Iryna and I were- the whole time she was telling me, like, Oh, she could drive. She could drive. Okay, cool. Mind you, she doesn’t have a- she doesn’t have a Ukrainian driver’s license. So what happens if we get stopped at a block post? But anyways, I didn’t let her drive. Nobody let her drive the entire time. So we’ve been here [Balakliia] for a few days at this point, and the entire town is empty, and she wants to drive. And I told her I would let her drive. I drive here [a café in Balakliia] and I leave the keys on the table here or something, and-
Iryna: We ordered a bunch of pizza, a bunch of food for the volunteers.
Henry: And as we’re leaving, she grabs the keys off the table, and she’s running to the car because now she wants to drive it. Okay, great. You know, I was playful. I chased her down. We yank open, we throw open the driver’s seat door, and the passenger door.
Iryna: It wasn’t locked.
Henry: Wasn’t locked, right? Like, whatever. I get in the driver’s seat.
Iryna: He gives me all these boxes.
Henry: Yeah, all these food boxes. I put the keys in the ignition, and mind you- so what happened was we were both running to the car from this door. So we were running to the car.
Iryna: There were a whole bunch of militaries in here, firefighters, and everybody was just in line. It was a rush hour. We could barely find parking.
Henry: So I put the keys in the car, and I’m turning it over like trying to start the car, and it’s not starting. And I’m like, this is, this is weird, okay. So Iryna, like, we’re just, we’re just laughing our heads off, completely laughing our asses off. And I’m like, man, this doesn’t make any sense. So I give it one more try. Doesn’t work. And I’m like, looking around. I look in the back seat, and my entire face just goes white. I stopped joking, I stopped laughing. I felt the blood leave my face, and my face go white. And I very slowly- I had the keys, put them in my pocket, I got out of the car, and I just started to very slowly walk away from the car. And Iryna was still there laughing, laughing, her little head off. She thinks I’m joking. She’s like, like, “what’s up, what’s up.”
Iryna: And then I saw him walk away and I’m like “okay, I’ll deal with it later”. And I opened the backseat, back seat door to put all these boxes in, and I opened it, and I see missile launchers, machine guns, bulletproof vests a whole bunch of ammo. I realize this car looks the exact same way as ours, but it’s not our car. <laughs> It’s like, military car. And in my head, I’m like, “Okay, we’re gonna get shot. We’re gonna get shot. We just ran into this random military car that wasn’t locked, that has a whole bunch of ammo in it, and there’s so many military guys here in this place, we’re gonna get shot”. And I look at Henry showing come here sign. I start running towards him. Here I see our car parked on the other side of the road, or something like that, and he gets into the car. I ran towards him, got in the car again. Before I could even fully get into the car, he took off. <laughs> And I just kept laughing hysterically. Like, in my head, we’re getting shot. They’re gonna chase us down, they’re gonna arrest us, they’re gonna shoot us. And he’s just like, “close the door, close the door.”
Henry: Maybe me being ex-military, I knew if they’re going to shoot somebody, they’re gonna shoot the military aged male. And I just had to look as innocent and as least deadly as possible. <laughs> I’m like, let me just move and walk very slow. And here we are. We’re idiots. We ran from the door to their car. Everybody’s in line. Everybody can see it, and we’re just here laughing our heads off as we run to the car that we think is ours, missile rocket launchers, machine guns, helmets. I just- yeah. That was like, one of the few times where I’m like, okay. My face- I felt like, you know they always say how you can feel the blood leaving your face or your head. I felt it.
Iryna: It was one of those “oh shit” moments. And nobody followed us. Nobody cared.
Henry: Yeah, it was the exact same color, same make and model, same everything. Just wasn’t our car.
Iryna: And it was parked in the exact same spot that we usually park. But the parking situation was so awful that time that we had to park a little bit further. And so that’s why we just automatically ran to this car. Of course, it’s in our parking spot. It’s the exact same car who looks at the, you know the numbers, plate numbers. Nobody does. None of these idiots even saw it. Probably-
Henry: That’s the biggest thing! None of them noticed!
Iryna: Why do you leave all your ammo in the car? Why do you not bring it with-
Vic: Unlocked
Iryna and Henry: Unlocked!
Iryna: For these two idiots to rob you of it.
Vic: I guess they assume everyone there is serious, and on their side.
Henry: Too stupid to do something. <laughs>
Iryna: Well, in the end, he drove the car, and I lost to him that time.
Vic: Did you ever get to drive a car?
Iryna: Yes! Yes, but then I kind of forgot, well, in the middle of me driving, I forgot that I was driving. I thought I was still in the passenger seat, and I forgot to slow down at a big old bump <laughs> we almost went flying, and Henry was like “Get out of the car! I’m driving now”. It was hard for me to keep it in mind that I was behind the wheel. But it’s not the only story that we have from here. There were a couple good ones too.
One of them, I was almost getting shot, actually.
Henry: Oh my God you’re gonna tell that one?
Iryna: He doesn’t like the story because he was the reason why we almost got shot <laughs>. So we were going from Balakliia to Izium a few days later, or before that incident. So this- this town was just liberated today, and we went there on the next day. So there is a whole bunch of Russian spies, a whole bunch of Russian military- everything is just super, super fresh. So we went there with the head of Ukrainian, like, not supervalence, but he’s like-
Henry: No, he’s the head of the Federal fire department.
Iryna: Fire department and, like, emergency, it’s just all combined in Ukraine. So he’s a very, very cool guy. And we just magically met him here when we were trying to find where to donate a huge British truck, like fire truck, to. And we spoke to him, and then he said that he can actually take us to Izium on the next day. And so he did.
He escorted us to Izium. We were following him. We got through a whole bunch of check points, no issue, no nothing. The roads were awful so we were driving very slowly, and now we’re approaching this huge bridge that goes above or across this, this river, and we’re crossing it. The bridge was half destroyed, so we had to, like, wiggle around to get, to not drown in the water, to just not, you know. And Henry’s like, wow, this bridge is so messed up, we need to take a picture of it. And he rolls down the window, starts taking pictures of the bridge, of what’s around us. Everything’s destroyed. It’s like, everything is still smoking, basically.
We get to the other side of the bridge, to the other side of the river, and he’s still taking pictures. And then there’s this hidden checkpoint that he took a picture of. He didn’t take a picture of, but it was a very close one, and the military saw it, and they started like yelling “Stop the vehicle! Stop the car! We’re gonna shoot you!” And of course, nobody realized they were yelling at us! <laughs> So we’re just “lalalalala” driving further and further, they already took their guns, their machine guns off, and they were already like targeting us, aiming at our vehicle. When I said “Vitaly!” he was driving, “stop the car! They’re about to shoot us!” And then he stops the car, and they run to our vehicle, aiming at us, thinking we’re some sort of criminals. And they open the door, take, you know, pull Henry out of the car, start going through his phone, and this, this man- and then the car, the head of firefighting department, he got out of his vehicle, and he’s like, “what’s going on here, guys?” and they were “These idiots were taking pictures, we almost shot you guys! Do you realize that the only reason why you’re not shot is because you were following this truck, which we were also going to shoot if needed to, you know?” And, yeah, so we got very close to being uh, dead.
Henry: Not my, not my proud moment there. But I was just taking a picture of the bridge and, you know, obviously you’re in a moving car, and when the car is moving, your camera moves with it, so.
Iryna: Mhmmm.
Henry: And I accidentally, I didn’t take the picture of them, but my camera was definitely pointed at them, and we looked at each other. I am like, “oh shit”.
Vic: So you knew it was coming?
Henry: Well, I didn’t, I didn’t know the whole gun part until after, but like
Iryna: Yeah, cause you were already looking at your pictures, making sure you didn’t take a picture of the checkpoint or anything.
Henry: Yeah. <laughs>
Iryna: So, yeah, that was a weird situation. And then the guy who was escorting us, the head, his name is Vasil, let’s call him Vasil. He then lectured us a little bit on that, of course he’d have to, and he had a few choice words for us. And then we were taking an interview with him in Izium and somehow Russians probably knew that we were there or something, but they started targeting the area where we were, and they started bombing us. So we had to get in the cars and drive off, because he said it’s no longer- it was no longer like safe there, so. Somehow, they knew we were there.
Vic: They were targeting the fire truck or the international people?
Iryna: They were trying to, um, I’m assuming-
Henry: Probably so, so we had two civilian cars, and then there was two or three or four- It’s three or four, right? There’s three or four officially marked Fire Department, federal fire department vehicles in his convoy. So we were behind his convoy. And that was his personal escort, like, wherever he would go. So I think they were probably targeting his convoy. And he showed us all around, just, some, some really heartbreaking things, like just entire Russian bombs collapsing entire apartment segments, and just kids toys everywhere.
Iryna: You could see- you know, when the building collapses, it’s like you can see the withins of these apartments. It’s like they just sliced the building into two parts. And you can see the apartments, the flats of these people, how they were abandoned with all their clothes, all these, all their different furnitures. Some people had very nice furniture. Some people had very, not a very good one. But like, what was crazy is seeing that all of it was still there, but people were not. Everything was abandoned, just how it was. It’s like it was it, it was frozen in time. You could see the plates in the cupboards, you could see different sorts of things, like, you know, school bags with books that children used to go to school with, and it’s all still there. Everything is still there. All their- like, half of these wardrobes were open, and you could see what people wore, but they had to leave behind, and it was crazy.
Henry: For audio purposes, I’m showing our amazing interviewer host here [photos on his phone]. So like, yeah.
Vic: I see what you mean about it’s been sliced.
Henry: It’s been completely sliced. That used to be the apartment building with it connected-
Vic: Oh it connected those two? Right.
Henry: Yeah and it’s just one bomb took out the entire thing. That was on the very first night of the war. So everybody was still asleep in their homes.
Iryna: The entire started with these two buildings. They were the first ones to be bombed in Ukraine on that night.
Henry: Well, in this area-
Iryna: No, that’s what he said, in the entire Ukraine, in the entire country. That’s why he took us to these specific buildings. Cause everything you started with Izium.
Vic: Could you send me the picture?
Henry: Of course.
Vic: Thank you.
Henry: So you can’t tell too much, but this was a Russian block post, sort of fortification. But they- this was a whole bunch of, you know, treasures that they looted, and they had to leave behind.
Vic: Any toilets? [a cliché early in the war was Russian soldiers stealing toilets and other home utilities]
Henry: No toilets, but a lot of radios, a lot of electronics.
Iryna: Yeah, because they already brought all those toilets back with them. <laughs>
Henry: Yeah they loaded them up. So there was, like, there was that as well.
Vic: Is that the bridge you got in trouble taking the pictures of?
Henry: Yes <laughs> yes it is.
Iryna: It was right before the, yeah, that’s the bridge.
Vic: And you can’t see a checkpoint in it.
Iryna: No <laughs>. So there were two bridges when we were taken. The other one is here. The one we were taking was like, sort of a platoon bridge that was built during the war, and it was also half destroyed, but that one was the actual bridge.
Henry: Oh, that was the generator. Okay, oh, here we go. This is the good stuff. So if you notice, our trip started on September 22nd when we got to all here [shows a photo of a field]. And like no missile, [shows a photo of the same field] no missile here, [shows a photo of the same field] and then, oh, the 26th oh, here’s the missile.
Vic: Oh it’s just, it’s just stuck there.
Henry: So that’s 10 feet long in reality, and there’s only, like, two and a half, three feet of it sticking out of the ground. And yeah, so. That was a good time too. And then the next day, it was gone. They picked it up.
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