All About Change - Sergiy Gamaliy - Governor of Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

Overnight, Sergiy Gamaliy went from governing a sleepy agricultural region in Ukraine, to hosting more than 300,000 refugees streaming in from the east and orchestrating dangerous rescue missions to cities under siege. He did this all while trying to keep the schools running and the tractors harvesting. The Khmelnytskyi Oblast region which Gamaliy governs has become a distribution hub for humanitarian aid that is vital to other parts of Ukraine facing the worst conditions.   Listen to a special episode of All Inclusive as Jay and Governor Gamaliy discuss activism on the ground in Ukraine and stories of courage and hope in this fight for freedom.    If you’re looking to support people affected by the war in Ukraine, click here.   Please find a transcription of this episode here.  Photo credit: Louisa Gouliamaki      See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Jay Ruderman, and welcome to the All-Inclusive Podcast. Stories of activism, change, and courage. This is all wrong. I say put mental health first because if you don't... This generation of Americans has already had enough. I stand before you not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen. Each episode, we bring you in-depth and intimate conversations with inspiring individuals trying to change the world. I'm almost 45 years old. Today, my age stopped. When the heart of more than 100 children stopped beating,

I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths. We're devoting a special episode today to what's happening in Ukraine. A terrible war that is devastating the country, killing thousands, displacing millions. As dawn broke, the sheer scale of the aftermath was revealed. Rescuers searching for survivors, pulling victims from the rubble.

We all realized that this war is not only with the Russian Federation. That's actually the war of good and evil. Today, I'm going to talk with Sergei Gemely, the governor of Khmelnytsky Oblast. Overnight, Gemely went from governing a sleepy agricultural region in western Ukraine to hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming in from the east and orchestrating dangerous rescue missions to cities under siege. He's doing this while trying to keep the schools running and the tractors harvesting. The Chemelnitsky Oblast region, which Gemely governs, has become a distribution hub

to humanitarian aid that is vital to other parts of Ukraine. What can we do to help, I asked him. Share information about the war as much as you can, was his response. So today, we'll try to do just that. Hello. Hello, everyone. Hi, Governor. Thank you for making the time. Nice to meet you. I can speak here? Yes.

Because my English is not so good for speaking. I will speak in Ukrainian and I have a translator here and she speaks in English. It will be better for your ears. Hello. I want to jump right in because I know that your time is valuable. I want to welcome you to All Inclusive. During this time of war and tragedy in your country and your region, I appreciate you giving me a few minutes to talk about the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and in your area. I wanted to start off by asking you, today in the New York

Times, Thomas Friedman wrote an op-ed in which he said that the objective of Russia is to create five to 10 million refugees and force them out of the country. What has been your experience in your region in terms of refugees fleeing from eastern part of Ukraine through your region to the countries bordering on the west? At this point, we don't have Russian military troops in our region because the Ukrainian army is protecting Khmelnytsky region and the Ukrainian army in the other region like Sumy, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and Kyiv are not enabling the Russian troops to get into our region at the moment.

And the main goal for us now is to have a humanitarian front in here, in our region. Our region is ready to welcome all the refugees from the east that are coming and that need some help. And we are ready to give them homes and food and supply and everything they will need the russian troops at the moment are trying to block those refugees in their cities and enabling them to receive food and health supply, medication and everything they need. And our goal is to get those people out of those cities like Mykolaiv, Sumy, Cheney, even other cities. Our main goal is to let those people come out of those cities and arrive here so we could give them all the help we can.

For this moment, we are planning to provide, our west regions are planning to provide the rest of the Ukraine with the food supply because the other regions won't be able to start the agricultural season and to plant all the needed like seeds and bread and everything so that's going to be our plan to help the rest of the Ukraine and this much we believe we're gonna win and we believe in our Ukrainian army we're sure we will win this war But at this point we need like our region the main goal for our region is that we need to help all the refugees From the rest of the regions that are in need now We have to help them and to help all those people who are like desperate desperate at the moment.

Before the beginning of war, the Ukrainian population was somewhere about 40 million people. And after the big cities like Kharkiv and Mykolaiv and Kherson were hit, and after all those people have lost their homes, we realized that all those people will be coming to our region and we are ready to provide them with homes and places to live and work and to stay here. And our region is the population of

Maleski region is about 1 million 270 thousand people and at this point the western regions are expecting to give homes for 10 million people from the eastern part of the Ukraine because we are the only regions that could help them. So governor let me ask you with so many refugees coming through how do you handle so many people coming in and passing through, either staying or passing through your region? We're using all kinds of housing, which is possible at this moment, to give those people places to live, like schools and kindergarten. And for this moment we have provided even less than 10% of the homes for the refugees that we are able to help. So out of the 100, even less than 10%. and common people are taking other people from even from trains directly to their homes trying to help and a lot of families are welcoming all the refugees like everyone who can help

they're trying to help and to provide homes for those people also since march 14th we started the So since March 14th, we started the educational process for the kids that came from the eastern part for the refugees. And there are about 5,000 kids and they are coming more. So we're providing them with the education also we have a field hospital for the animals were the only actually region who has that because there were a lot of families or refugees who came with their like dogs and cats and other animals who took them here and they also were hurt during the bombs and the invasion. So we are also trying to help them. We have already made 137 operations on those animals in order to help them as well so they

could go back live in the families they came with. them as well so they could go back live in the families they came with. So, Governor, I want to commend you for, in a time of war, trying to bring a sense of normalcy to your region, to people in need who are coming from eastern Ukraine, to children, to provide them schools, to provide for your population and even for animals that are being brought. You've done a tremendous amount of work, and I'm sure you're working 24 hours a day. I wonder if you could talk for a few minutes about your morale

and the morale of the Ukrainian people during such a difficult time. The more we are in war, the more we get united. All the Ukrainians get united. And we all realize that this war is not only with the Russian Federation. That's actually the war of good and evil. And we are representing the rest of the world, the good things in the world, the democracy, the kindness, the happiness, the prosperity, everything is good in the modern world where Ukraine is representing now. And we are fighting the evil that is representing in Russia in the name of the whole world. And we are sure that

we will win this war in the name of the world and all the ukrainians and ukraine is a very peaceful country we have never invaded any other countries or any other territories but when some other people come to invade us we are going to protect our land. We're not going to give a piece of our land to anyone else. And this war is uniting all the Ukrainians all together. We're going to show the rest of the world that we will win this war. We have big lines now of civil people to join the Ukrainian military. No one's hiding, no one's running. We have big lines of people who want to go and fight for Ukraine.

So, Governor, I'm wondering if you could tell us what was going through your head the moment you heard that Russia invaded Ukraine. First day, I couldn't believe in it. I thought it was something not real. Having war in the middle of Europe, in the heart of Europe, having a war that will kill several people was hard to believe. So in the first days it was kind of hard for me to believe that these things really happened. Governor, can you tell us one story that gave you hope? One thing that happened that

you witnessed that you said, you know, this gives me hope in what's happening and what my people are going through. I have those stories mostly every day when I see those men are waiting in lines to go to military, to Ukrainian army. Or when I see the old people who don't have money at all, they come and give the, are trying to give because our army guys are not taking that. But they're trying to give their last money to the Ukrainian army in case they just might need something. Or when people are calling us from all the parts of the world and trying to give us some help. So those stories are happening all the time and every day.

But I'm going to tell you one story if you want to know. every day but I'm gonna tell you one story if you want to know. We had this one case when we needed to bring some humanitarian help to one of the cities that was bombed at that moment. As a matter of fact, we have already sent more than 300 tons of those help to different cities. But at that point, we really needed a truck and the person who could take that stuff to that city. The truck was supposed to go to the hot spot of Ukraine, to the city that was bombed continuously. So basically, it was very dangerous for that person to go so i called to a lot of

owners of the transport companies who own those tracks and who have drivers and asked them whether any of the drivers were willing to go to that city i'm not naming the city because i don't want to say that out loud but actually the owner of the company said, okay, I will go myself. He just asked for that vest and for the machine gun, and I gave him mine, and he went to that hot spot. And he brought everything they needed and came back alive. Very emotional. and came back alive. Very emotional. Governor, President Zelensky has become a worldwide figure

standing for freedom against tyranny and authoritarianism. Have you had a chance to speak with President Zelensky during the war? Well, we are speaking constantly, either with him or with his deputies. And all the governors, like like me are speaking to him like most every day because he's an example for us. He's staying at his place and doing what he's got to do.

And we're doing our job in the regions as well. So, Governor, you and your region are going through the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II, with thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people traveling through your region. What can we do? What can people outside of Ukraine do to help Ukraine in this most dire situation? Well, first of all, we really believe that economical sanctions against Russia will help a lot because stopping their economy with economical sanctions, we will be sure that less money will be spent on war against Ukraine. Besides that, we really need any humanitarian help because a lot of cities have lost their provisions and places to stay and like closing everything.

People need any kind of help like that. kind of help like that. Besides that, we're going to need to build new homes, so anything that could help with buildings and building infrastructure and building our economics as well. Besides, we will need any kind of financial help that you could do because we will give that to the refugees and put it into our economy and close the sky if you close the sky we could fight out all our enemies out of the ukraine so they won't have a chance also we need you to share the information about war as much as you can, because the information is very important. Everyone should know that we are in war now. That's not any kind of a military operation like Putin is trying to say. It's a real war. People are dying here. And the more people know about everything that's

happening in Ukraine, about all the people who get hurt dying, about destroyed cities, all the information that is shared. The more people know about that, the more help out of it we will have. Well, Governor, I want to thank you for your time. I know this is a terribly difficult time with war and humanitarian crisis. I want to commend you for your courage and bravery and and for the bravery of the Ukrainian people for what you're going through and fighting for freedom not only for your country but for the West thank you so much for your

time and joining us on all-inclusive today thank you very much thank you for you for your helping and everything will be good and ukraine will be the best country in the world for our people thank you very much thank you thank you bye all inclusive is a production of the ruderman family foundation i'm your host jay ruderman our show is produced by yohai metal host Jay Ruderman. Our show is produced by Yochai Meital, Jackie Schwartz, and Matt Littman.