The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Why this Comedian's Ukraine Visit Was No Laughing Matter

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

Actor and comedian Dave Thomas talks to host Steve Paikin about what he learned from his recent trip to Ukraine. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He was like a father figure to me. Unfortunately, found myself in a very vulnerable position. This is a story about a psychiatrist in Toronto accused of abusing two of his patients, which he denies. It's also a story about a system that is supposed to protect patients. From TVO Podcasts, I'm Krisha Collier, and this is The Oath. Subscribe today wherever you listen. You may remember we recently spoke to actor and comedian Dave

Thomas, who was about to embark on a mission to Ukraine. Dave is now back home in Los Angeles, having had the experience of a lifetime, and he's here to share what he has learned. Dave, first of all, glad you're home safe and sound. How are you doing? I'm fine. The trip itself was horrible.

I mean, the transportation to and from. That was probably the worst part of it. It was getting to Kyiv and getting home from Kyiv. But once I was there, it was fine. Well, we're going gonna hear all about the trip and we're gonna show some pictures as well of some of the people you met along the way. But first of all, remind us why you felt you needed

to go in the first place. Well, first of all, it was a call from a friend, Andy Bain, who formed this charity, charitable organization called the Ukrainian Freedom Fund, the UFF.org. And he's basically looking for donations to try and help the Ukrainian people, both civilian and soldiers. And their organization does everything from sending little teams of soldiers into hot

zones and rescuing women and children. And in one of the ride-alongs I went, PETS as well, one of the ride-alongs I went on, and also providing medical aid and expertise to disarm an unexploded ordinance that's in the rubble of a destroyed apartment building, things like that. They're doing really valuable work. But what I discovered was a human story that I was hoping to find, but I didn't think that it would be just right there

for me to just pick up. And it was amazing. What story was that? What's that? What was the human story you picked up on that you didn't think you would see? Okay. So when I first arrived in Kiev, I expected to see some signs of a war. You know what I mean? It's a city that's been under attack off and on for over a decade and by the Russian onslaught.

And, and instead I saw people sitting at outdoor cafes, sipping lattes and students, you know, lining up for classes at the local university, you know, shopkeepers putting out their wares for sale. I, I thought, well, wait, where's the war zone here? And it wasn't until I actually started to peel the layers back and talk to these people that I found out that they're waging a war of quiet resistance. They're waging a war that they call Vesude de Dobre, which is everything is going to be all right.

They're trying to live their lives as normally as possible. Probably the best example of this that played out for me on this trip was I heard about a drone strike that happened in the night on a mall. And I went over to the mall to see the damage and destruction. And other than a hole in the side of the mall

and the destruction of cars in an adjacent parking lot, inside the mall itself, there were very few signs of destruction. These people had started to put up, they put up glass that had been shattered. They put up cardboard walls to replace the walls that had been blown out. They were ready for business the next day without even a hiccup in the process of this drone attack.

Three drones attacked this mall. And I realized that these people are living with this war and they've found a way to incorporate it into their daily lives and that their real statement is this, everything is going to be all right, that's the dobre, that there's even a song that somebody has written about it. I forget the guy's name, but I listened to the song and then I was talking to people as I went out and spoke to students and soldiers and comedians and everybody.

And they all knew this song and they all understood this quiet struggle that these people were waging against this war that was destroying limbs, was blowing up buildings and houses, was taking lives. No question about that, but also was part of their lives and they were incorporating it into their lives. So if I understand you, the story you found that you did not necessarily expect to find was one of incredible resilience. Is that it? That's exactly it. And I was I was so impressed with these people.

I, and touched, I, and humbled, you know, I, I talked to a soldier who was, um, a communications officer and he'd lost both his legs in a targeted drone attack. This is something that they're doing now. He'd lost both his legs in a targeted drone attack. This is something that they're doing now. The Russians have found that their cyber war and that their propaganda and that their information that they're able to pull out, they can find out who the important people in the struggle are, target them in their cars and blow them up. And they blew this guy up in his car and he lost both of his legs.

But he said to me, I met him in this bar and we talked and he said, they blew up the wrong half of me because I'm still in the struggle. And, you know, that kind of bravery is exceptional. And, you know, I talked to another family whose son had been captured by the Russians. He was in the Ukrainian military and he was, they had no word from him except word from a couple of his friends who managed to escape that he was being tortured. That's all they knew.

I mean, that's so horrible that that's the only news that you get is that your son is being tortured. So I talked to them and his wife, his young wife and the two parents that were there and they were very sad. And then there was another woman who was evacuating from Mariupol and her husband was packing up to evacuate and she looked out the window while he was packing the car and he got shot in the head by snipers, by Russian snipers and she witnessed that. And she was telling me this story and she's sitting there with her son and she didn't cry or she just told me this

in a very matter of fact way. Obviously she was stunned, but you know, some of these stories that I heard were heartbreaking, but also the way they were told was heartbreaking too. You know, that there was this courage and bravery that these people were demonstrating. You know, I talked to, um, one of the things the UFF is doing is they've got some Canadian military and American military advisors who are helping these people. I think I, I ran this down before I left,

that they're trying to provide on frontline medical training to deal with wounds, evacuation procedures to get people in and out. And they had these white vans. I actually went on a ride along to get some women and children out of a hot zone. And this squad of soldiers are called the translation is the tornadoes and that they have a patch and they gave

me a flag and a patch after the ride along but you know I think we may have a shot of these guys hang on one second maybe is this is this the group you're talking about here? Yeah, this is the group. Yeah, that's the tornadoes right there. They're the tornadoes. And their mission was to do what? They go into zones that the Russians have occupied

where there are Ukrainian civilians track women and children and in the case of this, a couple of pets, and they get them out. Sometimes they're under fire and sometimes they're able to do it by stealth, but it's mostly by stealth. But I was just so impressed with these people. They gave me a flack jacket and a helmet. And I said, Look, if anything happens to me, just leave me in a ditch. I want people to find

me with a flack jacket and helmet, so that they can say Dave Thomas comedian died a hero for the Ukrainian cause. That became part of the joke that they would be giving. Hey, do you want your flack jacket and helmet, Dave? Because, you know, it was it was pretty it was pretty amazing. Well, look, I've got a few more pictures here that I want to show. So let's go through some of these. Sheldon, if you would. Yes. Who's this woman that you're standing with here with all of the wreckage in the background?

So this woman is the manager of the mall, which is to the right where there was a drone attack. And although the mall was already kind of, they had replaced some of the glass, a lot of it, and the walls with cardboard, the blast went into the parking lot. You can see the cars behind that were damaged by the blast. And so I talked to her about it and she heard about it at, she said, around 1 in the morning. And when she got there, a lot of the store owners were already there and had put up glass,

and they were open for business as usual. It was pretty amazing. I think we've got another picture. This may be the same thing in the background. Here's you. OK, yeah, that's one of the areas where the blast hit. You can see where it came out into the parking lot. And right behind me here is basically the white ash,

which are the remains of the drone that blew up. And I got a photo, I don't know if it's in the pictures that you have, of a little kid, a Ukrainian kid playing in the ashes of a drone. It's just beyond belief. We do have one more that you did send, and maybe you could tell us what this one is. Sheldon, let's bring the last one up. There we go.

What's this? Okay, so this is inside, this is one of the places in the mall where the blast hit that they hadn't managed to get all the glass and cardboard up yet. But they were in the process of doing it. And this was early in the morning. I got there at about, I don't know, 930, something like that. And they were already in the process of well

into having cleaned up. Got it. Dave, the people you talk to, do they want to make a deal with Russia to end this war? I'm not sure. I know that they don't want to give up. That's part of the everything will be all right motto of, it's not just everything will be all right, meaning one day the war will be over, but

one day they'll have their sovereignty and they'll have their territory back that the Russians have taken from them. I can't honestly say that I was able to get a specific bead on who of the people wanted to yield territory to the Russians or whatnot. And that was not really the people wanted to yield territory to the Russians or whatnot. And that was not really the basis of what I was doing, because as I said to you before I went, I'm not a political science specialist. I'm not somebody who's one of these celebrities who's pretending to be an expert on the war.

I wanted to get the's one of these celebrities who's pretending to be an expert on the war. I wanted to get the human side of it. And so, you know, the specifics of any, um, D of any negotiations that might come out of what's going on with ending the war were not. That that wasn't what I was looking for. I was looking for, how are you coping? I've talked to standup comedians to find out, you know, what they thought about whether Ukrainians had still the ability to laugh.

And they do. And they, they said, we tried the, the Putin and Trump and Zelensky jokes at the beginning and nobody laughed. He said, it was only when we went to the personal stuff of their lives, of, um, of how this affects dating and how this affects, um, you know, personal hygiene, you know, when your, your bathroom is blown up and you don't have a toothbrush and things like that. They had, it was pretty clear to me that they wanted to talk about normal life in their comedy,

not about the specifics of the war. Right. And I thought that was pretty telling, you know. Well, tell me this, in our last minute here, you obviously went on what appears to have been the trip of a lifetime. You have returned to Los Angeles with a treasure trove of extraordinary memories. What do you think will stay with you from your time in Ukraine? Well, I think what will stay with me is the kind of...

Steve, okay, there's a bunch of things that are going to stay with me is the kind of, Steve, okay, there's a bunch of things that are going to stay with me. You know, I didn't get an opportunity to talk to you about these generals. This is a two-star Air Force general who said to me, and a retired admiral in the United States Navy who said to me, my country has dropped the ball, and we're not going to stand for that. So we're retired, but we're picking up, we're picking up the ball for these people. He said, it was America's contract with Europe

after World War II, that we were the big guy in the block, and we were going to help these people, and we still want to honor that contract. These guys were tough guys. These guys were soldiers, help these people. And we still want to honor that contract. This, these guys were tough guys. These guys were soldiers and these guys were American. And there's a Canadian general in there too, that I spoke to and, and, and had the opportunity to sit beside at dinner. It's the same stuff and they're, they're giving them humanitarian help and they're

giving them, you know, know, expertise on modern military warfare because they were explaining to me that the Ukrainians are still dealing with the sort of post-Soviet, what they call top-down mentality of warfare that's kind of fear-driven and that is, you know, not rewarding people for excellence or independent thinking, but rewarding people for, you know, hauling the party line and not striving for anything that would get you recognized by the KGB, then you'd be investigated. You know, it's a very strange mentality that these Canadian and American advisors are trying to work with to get the Ukrainians up to speed to a more modern and sophisticated way of thinking.

So there's that. And I looked at these guys, like the guys at the end of the movie, The Wild Bunch, where they kind of look down the street and they go, that ain't right. Let's go down there and fix that. You know, and I, I told them I was very honored and flattered to be with them. And they, they were both, both these guys, the rear admiral and, and the general, um, they were strange brew fans. And I was, I laughed at that.

And I said, they said, Dave, you, you make people laugh. We wish we could do what you do. So we're going to help these people in our way and you we could do what you do. So we're going to help these people in our way, and you got to do what you do. And I was humbled by that and really flattered to be included in their group in a peripheral way. Well, that's just marvelous. We are, as I say, very glad that you got home safe and sound.

And we're glad that you used your influence and power to bring some attention to something that is atrocious. So good on you, Dave Thomas, and we thank you for showing up here on TVO tonight to tell us all about it. Thanks for having me, and it was a pleasure.