It Could Happen Here - Escaping Ukraine

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

A new refugee trail has been created in the wake of a Russian invasion. Reporter James Stout talks with someone who escaped on foot. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here. Obviously, as I'm sure everyone is being bombarded with, the war in Ukraine is in its fifth day right now, something like that. We just passed 96 hours. By some accounts, more than 300,000 people have been made refugees. Those are going to be

very inexact numbers, but it's likely to be somewhere between like 50 and 100,000 people per day being made refugees, and it's possible that's going to last for the foreseeable future much of the coverage that you will have seen at this point um is going to focus on heroic pieces of of resistance you know things that ukrainian civilians picking up arms throwing molotov cocktails ukrainian soldiers destroying russian armored columns some of that's going to be the propaganda some of that a decent amount of that's actually happening. Obviously, we have a fair amount of documentation. But what I think has not gotten nearly as much play is the situation at the border of Ukraine and Poland. Because this refugee crisis is enormous, but it's also not sexy. And it points to a number of things that are ugly about some

of the stuff that people like to celebrate at this conflict, including the conduct of President Zelensky, who has, I think, handled himself objectively well as a wartime leader, and who is also, as you'll hear in the interview that's about to follow, made some decisions that have had a catastrophic impact on people's lives. So this is an interview conducted by a journalist, James Stout, who is working with us on this project and with another project that will be launching soon with a person, an individual, an American who was – well, has a couple of different passports. But with a person who was in Ukraine when the invasion began and left and eventually wound up leaving on foot with tens of thousands of other people for the Polish border. So this is a story of what it is like to flee a country at the beginning of a war. And the reality is that increasing numbers of Ukrainians are going to be facing

every single day. So please listen. Hi there. Hey, Manny, how are you? I'm doing well, how are you? Good, good. Sorry to keep you up late, I'm sure you're exhausted. No, no, it's okay, it's okay. I actually just arrived at a new hostel in a new city, and I'm going to be up for a couple more hours anyway, so it's a good time to talk. Nice, great. Do you mind if I record this? Go ahead. Cool, excellent. Let me just explain what we're going to do.

So I'm writing a piece for NBC on the refugee situation that's emerging. And I'm also helping to make a podcast for iHeartRadio about a similar thing. So if it's okay with you, we'll use the audio for one and then some of your words for another. Absolutely. How is my audio coming through? It's great, actually. It's really, really good. Are you on a telephone or are you on a computer? I'm on a telephone right now. I don't have a computer with me. Cool. No, you're doing really well.

If you're on a computer, I'd ask you to record a backup, but this is just fine. I'm recording. So, yeah, it seems like you've had a pretty exhausting 48 hours now. So if we go back to when you were in Kiev, right? So I was in Kiev a few days ago. I was in Kiev eight days ago. And then I went to Lviv four days ago. Okay. And how long have you been in Ukraine?

I've been in Ukraine, or I had been in Ukraine in total for one week. Okay, so not that long. So you arrived in Kiev, you went to Lviv. Can you remember where you were when you found out that the invasion was happening and that it was going to go past Donbass and into Ukraine? Yeah, of course. So I woke up on the morning of 24 February to the sound of air raid sirens outside. And it was a very confusing sound. I had never heard air raid sirens in real life. I just heard them in movies and television shows and such. And I knew immediately what had happened. I didn't even have to check the news. And I did check the news soon

afterward. And there were bombings all over the country. There were reports of bombings in Ivano Frankis, which is a city 100 kilometers south of Lviv, where I was. And there were so many rumors flying around. There were rumors that the Russians were coming to Lviv at that moment, which was not the case but can still be the case very soon. Anyway, so I heard these air raid sirens as I woke up and I shook awake my roommate, who's a British journalist, and I told him we might be bombed any minute. So we went outside to try and find a shelter.

Pretty much still in our nightclothes, we went outside to try and find a shelter. Pretty much still in our nightclothes, we went outside to try and find a shelter. And there were loudspeakers saying, everybody remain calm, find shelter, help the elderly, stockpile water. And it was repeating this on repeat. And people were shuffling along. There was a sense of muted panic. So it wasn't outright panic, but it was a sense of urgency, I guess you could call it. And we were at war. And that was when I realized that Ukraine was being invaded at that very moment. Wow. Yeah, it sounds dramatic. And at that point, you went to the shelter, I'm guessing. So did you spend some time there before making the decision to head to Poland so after about 15 minutes the air raid cyward stopped the news generally came around the city that Lviv was not about

to be bombed but nevertheless massive exodus of people began from Lviv at that moment because okay we're safe for now but for how long are we safe was the general sentiment that was around so um everybody just started making for the train station the bus station uh they got in their cars uh people were just leaving uh there were huge lines at the atms there were huge lines at the uh grocery stores people were buying non-perishables um it was just a not a pullout, I would call it, but it was an urgent departure. It was an urgent exodus that was happening. And so me and my roommate, we went to the train station, waited in line for two hours to see if there were tickets.

There were no tickets. We went to the bus station. We waited in line for one hour to see if there were tickets. There were no tickets. And so then we started to get a little worried because it was noon on the day of the invasion. Russian forces were everywhere in the country. There were bombings everywhere in the country. And we had to leave. And there was no viable means to leave. The airport was closed, of course. The airport was being bombed a few hours later.

And so we tried to look into car hire. We tried to see if we could rent a car, we tried to see if we could take an Uber or a Lyft, or a blah, blah car, which is the Ukrainian version of Uber. And none of those options were available, because everybody was thinking the same thing. And in a sense of almost resigned despair, we decided that it would be best to just start walking west and see what happened. And it was around noon when we began to walk west. Wow. So when you set off to walk, did you just sort of take what you could carry? And was that sort of what most people were doing? Or did you get the sense that at least the people were like preparing for a long period of time away when they left? The people certainly were not preparing for a long period of time away.

The people were not preparing for war. For the longest time, President Zelensky and the Ukrainian government maintained that there would be no war. They called indications of war alarmist. They called them ludicrous. And it was only in the final 24 hours that everybody sort of woke up and said there's going to be a war. So I remember the last day before the invasion, people were getting ready. People were waiting at the ATMs. People were buying groceries.

People were packing. But it was not before that time. Nobody was getting ready for the war. And so when the war struck, everybody just sort of left hastily. And it was a terrifying departure, a sudden and terrifying departure, because people didn't know what to do. And they just sort of grabbed what they had and they ran. Luckily for me and my roommate, we were traveling with just one pack or so

because we were not living in Ukraine. And so we were able to just carry what we had on our backs. Yeah. So talk me through that walk then. I think I saw it was like 43 miles. Is that right? That's right. So we did take a municipal bus a little bit of the way.

We took a municipal bus. I believe it was five kilometers down the road. Five kilometers being like three miles down the road. And the total distance from levive to the border is 80 uh 80 kilometers sorry 80 kilometers uh so that really did not make a dent at all in the distance and it was noon when we started and we knew for a fact that um that we would not make it before nightfall and we knew that and we were terrified of that so at first we walked along,

the countryside was picturesque. It was beautiful. It was indistinguishable from a holiday during springtime. It was a fair, fair weather, sunny. Um, and no one could even tell that the nation was at war. There was really nobody else, uh, walking on the road besides us, uh, in the beginning and the first, uh, 20 kilometers, I would say. And then we started seeing long lines at the petrol stations. Everywhere was out of gas. Nobody had gas. There was just no ability to fuel cars. And as a consequence of that, cars were running out of gas and they were being abandoned on the side of the road, which caused further traffic pileups.

And soon the road was impenetrable to vehicles. And so because of this, everybody started getting out of their cars and walking. And so these families who had planned to escape Ukraine to Poland in their cars and carry their lives with them were suddenly faced with the hard decision of taking what they could carry with them. Yeah, that just sounds terrible. That sounds really difficult. I'm sure you saw older folks and younger people as well, people sort of struggling to... Because that's a long walk, right? That's not a walk that everyone can do, so that must have been very difficult.

It's a difficult walk for a young man, and many old women and little children under the age of five were forced on this march because there really was no other option for them. It was either go back to Ukraine and risk being bombed, risk being under Russian occupation, or it was get out of your car and walk in the wintertime with no food or water, no toilet for 50 miles. And it was just this nightmare scenario because all these people were on the road. There were people in wheelchairs who couldn't negotiate the mud. There were mothers with strollers who couldn't get the children out. And the children were crying. The children were asking, why are we here what are we doing why did we have to leave home and stand and walk 50 miles in the middle of winter um and the old people were sort of resigned to it they there was one old woman i passed who was using a cane and

she was hobbling along she had a backpack and i asked her where are you going uh because we were apart we were a long long way from the border and she said i'm going to poland very simply it was a very matter of fact um statement and so these people walked with a sense of duty and a sense of urgency and um it was just a very tragic humanitarian scene yeah i can imagine and that was a major that was a major route the year on right Like a major road that just become impassable. It wasn't one of the bigger highways, but it was, I believe, the M11, the Ukrainian M11, and it runs east to west throughout the country. And yeah, it's one of the major roads. And it had become completely clogged. Yeah. Jesus. So on arrival in Poland or at the border, I understand that there's some men, like broadly defined as like military age, 18 to 60, I think, aren't allowed to leave because they have to stay and enlist. Is that right? Did you see? that right did you see yes the border was absolutely the worst part for that reason about five kilometers from the border at the end of our walk we were feeling relieved we were feeling

like finally we've made it ukrainian military patrols started walking by and driving by and announcing through loudspeakers and announcing with their own voices um all men must stay uh all men between the ages of 18 and 60 have to stay, get out of line now. And so the fathers naturally asked, because there were a lot of fathers who were there to protect their families, to safeguard their families, and to provide for their families. These fathers

asked, how about us? We have little children. We have children under the age of five. How are we supposed to provide for them if you conscript us right here? The Ukrainian army did not care. They pulled them away physically from their families there were a lot of tears there was a lot of crying there were a lot of hurried goodbyes brothers left sisters mothers left uh husbands um lovers left each other people people just left it was terrifying to watch um yeah all these men were conscripted immediately into the army yeah i can imagine and what people at that point like it seems like they were relatively

stoic up to that point were people sort of resisting that like just were they like sort of sad but resigned to it was it a mixture that was that well that was when the panic began um because everybody was sad but resigned to their fate of walking to Poland, but nobody was prepared for losing all the men. So when all the men were lost, when all the men were taken forcibly, and this was public, everybody could see these men being yanked from their families. People first started yelling at the soldiers. That didn't do anything, obviously. And they were so angry at the soldiers, didn't do anything obviously um and they they were they were so angry at the soldiers and the soldiers didn't care um and then panic began because

people realized oh my god this this person who was here with us who was a travel companion who's a relative now we have to leave without him and even more he's going to the front now and he is in great danger at the front so people began pushing they began shoving they began being rude to one another um there there was no sense of empathy among the people at all because it was a panic to get across the border at that point um so there were people fainting uh and that was really just overlooked the people who fainted were sort of dragged to the side and left there, and I think they made it out. I don't know if they made it out okay.

They certainly didn't die, but there were people who were fainting. There were people who were sobbing. There were people who were hyperventilating. There was vomiting going on. It was just this sense of absolute human panic as people just tried to escape in the last five kilometers, and especially in the last 500 meters was the very worst. Yeah, terrible thing to see. I understand you've stayed in touch with one of the lads who was conscripted, right? Have you heard any more from him?

Yes, that was a development from tonight. Yeah, tell me about that. tonight yeah tell me about that so while we were walking uh about this was about 15 kilometers out from the border we met a young ukrainian man um and we just got to talking to him because i mean we could relate to him we were about i'm about the same age as him um and so i uh we were just like sort of talking about our lives and it was almost as if the war wasn't going on and then we got to these army checkpoints um and they started they started calling all the men, you have to, you have to leave. Um, and so my friend said, Oh, I'm not, I'm not leaving. I don't want to fight in this war. And he tried to, you know, sort of, um, stay with us because we were foreigners. We were not,

we were not eligible to be conscripted so he sort of tried to stay with us he was um he was a student he was trying not to fight in this war because he had a life elsewhere he had a girlfriend uh who he who he was traveling with um and so we we were walking with him and i said hey do you want to do an interview he said said, sure. Um, and I started talking to him on camera and then a soldier came by and yelled in his direction, Hey, you get out of line. And, um, he said, I'm sorry, I have to go. And he just gave me this look like this, this bearing look. And he went with the soldier. Um, uh, two days later today, tonight, uh, he messaged me on Instagram and he said, uh, cause we, by the way, we had exchanged contact information while we were talking. Um, he messaged me on Instagram and he said, Hey, I saw that you mentioned me in, uh, in

your Twitter. Cause I told him about the Twitter as well. Um, and he said, just letting you know, I'm safe, uh, in Lviv. I'm not in the East fighting the Russians. Um, I am in Lviv and I am safe. And it is my knowledge that he may have escaped conscription because he would otherwise be in the east. But I'm not sure.

I just know that he is safe right now and he confirmed that he was safe. Okay. So you're not sure whether he's doing training or whether he's in some rear echelon role or if he's managed to get out of it somehow. I know that he has managed to escape the brunt of the fighting with the Russians. That's right. Yeah. OK. Good for him. But still a terrible thing to have to deal with. So it's my understanding there's visa free entry into Poland right now. Is that right? That people can walk across the border?

Yes. The entry into Poland was an absolute breeze compared to the exit from ukraine i don't know why but you have to wait in a long line in ukraine for an exit visa just for permission to leave the country and so as i mentioned that was the worst part because they were only letting 10 people out every 20 minutes 10 people get an exit visa every 20 minutes and there were at least 2 000 people at the border with us wow and so that's that's where this panic happened is because every time they open that gate 20 every 20 minutes and by the way this is like two in the morning in the cold weather and people are as i mentioned crying vomiting fainting um and so every time they opened that gate there was a human crush to get to that gate and it closed it and they forced

the people back and then it was another 20 minutes before it happened again and this happened all night long um and this was literally just to get permission to exit the country it was ludicrous it was insane um so yeah uh i'm sorry to divert from your question but it's very interesting poland was extremely easy to enter. There was no visa process. They understood. They let us through. I think they just barely looked at our passports. So, yeah, it was easy.

Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal tales from the shadows as part of my cultura podcast network available on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast were you at that point like obviously you had no plans or places to go so like did they house you was there some kind of refugee housing that they put you in uh not when i was there um they did do that they did implement that about 12 hours after i arrived um but when i arrived uh we were greeted immediately pretty much right out of the border facility, with donuts and tea.

And so they gave us donuts, they gave us tea. And then they said, hey, there's a bus to Premishil, which is the city about 15 kilometers west of the border, where all the refugees are gathering. And they said, there's a bus to Premishil, leaves every 15 minutes, and we got on that bus. And then we arrived in Premishil. And at that time, refugees were responsible for their own accommodation. Uh, we managed to book a room in a hotel with eight other refugees, um, in the room. Uh, and so I was sleeping in this, this room with eight other

refugees. They didn't want to talk to me. They were kind of despondent. They'd lost everything. And so they were just very sad the entire time uh that i was there yeah but to answer your question about housing real quick uh about 12 hours after we arrived they began setting up tents for the refugees and that is where many of the refugees are living now are in tents okay it's like you know that's a polish government or the red cross or is that citizens of poland i have no idea which organization did that, but I can tell you that I did not see a single Red Cross or United Nations representative while I was in Poland. Okay, interesting. Yeah, they can be sometimes a little slow to react.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you then stayed in that hostel. You weren't able to really talk to the people there, which is understandable. They probably had a very difficult 24 hours. We all had had, yeah. No talking was being had, pretty much. Did you get a sense when, as you met the people walking there, crossing the border,

etc., were people, did they have plans to be gone from Ukraine? Were they thinking, where can I stay for a long period of time? Were they thinking, I'm going to wait this out in Poland and see? Right. I was pleasantly surprised that a good half of the people that I spoke to in that convoy, in that refugee caravan, had relatives either in Poland or elsewhere in Europe. And so they were all, they had all called their relatives and they had arranged them to go to Western Europe and meet their

relatives. Okay, yeah, so they've got a place they're planning to at least stay for a while. Yes, however another half of them have no plans whatsoever and they're terrified. And those are the refugees that I stayed with in that hotel last night, that they're terrified and they have no place to go. Yeah, right. And no one's really provided them with one yet. No. Yeah, that's difficult.

And it seems like, I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how the United States reacts because it hasn't really done very much so far. It's amazing. I heard that the reason I crossed at that place rather than any other place is that I heard that the U.S. Army was there and I did not see the U.S. Army. I searched for them and I did not find them. So I don't know where the U.S. is. OK. Yeah. You haven't seen any any evidence of like any seems like no sort of NGOs or government aid for refugees yet then?

these yet then it's kind of surprising as i mentioned i haven't seen any un representative any red cross representative any who representative um uh i haven't seen any ngo or governmental representatives i did see of course polish government representatives at the border but that was about it right is that from polish people do you get a sense of solidarity? Yes. Okay, good. So it was actually amazing to see, it was heartwarming to see the citizens of Kresmendil are now swamped. Their population has been doubled or tripled by the

incoming Ukrainian refugees. And yet they are showing great amounts of solidarity. I actually attended a solidarity rally today where the citizens of Kresterian got together and they said, Ukraine is our brothers and Putin is clearly in the wrong. And we will stand with them. We will show solidarity with them. And that was heartwarming to see. I talked with a few of those polls at that rally and they said, yeah, we knew this was coming and we prepared for it and we are ready to take in as many as is necessary. Yeah, that's really nice to hear that these people are sort of showing solidarity with each other and support with each other. Yes.

Yeah. So when you were on your way west, I presume that like the conflict didn't catch up with you, right? You weren't sort of subject to like indirect fire or you didn't see any of that? with you, right? You weren't subject to indirect fire or you didn't see any of that? No. However, there was about 50 kilometers behind us of bombing, as I mentioned. We did not hear it, but there were reports of the fighting going on all the time, but it did not catch up to us while we were in that caravan. And it would have been absolutely terrifying if it had, but I'm glad that it didn't. Right, yeah. And then, so you've been there for about a week. Had you previously been doing some reporting in Ukraine?

I've never done reporting in Ukraine before, but when I came to Ukraine and the war had not yet started, I was mostly just doing interviews with civilians about what they thought about the possibility of war, about what they thought about the war in Donbass. A lot of cultural stuff. It was kind of boring. I mean, not that war is interesting or fun, but it was not really much of a story.

So I was just doing interviews with people about basic Ukrainian things. And then the war found us. Right. And it seemed to have come as much of a shock to them as it did to the rest of us. As I mentioned, nobody was prepared for war until about 24 hours before it hit. And that's when the Ukrainian government said, yes, there will be a war, and everybody began sort of to have a sense of urgency about them. Right. Did you any of the like citizen militias and citizens preparing for defense the people who decided to stay yes uh i didn't see any of the militias but i was

went into a ukrainian gun shop in kiev and there was a line almost out the door people were buying guns um and i asked one of the people in the line, why are you buying a gun? And he said, if the Russians come, I want to be prepared. So a lot of people are buying guns privately in Kiev, at least as of last week. OK, so they weren't waiting for the government to supply them. They were supplying themselves with guns. I believe the government supply was a rather sudden decision. I don't think the Ukrainian people were counting on it and so they were supplying themselves. And they're buying like Kalashnikov rifles? We talked about hunting rifles. Yeah, you can't buy

Kalashnikovs in the gun store. They were buying hunting rifles and shotguns. Jesus, okay. Yeah, yeah. Fairly under equipped. Alright, so they were just prepared to try to get anything they could get their hands on to look after themselves and their families. That's right. I bought pepper spray. Better than nothing. Yeah, okay. So yeah, there was

did you see like of the people you walked with, was it, did families tend to leave as a whole or did some folks sort of say, right, I'm going to stay behind and fight or I'm going to stay behind to stay and look after a house and you should leave? Did you get a sense of that? The vast majority of people traveling were families as a whole. There were very few

single travelers or partial families traveling. I think that people wanted to stick together and so it was the vast majority of people traveling were families. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So they all stayed or left. Do you get a sense of how many people, you said about 2,000 people there at the border, like of what proportion of the city decided to leave for Poland? Not all the people at the border were from Lviv. A lot of them have been traveling since that morning from Kiev and other cities in central western Ukraine. So, yeah, I was talking to people at the border and a lot of them were from Kyiv. A lot of them were from Zaporizhzhia.

I'm pronouncing that wrong. A lot of them were from Ternopil or Ivano-Frankivsk or Odessa. And so I would not have any sort of conjecture on what percentage of the city. So I would not have any sort of conjecture on what percentage of the city. Also, it was still pretty early in the crisis because it was still the first day and it was fewer than 24 hours after the invasion began. So I imagine the numbers are a lot higher now. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you were getting news, right, as you were traveling etc were you like on whatsapp or were people on twitter like how were they getting news of what was happening everybody and absolutely everybody was completely dark during the walk um because i don't know why but there was no sense of cell but there was no sense of cell reception. There was no sense of data reception. There was no sense of internet connection at all during the walk.

And so everybody I met, we asked everybody we met, do you have any news? And they said, no, do you have any news? So nobody had any news until we got to the border. Some people had news. But for about 16 hours, we were completely in the dark about what was going on. And that was terrifying because when we left, the invasion had just begun. And we didn't get to be updated on the first half day of it. So, yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah, and then on arrival, you're faced with this news of this sort of blitzkrieg almost, right? Of bombing and armor right yes um i mean we we saw a little bit of it in the morning that day uh well when we when we started out um but it had really accelerated and amplified by the time that we arrived um and the ukrainians were absolutely terrified of this because they did not realize what happened on such a large scale yeah yeah i think very few people did uh and you can imagine if it's in your own country it's petrifying were you there when the fighting began in the chernobyl exclusion zone or were you in poland by then when did the fighting begin in chernobyl uh i believe about 24 hours after the

fighting began like period i was crossing into poland 24 hours after the fighting began, like period. I was crossing into Poland 24 hours after the fighting began period. So I was probably crossing into Poland when that fighting began. Okay. I was interested to know, especially how sort of the older people or people who have been alive, you know, the nuclear accidents, you know, I was wondering how. Right. I mean, I've been talking to plenty of older people. Right. I mean, I've been talking to plenty of older people. And as I mentioned, the older people especially were resigned to this because during the Soviet times, during the Cold War, this sort of thing was common. And so the older people knew what was going on and the younger people were the ones who were more panicking. That's interesting. Yeah, they'd been raised with a fear of that i suppose right and this happened in 1989 too uh like

19 this is the biggest refugee crisis since 1989 because in 1989 uh when all the republics fell in the warsaw pact uh so many people took to the roads and so the older people were used to that kind of thing um but as i mentioned the younger people were not so right yeah yeah and so yeah different reactions i guess and then some very young people obviously aren't able to understand what's going on beyond that they're leaving their homes which is sad right and especially the little children had no idea what was going on and it was impossible to explain to them so nobody did um and so i can't imagine how terrifying this must have been as a child not knowing why you had to walk dozens of hours in the cold carrying everything you had yeah it's always the saddest thing to see children in those refugee situations when they

obviously don't know what's going on and didn't do anything wrong and right yeah hopefully they're all safe hopefully they're in poland hopefully they can go to safe places i made several uh contacts during this trip and as i mentioned only one of one of them has gotten back to me so i hope the others get back to me soon yeah that's tough but you've got the sense that almost they won't turn back per se they just uh might be sort of uh not in touch because their phones aren't charged or something like that it's either their phones aren't charged or something like that? It's either their phones aren't charged or if in the men's case, they were sent to the east. Yeah.

Or they're too busy trying to arrange accommodations or food for themselves or something. I mean, everybody was just very busy trying to survive. Yeah. So I don't blame them if they don't hop on social media and get in there. Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course, yeah, it's a very, very stressful time for everyone. Did you hear of anyone who has been sent to the East, either secondhand or through people you met, people who were at the front already? I do not have any contacts of anybody who was sent to the East. From what I understand, theian army has a strict uh communication

social media sort of policy and so none of the soldiers that i met one wanted to talk to me i did not talk to any ukrainian army soldiers in uniform because uh they had a very strict policy they could not talk to me and two i could not get their contacts uh for much of the same reason okay so they didn't want to talk to journalists didn't want to talk to anyone they were just looking for yeah no they they were just they were very, so they didn't want to talk to journalists, didn't want to talk to anyone, they were just looking for... They were very stern and they did not want to talk to anybody, so I talked to zero soldiers in uniform during this experience. Okay, yeah.

So where are you now? You've gone further west, is that right? That's right. I took a long bus ride to Krakow today, so I'm now in Krakow, Poland. Oh, okay. How are folks dealing? Is it different there, being a little bit more distant?

I've already talked to a few people and well, it's a Saturday night. They're going out to drink and they they're saying, well, yeah, it's terrible that this war is happening 250 miles east of us, but what are we supposed to do about it?

So they're going out and drinking. So it's this very detached sense here in Krakow, not the same as it was in Fresnoville. Yeah, interesting. So people are living their normal lives and it's just a news item for them. They're not worried about any potential spillover or fallout. Right.

Okay. Yeah, they're not worried. Nice. And do you plan to stay there? What's next for you? So I actually just booked a flight an hour ago. I'm going to be flying back to the States on March 1st. Okay, great.

Yeah, so you can come back. And presumably you're a U.S. passport holder, so that's how you got through not being conscripted, etc. I'm not carrying a U.S. passport right now. I'm carrying an Italian passport because I'm also a citizen of Italy. And I was told before I left by some friends in the intelligence community that it would look significantly less suspicious to carry an EU passport than a U.S. passport. So I bought the EU passport. Nice, yeah.

And then you can travel freely through the EU. Yes, through Schengen, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Do you know if Ukrainian people can travel once, because once they're in Poland, can they then move through the Schengen zone freely? Ukraine is not a member of the EU. They're not a member of Schengen.

I do not believe they can move freely. Right, I'm just wondering, like, yeah, it would be weird. I don't know how their passports would be checked if they're going across some of those land borders. But I think they... I do know that this was an emergency situation yesterday. And so that's why they were just very cursory checked. But I'm sure it's stricter usually.

Yeah, I wonder what that would be like if they tried to exit Poland or if they'll... Right. Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen to them. No, I wonder what that would be like if they tried to exit Poland. Right. I don't know what's going to happen to them. I'm guessing there's been no communication of that that you've seen either, right? What they should do or how to apply for asylum or anything like that. I have talked to a few

people. They say that they're banking on these countries being empathetic to refugees. And I understand. I think that countries will be empathetic to refugees. Yeah, yeah, you certainly hope they will. So they're just going to hope that those countries, the ones who don't have a country to go to, you get the sense that they'll apply for asylum

wherever they can find a safe place. That's right. And I believe that countries, Western European countries, that have been very vocally pro-ukraine recently um will take them in so i think that they'll they'll be safe yeah that's good to hear i know i've seen estimates of up to five million refugees which yeah would be uh i mean germany absorbed a million people from syria right it's not yeah it's not impossible for western european countries to do that at all.

But it would still be a catastrophic crisis, the worst since 1989. Yeah, and we have to hope it doesn't get to that. Do you get the sense people are still flying across the border? I know you're a bit distinct from it. I mean, it's weird because you want to believe that what you experienced and what the people around you experienced was a one-time thing, that it was a one-time incident, that it was one caravan. But this is happening constantly, and it will continue to happen constantly for weeks. Yeah.

Are there trains across the border, things like that, that people can take, or is it solely that? Yes. solely that yes so when i when i said that i went to the train station of the eve and there were no trains what was really happening is yes there were trains but all the trains until march uh march were booked so oh wow okay so yeah but people can't take those trains across that kind of thing uh if they try to book right now they won't be able to find a booking for a while okay so they're already booked up and by the, here in Krakow, the first two hostels that I went to, the first two places to stay that I went to, were all booked up, and I asked why, and they said Ukrainian refugees. So there are Ukrainian refugees here in Krakow. Okay, yeah, people are moving further. I'm sure a lot of people want to get as far away as they can.

Yeah, so people are just constantly moving west right now. Yeah, or they have friends or family that they're trying to get to, whatever. i've been hearing the ukrainian language just constantly on my trip so that's interesting too yeah yeah um yeah thanks for that it's a really really interesting insight is there anything else you think from your experience that people ought to hear about um no i believe i've told you everything i've retold the story uh dozens of times since it happened and um i really hope that i hit all the all the right uh notes here um if you had to tell anything to the people who were reading or listening to this um ukraine really needs weapons yes but they also need humanitarian aid when i was walking all that distance with all those people, there was not a single sense of food being provided to anyone, water being provided to anyone.

There was no chance to go to the toilet. There was often no chance to sit down. If we could give even a chance for these people to eat something, to drink something, to have a minute of solace. That would mean the world to them. And so I think that we need to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees as soon as possible. Yeah. And you said you didn't see any organizations you'd suggest people donate to. You didn't see any of that. Is there anyone you can remember? No. And I don't know. I haven't actually done the research into that. I probably should. But I know that the Welcome committee in Poland were private citizens. They were not part of any NGO or anything. They were private citizens who were welcoming us in.

Yeah, I've seen some of them organizing on Facebook. So I'll try and maybe link to some of those or something like that so people can support. Right. Yeah, we'll see. All right. And then is there there anything you'd like to plug? You have a Twitter, right? Is there anything else you could tell us what your Twitter is? I mean, so the Twitter that I'm using for this, which you've probably seen is a temporary one.

It was meant only to cover this crisis. I guess my private Twitter, plug that, which you've seen that as well probably. It's just my name. Yeah, I guess just plug that. And I mean, thank you for everything that as well, probably. It's just my name. Yeah, I guess I'll just plug that. And, I mean, thank you for everything. No, of course. It's Manny Marotta with two Ts, right?

Yes, M-A-R-O-T-T-A. Great. Okay, we got that. Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks for taking the time to talk. I appreciate you having a pretty difficult couple of days. So get some rest. And if there's anything else any developments please do let me know give me a shout

thank you all right cheers mate have a good evening it could happen here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website cool zone media dot com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts you You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.