devoured peanut butter sandwiches, a door of stuff. It's better than chocolate for me. So, yes, we've all been enjoying your peanuts very, very much, and thank you for them. I haven't managed to choke on them yet, though. You're not trying hard enough, Francis. Nate, Terrace, you've got the final thoughts for our listeners today. Where would you like to leave them?
Well, I just want to say thank you for the work of Ukraine the latest and the entire Ukrainian community. It's really been an inspiration to me that we can be better as a people.
And doing the right thing should never go out of style. We're going to continue to provide, you know, millions of dollars of humanitarian aid, Ukrainians. We're going to continue training combat and medics. And we're always looking for partners and support. You know, we've got a great team of just average people doing an above average thing. And I just want to say thank you to the entire Cleveland community. We stand with you. We stand with the Ukrainians and we're going to stand with you.
Yeah, I would like to thank, thank you for inviting us. I'd like to thank Cleveland because it really has been all their support. I mean, I wouldn't be able to do what we are doing without their support. But I really want to say that I think what we all desire is peace in this world. And we're looking for peace that is a lasting peace. I think we all know where and who is the evil in the world. But unless this evil is stopped,
and stop completely. We're not going to truly have peace, but we have to work hard for this piece. Thank you.
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