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TOM: What exactly is the question?
INTERVIEWER: The question is,
of all the things you could bring
to these pretty devastated and dangerous places,
why pizzas?
TOM: Yeah, why?
AUDREY: That looks like two explosions, two big boys,
two big smoke plumes over there.
(Explosion thud)
TOM: Another explosion coming up over there with dark smoke.
AUDREY: Third one
INTERVIEWER: So, tell me about the history of this road.
The highway to hell.
This is the road into Kherson,
which in 2022, after liberation,
we'd come out long after dark, every night.
There were dead bodies on the road, almost every day.
(Droning music)
Yeah, it's um...
It's a nerve-wracking day's work.
(Van goes over bump)
INTERVIEWER: There's no other way there.
There's no other way to get there.
(Bump in the road)
And I'm stressed as fuck
till I get back out through that checkpoint.
REPORTER: Reports of explosions in the Ukrainian capital
as Vladimir Putin announces a special military...
REPORTER 2:...assault on Ukraine began with missile...
REPORTER 3:...a missile going into a high-rise residential...
REPORTER 4:...explosions around the capital.
REPORTER 5: on the outskirts...
REPORTER 6:...a major military assault...
(Peaceful piano music)
AUDREY: When you look at guys who have done tours,
for example,
in Afghanistan and Iraq, not that we're soldiers,
but they're pretty screwed up after,
and we've done the equivalent of like five tours almost.
(Peaceful piano music continues)
(Fighter plane flies overhead)
(Missile explosion)
(Mortar fires from tank)
TOM: I want to go home.
Hm.
But so does everyone.
It's difficult knowing there's hundreds of people looking
because you're in a stupid skirt,
and you have to smile all the time.
I'm just trying to...
get my smile back on.
(Train horn and chugging)
TOM: So we are in our train rattling across the Ukraine.
We've been through Kyiv, and then up halfway over to Kharkiv,
which is our destination.
Where we'll be working.
The Russians have come over the border
and occupied some of the villages along the top,
but that situation's fairly stabilized now.
My hope is we'll be able to work through this area,
staying 25 kilometers back from the Russian artillery.
And down into Zaporizhzhia where we'll be based for a week.
If the plan holds, which it never does
because the war tends to change everything,
we'll then come down to Nikolaev
for the last 10 days of the month
where we can drive quite long ways each day through it
to Kherson Oblast.
As Ukraine gets ready to defend, or has been of late,
they've been building their defensive lines.
Many of the villages that are still free
are to the East of those defensive lines,
so they feel deeply abandoned and expectant of reoccupation.
It's certainly one of the hardest areas I'd say.
(Peaceful piano music)
IZZY: It's so strange that you can buy a ticket
as if you're going interrailing or something,
but in reality you're ending up in a war zone.
INTERVIEWER: So Flora,
why are you on the train to Kharkiv?
Something I've been asking myself for 14 hours.
(Flora laughs)
Um...
I've done a few bits of volunteering
over the past few years
and it's just the one thing that you get so much from.
IZZY: I didn't quite know what we were getting ourselves into,
because it's not just us bringing pizza,
it gives people an opportunity to connect
in a way that's separate from wartime.
(Bagpipe music plays)
MAN: Here we are serving these amazing Ukrainian people,
they are coming over the borders
and the pizza oven is in full flow.
Look at that, a new team just arrived.
NARRATOR: They came to cook pizzas
for hungry Ukrainian refugees here at the Polish border.
MAN: It's about -2 degrees and the kitchens are running.
NARRATOR: But a small team from a Scottish charity
didn't stop there.
They took their pizza ovens, crossed into Ukraine.
And just kept on going East towards the fighting.
MAN: Jesus Christ.
Fucking hell.
NARRATOR: Following the Ukrainian army
to towns recently liberated from the Russians.
(Crowd cheers)
NARRATOR: And into villages that have been razed to the ground
and brutalized.
Hot pizza!
NARRATOR: Even taking to boats
when a destroyed dam made the roads impassable.
What service!
Thank you!
NARRATOR: This is the charity's leader, Tom Hughes.
He's been cooking pizzas in Ukraine's front line villages
for two and a half years
with the help of a stream of new volunteers
like Flora and Izzy.
(Gentle train chugging)
IZZY: It's hard not to sound naive
because we are naive, we are literally 22.
(Flora laughs)
INTERVIEWER: Does mum know where you're going?
She knows where I'm going.
She doesn't know what that means, I think.
Not to do her a massive disservice,
but I don't think she knows
about the recent offensive that's taken place near Kharkiv.
(Air raid siren blares)
TOM: The first time we came this way,
it was in late Summer, autumn of 2022
as it got liberated.
When the war was still very, very visible here.
Everything was blown up and tanks all over the place.
Yeah, this road is where the Eastern advance
at the beginning of the war met up with the northern advance,
all pushing for Kharkiv,
so this all got occupied.
It is still horrendously mined.
The villagers still lose legs on a weekly basis
through this area,
(Danger: mines!)
and as with all of the Eastern villages
is now living with the fairly real horror and threat
of reoccupation
if the front line advances much further.
(Peaceful piano music)
(Truck drives by field)
NARRATOR: It's a beautiful July morning,
and we're on our way out of Kharkiv
to cook pizzas in one of the villages,
Seventsi,
that was occupied by the Russians.
(Peaceful piano music continues)
As we get closer to the fighting,
the roads are becoming eerily deserted.
TOM: Stop, stop.
Bullet holes in the walls, blue tarps on the roof.
We're in the right place.
(Truck beeps)
Tom, we're gonna serve here, right?
Yeah.
(Upbeat rock and roll music)
(Upbeat rock and roll music continues)
I've been out here going on nine months I think now.
INTERVIEWER: It's a long time.
It is.
INTERVIEWER: Why have you spent so long here?
Um, because I love what we're doing here.
I love this country, and I love this work.
(Upbeat rock and roll music continues)
It's important that we're here helping the people out,
you know, raising the morale, it's vital.
And everybody loves pizza.
(Upbeat rock and roll music continues)
INTERVIEWER: How hot are you, Rod?
Yeah, I'll just have a quick look.
Go, go, go, go!
(Reflective piano music)
TOM: What we, I think, set out to do
was to humanize as opposed to dehumanize.
If you see a traditional aid distribution,
it's a very grim thing and it, from my experience,
tends to really dehumanize people and say,
here's your package of toothpaste,
nappies, Medicaid, whatever it is,
move on through.
And our purpose was almost the opposite of that,
was to say, you're a human
and you matter as much as anyone.
We're here in support of you.
People hear that the West was with Ukraine,
but there's no sign of it on the ground.
And when a bunch of Westerners turn up
with what's perceived as a Western food product,
it made a huge difference.
(Reflective piano music continues)
(They chat in Ukrainian)
These are the villages that we've spoken about often
in the thrust of where we need to be.
We have done a lot of the towns, the cities that are known,
but we are going to places where there's no aid being delivered,
no aid organizations go into them.
So I, I feel we're hitting the heart of where we need to be.
To me, I call them forgotten villages,
where they really are forgotten by their own government
as well as everyone else.
And I think we're certainly touching areas
that nobody's done.
INTERVIEWER: But Kevin, on the way here this morning,
we saw an awful lot of signs of destruction and war.
Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: I mean, this place was occupied by the Russians.
Yes, most of these little villages were
and it must be just terrifying for the people that are here.
For me to go and give pizzas to these people that have suffered,
it's the least I can do.
And it's a bond between us and the Ukrainians
to let them know that we are here with them.
Good job here.
(She speaks Ukrainian)
(They speaks Ukrainian)
Thank you.
(Catching a package)
INTERVIEWER: So this is a very chilled out scene.
It seems like the war is a million miles away.
Yeah, it's certainly not, um, 26 clicks from the river,
then 28/29 clicks from the Russians.
That's about as close as we get.
This whole oblast is far from peaceful.
It's all had eight months' occupation,
and since then, since October 2022,
it's experienced the war.
Every village has heard the war.
You hear it on a daily basis.
I'm amazed we haven't heard anything today.
They're tough as fuck, these people,
and they know that a rocket can come in and kill them all
and they just carry on.
I've seen air defense rockets go off to shoot drones
that are over our heads,
and I'm in absolute pieces,
as any rational person would be,
and the crowds are just standing there going,
"Can I have five pizzas, please?"
They've all just made it totally normal.
My name is Haragatyi Anatoly Borysovych,
I'm a resident of the village Savyntsi, Izyum region.
I turned 71 years old this year.
I’ve been doing photography my whole life.
When the war started and the
Russian troops entered the village,
I started filming the convoys from my balcony.
The occupiers should go home.
Fascists, racists, bitches.
You will all burn in hell.
Let’s count them.
The third one is moving faster than the other two.
Come on. Come on. May you all burn in hell.
This is where I was filming them from.
I was lucky they couldn’t see me because of the trees.
If they had seen me, it would have been the end.
They were killing people here.
During the interrogations if you didn’t confess.
They took me to a room with
three blood spatters on the walls
from people being shot in the head.
They said if I didn’t cooperate
with them, I would be the fourth.
They’re tyrants, barbarians.
How did the world let this happen?
I don’t understand.
(Upbeat music playing)
NARRATOR: There's a real purpose
to the way they circle the pizza trucks in these villages.
Turn up the music loud enough
so the Ukrainians and the volunteers
can't hear the bangs anymore.
How old are you?
12.
29! Oh, 12...
(They laugh)
AUDREY: It's not that they're starving for food,
they're starving for interaction.
It's just the actual physical touch.
The other part of it too is just play,
so they get to step outside of themselves.
And to be something totally different,
like even the little girl when she has the cat face paint on.
Suddenly she's transformed.
(Girl miaows)
(Rock and roll music continues)
NARRATOR: This young boy is called David.
He was hidden by his grandmother in a cellar
when the Russians came.
It was so loud from the war,
that we couldn’t really go outside.
We were living in the basement,
so we had to run to the house to heat up food for him.
NARRATOR: David was so traumatized
that he still hasn't learned to speak.
(They laugh)
(Rock and roll music continues)
NARRATOR: The aerial you can see over there
is meant to warn the village when an attack is imminent.
(Air raid siren blares)
The problem is, the alarms go off so often here,
that people just ignore them.
(Air raid siren continues)
VOLUNTEER: There's so many like conflicting elements of it.
Like I mean just last week we were set up,
and you know a military,
it was a beautiful day just like this,
like clear skies, sunny, kids laughing, playing,
and then a military officer pulled up
and told us we had to leave in six minutes
because there was a Russian drone nearby,
so we had to pack up and leave like in an instant
and it's just like...
the push and pull of that,
because on one hand, it's a beautiful day.
How can there be...
How can there be beauty and death in this,
in one place at once?
Um...
That's kind of how it is.
So I'll say wonderful and then I'll say stressful.
(He laughs)
Bye!
Thank you! Bye bye!
TOM: Unpleasantness is so normalized here
that you have to trust local reaction
for when you should be scared.
It's quite a dangerous habit, I'd say.
AUDREY: I think people who have been here for a long time
almost resign themselves to that
and that there is nothing they can do about it,
so they choose not to be afraid,
whether that's healthy or not, I don't know.
Or like the farmers who are just ploughing along
between the front lines.
(Soft piano music)
(Soft piano music continues)
(They laugh)
TOM: I've never quite known what I was on the planet for.
I felt pretty lost most of my life.
I used to teach flying, sort of backpack flying, paramotoring.
Used to do scuba diving here and there around the world.
Worked as a captain on a sailing boat.
I'm incredibly privileged.
I come from this unbelievably safe, easy, wonderful world.
When I found this,
I felt for the first time that all of my very weird abilities
that have never fitted onto any CV came together
and made me good at this.
(Peaceful piano music continues)
(People sing together in Ukrainian)
(Singing continues)
(Air raid siren)
(Dog howls)
(Bombs explode)
(Air raid siren continues)
NARRATOR: With the city under nightly attack
by waves of Russian drones,
the only real protection lies with these men,
a small team of drone hunters.
(Soldiers preparing gun)
(Shooting down drone)
It's the same night after night.
They shoot some down, but the numbers are overwhelming.
VOLUNTEER: Oh, please. Very good.
(Air raid siren blares)
AIR RAID SIREN APP: Attention, air raid alert, proceed to the…
INTERVIEWER: What's going on Marcel?
Well, air raid alert.
And of course, the procedure is to go into the shelter, but...
(He chuckles)
stubbornly enough, I think this is more important,
the job that we are doing right now.
And let the Russians not disturb it.
Well, we were under alert for 27 hours yesterday,
so going to the shelter's not really an option.
-MARCEL: Okay. Yeah. -If there's work to do.
INTERVIEWER: Tom, I was thinking about risk last night
and how you analyze risk.
People think, you know, you're going to Kharkiv,
you're gonna die,
which of course, in reality is not, not the case.
I'd agree, yesterday's a really good example
because there was a big missile strike across the country.
Kyiv got hit really hard.
It's a reality here and no one really notices.
Yeah, some volunteers say,
"I feel like I haven't really seen the war -
and I wish there'd been some bombs."
I disagree personally, I'm a big fan of the quiet weeks.
AUDREY: I didn't come out here knowing the risk.
I started off on the border in Poland
and we sort of worked our way east,
so it was sort of like dropping a lobster into a pot
and then turning up the heat slowly.
# He tells me we're gonna marry as soon as he meets daddy
# And all these problems will go away
# I knew him well as far... #
NARRATOR: Before the war, Audrey McAlpine
was a folk and bluegrass singer from Nashville, Tennessee.
# Though he's a little bit... #
AUDREY: I think definitely I came out here
to experience what living was,
to feel something in a deeper way.
I think war heightens everything.
It heightens the way that we love,
it heightens the way that we hate,
it heightens the way we feel stress,
all those things.
I think that can be attractive to people,
especially nowadays where things feel quite damp and muted.
# I can't help what I do for myself.
# He's got keys to this castle of mine #
AUDREY: I met Tom and so that changed things for me a lot too.
And that blossomed into something else.
Because it's something that we've grown together
from just a little tent on the border to what it is now.
When I first saw him, I thought he was a celebrity, actually.
I don't know, he sort of had this way about him.
He was a bit debonair or something like that,
but he's certainly got a ruggedness to him,
and I think I've seen him change a lot.
He came out here as this English playboy
and became a real leader over the course of two years.
NARRATOR: We're leaving Kharkiv on the road south.
Everywhere you look, there are the reminders of war.
(Peaceful piano music)
Here they have widened the motorway
so fighter jets can land away from Russian eyes.
We're heading to Zaporizhzhia now.
It's a key target for the Russians
and it's being hit daily with missile and drone attacks.
(Gentle piano music)
INTERVIEWER: You said to me earlier on
that there's a certain amount of relief in your mind
that you survived.
Yeah. It's not very rational
but having watched a fair few hotels blow up,
it's always in one's mind that hotels get blown up.
So as the days go on in a hotel,
in my mind there is a stress thinking,
"Whoa. What if it happens one day?"
So it's nice to leave.
I suppose more rationally,
the longer you're in one place,
the more likelihood of a pro-Russian
passing on information and a target happening.
So moving's always good.
INTERVIEWER: Do you ever share those thoughts with volunteers?
No, not useful.
(Rumble of truck)
(Rolling dice)
FLORA: When you're under the leadership
of someone you feel safe with like Tom,
it's when people have the confidence in that situation
and you're under their care
that you can feel okay to keep going,
keep doing what you're there to do.
Tom, are you on the E105?
TOM: Uh yeah.
(Radio crackles)
Oh, he wants to get off.
IZZY: And the pressure that must have put him under,
I can't imagine, I can't imagine it,
but it definitely made us feel safe as volunteers.
(Bomb explodes)
NEWSREADER: Zaporizhzhia authorities
say a Russian guided bomb attack…
NEWSREADER 2:...injured in a Russian air strike on a hotel
in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.
NARRATOR: Tom's fears are not unfounded.
Their last hotel in Zaporizhzhia was hit by a missile
the day before they were due to arrive,
and it wasn't the first time.
(Peaceful piano music)
TOM: This was the first hotel we ever stayed at
the first time we came to Zaporizhzhia
and this was all a very beautiful
riverside place to relax,
and got hit.
INTERVIEWER: How many people were killed?
TOM: I know the receptionist died, Olga,
as she was a friend.
INTERVIEWER: What are your memories of it, Audrey?
Yeah, it was the first place we stayed in Zap
and, like Tom said,
we used to have beers there and then we would have breakfast.
You'd sort of walk out the door and walk around
and have breakfast there
and meet with the whole team in the mornings
before we would leave for pizza.
It was probably the first time that shit got real, so to speak.
INTERVIEWER: Which was your room?
Sort of right over in there.
Remember we had a big pineapple or something, a big fruit.
I don't remember a big fruit.
INTERVIEWER: What do your family think about it?
My family are proud of me.
And support me and all wish that I'd leave.
Your mom keeps an altar for you.
Back home.
And a candle burning for him all the time.
INTERVIEWER: Presumably having each other's quite important?
Yeah. It's um...
It's quite an intense place to have a relationship.
I mean, it's 24/7,
but yeah, the support's pretty, pretty vital.
Um...
INTERVIEWER: Perhaps you wouldn't have a relationship
if it hadn't been so intense.
Possibly not.
(Peaceful piano music)
NARRATOR: That same day back in February,
we went to make pizzas in a village called Malakoterynivka
South of Zaporizhzhia.
There we were just nine miles from the Russians.
(Turning on gas flame)
Of the 50 men who signed up to fight from the village,
20 have died.
(Peaceful piano music continues)
(Bomb explodes)
Step away from the pizza party
and you can hear the constant pounding of artillery.
(Distant thud of artillery)
INTERVIEWER: Seems like you're dodging bullets here.
TOM: Yeah, it's funny sometimes,
it feels like you're dodging bullets incredibly well
and you'll have a whole run of weeks
where the news is just behind you.
Then sometimes you get really shitty runs,
where every night it's incredibly loud
and you feel like you're in the wrong place every day,
which decision you make, was just luck.
(Peaceful piano music fades out)
NARRATOR: When the Russians destroyed the Kakhovka Dam,
the lake disappeared,
leaving only dry land between the village and the fighting.
Here it was Kakhovka Dam, water is full there.
Just after three days, it was everything dry.
And uh...
Like Russian soldiers,
they're just like 15 kilometers from here on another coast.
NARRATOR: Nina Yevtushenko is the team's Ukrainian organizer.
Before the war, she was a fashion model.
Now she's an expert in bombs and missiles.
Cluster bomb, maybe, maybe a cluster bomb.
Very strange that now I understood
all types of rockets or bombs.
It's a very strange feeling.
You know, like before, two years ago...
For me, like it was just one type of rockets, just rockets.
(She laughs)
Yeah, strange.
(Bomb explodes)
NARRATOR: Remarkably, in a city
where bombs are falling almost every day,
Nina has opened a new restaurant specializing in Ukrainian food,
even hiring a top chef from the capital.
(Nina speaks in Ukrainian)
(Peaceful piano music)
(Distant thud of artillery)
(Guitar playing)
# Well, I wanted to ramble and always be free
# That was before I met you.
# And I said that no man could ever hold me
# That was before I met you #
INTERVIEWER: You've got a large pile of phones
in front of you.
What are you trying to accomplish?
Cybersecurity has lately outdated
the threat level of hacking.
It may come to pass that they can hack your IMEI number
and see the origin of your phone and your location,
so having 15 phones all from the west in one place
may become more dangerous than it has been.
So we've got 15 basic burner phones.
Which I'm starting to make work
so that everyone can be more invisible while they're here.
Does anyone not know where the bomb shelter is?
The bomb shelter is through the kitchen
in this reception room here,
straight through the kitchen, past the microwave
and the stairs down to the right.
If you hear a bang, no questions.
You need to be downstairs within a minute.
There are a lot of people that aren't
totally pro-Ukrainian around,
be aware of your own security don't think everyone loves you -
Shall we go make some pizza?
(Children play)
(Tom hums)
INTERVIEWER: So what have we got here?
This is a particularly nice bomb shelter,
the cultural regiment renovated it.
Somewhere, early Summer, late winter,
and it's now a really nice learning space,
which is really rare because
under law, the schools can't be open
if they haven't got a shelter.
This one does.
Ones that do around these parts of the shelters are...
The alarms are on 80-90% of the time,
so all the kids are spending all day
in what's normally a dark, dank Soviet basement.
This one's been done up,
and it's really good in my opinion.
(Tom walks down steps)
(We are cool, we are hidden)
It’s just an empty platform.
Everyone has known for a long time
that my home is where Kherson is.
It’s really hard,
to think of those times.
I even kept a diary trying not to lose my mind.
Because people were in such a desperate situation.
It seemed fine at first,
but when the troops entered the village
and started showing their true colours, it was terrifying.
They cordoned off the school and wouldn't let anyone in.
(She speaks in Ukrainian)
TRANSLATION APP ON PHONE: We survived the occupation,
so there are still children here who want to study.
Well done.
(She speak in Ukrainian)
(She laughs)
(Lively music and hubbub)
For the village residents this
event is like a breath of fresh air,
especially for the children.
The last time I saw my husband was three months ago.
At the moment many men are still defending our country,
while sadly many others are no longer with us.
Nevertheless, we stand together and support each other.
(Peaceful piano music)
Already in this community nine men are dead,
and eight more are missing.
And right now, more than 200 men from the community are fighting,
in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard.
(Peaceful piano music continues)
NARRATOR: Every village you go to in Ukraine,
you realize what's missing.
There are no men.
They've all gone to fight.
(Flag flutters in the wind)
IZZY: That boy's, that boy's younger than me.
-Which one? -That one, he's 2002.
FLORA: Just kind of puts into perspective
how little we can really understand.
And then just the open graves.
Whether they're already for someone or they're just...
waiting.
Everyone in that queue will know someone here.
And that's why you do it,
to make things a tiny bit lighter for them that day.
(Flags continue to flutter)
Um, I find this pretty overwhelming. Don't you?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
I find it very sad and...
It makes me very angry too.
Don't you find it quite hard to look into those faces?
I don't know where any of my friends are buried.
They just stop answering their phones.
(Radio plays rap music)
NARRATOR: It’s a day off from the charity for Tom.
He's made a lot of friends in this war,
and today we're taking pizzas to one of them, Petro,
who commands a howitzer platoon near Zaporizhzhia,
where it's too dangerous to take volunteers.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me where we're going?
We're going to our howitzer which is hiding in the bushes.
So there are the crew, you can speak with them,
ask them everything you want.
I think guys will answer you frequently.
TOM: Is everyone happy with their face being on camera?
Yeah, it's okay, they're happy, they're happy with it.
(Car passes by quickly on dusty road)
NARRATOR: As we get closer to the fighting,
we're about seven miles away now,
we can see smoke from the Russian artillery.
(Rap music continues)
(Car boot opens)
(Dull thud of artillery)
(They greet each other in Ukrainian)
(Bomb explodes)
(Rustling in forest)
(Bomb explodes)
(Petro speaks in Ukrainian)
PETRO: This is our baby.
(Petro laughs)
Now it's under reconstruction,
so it will operate very soon.
The main purpose why we are here.
Uh...
Every day we are not killing Russians,
we must say we think we waste, waste a day.
(Bomb explodes)
INTERVIEWER: The noises we hear over there, what's happening?
PETRO: The noise is...
Warfare.
There are active actions,
of enemy or maybe of our guys.
I can't say for sure, but the noises we hear is war.
You can film how they live.
(Tom walks down stairs)
A little bit present for you.
(He chuckles)
One for you man, thank you.
-And one for you guys. -Thanks, Petro.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you.
Be careful, it's dirty.
-I will keep flowers in there. -Okay.
(Guitar playing)
-Thank you for your time. -TOM: Thank you for yours.
# Hey there, all you Russians,
# Ain't it time that you all retire?
# I've checked with Ukraine
# And it turns out that your visas have expired
# We're all sick and tired of your fucking bombs
# And we're all disgusted by your sins and your wrongs
#Time to fuck off back to where you belong
# Fucking fucking motherfuckers Fucking fucking motherfuckers
# Mr. Putin, the whole world knows
# That you've been a bit of a prick #
NARRATOR: Everywhere we stay,
there's a weird contrast between the cheery volunteers
and traumatized and drunk soldiers
on a couple of days' leave from the front line.
-How is life? -How is your life in the war?
Ours? Bad.
They didn't give me anything.
Six of my comrades have died. Six.
When I’m there I kill the Russians. Destroy them.
Twenty.
I killed them.
Killed the bastards.
They have no honor or dignity.
They are just like animals.
TOM: We meet the soldiers quite regularly in these hotels
who are having their two weeks off.
Getting wildly drunk to hide the pain and going back up.
Um...
For them it's yeah,
it's a half hour drive and they're...
back at the meat grinder, and yet here we sit, it's surreal.
The thing I think, I find the hardest,
um...
is the ever-increasing understanding
of the vast silent tragedy,
that is a country at war for its survival.
Um...
And you can't...
quite grab it because this is civilian life going on
and the coffee machine's working.
But the longer you spend here,
the more you start to feel in every single person you meet
the same weight of the huge tragedy unfolding.
And...
my wonderful volunteers can come in for two weeks
and bounce and smile and bounce out again
and have the most life-affirming experience in the world.
And...
And almost two and a half years in, I am...
I just find it all...
terribly, terribly futile and tragic.
(Wistful piano music)
NEWSREADER: Fighting around Pokrovsk has been intense.
Ukrainian forces drive the occupying Russian army...
NEWSREADER 2:...defensive lines supporting this area...
NEWSREADER 3: More houses here are completely destroyed.
(Soldier shouts in Ukrainian)
(Wistful music continues)
(Soldier shouts in Ukrainian)
(Bomb explodes)
(Wistful music continues)
NARRATOR: As we travel further south towards Nikolaev,
we pass through villages that have been ripped apart
in the fighting.
This is the cultural center in Posad Prokrovske.
(Peaceful piano music)
(Bomb explodes)
NEWSREADER: On the battlefield, a Russian missile
hit a children's playground
in the Ukraine's southern city of Mykolaiv on Friday,
killing one child and...
INTERVIEWER: Have you seen this before?
Yep.
Many, many times.
AUDREY: Trying to imagine like what that was like being here,
just being in this kindergarten, in this place
and all of a sudden,
all of these windows breaking on you,
how scary that would be.
Especially for children.
You really get the sense that everyone is working together.
I think it would be a really nice thing
if we could come and do our part.
(Tom makes pizza)
TOM: A missile came in here last night,
into the middle of this set of residential buildings.
Door behind me, a young boy died.
Uh, he was on his way home.
The gentleman up on the balcony sweeping, his wife died.
Um...
It's pretty amazing, he's still trying to tidy up.
Gentleman with his top off at the door is his son
who's come back from the front line as a soldier.
Because his mother's just died.
Um...
It’s a bit overwhelming really.
(Sweeping debris)
TRANSLATOR: She's 82 years old.
The old lady was in her kitchen sitting close by the window
and all frame just blew up
and thanks God it didn't hit her.
INTERVIEWER: How long have they lived here?
(Translator and woman speak Ukrainian)
TRANSLATOR: 53 years.
(She speaks Ukrainian)
TRANSLATOR APP: The main thing is not to be discouraged.
(They speak Ukrainian)
(She chuckles)
She went like this. Tough lady.
(Peaceful piano music)
INTERVIEWER: So you were talking to a little girl.
How did that go?
Yeah, um...
That was a little, I'd say 9 or 10 year old girl.
And then she said...
when you're here, it's not scary.
It translated.
Which broke my heart really,
because I'm only there for a day.
But life's fucking scary in there, every day,
um...
because the skies are not safe.
Quite a terrible thing to hear from a child.
(Bulldozer drives by)
(Bomb explodes)
NARRATOR: We've come to meet Anna Skripka,
the team's organizer in Mikolaiv.
Anna's job is to work out which villages are safe to go to.
When the Russians came,
there was fighting just 50 meters from her house.
At this moment our friends from Kherson was calling us
and said, "Anna, you have the big force of Russians
are going to Mykolaiv from the side of Kherson,"
and we warned them, you know…
I cannot imagine the life under occupation, so.
(Man speaks in Ukrainian)
Yeah.
But we're happy that,
but we were very close to,
to have our city under occupation, very close to.
Yeah.
(Chickens cluck)
He's grown about like 10 times since she first got him.
His name is Chippendale.
When the Russians took Kherson,
he was abandoned there, put in some sort of a shelter,
and so Anna adopted him.
They, she calls him victory pig.
So the plan is that she won't eat him
until Ukraine wins the war.
And even then, I think she might not eat him.
I don't think so.
But he does eat a lot of pizza.
If you ever did eat him,
he would probably just taste like a pizza.
(Tram passes by)
TOM: Regarding our work, it's more intense here.
We're going into Kherson every day for the next 10 days.
Uh, it's about as grown up as it gets.
It's been very heavily occupied for a long time.
People have had a very, very bad time.
So our work's really important.
There are lots of booby traps, there are lots of mines.
Once we're through that checkpoint,
we have to drive through the city,
which is well within artillery range.
We keep at least 100 meters between each vehicle
so that if any incoming does come,
we minimize the risk.
Each hour that passes, it does get more dangerous
because there's more time for people to pass on messages.
So there's no like hanging around and chatting at the end.
When we're finished, we pack up efficiently and we move on.
(Indistinct radio message)
TOM: Cool, we're on the road, let's go.
(Piano/electronic music)
INTERVIEWER: So the village we're going to is um...
on the Russian side of the defensive trench.
Yeah, this is the first line.
There'll be at least two more new defensive lines as we go in.
The village we're going to is out to the east of all of them.
I was there for the first two days of Kherson
when we initially came into the city.
And they definitely stand out
as some of the two most intense days
of my entire time with the charity, for sure.
TOM: That first field there,
the last of the shells that came in at us that day,
landed in that field.
It's all a bit more real.
When we're going through the checkpoint,
we have to drive for 20 minutes inside artillery range,
so we make sure we're never ever gonna stop in there.
And once we're through that checkpoint,
I also become an incredibly grumpy bastard.
(Peaceful piano music)
Okay, I'm, I've left the checkpoint.
I'm parked a few 100 meters down the road.
Yeah, so I'm, I'm a few hundred metres towards Mikolaiv.
Uh, they're saying five minutes,
it's probably going to be at least half an hour.
NARRATOR: The soldiers at the checkpoint
just asked us to park further away.
We've been told our trucks make too tempting a target.
Hey everybody,
the main reason for our delay is the village we're going
got hit yesterday afternoon.
Um, the village leader's on his way.
I'm gonna have a chat with him.
Uh, if a missile came in, then we're gonna go and do our job.
If it came under artillery bombardment,
I'm afraid we're cancelling and going home.
I think that's the case, but I'm gonna talk to him first, okay?
MAN ON RADIO: Roger that.
So basically, current shelling range for Russian artillery
is like 20 to 25 clicks,
so we try not to go any closer than that to the front line.
And there seems to be mixed messaging
as to whether this village was hit with artillery yesterday.
INTERVIEWER: So, long range missile, we go,
artillery, we don't.
Exactly. Yeah.
They're honestly both pretty dangerous.
Um, the difference is just that
you get a bit of a,
you get a forewarning with a missile
and you don't with a shell.
You would just hear the whizzing sound
right before it makes impact.
NARRATOR: Everyone is getting nervous now.
We've waited here for an hour.
It's 40 degrees.
And there are Russian drones in the sky.
INTERVIEWER: So, we have a resolution?
Yes, we have a resolution.
Our main contact from military administration Yaroslav
came to meet us at the checkpoint
who could bring us through.
I said,
the checkpoints saying the village got hit
by heavy artillery bombardment.
If that's the case, we're not doing it
because we'll kill everyone.
He said, "Fair point."
We telephoned the village leader who said,
"No, we're 25 kilometers from the border.
It's not possible to be hit by artillery here,
and yesterday was a very peaceful day."
So we're going in.
Stressful start to the day.
MAN ON RADIO: There is a drone low flying
on the left hand side.
(Man on radio)
Can you repeat?
There is a drone, low flying, right side, over.
I saw the pilots on the right,
they were Ukrainian pilot launching a drone.
Driving the road for the first 20 minutes
after that checkpoint is fucking dangerous.
(Drone buzzing)
NARRATOR: This is footage from a Russian attack drone
as it closed in on a Ukrainian army officer's car
yesterday in Kherson.
At the last minute, it changes course.
And hits a humanitarian aid truck.
TOM: What happened could happen to us.
It could have happened yesterday.
I mean, it's always been the case.
We've always known
there have been lots of humanitarians
killed by Russians in this war.
I guess as always, it's just a bit more freaky
when you get confronted with solid evidence.
(Peaceful piano music)
(Peaceful piano music continues)
AUDREY: This looks like our kind of place.
ANNA: First location,
we planned to stop in the middle of the village,
but there is an open area, a lot of cars,
and probably it will be a nice target for Russian drones,
so we decided to change location behind the school
with a nice playing area for children.
And with benches where we can also have a rest.
I don't feel that much safer
having moved to a different part.
It looks safer,
as safe as possible during war in Ukraine.
We cannot determine any very safe place,
but we can be close to.
The walls, you want at least 10 centimeters.
It's just a bit stressful when the locals say it would be fun
to go under the trees
because you're less likely to get drones.
But it's the same every day.
INTERVIEWER: Is this place particularly risky?
TOM: Just the same risk level as yesterday.
Just sucks when people talk about it
because it gets into your head.
(Cleaning pizza oven)
INTERVIEWER: That was an exciting journey, Grant.
Yes, a bit of an exciting journey, yeah.
That was fun.
Definitely the most smoke we've seen in one place at one time.
But, we made it safe and sound.
We get to help out the people.
I think this place definitely needs it.
(Ambient music)
It's pretty fucking horrible
knowing that there's 15 young, passionate people
helping in that square,
and I've put them there.
Then there's a few hundred
very hungry people having a shit time
and I've put them in that square as well.
Then if it gets hit.
(He sighs)
How do I live with it?
(He laughs)
Sorry I'm just having a wobbly day.
(Somber piano music)
TOM: Home sweet home.
This is our apartment in Zaporizhzhia,
which has been under heavy fire for the last sort of two weeks.
I'm giving up this apartment
because it looks like they're starting to try
and flatten the city that we can't take.
INTERVIEWER: What memories looking out of this window?
Lots.
Lots, watched lots of bombs go in into that view.
Baking hot in the Summer and full of swallows.
White and pristine in the winter.
(Tom exhales)
NARRATOR: The moment we step outside the apartment,
(Bomb explodes)
the missiles start exploding.
I counted four in less than an hour.
Yet amazingly, this boy
is still driving his toy car in the town square.
(Sirens blare)
(Peaceful piano music)
(Man on video speaks in Ukrainian)
MAN: Oh shit.
NARRATOR: After two and a half years of making pizzas,
Audrey has found a new calling.
Reporting on the war from the front line.
AUDREY: So we've just been driving
what feels like 150 miles an hour
and we just came to a complete stop
because we got word that there's a reconnaissance drone
above the position that we're headed to,
and even just sitting here,
you can see flashes and big bangs in the distance,
much shelling all around where we're gonna be headed to.
(Truck drives by)
TOM: I can't carry on doing this
because my mental health's shattered
and I just haven't got anything left in me.
But I know so very many people here
who don't have the luxury of being able to walk out,
because it's their home.
I'm very ashamed to be leaving them behind.
(Peaceful piano music)
(Peaceful piano music continues)