Radiolab - Ukraine: The Handoff

Starting point is 00:00:00 Oh, wait, you're listening. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening.

Starting point is 00:00:15 Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening.

Starting point is 00:00:23 Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. Good listening. I'm Molly Webster. I am back in the host chair for one more week to bring you the second episode of our two-part story on Ukraine.

Starting point is 00:00:28 It's a series we've been doing in collaboration with NPR's rough translation and their host Gregory Warner. So here's the final act. I hope you like it. You're listening to Rough Translation from NPR. I'm Gregory Warner. And I'm Molly Webster. From Radio Lab. From Radio Lab. And we are back with our rough translation, Radio Lab collaboration. Yes. The last time we were together, we told you the story of an amateur smuggling operation, bringing abortion pills into Ukraine right after the invasion.

Starting point is 00:00:57 That story was called Ukraine under the counter. It's in both of our feeds. Go listen. And if you don't, spoiler alert. When we ended that story. So it was night, it was like 11, 11 and something. A Ukrainian woman named Evgenia and her friends have crossed over the border with three moving boxes of pills.

Starting point is 00:01:18 So it was like, I'm not leaving this, this pills in my car. They carry the boxes up to her apartment. So I was sleeping in my apartment and we we've, uh, with 10,000, uh, abortion. Uh, yeah, it was, was strange. Really, it was something like 15,000 abortion kits. Regardless, she wakes up the next day and she had so many questions.

Starting point is 00:01:41 Doctors didn't know that We had brought this product. You'll remember they were trying to get these pills to doctors throughout Ukraine after hearing stories of sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers. And so if Genia wondered, you know, would she be able to get these pills into the hands of doctors in time and would women who needed them actually get them? And so, we went to Ukraine to follow these pills. All right, so we're in a blackout and it totally reminds me of the New York blackout. In October, reporter Katz Laslo and I

Starting point is 00:02:14 landed in the Ukrainian city of LeBeef. They're like impromptu parties where people clean out their fridgirators and make music. That morning, Russian missiles had knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people. And that night, people were kissing, singing, and picnicking, but also crying, shouting. We come here because of a donation of pills fueled by one story of war. of pills fueled by one story of war. Pills meant to offer some relief and maybe restore some choice. But in Ukraine, we'd hear so many different stories about the ways people were interacting with these pills in a war.

Starting point is 00:02:58 It made us rethink our understanding of how we talk about these pills and the way we talk about choice. After if Genia got the pills, she started calling doctors. And six months later, when Katz and I arrived in Ukraine, we went to see one of the first doctors that she spoke with. Galina is ready. that she spoke with. Galina Maistrup, who is also one of the people that everybody told us to talk to when we got to Ukraine. We met Galina at her office in Kiev, and her organization is the Ukrainian partner

Starting point is 00:03:46 for International Plan Parenthood. I'm an OB-GYN. And Galina's been practicing medicine for about four decades, and abortion's been legal for her entire career. And 10 years ago, abortion pills came on the market. But when Russia invaded in February 2022, first of all, supply chains to the country were cut off. We have no air connection, we have no ship connection.

Starting point is 00:04:11 I mean sea ships. So pills weren't being restocked? All the pharmacists were in collapse. So by mid-April, the very moment that Eugenia was driving those abortion pills over the border. No, no, no pills at all. At this time. And because of this, doctors were worried.

Starting point is 00:04:30 From the beginning of war, we started to have this doubt. We're going to have enough pills because the request... One doctor in Kiev told us in April, three to five times more women were showing up in our office and asking for abortion pills. We realized that women would come and come and come and they're going to be more and more of them, but the pills, there's not going to be more of them. And we didn't know if there's going to be any. And at the same time surgical abortion was actually hard to find.

Starting point is 00:05:04 Hospitals were being bombed, surgeons were overwhelmed. A doctor in the eastern city of Deneep wrote, told us, I'll let you know when I'm done. After the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Refugees with no job and no money started turning to us. And then on top of that, there's also just a baseline of people who were getting pregnant and who need abortions, war or no war.

Starting point is 00:05:26 But Galina says during that time there was... Absolutely silence at this period from international organizations, from big fishes in this. They have no such a big speed to react to everything, you know. They need to make procurements, they need to get money for this. But then Gleaner gets a call. Hello. Connection with Zivgenia was like magic situation.

Starting point is 00:05:53 You have any sense her 1600 abortion gets? Oh my God, it's please. Wow. We actually got to see some of these pills when we get to Ukraine. I know the person who made these. These are the coffee packages, now. Coffee packages?

Starting point is 00:06:08 Yeah, the story goes that when Yovgenia was packing up the pills to ship them to the doctors, she didn't have any access to pharmaceutical boxes, so she grabbed these coffee bags. Levyv, certainly, is known in Ukraine as the city of chocolate and coffee. What do the coffee packages look like? Is it like a matte white bag? And then you can see like the aromatic filter on it?

Starting point is 00:06:31 Oh, where the good smells come out, okay. It's just a small box with a small packages, but you know, it's a big difference when you give somebody food when it's no food. And so? Once she learns about this shipment of abortion pills, Galina calls all the doctors she can think of across the country. I call to Vinica, to Paltava,

Starting point is 00:06:55 to Vrubinja, Nipro, and to Odessa. The coffee bags go to Pucha, and they go all around you, great. We started to contact doctors, and they started to tell about us to other doctors. From here soon, from Nikolai, we started to receive the mail and telephones like can you bring it to us. You know, you build the building from small stones. And this was one of the small stones

Starting point is 00:07:19 which was in the basement, you know, and it was extremely important. The first second that I heard about this story, I was immediately like, what was this like for the women who needed the pills? Were people willing to go on the record? No one that actually had an abortion wanted to talk to us, but we did talk to the people that they talked to, we talked to their friends and their doctors.

Starting point is 00:07:45 Just to heads up, almost all of those doctors asked us not to use their last names to protect their privacy at work. So this is Dr. Olga. She's based in Kiev and has patients in Buccia and did during the occupation. I didn't have any case when women told me that she experienced that sexual violence or raping or so and we didn't ask them in purpose like we didn't ask them this question. и так, что если человек был в том, что он хочет обещать, что это было. Он сказал, что эти patients, которые были в его северной оборшении,

Starting point is 00:08:33 так, что они все это были в очень сильной оборшении, в очень сильной оборшении, потому что, в том, что они были в другом плане, strong decision for abortion, because despite the war they had other plans. They may have children in here or husband in territorial defense or in the army and it's harder for them to leave the country. And I started to see patients who lost their houses, their relatives and they came to us. Another doctor we met Valentina told us about this woman who came to her from the east, from the city of Sloviansk.

Starting point is 00:09:16 She told me I had in Sloviansk everything. I had two flats. I had house, me, seaside. I have two flats. I had house, nia, seaside. I had two restaurants. Now I am Bons. I'm homeless. Another translation is, now I'm a bum. Now I am Bons. I don't know what I should do with my child. She said, I already have a child to take care of. And I just lost my house, I lost my money.

Starting point is 00:09:49 I should be healthy, strong, and to have time and silly, powerful energy for my one child. We heard stories of patients where war came into their lives, changed their environment, their houses, their relationships, their income, and they knew that they needed these pills. But we also heard stories about these pills that went beyond abortion. And that revelation? It started with Dr. Oksana. Yes, we are good. Okay. Can you introduce yourself? Good afternoon.

Starting point is 00:10:35 Her hospital is in the Veeve near the train station, and she sees local patients and also patients who fled fighting in the East. And these are a lot more complicated cases, more complications with pregnancies and more issues, with pregnancy. Everyone is in the lot of stress. Do you mean that just because of the stress, like there's more complications like miscarriage and stuff like that?

Starting point is 00:11:02 Yeah, that's right. Can you give me a sense of scale, like, as in how much more percentage would you say was complicated? No, when you have a difficult estimate, but I think it's like one-third more than it was before. It was up one-third. Wow. It just seems like such a massive increase.

Starting point is 00:11:26 And we heard that from a lot of doctors. I see it gets much different called to be pregnant during the war than in normal life because you don't know what will be tomorrow. This is Diana. She's a gynecologist in Haki, really close to the front lines. When the war started, we have a lot of complications of pregnancy. And she described having a day where all women get to a hospital by ambulance with bleeding.

Starting point is 00:11:48 Every single woman that came in was hemorrhaging. Doctors, like when they see complications like this happening, they reach for these pills for a mithoprystone and mesoprostal. Wait, wait, they reach for these pills for complications? Yeah. So, it's actually really dangerous if a miscarriage doesn't complete, like if anything is left in the womb. And so, in the case of miscarriage, you would use these pills essentially in the same way

Starting point is 00:12:18 you would as an abortion, where you would take the pills and then they would just make sure your uterus was completely cleared out. In the case of bleeding, you don't actually need both pills. Doctors would just go for misoprostyl. So misoprostyl is the pill that causes everything to contract. And that's just like a tightening of muscle. And so when you have that contraction, it clamps down on blood vessels, which essentially closes them off and so blood

Starting point is 00:12:46 can't get out, and then you stop bleeding. Yeah, you can actually grab these pills, well, mesoprostyl for just normal labor, where there's no complications, but to help induce contractions and give birth. And so when I thought about that April shipment of pills, it took me a while to really let that sink in. But every gynecologist was like, oh yeah, we really used it for the complications and the miscarriages and the unloyable pregnancies and in labor. And I'm like, what about the abortions?

Starting point is 00:13:20 And they're like, yes, yes, for miscarriages. And I'm like, what about the abortions? And they're like, yes, yes, for miscarriages. And I'm like, what about the abortions? And they're like, yes, yes, for miscarriages. And I'm like, wait, hang on a minute. Like, why do they keep bringing up these miscarriages all the time? It just hit me in the stomach of like, whoa, these pills are for every possible moment of pregnancy.

Starting point is 00:13:44 Yeah, because I felt like we'd come to Ukraine to do this story right about abortion pills and war, but then actually being in a country that was running out of these pills because of a war, it felt like this story was so much bigger than what we thought. Hello, hello, hello, we have a baby folks. I just we have a baby on screen. Here we are. I'll put on my video, but we ended up on a Zoom call with four Ukrainian women who are all based in Kiev, three of whom have been pregnant during the war. I found out about the pregnancy in July and none of these women have used these pills, but I just wanted to hear about the experience of being pregnant and giving birth in Ukraine

Starting point is 00:14:35 right now. Now I have a little daughter named Svalieria. There was Zhenya, Nadia, and Vlada, and then their translator and a stasia. Yeah, it's my first date. And I am 29 years old. And I never tell story about my pregnant. It actually was the first time all of them were telling their stories, and they had so many overlaps and shared moments. There was this just time all of them were telling their stories and they had so many

Starting point is 00:15:05 overlaps and shared moments. There was this just shared sense of uncertainty. It's okay, in Kiev, not to have any electricity for eight hours. It's black out for life without water. And then obviously stress. The hospital was hit by rock. And then obviously stress. And fear. Sometimes I hear the broken explosions. When I give birth to Zlea, we have a lot.

Starting point is 00:15:37 And it was very scary. Just a loneliness and isolation. In Nadia's case, she was two weeks before her due date. And then the invasion happened on February 24th, and she found herself in occupied territory. She had different sounds, like shooting, rockets and so on. So she couldn't get to the nearby hospital, the road was hit by a missile, and then just because of how dangerous the streets were and the fighting no doctor or midwife could get to her.

Starting point is 00:16:20 Her grandfather goes to the Ukrainian Army and they said, if she goes into labor, let us know we can go to her and maybe we can help her. She didn't want us to interrupt the soldiers over that. But she didn't want to pull the soldiers away from fighting. And while she's trying to figure all this out, she's leaking amniotic fluid, like she's already leaking water. leaking amniotic fluid, like she's already leaking water.

Starting point is 00:16:49 But she still decides to join a group of people who are going to try to drive out of the area. She didn't understand her emotions in that time, yet she had only an aim to reach from the destination where there was health. After eight hours of what was supposed to be a 45-minute trip, Nadia does make it to a hospital and she has a healthy baby. And eventually Vlada did too. Valeriy is five months old. And she and Valyria are very happy.

Starting point is 00:17:29 Genia is about to have her baby. But these women, you know, there were moments where their lives were in danger or their pregnancies were, or there was just simply so much uncertainty around them that it did bring up moments of doubt. And to yes, for my pregnancy, and if I knew that it would be your own, I would not have decided. If she knew that it would be your own baby, the baby wouldn't decide to do it. Coming up after the break, these pills take us into a complicated conversation around having a baby or not in a wartime.

Starting point is 00:18:25 Rough translation will be back in a moment. We're back with Radio Lab. I'm Molly Webster. This is our collaboration with Rough Translation. And here's Gregory Warner. In the first part of this episode, we followed the shipment of abortion pills to Ukraine, and we learned that they were needed, and they were used, in fact, the stress of war on pregnancy meant they were used a lot more widely than we thought. One of the Ukrainian doctors that we met

Starting point is 00:18:59 while we were following these pills ended up making us think about the complexities of getting an abortion in a time of war. And so this doctor, her name is Valentina. She asked that we not use her last name to protect her privacy at work, but cats had come across to video interview with Valentina on Instagram. Good afternoon. She starts by saying the topic of our conversation is abortion in wartime. She says, this is a very difficult and big-you-a situation from each side, but a woman has the right

Starting point is 00:19:39 to decide for herself, not to wait for society's opinion or church or what they think of her. This is her decision and no matter what decision she makes, it will be the right one. She says, we believe in the victory of Ukraine, but we should think about how to help the children we have now. In the whole time she's talking, she has the actual coffee bags of pills from this April shipment next to her. And it kind of feels like she's defending these pills and the use of them against someone you can't see. And you just have all these questions like, why does she feel the need to make this argument

Starting point is 00:20:20 or who or what is she arguing against and thinking about the subject line of her video, what does abortion have to do with victory in the war? That's nice. It's nice to meet you and we're glad you're here. Thank you. So Katz and I and our interpreter, Kira, came to Valentina's office in Levyve. Religion, it plays a large role in Levyve

Starting point is 00:20:43 and the city is a center for the Greek Catholic Church. Not a lot of doctors and oncologists like to do abortion at home, at home. In our hospital only, maximum five or six persons who do abortion. Valentina gets a lot of questions from her patients about how their abortion will go. What I should do if I will have hemorrhage? Will these abortion pills work? Will it hurt? We will have children in future. Do I need to follow up?

Starting point is 00:21:18 When I can go to fitness? When is it safe to have sex? I have normal have normal life. Those are some of the questions that the patients ask her. But Valentina told us about a question that she now has to ask all of her patients who request an abortion. And this is a part of her practice that changed about a week or so after the Russian invasion.

Starting point is 00:21:42 When her hospital director handed her what appeared to be a hastily written new form for patients to sign. And this form specifically was for patients requesting an abortion. Maybe we can take a picture just a minute. Can we take a picture? Okay. Can you just tell me what the closest I've ever said? It's addressed. It's all up the hospital. That was our name. Yeah, give my agreement for disclosing my personal data, for the fact that I asked for the

Starting point is 00:22:22 medical help in the hospital. To the hospital, in the hospital. It says you're disclosing your name and information to third parties. Related with the interests of the National Security, Economic Prosperity and Human Rights, and this agreement is active as long as martial law in here. So this is something that says specifically during the martial law period, you are allowed access to my abortion files.

Starting point is 00:22:50 Wow. And they have to sign this. They can't say no. I have to say that. I'm a bit shocked. I would be very upset if I had to sign that form. The form is for all abortions or it's in the case of rape. It's for all abortions.

Starting point is 00:23:13 Every single abortion, everyone that requests one. And Valentino also specifically has to ask each patient, is your abortion for war-related reasons? And if they say yes, and she says most do. They should write as they do abortion, caused by war. And honestly, I was like, wait, hang on. What does your decision to have an abortion

Starting point is 00:23:40 have to do with national security, with economic prosperity? Because in this war, we should kill our children, future children. Because parents don't know what to do with all of this. You understand me? Like, if there had been no invasion or no war, that couple, that pregnant person might have made the decision to keep that baby. And so in deciding to not keep that baby because it's wartime, it's almost like another

Starting point is 00:24:19 murder on the battlefield. Yeah, that is what she's talking about. Whether or not patients feel this way, we can't say this was just one form in this one hospital. And we don't know where it came from, like the hospital wouldn't tell us more. But it was clear that Valentina wanted us to see this form and really think about what it meant. I never forget when I saw first the first time, was grave in Maruble. And you feel like your,

Starting point is 00:25:01 your society is not just people around you that it's, it's like you really want body. Many Ukrainians told us about a certain kind of conversation they'd been a part of or at least overheard. We feel this genocidal war and I'm skewing us. And I think when somebody wants to have children, have more Ukrainians, it's just about future, about living, about purpose. It's like regeneration. They kicked out a lot of people who are around the show told me, oh, you are so great, you gave a burst during the war,

Starting point is 00:25:48 but she didn't have any other opportunity because she was already pregnant. I was also very surprised to see that Yanarit Inezna, your clientele, they were planning to have a child before the war, but when the war started, she and her husband decided not to do it and she even said the phrase that I'm not sure if I want to give a life in such a world. And the Ministry of Culture seems to me that every woman in Ukraine has her own story.

Starting point is 00:26:27 And even if at first glance it has nothing to do with either war or pregnancy, you can still trace the points that lead to this. On our last day in Ukraine, we go to the address of a warehouse where Evgenia tells us there's a few coffee bags still left. Hi, Venia. Hi. This guy answers. It's very clear that this is not a warehouse in the way in which like I've been picturing it, it's just an apartment. Hi, are you Venya? Yes. I'm Cass. Nice to meet you. He's got a roommate, he's

Starting point is 00:27:21 frying an egg, they have a dog. And then we come in, and the dog is very enthusiastic. Since that April shipment that we've been following, you've again, you've received two more shipments of abortion pills. These were not smuggled, though, through Poland, like the last batch, they were legally mailed from India. And yeah, she told us that they were here. So we thought we would come and visit them.

Starting point is 00:27:46 The big, big, big, just room full of boxes. I mean. You can just see in the corner of your eye, in each bedroom, there's like a huge stash of boxes. Like massive amounts of boxes. Like, the stack is taller than us. I would say it's eight foot high for sure So they're like a bunch of white boxes and on it is his top kit combi kit one plus four

Starting point is 00:28:12 So 24 there's so many boxes of portion pills here Then also the living room there are more boxes of pills An undervania sock drawer It's not aiston, yes, abortion pills. But they're put it all together in the kit, which... Every few days, someone comes here, grabs a packet of pills, and mails it off to another doctor. They've even smuggled some into occupied territories.

Starting point is 00:28:39 Here they all are. It was so dramatically casual, we're just standing in this guy's apartment and each of these pills is a story. It's someone's story, a moment in their life, whether that's pregnancy or a complication or a family decision or pressure, a dramatic event or just something they'll forget? Thank you very much. Thank you so much. If Genia, who brought the boxes over the border, originally says that they have more than enough fills,

Starting point is 00:29:20 some of them may even expire. But the hope is that they'll never have to go back to a situation like in April that they'll never run out. would never get. Reporter Katz Laslow. This episode was produced by Tessa P Peoli, Daniel Gurmo, and our senior producer, Adelina Lansingese, with help from Nick M. Nevis. Our editor was Brenna Farrell, reporting help from the Rough Translation team. Huge thanks to the ears of Valeria Fokina, Andre Dagelag, Noel King, Robert Crowe, which and Sana Krasnikov, plus Sorn Wheeler and all our friends at Radio Lab.

Starting point is 00:30:24 Thank you to NPR's International Desk and the team at the Ukraine Bureau. And to our interpreters, Kira Leonova and Tatiana Uranets. Thanks to doctors Natalia, Irina and Diana, Yulia Mitsko, Yulia Babich, Maria Klasanova, Nikobilska, Yvette Morova. Thanks also to Lauren Ramirez, Jane Newham, Olenashev Chenko, Marta Trumako, Jamie Nadal, Jonathan Birich, and the many many others we spoke to for the story. The Rough Translation team includes Luis Treas and Justine Yan. Our intern is Elena Torek, our supervising producer is Leonas Simstrom. Irene Nguci is the executive producer of the Enterprise Storytelling Unit,

Starting point is 00:31:00 which is our home at NPR. Our visual zediting came from Katie Dull and Peter De Campo, illustrations by Aksana Thraschkolowska. Translation came from Eugene Alper and Dennis Kaczewski, voiceover came from Lizzy Marchenko and Julia Serbenenko, archival from the Heal Foundation. John Ellis composed our theme music, original music from Dylan Keath, additional music from Blue Dot Sessions and Firstcom music. Mastering by James Willetts and Robert Rodriguez, fact checking by Marisa Robertson-Texter.

Starting point is 00:31:31 Legal guidance from Micah Ratner, Lauren Cooperman, and Dentons, Ethical Guidance from Tony Kavan, and PR Senior Vice President for Programming is on your gruntman. I'm Gregory Warner, rough translation's taking a little break, but when we get back, we have some more stories from Ukraine and a trip to India. See you soon.

Starting point is 00:31:49 Hi, I'm Erica and Yonkers. Leadership Support for Radio Lab Science Programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, Assignments Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. The Foundation will support for Radio Lab, which provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. you

Radiolab - Ukraine: The Handoff

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.