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July 31, 2022 - Human Events Daily - Jack Posobiec
01:15:29
JUL 31, 2022 - THE TRUTH ABOUT UKRAINE

SUNDAY SPECIAL: Jack Posobiec discloses the TRUTH about Ukraine in a special interview with Kevin Posobiec. The Poso brothers discuss their journeys through Europe, and their experiences traveling across the war zone of Ukraine and of Ukrainian Patriotism.Support the Show.

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Time Text
Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard.
We have a very special edition of Human Events Daily.
You know, a couple of weeks ago, I did another special edition of Human Events Daily where I recorded the entire podcast from an overnight train to Odessa as we were coming out of Ukraine.
We were headed back to Lviv and then on our way to Poland.
And I was recording that in a separate compartment.
But back in my original compartment waiting for me was the person that had traveled with me to Ukraine, was my partner in crime, the guy who's been my partner in crime my whole life.
My brother, and that was Kevin.
And so I remember that I was going through some of my recollections, some of my observations, my perceptions, analysis, not too much analysis.
You know, I've got Uh, my opinions, obviously, but I was trying to keep those opinions and editorializing out of it and really just kind of talk about what I saw when I was on the ground and I wanted to record it when it was super fresh.
But I realized that, you know, somebody back there in the train was, was, uh, taking a little break, was taking a little nap while I was working.
Uh, and that was my brother.
We had a sleeper car.
We'd actually bought the, um, Uh, so there were four bunks to a car and, you know, these are, we're talking, you know, 50 year old Soviet style train and, you know, not exactly the most comfortable.
So what I did was I bought four tickets.
So we bought out, um, the whole compartment had the compartment to ourselves on the way back.
So Kevin's asleep.
I'm over filming it.
And I was like, you know, I wanted to get Kevin's opinions on everything.
Kevin's perspectives.
And we had him on War Room earlier this week when I was guest hosting for Steve.
And he talked about it a little bit, but he didn't really get into the full, you know, the full meat and potatoes of what he had to prepare.
So I said, you know what, Kev, you're in town.
Why don't you come over to the Human Events Daily Studios?
They're The Turning Point USA Embassy, Capitol Hill, sit down with me, and we do, it's actually the very first sit-down interview I've ever done here at Human Events.
And I say, Kev, I can't think of anybody I'd rather have for my first interview here than you.
So ladies and gentlemen, welcome the newest war correspondent, foreign correspondent for Human Events Daily.
It's Kevin Posobiec.
What's up, Kev?
Thanks for having me.
It's an honor to be here.
I gotta say, I was sleeping on the train.
It was very comfortable, and it was almost the best night's sleep in the whole world.
Oh, there we go.
Almost.
Because you didn't have the MyPillow.
That's right.
Nah, we didn't have the MyPillow.
I don't think we gotta work on that.
Next time.
Get him over there.
Next time, right?
Yeah.
Have to talk to Mike about that.
He just got canceled from Walmart.
Did you hear that?
No.
Yeah, it just happened last night.
We put it out.
We'll have to get the story going.
But yeah, it looks like you got canceled from Walmart, we just heard.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mom, of course, doesn't ever want us to go back, but if we do...
For a wartime train, it was pretty comfy.
Get the...
But it was old.
You gotta admit that.
Yeah, but you could open the windows and get the breeze going.
It was like one of those YouTube music videos with like the background music.
Oh, yeah, like the white noise.
Well, you can hear it in the original episode that I did that I recorded from the train.
You actually can hear that in the background.
And I was worried.
Oh, right, yes.
So I was worried that that sound would overpower the audio, that it might ruin the audio.
For the episode and just, you know, sound terrible because so I had to take I found some like clear tape in the train compartment that I was in and it was like the one next to us.
And I just taped the window shut.
So like because it kept kind of like falling forward because the lock was like the latch wasn't working properly.
So I taped it shut and then a couple at a couple of points during the recording, I had to pause and then go back up and re tape it because the sound was just overpowering.
But It actually worked out pretty well.
And a lot of the reviews that we got on, people said they really liked it.
Maybe I'll have to ask producer Mike, maybe he can add it in digitally.
Sure, in the beginning of this podcast.
Yeah, the beginning here of the podcast.
Train pulling into the station.
Yeah, we'll have to see if he can do that.
So if he did do that, you will have already heard it by now.
Yeah, so many other things like the American like rules and regulations that we have are like just not existent.
What do you mean by that?
Like being able to open the windows on the train.
Well, this was right.
And so really move around.
Right.
So for folks that are that are just listening.
So this so Kevin was on the trip with us, not just through Ukraine, but also through the rest of Western Europe.
So we did Ireland.
We did Italy.
Briefly, you know, briefly on our way in.
Budapest.
So we did Budapest, Hungary.
We spoke at CPAC Budapest.
Then from there, we went to Switzerland, covered Davos.
I got detained.
Kevin didn't get detained because he was off trying to track down Malcolm Nance at the Ukraine house.
Yeah, I needed some intel on some missiles.
You needed some intel on the missiles.
Standby, standby.
And so...
I'm texting you while you're waiting for him at the Ukraine house, and he ended up being via Skype, right?
He was.
Yeah, so he was back in Ukraine.
But I did get to meet Lieb Shriver.
Did get to meet Lieb Shriver, Ray Donovan.
Some people were saying that maybe Lieb Shriver, because you were with Tanya, and so some people were saying that maybe Lieb Shriver swatted me so that he could spend more time with Tanya.
Probably.
And that's what it was.
That's what I was thinking.
I was like, why did Tanya come in?
And I saw leave.
I was like, man, that guy's real handsome.
Oh, is that what it is?
Is that what it is?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I heard she has a thing for Slavic guys.
Yeah, yeah, she was sitting up right up front.
Yeah, I've seen the photos.
Maybe we should change the subject.
So yeah, so you come over running because I text you, but you didn't get detained.
And then after that, came with us through Poland, got to see the homeland, got to meet our, well, see our cousin.
You had met him before in the U.S. Got to see the little village where the Posobics are from there.
And then, so prior to all that, you know, traveling around with us in Western Europe and then Central Europe and then eventually we make it to Ukraine.
Yeah, quite the trip.
Quite the trip.
10 countries?
Something like that.
Yeah, I think 10 countries.
10 countries in like two and a half weeks.
But yeah, so the point was like there's so much more common sense incentives and freedom.
Like there was no like...
So you felt freer?
I did, yeah.
Wow.
Like in Switzerland, I wanted to like jump in the river because their swim clubs are like very popular lately.
And are they?
That's funny because there were times in Switzerland...
That's funny because there were times that I wanted to throw you in the river.
So, you know, it's funny how that works out.
But no, you pay $2.
Yeah, Switzerland is, well, I mean, it's in the Alps, so yeah, there's no ocean.
Yeah, so you don't have, like, the beach culture, the beach crowd, but you have the swim club culture crowd.
Yeah, there are a lot of people swimming.
You pay $2.
But there was, like, no fences and no, like, big signs or nothing.
You just jump right in if you want to.
Right.
And, like, same with the train.
Well, you did in Geneva, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you mean?
In the lake?
You jumped in Lake Geneva.
Well, they had a swim club there too.
Right.
But yeah, it was like 60 degrees.
Not bad.
That ain't bad.
A little alpine swim session.
Yeah.
But no, it felt great.
It was not salty.
It was like nice royal blue lake water.
That beautiful alpine water.
Gorgeous.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I went up to the Olympic dive.
It was like 10 meters, like 30 feet.
Yeah, 30 feet.
And the lifeguard's like, oh yeah, enjoy.
Just go for it.
Old concrete structure, no ropes on it, no warnings.
Just go for it.
I thought it was exclusive for the Olympics or something.
You had to sign a waiver at least.
Nope.
Did they charge you?
Not to jump off.
Just paid $2, two francs to get in and that was it.
Just for the beach.
Yeah, yeah.
That's not bad at all.
No.
Right, so Geneva, yeah, no coastline on the ocean, or Switzerland, no coastline on the ocean, but they do have a ton of lakes all over the place.
So you get those lakes and mountains.
And that would, to segue into more Ukraine, would kind of also work to our disadvantage because it was so free.
We could do so many things.
There was a lot of opportunities to get involved with things.
Yeah.
So, yeah, being over there, we did get to see...
Well, first we went to Lviv from the train in Poland, Przemysl.
Przemysl, yeah.
So the last city of Poland before we crossed the border.
So there's our family's village, and then it was like a 40-minute drive to the border.
And then we're right at the border.
Didn't used to be the border.
It used to all be Poland.
It was Poland all the way up to Minsk at one point.
And if you go back even further, it was Poland all the way out to Smolensk, right?
During the Commonwealth period.
So I remember we were looking at those maps last night of how big Poland used to be.
And that's kind of the history of the area, right?
There were times where it was just a much larger country than those borders, because of all the wars and everything else, you know, those borders, the Poles, the Germans, the Russians, every time they rumble, that's the battlegrounds.
That's your bloodlands.
That's the killing fields right there.
So many battles, so many wars over the years.
And we saw a lot of the architecture, the buildings and the churches were built then, like before World War II, so they were built by Polish craftsmen.
Very much so.
Well, in Lviv.
Yeah, in Lviv.
Yeah, and that was the thing, is that we had met that local contact there, and it was wild because we were going through and looking at the churches in Lviv.
Lviv is gorgeous, by the way.
Beautiful, beautiful city.
Yeah.
Cobblestones, old churches, castles and courtyards, and...
Had a nice patina, like the weathered look to it.
Absolutely.
And inside all the churches, and we went into the Greek Catholic churches, and it really, there was such a big Greek Catholic population there.
Right.
That it was all Polish on the inside.
There was Polish inscriptions, Polish tombstones of some people who were interred there and Polish on the mosaics, Polish on the walls, the paintings, etc.
Just Polish.
Yeah.
So in like Philly, where I've been living, you see scaffolding and whatnot around churches.
The majority of the time because they're being taken down.
Right.
Like demolished.
Or converted into apartments or whatever.
But over there it was so shocking to see that They had scaffolding around various statues of Mary and stained glass windows because they were protecting it.
And you're right, they were covered.
They were covered, yeah.
And I was like, man, this is a lot of vandalism here or something.
Right, right, right.
And I was told that, no, that's in case the city gets bombed to preserve them.
That potentially they could be protected by...
I mean, these are just like...
Outside and inside.
You know, big drapes and cloth.
I mean, it's not like some...
It's not very protective, but if there was shrapnel or some glass, that kind of thing that hits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Yeah, I think it was more for like rubble or something to hit into it.
Well, one of the problems that's been happening, and we didn't see this when we were there.
It's very humbling.
Oh, for sure.
But one of the problems that does happen sometimes is that so...
They'll be, so let's say Russia fires a missile, fires one of those cruise missiles to take out the supply depot, because Lviv...
That's the big thing with the city of Lviv is that that is the ammunition and supply depot from the NATO countries and the West comes in via train that it's stored in Lviv.
And then it goes through, you know, through the transport network of Ukraine at that point throughout the trains, the railroads, the roads, highways, etc.
But Lviv is where it's all stationed initially.
So Russia has been waiting.
And they'll wait until, you know, a certain point of it builds up, and then they'll fire a cruise missile off at one of those depots to blow up all the weapons or tanks or vehicle, whatever it might be, right?
But because Ukraine has air defense, they're trying to take out those cruise missiles while they're on their way in.
So the problem then becomes, if you take out one of those cruise missiles before it hits its target, then the damage from that missile, you don't know where it's going to go, right?
It could land somewhere over the city, it could land in a residential area, it could land, and to your point, some of it could land on the church.
Right.
And it was in the one that we saw.
Remember they had the services and like the, speaking of ammunition, like the empty shells.
We went to like the military church, right?
Yeah, the military church.
And it was during the day, during the week, and they were having a service.
And we just went in and saw like one in particular.
It was like a side altar with...
Some kind of display of old ammunition and, like, the canteen at the foot of the cross.
Yeah, like Spence shells, 762 rounds.
Yeah.
Artillery shells.
In the church.
Inside the church.
In the church.
And then there was, like, the warrior's prayer in Ukrainian.
Yep.
Like, and then there's...
Very martial.
Yeah.
Very martial.
Down the hall, there's, like, there's pictures, too, of, like, all the soldiers, MIA, KIA. Yeah, MIA, KIA. A lot of them looked our age, you know, and I could find myself just like looking around like, man, which one like looks most like me?
Right, right.
It's pretty surreal.
And you could definitely feel like...
Our age or younger.
I mean, keep in mind that 18, you're good to go.
So, you know, and they're doing...
And I remember the one guy was telling us that the way it works with the conscription, because I was actually surprised that when we were going around Lviv, that so many people...
You know, because Lviv is far, far western Ukraine, right?
So for people who don't know the map, the fighting right now, or at least when we were there, is in the east, in the far east and then in the south.
And so where we are in Lviv, that's as far west as you can go, basically, and still be in Ukraine.
And that city, it almost felt like it wasn't wartime, right?
Because people were out at the cafes, people were out at the...
At the churches, as you say, people are shopping, people are acting almost like normal.
And then Because I've heard that men can't leave.
That's the thing.
If you're between 18 and 65 right now, you can't leave the country of Ukraine.
Or if you need to leave, you have to have special permission to leave.
And so inside the church, the way the conscription works, you would see some young men, teenagers, basically 18, 19, that had been killed.
And keep in mind, this is going back all the way to 2014 when all of this started.
And then The way it works, I guess, that we found out, which is interesting to me, is that there's kind of like a lottery, and then you get called if you are going to enter the service.
So it's not like all the men are constantly being, you know, sent into the fight, or not all the men are immediately drafted into the military.
It's like there are some men who are just living their lives, but then you get called up, then you get sent to training, then you get, you know, sent to a unit, then you go.
Well, they didn't constitute an actual draft, right?
I don't think...
Oh yeah, they do have a draft.
They did?
Absolutely.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, 100%.
But what I'm saying is it's not...
That doesn't mean that 100% of the men are all required to go right away.
Oh, true.
It's like a rolling thing.
Yeah, I just wanted to point out...
They bring in troops as they need.
It was very grounding to see that.
And then there's people praying.
You see widows there praying to St.
Michael the Archangel.
You know, it was then I was, like, thinking to myself, like...
And not old widows, were they?
No, no.
RH. Yeah.
Widows in their 20s and 30s.
So I had to, like, definitely pinch myself on the whole trip.
Right.
Like, just make sure, like, is this really...
Like, am I dreaming?
Or...
But it was definitely a reality check.
And, you know, so I continued to, like, turn to God to pray, like, what should I do here?
Like, how can I be useful?
And, you know, moving forward.
And part of it is sharing the story.
But, you know, I naively was a little more convinced to, like, I don't know, try and join.
There's some people there that really wanted us to join.
They saw us and they're like, hey, what are you guys doing here?
Well, we ended up getting...
Yeah, I remember initially being told, they said, hey, we want you to meet with some journalists on the ground.
And I'm not going to say their names for security purposes and, you know, sensitive.
People are still in country, obviously.
But when we got there, I remember them saying, you know, hey, we're going to be taking some body armor forward and we're going to be...
You know, bringing some helmets and some tactical combat care tourniquets and quick clot and other things, bandages.
Yeah.
And I remember hearing that.
I said, wait a minute.
That doesn't sound like journalism.
Like, we're just here to, you know, report.
We just need a ride.
You know, we were looking for a ride with other, you know, reporters.
What you guys are doing is, you know, and hey, you're here.
You're volunteering.
Like, you know, it's your life.
But that's not...
That's not what we're here to do.
Sure.
I couldn't help it, though.
I mean, being like...
Like, I'm a carpenter.
I work with my hands.
That's just where my mind goes.
It's like, man, does this church need work on it?
Or, you know, boom, boom, boom.
Somebody's car's broken down.
It's just where my head goes.
Well, there's certainly...
To be in a situation like that.
From a humanitarian perspective, you can be there as a humanitarian aid worker, and we saw a lot of humanitarian aid workers who are just helping the people, who are there helping people who have been injured in any of the fighting, as you say, help to rebuild.
Yeah, Caritas.
Yeah, Caritas is there, and a lot of Americans have gone over in that volunteer capacity As an activist rather than someone who's like, you know, actually part of the resistance that's getting involved in the fighting.
But more privately, though.
I didn't see any American flags over there or any kind of like Joe Biden associations getting Americans over there with the 40 billion.
And I tweeted that you had said that, right?
So, you know, on that point, you know, that idea that, you know, here in the U.S. and really across Europe we saw this, that People have Ukrainian flagged all over the place.
People are putting them on their Twitter accounts.
People putting stickers on their cars, T-shirts.
I mean, we were at the Paul McCartney concert the other night and I saw people there with Ukraine shirts on.
There was.
There was.
But yeah, I hadn't even thought of it that way, and I tweeted that you said that after War Room the other day, that it occurred to you that when you were in Ukraine, you didn't see anybody flying any American flags.
No.
Well, yeah, no American flags, no like...
Appreciation, like that.
But definitely from a practical sense, where's the aid?
We saw some in Poland before we crossed the border.
A few tents when we got off the train in Lviv.
At the train station.
Which, by the way, what happened when you tried to get some video of that?
Oh, they tried to take me out right away.
Who?
Some young guys.
I think they were like the equivalent of like mall cops.
They weren't like official police.
Maybe they were.
They were junior cadets, whatever.
Like train station police.
I didn't even get down the steps of the train station and they said...
But you had your phone out.
Yeah, I had my phone out just doing a little scan like...
You know, whatever.
But they were like, oh, American tourist.
Came right up and was like, delete the footage.
You gotta get rid of this.
And I was like, okay, sure.
I didn't know what was going on.
Did he watch you?
Did he make you delete it?
He watched me, yeah.
Yeah.
But then was it in your recently deleted?
I don't know how to do that actually, that function.
But I did do in Davos, I told you what I did with that footage.
What?
When the cop, or whatever you want to call those guys.
Those are cops.
He asked me to delete the footage, so I had taken two pictures after the footage.
So when I pulled it back up, I deleted the pictures and still had the video.
No, because if you go into your, you have iPhone, right?
Yep.
You go into your Photos app, and then you go to Albums, and you scroll down, and you should see Recently Deleted.
Oh, okay.
And then it'll stay there for like, I want to say like a month, and then you can go in and you can restore it.
Well, yeah, no, it wasn't even a good picture.
It was kind of blurry even, but just to show that there was tents, but nothing like American Red Cross or like United States, like anything.
Yeah, I didn't see a lot of Red Cross.
I went into the one tent and they had cots sleeping bags uh cheese sandwiches it was like a big thick kaiser bowl with like two slices of cheese and that's it and then like some campers like percolated coffee yeah that's it you know Well, I remember, you know...
For all the refugees, everybody needs all this help.
And that's all you get for $40 billion.
Yeah.
Where's it going?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, because obviously the question is, you know, how much of that is going to the actual war effort, you know, bombs and tanks and fuel.
How much of that is going to the actual refugees, though, the humanitarian efforts that people need?
You know, Tanya, I forget if I told you this, But you remember how we were looking to need a COVID test to get out of Poland and back to the US? Yeah.
So Tanya, right before, right after she sent us off on the train, she was still staying there back in Poland because I didn't want her to come.
Just, you know, one of those things where, you know, I didn't want her to come anywhere near where there could even potentially be anything dangerous, right?
Because we have two little boys, right?
And she went back and she was going around those humanitarian tests and she actually saw a COVID tent.
And she went over and asked what the procedure was to get a test just to see if she could get a test there.
And it was funny because the girl that she met, the nurse, was actually from Nashville, Tennessee.
Oh, interesting.
And Tanya was saying, oh, wait.
Because Tanya speaks Polish and Russian and Ukrainian and all of it.
And she comes across somebody and says, wait a minute, you speak English.
You're from Nashville.
And she said, yeah, yeah, I'm here.
I'm volunteering.
And then Tanya said, that's great.
How long have you been here?
She said, oh, this is my second time out.
And apparently what this girl had been doing was She would go to Ukraine, volunteer, but obviously you're not really making any money doing that.
So they might give you like a little place to live and some food.
Like crowdfunded.
So what she was doing, she was crowdfunding, but then she was going back home to the U.S. and then was like working a little bit there to make some money.
And then, you know, for like a month or two months and then coming back to you.
And then her plan was to come back to Ukraine.
Wow.
But privately?
Yeah, privately.
As a volunteer.
Through the $40 billion, is any of it set aside for people like her?
She wasn't getting any of it.
She's like, hey, here's an extra $2,000 to go over.
Well, and that's the thing, right?
Probably not.
They're just really volunteering.
We're over there trying to understand where our $40 billion is going because when you look at the situation, you have to say, there are people caught in the middle of this, right?
And You know, you can look at the two sides, and we try to be at least objective here from the perspective of saying, you know, this is what Ukraine is saying.
Ukraine is saying you're invading.
Russia is saying that there was a coup, and you guys are trying to, you know, you started the civil war, and we're just protecting the people that you're attacking in Donetsk and Lugansk, et cetera, in Crimea.
And so, right, we get that.
We get that there's two sides to every story.
But...
From my perspective is, there's always gonna be people that are caught up in the middle of it whenever there's one of these squabbles.
It's kinda like, it gave me a little bit of, More appreciation for why it was that our great-grandfather decided to leave Poland.
Because you go back to Poland and you say, man, it's a beautiful country.
The food's amazing.
Great soil to grow.
Great soil.
But every time the great empires rumble, it's right there.
Sure.
And having family still over there probably caused girls like her.
Maybe she has family over there.
Oh, she might.
Yeah, I don't know.
Just to volunteer.
And it's commendable.
I'm not saying, I'm not implying like you should expect a check from the government to go volunteer.
Right, but the question is, where's my 40 billion, bro?
Exactly.
Yeah.
But I did notice that too.
The Ukrainian people that are caught up in the mix that don't know any better just banding together anyway to get the resources out there, get rides here.
You posted something on Instagram about that, right?
I did.
I liked what you wrote.
Yeah, it's like a tweet, you could say, but on Instagram it's just words.
But that was very...
Impressive to see, to people not running away, not being refugees, standing their ground.
And I could relate, because it's kind of like me and you.
I work with my hands and all, and I don't have the time to, or anybody in trades, not me and you directly, but anybody that works in trades, and other people have commented on this, We rely on journalists today in the digital world to get accurate information on what's going on, especially if you're in war.
You need to know accurate information.
And even soldiers are like, hey, why are we fighting?
That's what they say.
In war, the first casualty is truth.
Exactly.
But to see that, People still going to work at the restaurants.
Even when we were in Micolive, we stopped at a gas station and there was this lady all dressed up in her uniform cooking croissants, baking and making sandwiches.
It was a really, really nice gas station, by the way.
Yeah, it was great.
I actually took a picture of it because it was brand new, white, steel.
Totally out of place.
Yeah, super out of place.
Not to say...
That was what, like 30 minutes out of Mikolayev?
Yeah, yeah.
Where all the prices were zero.
You couldn't even buy gas there.
Right, I think they were out of gas, yeah.
It was probably seized by the military or something.
Potentially.
Or shut down, whatever.
And it was not like they were ignorant of anything going on, but you could tell these people had...
They pride in what they were doing.
Yeah, their dignity was still intact.
Dignity, right.
And it was just amazing to see.
And something...
And that was like, keep in mind, that's like...
I would love to see more of in America.
For folks who haven't seen, yeah.
For folks who haven't seen or listened to the first podcast, you know, this is...
On the highway that we made it from...
Odessa to Mikolaev.
And keep in mind, we did 40 hours on the railroads in Ukraine.
40 hours.
So that's 600 miles in, 600 miles out.
So 1,200 miles on the ground in Ukraine.
And this point, where we go into Mikolaev, that's about It was about an hour and a half, two hours drive from Odessa to Mikolaev.
But that's checkpoints, checkpoints, checkpoints, armed military inspections.
You have to show your press credentials, have to show your IDs, you know, constantly having to show our passports.
And, you know, in the midst of all that, we find this little gas station with like a pastry shop and they're right in the middle of it, you know, and these people.
Yeah, you're right.
You could tell they took a lot of pride and dignity in what they were doing.
Yeah.
And then when we were down, we saw the guys salvaging, like, out of the buildings that got bombed.
Like, they were just...
There were so many, like...
Moments like looking out the window just see like somebody still just like going from with their groceries from the from the supermarket like going home carrying those uh those bags yeah like some guy like putting out the trash like right and then down the street there's like a building bombed out um because the narrative we get is like hey listen we have all these refugees everybody's running away from the war blah blah blah and then you get there but there are people who stay yeah Yeah.
There's people that stay and they just know that it's Not that it's all BS, but like they know, like, where else am I to go?
Like, this is my home.
I love my home.
And, you know, they're just tired of it.
Like the girl, like right when we cross the border, there's just this beautiful girl I sat next to on the train.
Wait, wait, wait.
That's not what happened.
Hold on.
Hold on.
What do you mean is that?
What is what happened?
There's there's some context here that to provide the audience.
So let me tell I'm going to tell the true story of what happened.
There's context.
Oh, there's context.
There's definitely context.
So I get...
The tickets, and we're going across, and originally we only had tickets from Przemysl to Lviv.
And so that was, what, like four hours?
But it was mainly because the train was slow and because we had to do the border check.
8 a.m.
train, I think it was, right?
Yeah, it was like 8 a.m.
Like that train, that's really not far.
It's literally right on the other side of the border.
But because it takes so long for the inspections, they have to check around on the train.
It took about four hours.
So I'm sitting there waiting to go across, and I realized that, because we have assigned seats, so this wasn't the sleeper train.
This wasn't the train with the compartments.
No, it was new, too.
Yeah, it seemed like a newer train.
It was newer.
And we had assigned seats, and then I realized that, you know, just like when you're on an airplane, I said, oh, wait, my ticket's on this side of the aisle, your ticket's on the other side of the aisle.
Yeah.
And it's two to two, so, you know, I remember...
Uh going over to you at one point and saying hey Kev do you want uh you know do you want to ask someone to switch seats so we can you know so we can sit together and that's when the girl came and sat down next to you and you're like no no I'm good I'm good yeah no well I said well maybe I need I said I I said maybe I need to charge my phone oh yeah that's when oh sure the phone that's when she came in yeah real cute phone real real good looking phone there she said you can You could use my charger.
You could use my charger.
Oh, look at you sharing chargers over there.
Oh, really?
Sharing chargers in Ukraine.
Yeah.
And listen, this girl- Did you get her number?
I did get her number.
Nice.
Name was Ira.
Dirty blonde hair, beautiful golden amber eyes.
Oh boy, here it comes.
You know, very memorable.
But no, like, and we ended up talking for like half an hour, like a majority of the train ride.
Totally unexpected.
And she let me charge my phone and...
It'd be crazy.
She got on in Poland, right?
I wonder if she's listening.
That'd be wild if she ever hears this.
Now, she came on.
Just text her.
Now, she came on the train in Poland, right?
Yeah.
So she was heading back.
She was working in Israel on a work trip.
In Israel.
Yeah.
Okay.
And since all the airports are shut down in Ukraine, you can't go to or from.
Right.
You have to take the train or however else.
I don't think they have greyhounds.
So she flew back to Poland.
They have buses.
Maybe she flew back to Poland.
I didn't get it at all.
Yeah.
The point is, she was in Israel, got back to Poland, and then was coming back in.
Four days commute from Israel back to Kiev.
Makes sense.
So she was heading to Kiev?
Yeah, that's where she lived.
Wow.
And I said, wow, you're going back to Kiev?
And she's like, well, that's where my family is.
Yeah.
That's where my apartment is.
And she said, yeah, we do get the air raid alarm still, sometimes eight hours a day, just like we see on the news or, you know, telegram clips, whatever.
Mm-hmm.
So it was good to...
There was credibility there.
Like, she was witnessing to it.
Like, yeah, that is real.
And I was like...
It just blew my mind that she was just like, yeah, we're just tired of the war.
And we don't really want to go anywhere else.
And I was like...
Not expecting that.
It was just great to see.
She just loved where she lived.
Yeah, that dignity, the pride where they live.
It's just...
You see Ukrainian nationalism, I know that word gets thrown around a whole lot nowadays, but it's good.
Everybody supports it, but American nationalism, bad.
Right.
You're not allowed to be a nationalist anywhere but Ukraine right now.
Exactly.
That's my point.
That's my point.
It was just so cool to see people loving their country, banded together, fighting for what they have.
Patriotism.
Yeah, patriotism.
That's better.
Yeah.
It was so cool to see that.
So now I think about her because I see Kiev is still getting bombed and I hope she's alright.
Well, have you reached out?
You got her number.
I can't comment on whether...
I might have got left on red.
I don't know.
Maybe she gave you a fake number.
Maybe.
She got her Instagram.
You're the one that saw she was a spy.
She is a spy.
I asked her for her Instagram and she was like, oh, that's just for my dog.
Oh, just for your dog.
Maybe she was just letting me down easy.
No, no, I don't think she was because...
I could hear you guys chatting from where I was sitting, and I mean, she definitely was, like, she was indie, dude.
She was definitely indie.
Yeah, we were talking, and then I would stop talking, and then she would, like, say something else.
Yeah, no, she was indie.
Like, oh, what are you guys going to report on?
No, that's why I think she's a spy.
Because what did she do for work?
What did she say she was doing?
Cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity in Israel, right?
Yeah.
That's a spy, dude.
Agency.
Agency.
Yeah, she probably found out who you were.
That's the problem.
Yeah, maybe.
She scanned my phone.
That's why she wanted me to plug it in.
Right, right, yeah.
What did you plug your phone actually into?
Right.
She was cute, though.
They sent some good spies to us.
Yeah, see, that's what they do.
They need to get to me.
They're like, oh, we go to Kevin.
Yeah, that's how we do it.
Right, right, right.
Oh, man.
Yeah, so that was quite the ordeal.
I did not want to get off the train at that point.
Well, because she kept going to Kyiv.
Yeah, she kept going to Kyiv.
And then...
I was about to...
We were stopping at Lviv, and after Lviv, they opened up the coffee car on the train.
I was going to buy her coffee.
Oh, you're going to ask her the coffee car.
Yeah.
Is that your move?
You take her to the coffee car?
Why not?
Buy her a drink?
Yeah.
Then we could have really gotten into the conversation.
Oh, yeah.
It was just so cool to see it.
She was cute, folks.
Kevin's not just making that up.
She's definitely cute.
And she wasn't the only one either.
She was no Tanya Tay, but she was a good-looking girl.
There was...
Quite the talent over there.
Talented country.
Well, yeah, Kevin, I heard actually...
Well, it's funny that you mentioned that because I remember you saying that you wanted to make a contribution to the war effort.
And so when you heard about the refugees, I mean, I think you were saying that you would take as many of the women as wanted to come and stay with you.
So two or three or even four, right?
I did.
I only have so many seats in my car.
Only so many seats in the car, right?
But that's true.
That's really what I was getting at about being helpful.
Don't mean to make light of it, but no, Ukrainian women are obviously gorgeous.
Yeah, so I was getting to as well, there wasn't American flags everywhere.
But, however, there also wasn't any rainbow flags all over the place.
No, no.
No blue hair, purple hair, nose rings.
Nobody's acting your pronouns in Eastern Europe.
You know, no.
That stuff stops at Germany.
Not much obesity over there.
No, no.
Yeah, it's kind of like stepping back.
Not stepping back in time, but it was just so refreshing to see the culture like that.
I had never been to Europe.
Well, see, that's the thing too.
So much of it was just like what I've seen on the movies and the narrative I've been given and then being there in real life.
It's like watching the movie and reading the book.
The average person in Eastern Europe, right...
Would be considered like, quote unquote, far right in the United States under our current crazy system of everything.
Oh, yeah.
You'd be considered extreme, right?
Because keep in mind that- There's none of that.
Same-sex marriage, for example, is not recognized in most of Eastern Europe.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
I didn't even know that.
But you can't even...
And that's just considered...
I mean, that was also the norm for thousands of years of human history.
But you can't even talk about that in the United States.
So you can't even bring that up or you're considered super extreme.
And in Ukraine itself, it's not recognized, not even a little bit.
There wasn't any of that hyper polarization of like political sides like, you know, there is over here like they paint you.
Oh, you're wearing a red shirt.
That means this.
You're wearing a blue shirt.
That means this.
Yeah, it was I mean, we weren't there for very long, but from what I could observe, and you and I are both pretty keen on observing people and crowds and stuff, like, couldn't tell.
Well, it seemed like, yeah, it seemed like everybody was very, very supportive of their country.
Not that they weren't, like, aware.
Well, you put it this way.
Americans are all about raising awareness on the left.
We saw that in Lviv, but I noticed that there was much less of it when we went of like the Ukraine flag and Ukraine flag t-shirts and purses and bags.
I noticed there was less of it when we went to Odessa.
And then we went to Mikolaev, there was like none other than maybe like a couple of billboards.
Yeah.
Oh, right.
The billboards.
It's true.
Yeah, so Mikolaev, they had billboards of signs saying, like, Mikolaev is Ukraine.
You know, I could read that, basically.
The simple ones.
But I didn't see, like, people walking around with Ukraine t-shirts and Ukraine flags and everything.
So you saw that more in Lviv, but it was like the further east we went and the further south we went, it became less and less.
Yeah.
But...
Real patriotism.
Oh yeah.
It's awesome.
I only imagine it like scenes of like Valley Forge or like Washington crossing the Delaware.
I think about like Revolutionary War and that kind of patriotism, you know, 1776 and all those stories.
Like we grew up, yeah.
Yeah, living in Philadelphia.
And then to see it there, like...
Well, tell me...
Like, just rallies.
Think of, like, rallies today in the 21st century.
Like, you've got to have your tickets, your assigned seats.
There's, like, a merch table.
And then, you know...
But then, like, for me, my experience, like, playing...
Baseball growing up, it was like rally time, like ninth inning, your team's down, you know, you put your hat on inside out and you got blisters on your hands, but you're still up there at the plate, you know, like everybody's yelling from the dugout, you know, you just get into it and nobody has to tell you, like, it's just...
You're in.
Yeah.
It's just something that happens.
So the...
That feeling in the air, basically.
The organic element.
Yeah, like a feeling in the air, very human.
Yeah, it was so cool to see.
You kind of have that.
And I just pray that God forbid it never has to happen in America.
I felt it too.
What you're saying, I definitely felt that too.
The minute we crossed the border, It's in the air.
It's palpable.
So now I have that.
Like, yeah, God forbid anything ever happens in America, but it's just like, man, to see them, it was like an example of what could be like for defending America.
Well, I was going to ask you something else, but let me follow up on that real quick because I remember you wrote something...
You wrote something on Instagram talking about your reflection on what if something like that happened in America and tell people what you wrote.
Well, that's kind of what I was getting at.
Yeah, if any major power like Russia or China were to invade, which would be a huge mistake, would we be able to...
Yeah, but we would need more than just you and I. We would need a team.
The unity needed how resilient the people were, the dignity, just pride in the nation.
And I've thought about that even before Ukraine.
If people came to invade, do you think they would really care Who I voted for?
Or, you know, this and that.
Would they stop and ask me?
No.
Or would they just pull the trigger?
Or would they just...
Well, it'd probably depend on what you're doing.
Probably depend on what we're doing.
Yeah, of course.
But they wouldn't stop and ask us questions before, like, you know...
Handcuffing us or whatever happens.
They wouldn't care who I voted for or what my job was.
They would just say, oh, Americans.
You know what I'm saying?
It's...
Well, they say there's nothing that unifies a people like an external aggressor, like an external force.
We had, like, a bit of it at, like, post 9-11, like the week or two after.
Yeah, it is kind of like that, where it's sort of, we're all in this together, and this is bigger than any one faction.
It's bigger than any one, you know, region or ideological, you know, coalition or something, that it's...
You know, this is all of us versus nothing.
I mean, it's a powerful thing.
It's a very powerful thing.
It didn't matter, like, oh, yeah, like, a guy that owns a 7-Eleven working with, like, a firefighter, like, working with, like, a painter, working with a doctor, and it, like, all the labels didn't matter.
Everybody kind of got together.
Right, and you do have that sense in Lviv.
You definitely have that sense in Lviv.
So that's, you know, I took that in stride, and, you know, it was, like, part of why I'm being more vocal about it, and, uh, You know, online and coming here.
And then the problem is, though, is that we're getting some of the reports and you and I were just reading last night, we were kind of doing our evening news scan that I think Ukraine's losing something like, and Axios had their report out 200 to 500 men per day on the Eastern Front in the Donbass region, in those cauldrons.
And then when you add in the total casualty numbers, that there are days when they're losing up to 1,000 people per day.
1,000 men per day wounded or injured.
Wounded, injured, or killed.
Right.
Well, that's the follow-through.
You have all this patriotism, but then when we go to, like, Micolive and see, like, boof, Where does it all go?
Are you really willing to fight?
Someone else had posted that, kind of sarcastically, but like, hey, you really want to go over and help Ukraine?
I'll give you a thousand dollars to go join the forces.
Yeah, being over there.
Be like Malcolm Nance looking for missiles.
Yeah.
To actually go over and fight.
Well, I mean, it's one thing to, I think, be, you know, like you were saying before, help out on the humanitarian side as a volunteer, as an activist, rebuild churches, help with the refugees, that type of thing.
And one thing that we found out that I didn't even realize before we were there, that there have been 3 million people that have left Ukraine, but there's a million of those that have come back.
Since they initially left at the end of February when things started.
So there's been a lot of people.
And even when you and I were going from Poland into Ukraine, it was packed.
Thanks for good reporting.
It was packed.
Accurate reporting.
Well, reporting and also just kind of realizing how things are going and, you know, that same sense of, like you said, home, people don't want to, you know, some people, I can imagine certain people, like, you know, look at it as an opportunity to come to the EU, right, come to other parts of, especially, like, if you're younger, you know, they kind of look at that as, like, a tick, because Ukraine isn't part of the EU. That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
So some people could leave.
Come from elsewhere than Ukraine to America to cross the border.
Because we're the best.
You don't even have to come legally anymore.
And then we'll get you an apartment.
We'll give you a phone.
We'll give you healthcare.
We'll set you up with education.
And you can vote.
We're getting to that point, basically, yeah.
To see people on the train going home, like, now I'm good.
Right.
I want to stay home.
And I used to be more, I guess, cynical about that.
But to see it in real life is just amazing.
To witness that.
Now tell me a little bit more about, and you talked about this a little bit on War Room.
This is what I was going to get to in a minute there.
A minute ago.
Was that when we actually got forward to the city of Mykolaiv, a city that has been under attack at points.
It was quiet, pretty quiet the day we were there.
Got hit, I think, like a day or less than a day after we left.
The shipyards got bombed.
And when you realize that we were, you know, getting closer to the actual line of the Russian advance, where, you know, I think we got as far as the Kursan Highway.
And the Kursan Highway was, obviously it's the highway to Kursan, but Kursan is the first Russian-held city, whereas Mikolaev is the last Ukrainian city before you reach there.
So we were at a point where we were probably about, you know, let's say the roadblocks were out of the way, then we'd be maybe about 15 minutes from the actual, you know, where they're having these artillery duels and the actual fighting.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was at that point that also, like, I was in touch with reality again, too.
Yeah, reality.
It wasn't, like, lofty, oh, European trip, first time ever, like, when I saw those checkpoints.
Reality comes up and slaps you in the face there when you're at the checkpoints.
Yeah, the checkpoints we had to go through and the AKs.
And the passports you got to show and you don't know.
Papers, papers.
And you didn't even know either.
Usually you have a little bit of intel of like where we're going and this and that, but you didn't even know.
Well, I mean, I knew what Mikolaev was.
Well, because if you remember, right, it's when we got to Lviv.
Yeah, you knew, but there wasn't like the trust factor.
When we got to Lviv that I hadn't even realized at that point You know, again, because of the media narrative, that the trains were running as far as they were running.
I didn't realize that there were trains available that went to Odessa, that went to Kharkiv, that went to Dnepro, that went to Zaporizhia.
And, you know, originally we'd been talking about maybe traveling with those resistance guys via car, you know, down deeper into the country across to the river, Dinepe River.
But then once I realized that was we had that conversation in the Lviv train stations that once once you realize the trains are available, it's like, let's ride the rails.
You know, let's let's do it.
Let's just do it old school.
We did.
We did.
Which we did.
40 hours.
You noticed too, though, one of the cars was full of soldiers anyway.
It was the front car.
Yeah, the front car was completely full of soldiers.
We didn't go with the humanitarian.
We ended up going right with the soldiers.
Well, and you remember, tell everybody what happened on the first train, that train down to Odessa.
What was it that when the conductor came by, what did she tell us that we had to do that night?
So that night we did get to open the windows blah blah blah it was like romantic to hear the train tracks but pitch black pitch black all all the lights out dark dark train you know she came by and told us in ukrainian and then another passenger concerned came and told us in english like turn off all the lights to have all the lights off for the whole time traveling at night yeah Because,
you know, the idea being that Ukraine's got, you know, trains running all throughout the night from Lviv to different parts of the country, and some of those are going to be cargo trains, some of those are going to be passenger trains.
So, obviously, a cargo train would not have lights on it, but a passenger train would, potentially, right, have the windows.
Cargo train, you know, boxcars aren't going to have it.
Yeah, or at least, like, a small yellow light, a red light, like airplanes have at nighttime, or something, like...
You know, a nightlight.
Right.
But if you're, let's say you're, you know, a Russian drone that's keeping an eye from the sky on the trains, it might be harder to tell which one is a cargo train versus which one is a passenger train if there's no lights.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's kind of a way to hide which one is the military train.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Blue.
What was it?
It was like an old round top.
Yeah.
All blue with the yellow stripe across it.
Right.
But yeah, going into Micah Live, it was...
I mean, I've spent some time, like, in inner city Philadelphia.
I used to work, like, I used to live, I used to work in, like, Fishtown.
It's like the hipster capital of Philly and all that.
But I lived in Kensington, actually.
It's like the borders are, you know, everybody argues about where the borders and neighborhoods are.
Kensington's bad.
Probably in D.C. too.
Kensington's bad.
But yeah, yeah.
If anybody has seen the pictures of the L, like the elevated subway and those blue arches, Yeah, it's pretty horrifying.
That's where all the fentanyl addicts, they call them fentanyl zombies, are hanging out.
They also refer to it, why do they call it Kensington Beach?
Kensington Beach.
I actually didn't know that until about a year ago, but it's just like, you know, you go down for the day, hang out, get a tan.
Yeah.
Well, they say because when people OD on fentanyl, they just collapse on the ground, and they're lying out, and they say there's so many people lying out there, it's like going to the beach.
So they call it Kensington Beach.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that too.
No sunscreen, and yeah, they lay out there for pretty long.
Well, it's not only from there, but...
You know, for folks that haven't followed before, Kevin was with me in Chaz in Seattle in 2020.
Some of those nights it got pretty hectic.
You were with me in 2016, Deplorable, DNC, where it got pretty rowdy there.
So we've been in some stuff.
Philly was pretty intense.
I know some other of our contemporary journalists, they were actually in Philly for the George Floyd riots and all the looting.
So I was down there on top of just being Kensington in general, but for all that too.
Did you go to any of the George Floyd riots in Philly?
I did.
Yeah, you did.
That's right.
I had to live there.
We were burning down buildings and fighting the police.
And then I was there with the National Guard too.
And I ended up actually...
Oh yeah, tell me what you did for the Guard.
Yeah, quick story.
Anyway, it's just to relate to how decrepit Micolive is.
But real quick, yeah, when the National Guard was in Philly stationed...
Because you always see people helping out addicts.
It was in the middle of the summer, so it's super hot.
And I'm not against that at all, but they get preferential treatment down there.
They get all kinds of food every day, clothes, food, showers.
Who would ever want to stop using when you get all these people to give you peanut butter, jelly sandwiches, and cigarettes every day, all day long?
Exactly.
The real horrors of addiction.
Yeah, yeah.
So, it's like the difference between helping and enabling.
So, my point was, and getting the stimulus check, I got a stimulus check and I was like, there's so many people giving out stuff.
I'm going to go and I spent my whole stimulus check, about half of it, as much as I could carry on like drinks and energy drinks and I walked out.
With like two full Kohlers.
And I was just walking up to soldiers, like stationed in Humvees, handing out drinks to them.
It was like the middle of June too.
It was super hot.
Yeah, and these guys were in uniform.
Hot and humid in Pennsylvania, not like out west.
We got the humidity on the east coast.
That's right.
So yeah, I went over and, you know, I did Periscope that one.
Usually I don't record stuff like that, like, you know, because it's more for like God and God's work.
But I did have someone with me and it's like hanging out, recorded it.
But yeah, it was like, what can I do?
What can I do to take action, to give back?
And they were appreciative.
Some of the guys were like, nah, nah, what are you doing?
Walking up to soldiers.
But other guys were like, yeah, and a couple of the guys were younger than me and lived in Harrisburg because you get the National Guard, wherever they're stationed, from that state deployed.
I don't know how it works.
Well, they could be in a...
You know, it depends on which unit is deployed, right?
So National Guard is from Pennsylvania, so they could be like Fort Indiantown Gap, or they could be different parts of the state.
And then people could...
You know, for their reserve service, they could travel to that unit.
So the unit could be stationed anywhere in the state and they could be anywhere in the state.
So you want to usually, obviously you want to try to, you know, stay somewhere, be in a unit that's close to your house.
But I remember like when I was in the reserves for the Navy side, like I used to have to travel to Fort Dix, New Jersey, because that was the closest unit that had availability for me.
No, I remember the one guy in particular, he hated it.
He was like, this sucks.
I don't want to be so close to my home.
It was like messing with him.
It was such a shame to have to be deployed in his backyard, pretty much.
Yeah.
But that, so when we went to Nikolai, that flashed you back to Kensington and the Floyd riots.
Yeah, that's all I could compare to.
But it was definitely shocking and horrifying in its own right.
Like, it was war.
And I was ready, you know, at that point.
Like, you know.
It wasn't like...
I don't know.
I was serious.
You were too.
I was ready for the unexpected.
We're on our toes for sure.
To see bombed out buildings.
And I was expecting it to be a lot worse.
It was.
But we just didn't have time to go further.
Yeah.
But yeah, to see that...
And to your point, I remember you said when we were there that we would see bombed out buildings, but it wasn't like every building in the whole city was bombed, right?
It was more like, at least at the point that we saw it, it was more that there'd be one building here, one building there.
The problem, of course, being if the fighting gets closer, then probably more of those buildings are going to get hit.
And absolutely, that's what did happen in the following days.
Right.
A few of the ports there were bombed.
And that was when I brought up the first building we saw was like a simple apartment building.
How many was it?
Like maybe 30 apartments?
Something like that.
I thought we were going somewhere else.
I didn't even see it when we got there because it was all just like regular buildings and then this one was on the corner and it was blasted out like right in the middle of the building.
It looked like a giant had just like punched it from the top down.
Like you had a main entrance in the center of the building in the front and that's where the explosion was.
It was a direct hit.
Direct hit.
But it was...
I remember questioning why...
Because we had guides with us at that point.
Yeah, questioning the guides, like, why it was just this building.
Like, what is this?
Like, a warning shot?
Like, where's the other...
I just assumed...
Or was it targeted?
From, you know, movies or whatever, like, there would be, like, four or five other blasts, like, nearby, another building across the street or something, like, the road blown up.
Like, I didn't know.
But, yeah, that's...
The investigative part came in, like...
Well, that could have been, for example, you know, and maybe our guy just didn't know, but, you know, maybe that had been like a command center of some sort, or, you know, a center for the volunteer military, or, you know, some type of...
Yeah, I could see that.
...be of some sort of military significance, and that's why it was targeted specifically, or, you know, some individual who was there, you know...
Yeah, 21st century warfare.
They have drones.
They could have had some guy with intel, had the drone follow him home.
Exactly.
And then, boop, you know.
Or just tracking the phones.
True, yeah.
Yeah, they can track your phones.
They can track your phone all day long.
Probably track your phone all the way back.
Your little Keevan spy there.
She's probably tracking you right now.
Probably listening to us.
I know, I gotta get a new phone.
Hi, Ira, how are you?
But then so, so we go, we get that close, we come back, we come out, you're back out now.
Tell me what, you know, just in terms of like wrapping up a little bit, what are your, when you see Ukraine on the news now, when you see headlines, you know, what is it?
Is it easier to put into context because you've...
And I don't mean to overplay or overstate what we saw and what we did.
We barely saw anything.
We barely did anything when we were there.
It was quiet.
But just the fact that you were there...
And have that perspective now.
And that you can see, you know, back here in the US, there's all this, this talk about it $40 billion, another billion dollars arms going over.
Just what's it like, you know, hearing these stories now or following telegram and seeing the videos, etc.
Now that you've actually been there and walk those streets and driven those roads.
I rode those rails.
To put it in context, it's really just...
I don't know how to put it exactly.
I know it's mostly not true.
It's mostly fake news.
Most of what we see, most of what we get.
What do you mean by that?
just the way videos are curated and edited and audio that you get it like before having gone i was like man like everybody's excited to support ukraine like why is that like everybody on the left and the right and i'm like wait a second um but to see like how how I guess chaotic it is over there and
also like the same time like organized it is with like resistance fighters like I'm kind of still cloudy on it.
Still processing.
Still processing it, really.
But when I see the news from Ukraine now, it's, yeah, I mean, it's nothing new.
War is nothing new.
Depends on the station that you watch.
But is it...
You know, do you have a sense of, you know, do you think about that girl you saw on the train when you saw, when you see Kiev getting bombed?
And do you think of, you know, our guides when you hear that Nikolaev might be next and that there's, you know, the Russians are looking at, you know, potentially cutting off that highway that we drove on?
Does it, you know, does it resonate a little more?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And that's why I wasn't kidding on the war room yesterday.
I was like, I'm just here so you can convince me not to go back.
Well, mom says you're not allowed to go back.
No joining the resistance.
Yeah, they wanted us to, for sure.
Oh, they wanted us to.
Yeah, I'm sure they'll take anybody.
Well, two Americans just got captured yesterday in Kharkiv.
But yeah, I mean, so personally, I would say, like, you know, I'm...
More supportive of Ukraine in the sense of the people that I saw, you know, not on a grand scale like, you know, the elites and why it's actually happening and all the corruption and they're going after the chemical plants and the battery factories, whatever.
Well, I don't think there's anybody who wouldn't agree with that to say that.
Yeah.
Regardless of which oligarchs are making money off of this and which ones are fielding different troops, et cetera, that at the end of the day, you know, your heart just goes out to the people that are like the people we saw in Mikolayev who are stuck there.
The people who are just trying to live their lives just go to the grocery store and raise their kids and yet have to live with that worry of, is there going to be a shell?
Is there going to be an air raid?
Is there going to be an attack?
Yeah, war sucks.
I mean, I... Yeah, war sucks.
Say that again.
I would hate...
Yeah, definitely.
A heart goes out to him, special intentions.
I try and pray the rosary every day, you know?
Yeah.
If you're not praying every day, you're not on the team.
Not on the team.
You know?
And I seriously, I do pray for ways to, like, take up space.
And, you know...
Well, I think you're doing that right now.
Live by example, you know, to share my story to other people.
I know that's a kind of cliche, but it's real.
It's very cliche, yes.
Well, we have real credibility, though, so that's the difference.
Well, you got to be careful with that.
Right.
And that's why I try to...
Not go beyond my personal observations and experiences and I try to make a direct line between this is what I saw versus this is what I heard versus this is what I'm seeing on the news or you know from some report that you know I don't I don't blur those lines.
Yeah, and we're talking more than just the championship game here.
This is like war, so all that stuff is very important.
Right.
Well, to sum it up, let people know where can people go if they want to hear more from you, if they want to follow you, if they want to talk to you, ask more questions, where can they follow you?
You guys will follow me to church if you want.
Maybe to the gym.
Probably to the gym.
Oh, no.
Mostly on Instagram, Kevin Posobiec.
My real name used to be something different, but yeah, mostly there.
I am on Facebook, but I do video calls only.
I don't respond to texts.
Oh, snap.
No, that'd be great.
No catfish, no catfish.
That's a strong no-catfish policy.
No, I'm old-fashioned.
I like actual phone calls and video calls, so I challenge anybody to do that.
Go for it.
I don't have Twitter or LinkedIn or none of that.
You're on Getter, right, though?
I am on Getter, yes.
Yes, I am on Getter.
Same name?
Same name, yeah.
Getter, Instagram.
And with you, you know, sometimes in the field.
So look for me on there.
Do some more of that, you know, and let me just say before we sign off here that I don't know if I've said this directly yet, but thank you for coming with me because I was, you know, I would have gone either way.
And...
Usually I do like to have a plan before I get in over my head for some things.
I usually like to at least sort of know the parameters of where I'm going.
Like for Chaz, we had that kind of planned out.
I also remember that you've helped me Not go into certain places.
You remember during the George Floyd, the Chauvin trial?
Yes.
When I suggested, I said, hey, why don't we go to the George Floyd Square, the autonomous zone they have out there in Minneapolis?
Oh, yeah.
And you were basically like, Jack, no, we're not going there.
Yeah, the cup foods.
Yeah, that was real hot.
You were like, we are not going there.
That is not Seattle.
That is not a bunch of white, you know, Antifa losers.
And there was a drive-by the very next day.
That's right.
The very next day there was a drive-by.
There sure was.
So you talked me out of that.
Well, I call it sometimes.
I try and do my best.
But I appreciate you coming in and being there.
Yeah, absolutely.
As a brother.
Having my back and riding the rails.
Didn't realize it would be as long as it would, but, you know, we did it.
And I really feel like I know popular and all, I really feel like God calls us to do something more than what we actually do in life.
And I feel that.
But yeah, so I'm glad to be along for that.
To do more in life.
Last quick question.
So you, before we did all this, We stopped in Rome, and you got to go to St.
Peter's Basilica.
I sure did.
So Tanya and I, we had to film the show that day, but then we went and went over to the Sistine Chapel, but you pretty much spent the day in the basilica.
So what did that mean?
What did that mean going to the basilica?
Well, I'll try and keep it quick.
You know, I honestly thought I was going to get emotional going in there, but I didn't.
I got a little choked up, but...
It was so surreal, man.
But it was relieving to go in there.
It was just like, as a Catholic, it was like, man, this is it.
This is the place to go.
And that's what was going through my head.
Like a pilgrimage.
Absolutely.
And then I didn't even know, but the Pieta was right there as you walk in.
Wow.
On the right.
And...
It was just so beautiful.
It was, like, such a surreal moment, getting, like, Pentecostal here.
But, like, I went in, my phone had, like, 2% on it, and then the phone died, and I didn't have any money on me.
Yeah, I know.
We didn't even know where you were.
You didn't know where I was.
We're like, where's Kevin?
Is he coming back, et cetera, you know?
Yeah.
Like, riding around Rome when Vespa's looking for you.
Yeah, miles away from the hotel, and I just went anyway.
I was like, man, I bit my lip.
You weren't that far from the hotel.
No, maybe it was a solid mile.
It was walkable.
It was walkable, and I did walk.
But yeah, you know what I'm saying?
No phone, I guess.
Anybody nowadays, you lose your phone power.
Right.
But it took 25 minutes.
Great planning, folks.
Great planning.
25 minutes to get in.
Everybody online says two to three hour wait.
25 minutes I was in there.
Nice.
And then...
It was just amazing.
My plan was to pray a rosary, which I did, in front of St.
Joseph's altar, amongst many other people.
But then, also, I was treated to...
It was kind of like this Stations of the Cross thing.
Somebody could inform me on that, but...
all in italian and they would go around to each uh statue and altar the priest would say a few things and then a small choir would sing uh and then just go to the next one they carried on like that for like an hour uh just going around the church and was on the speakers and everything um that's awesome so so Serene.
And then at the end, the end is the best part, and then I'll stop.
But it was around five o'clock, and they had a mass in the back.
And it was roped off, though, and two Italian guards at the front.
And they were like, are you...
Italian guards or the Swiss guards?
Italian.
Okay.
They were in suits.
The Swiss guard was out front.
Oh, I see.
But they were saying like...
I forget exactly verbatim, but it was like, are you a tourist or are you a Catholic?
You know, they asked you.
Because they didn't want people just walking in there, sitting and taking pictures of the Mass the whole time.
And I was like, yes, I am a Catholic.
Yeah, that's right.
And I'm here for 5 o'clock Mass.
That's right.
In St.
Peter's Basilica.
Boom.
And I went up front.
It was all in Italian, but it was great.
It was Italian or Latin?
Italian.
It was Italian.
It was Italian.
I think it was Novus Ordo.
Okay.
Yeah.
But I did kneel for the Eucharist.
Of course.
And took it on the tongue, not in the hand.
Amen.
All right, folks.
All right.
St.
Peter's.
Tomb, and apparently St.
Paul is there too.
That's right, and stay tuned because you talked about seeing a representation of the Stations of the Cross, but we're doing, so Turning Point is going to be doing a trip to Israel in September, and I'd love for you to come with.
That's exciting.
See Jerusalem, and so you've seen the celebrations of the Stations of the Cross.
I'd like to take you to the real thing.
What do you say?
That would be great.
All right.
Yeah, I'd love to.
All right.
That's the next adventure.
All right.
Appreciate it.
Thank you so much for listening.
Kevin, continue to love you.
Yeah, I love you too.
You're welcome.
You'll always be my brother, no question.
Appreciate you having my back.
It's great to be in the first podcast here.
First interview.
First interview.
All right.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening.
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