The Daily - The Battle for Kyiv

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

This episode contains strong language.Over the weekend, the battle for Ukraine arrived at the capital, Kyiv, as Russian forces attempted to advance.Would the Russian military quickly overrun the city? Or would Ukrainians, despite being outgunned, somehow find a way to defend their capital?Guest: Sabrina Tavernise, a national correspondent for The New York Times, reporting from Kyiv.Background reading: Ukraine agreed to talks with Russia, but the fighting still rages.The roots of the Ukraine war: Here’s a guide to what’s at stake for Russia, the U.S. and NATO.Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

It's 7.30 in the morning on Saturday in Kyiv. Last night, President Zelensky was standing outside the government building and trying to reassure his people. He was standing with other government officials. He was holding the phone. It was kind of shaky, and he said, good evening, the head of the fraction is here, the head of the presidential office is here, the prime minister is here, I am here, and points to each of the men standing behind him.

And he's telling people we're here. We're going to defend our country. Slava nashim zahiznikam. Slava nashim zahiznitsyam. Slava Ukrainiyom. Slava Ukrainii! Slava Ukrainii! Slava! Slava! From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Over the weekend, the battle between Russian and Ukrainian forces came to Ukraine's capital of Kyiv, transforming a once vibrant, bustling city into a war zone. And the question was, would the Russian military quickly overrun the city, or would Ukrainians, despite being outgunned, somehow find a way to defend it? Once again, Sabrina Tavernisi reports from Kyiv. It's Monday, February 28th. It's 10 a.m. in Kyiv. I'm walking out to the main street in front of the hotel. I just saw an ambulance go by. Another ambulance go by.

A fair number of cars on the street this morning. We're on our way to a blood bank and a recruiting center where people are getting guns and volunteering in civilian defense forces. It was a really loud night. There was fighting as close as the zoo, which is kind of in the western part of the city. So Russian forces reached quite far, in fact, into Kiev last night. has reached quite far, in fact, into Kyiv last night. And it was, there was also small arms fire, which might have been a kind of a saboteur group of Russian soldiers or fighters not far from the hotel. I heard that one as well. Several times during the night, big explosions. And yeah, we're going to go out and check things out this morning.

Okay. Okay. So I'm standing outside an office where people are signing up to do territorial defense work or receive weapons. The line is quite long. It's sort of a courtyard, a lot of men milling around, holding rifles on their backs, guarding the gate. A man says, where do we sign up? And this gentleman is sending him to a different building.

Okay, I'm going to go try to talk to some people who have come to sign up. Hello. Hi. My name is Sabrina. I'm a journalist from the New York Times. Can I talk to you? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. My name is Andrei. Hi, York Times. Can I talk to you? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too.

My name is Andrei. Hi, Andrei. Why are you here today? Why am I here? Okay. I'm living here, just in that area. Oh, right here. This is where you live, this neighborhood.

What's it called, Andrei, this neighborhood? It's Tatarka. Tatarka. And I feel I need to protect my house, my home place. They think they get us free, but it's a lie. It's a completely lie because they want to destroy us. They are quite stupid because for all of that time, for 30 years, they didn't identify us as a nation.

But it's true. We are. They always said, oh, Ukraine's not a nation. But Ukraine is a nation. Ukraine is. So they need to kill a lot of people to kill nation and it's not possible just not possible so we're walking along the site of this really major firefight. There's a Ukrainian position dug in over the railroad tracks,

and there's debris all over the street, pieces of branches, pieces of concrete, looks like various glass shrapnel. Oh wow, my god, oh my god, look at the truck. So a major, major firefight here. Two trucks look like two transport trucks. Very, very strong smell of burned maybe tires, rubber. Two completely burned out and just smoldering transport trucks. There's a kind of a slick, oily stain around one of them. Right now, there are Ukrainian soldiers picking through the wreckage of the two trucks. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven Ukrainian soldiers. They're putting what looks like munitions in small wooden boxes that they have

salvaged from this firefight. It's about 1pm in Kiev on Saturday. This is the sound of a Ukrainian soldier digging positions above the highway. Hello. Hello. I'm Lydia. Nice to meet you.

You're digging a position here? Yes, yes. What's your name? Alexander. Alexander, nice to meet you. Why are you doing this? Why? Yeah. Я не хочу умереть. И вы знаете этот вопрос в Украине. We don't want to die. And we understand that war is inescapable now, so we're digging in positions.

The war, it's not that it's inescapable, it's already started. We have to protect all of the peaceful people who stayed here and who are trying to leave Kiev so that they can peacefully leave. Sasha, thank you very much. How old are you? Thank you.

I'm 29. I'm 29 years old. Sasha, do you have blood in your cheek? Sasha has some blood on his cheek. He said it's just a scratch. Bye, Sasha. Good scratch. Bye Sasha. Good luck. Bye bye.

I think we should try to talk to them. God, that is, that is really quite terrifying sight, these trucks. God. God. Hello. Hello. Documents? Documents?

Yes. My documents. New York Times. Sabrina. Yes. We're going back to our cocktail Yes Very very jumpy here A bunch of Molotov cocktails

Watch out they're going to freak out if you take a picture A bunch of Molotov cocktails here At the base of a tree A box of Looks like they're actually in beer bottles. Oh man. God, I still can't believe this is happening in Kyiv. Cannot believe it. What happened here yesterday?

It was in the evening. So we're going down into the parking garage of this building where the firefight was outside of to look, to talk to people. There's a trail of blood going into the parking garage. The gentleman who's leading us says it's a shelter. So we're going down into kind of a cavernous area, clearly. Parking garage. There are men and women walking up. On the other side of us.

I'm walking along and seeing blood. and seeing blood. I see blood on a footprint. So somebody's footprint with blood and it's leading to a boot that is lying by itself. I can't tell. It's clearly wet, but... I'm looking at the boot and it seems to have

a look. Look at the plastic thing has blood on it as well. Yeah. God. Oh shit, yeah, it is blood. Yeah, it is blood. Okay. Okay, what happened here? Okay, what happened here?

The young man was saying that it happened around 4 or 5 in the morning and he helped bring the wounded down into the parking garage that's now a bomb shelter. He's pointing out, look, there's the blood. There's the trail. He didn't die, he survived. He's in hospital now. Look, that's the trail, that's the trail of the blood, that's where he came from. We dragged him and we carried him with our hands.

We'll be right back. We're going upstairs to the blood donation. This appears to be some sort of a hospital or health center or something. And people are lined up along the stairs. Hello. So I'm a reporter from The New York Times. My name is Sabrina. What is your name?

Nice to meet you. My name's Sasha. Yeah, it's Irina. This is my sister, brother and sister. Irina, hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, my name is Sasha. Yeah, it's Irina, this is my sister, brother and sister. Irina, hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Why did you guys come today? What made you, what drew you here? I think it's just a little thing which we can do right now to support our guys who are fighting for our independence.

I want to be Ukrainian. I'm OK on my land. I'm OK in my country. And it's just a little thing what I can do. I'm a psychologist. I support my people. And now I can take just a little of my blood to support the bodies of my people. I'm crying, sorry.

It's okay. Did you sleep last night? How was last night for you? Just a little bit because it was bombing and it was sirens. We were scared just on the first day.

But now it's okay. It's okay. We are together. We are on our land and we will stay here. Irina, how are you yourself feeling right now? You know, I'm calm down and angry. I'm calm down and angry. I'm calm and angry. I'm sometimes scared, but I'm calm. And what is the anger? Anger? You see this good weather, this wonderful weather. It's the sun. It's the spring. The birds are singing. And I want to live my peaceful life. I don't want to

have war on my land. That's why I'm angry. Thank you. Thank you. It's 3.42 on Saturday. Driving around Kiev, lots of boarded up windows and tape and plastic on windows to prevent them from shattering. Really, really has the look of a city that has closed down and expects a storm. I'm on my way to go inside the metro

where people are taking shelter overnight. We've arrived. Metro is called University. So, I'll be there in 20 minutes. I'll probably leave this. I'll just take it. to get into the metro and the guy who's guarding it is asking me for my passport so I have to show it to him

asking for documents oh, you thought so? I thought so, yes, I asked hello, come in can I go through? you can Hello. Can I pass? Yes. But our metro doesn't work. The train doesn't work.

Okay. I'll go and see. Yes, go. She said the metro isn't working, but you're welcome to go down. It's about 3.30 p.m., so it's getting close to curfew. These Soviet metros are deep, built deep, deep into the ground. Because they were originally designed as bomb shelters by the Soviets in the event of a nuclear attack. This one is very deep off the street, has three escalators and white marble walls,

and there's a giant kind of semic-circle very thick metal plated opening that is the entrance to it but that can be closed up in the event of a bomb attack kind of like being sealed up in a safe so i'm walking down hello hello Hello. One woman sitting there. So when I look and stare down this escalator, it's really almost as far as the eye can see. It is hard to overstate just how deep into the earth this escalator goes.

And yeah, I'm just going to walk down. It's going to take me a while. Still walking. Okay, we're getting close to the bottom. The train is just sitting on the tracks in front of them with its doors open. I see blankets, someone's black purse, a few wheelie bags in this one. Hi! And in Russian?

In Russian, yes. My name is Sabrina. Julia. Julia, what's your name? Andrei. Andrei. So Julia and Andrei and two very, very cute little kids. What's your name? What's your name? Andrey So Julia and Andrey and two very very cute little kids What's their name?

Iya and Gleb Hi Iya How old are you? How old are you? I'm 4 4? I'm 4 And Gleb is a year and a half. Hi.

Hi. How are you guys doing? How are you doing? We were here for a second night. We didn't hear anything. How was last night? Did you hear anything? No, we didn't hear anything.

I'm hoping that it will be safer than home. I can't imagine what's going on. Do you have such a thing? No. I can't understand that this is happening. I want a metaphor so that people understand how unbelievable this is. It's just like a complete nightmare. It's like a movie. What's your name?

Lena. Lena. So I'm name? Lena. Lena. So I'm speaking with Lena. Okay. I have two little children in my hands. My father and my sister. My grandmother told me how terrible it was when there was bombing and she had two little children.

About these age children. She grasped the two children to her chest. And the Germans were shooting down. This is like that. This is like my grandmother running from the Germans shooting. It's the same. I myself am a grandmother and these are my grandchildren and I am in the same situation.

It's just impossible. It's impossible. My father and mother have passed, and I'm really glad that they haven't seen this because it would be impossible for them to bear. These are my grandchildren. So I just want it to finish as fast as it can. Finish, finish, because it's impossible to finish. Where is the work? How do we live now? What do we do?

What should we do? There's the work? How do we live now? What to do? What should we do? There is no work? What... We are not bystanderized working. Where to get money to raise and feed? He can't work, the jobs are closed. But what to do? He can't... There is no money to feed the children. That's it.

Four and a half. So, not your life? It just can't be It cannot be my life Lena's saying we don't know how to be We just don't know Everything was great great it was peaceful it's hard all right i'm gonna go back up good luck you guys

god be with god be with. God be with us. God be with us. Now I'm walking out. Back up the longest stairway. The longest, deepest escalator in the city. Curfew's almost starting on sunday as russian and ukrainian forces battled for control of Kiev, the two countries agreed to hold their first negotiations since the war began. But even as the talks neared, Russia dispatched more troops to Kiev. Satellite imagery showed a miles-long convoy of hundreds of Russian military vehicles

bearing down on the capital city. Meanwhile, Western governments intensified their efforts to punish Russia and to rally around Ukraine. A growing list of European countries banned flights from Russia. The U.S. and the European Union imposed sanctions that personally targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign secretary. And in an extraordinary declaration, Britain's foreign secretary said she would support British citizens who wanted to travel to Ukraine to fight against Russia. fight against Russia. As of Sunday night, according to Ukrainian officials, Russia's assault has killed 352 Ukrainian civilians, including 14 children. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

Congressional Democrats are promising the swift confirmation of President Biden's first nominee to the Supreme Court, Katonji Brown Jackson, a federal appeals court judge who would be the first Black woman to serve on the high court. All 50 Senate Democrats previously voted to confirm Jackson to the appeals court, a level of support that would be sufficient to put her on the Supreme Court. The question for Biden is how much support Brown will win from Senate Republicans. The question for Biden is how much support Brown will win from Senate Republicans. Look, her nomination and her confirmation would or will be historic. And like anyone nominated by the president of the United States, she deserves a very careful look, a very deep dive. Over the weekend, Republicans like Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, in an interview with CNN, said he was open-minded.

Mitt Romney of Utah, in an interview with CNN, said he was open-minded. And I'll provide fresh eyes to that evaluation and hope that I'll be able to support her in the final analysis. And U.S. regulators have issued new guidelines for living with COVID-19 that could allow about 70% of Americans to stop wearing masks and social distancing, including schools in certain communities. Unlike previous guidelines, which were based on the number of infections in a community, the new recommendations are based on measures such as COVID-related hospital admissions, which have fallen significantly. which have fallen significantly. Today's episode was produced by Michael Simon-Johnson, Caitlin Roberts, Aastha Chaturvedi, and Alexandra Lee Young.

It was edited by Larissa Anderson, Lisa Chow, and Lisa Tobin, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Lindsay Adario, Andre Dupchak, Valerie Hopkins, and Mark Santura. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.