It's now a pleasure to welcome Mikhail Yakovenko, who is still remaining in Kyiv. It's a great pleasure to have you with us. Mikhail, what can you tell us about the current situation in the capital of Ukraine? Current situation? The capital of Ukraine, Kiev, is now free. We haven't any artillery shielding. Now I'm here on the northern part of Kyiv, and it's maybe the most favorite place in Kyiv. Maybe from news you know about Bucha, Erpen, Vyshgorod, it's the It's the north-east and west-north part of North Kyiv and this little city near Kyiv. And now it's not sound, but from my window, I can hear it. And in the night, sometimes it's very loud, the sounds of artillery. For the civilian and not military citizens, it's now pretty fine. Yes, now we have all of the shops with foods, they are opened. We have maybe one of three banks is on, and we have cash for our food. We have all of the communities. It's about gas, electricity, cell phones, Wi-Fi. It's all on. It's with little, little stops, but it's good. Maybe, if you wish, I can show you how it looks from my window. Now you see a few people. For sometimes, it's... now you see a few people, for sometimes it's... a little, a little cars, you see, if you see, and... sometimes for half of hours we have... buses, subways... working at 70-80 persons without bridges, it trains come for 20-30 minutes. Yes. But later I will show you photos, most of the subway station are the, say, how it's in English... Safety from bombs. Shelter, yeah, shelter. Yeah, yeah, shelters. There are a lot of people on the platform, on stations, when it's... stations when it's when it's bombing or artillery sounds that's why we are in Kiev we are in Ukrainian world I don't know. We are in safe. Maybe I can say that in Kyiv we are in safe, but it's not about another cities. That's all about the situation for now. That's all about the situation for now. That means you can trust in military defense forces to stay safe in Kiev? Yes, Martin. I will ask not my opinion. It's about numbers. it's about numbers in Ukraine last night on Dvov was a rocket launching from Black Sea And 70 or 72 of them were killed by our air defense. Yes, and rockets were taken to Lvov. There were only six. Only six. And it's about working of our air defense. It's a matter of trust. In the meantime, a lot of Ukrainian people even have left the country. Yes. Can you give us your personal opinion why do you stay? Why do I stay? Some people haven't any personal places to go. Some of them go to I don't know how to say it in English. They have, except city flats, they have little houses in other places. Some of them have parents or brothers in Kiev, in the western areas of Ukraine. Now, for example, my daughter is now evacuated to the Chernobyl district. Chernobyl, Chernevtsi, it's west side of Ukraine. There are no Russian armies there. From the numbers, if I knew, it's 6 or 7 millions people from Ukraine now are out of border Ukraine, in Poland, in Czechia and Romania Hungary and the whole number of people who moved from their cities flats, homes it's about 40 or 45% of 40 millions people in Ukraine. Yeah, it's 20 millions of people in Ukraine, moved from their army areas, from the army areas where are bombing and shooting. It's a huge number of people. I can tell that in our preparations for this talk you highlighted and you were drawing my attention on the dangerous fact that the nuclear power plant of Chernobyl has already been occupied by the Russian army forces. What do you mean? Which sort of threats should we face? Sort of threats about dangerous yeah there are this all of this we called in Chernobyl this radioactive area is Zon Vichuzhina and this all of this area Zon Vichuzhina. And all of this area, Zon Vityuzhina, are all occupied with the Russian army. Now, they are some sort of idiots because they are digging their holes. I don't know how to... In English, but they wanted to stop it. And they make a corridor from Belarus to take the army to Kiev and now to Chernigov. It's very corridors. About nuclear station, there are two objects except nuclear station. It's a wreckage of radioactive technique that was made in 1986, when the Chernobyl state is banked. It's the first object except nuclear station. And the second is places where they saved radioactive waste from the station. They all need all time. It's some underwater shelter, where water is freezing with some walls. And we need to be 24 hours a day. We need to circulate water. It needs electricity. And we lived maybe a week thinking about that Russian army cut electricity from these shelters. You understand? Water in these shelters can be boiled, and this vapor, this radioactive can can put in the air it's only 60 kilometers from chernobyl to kiev the one of the dangerous of ways except with yeah except with waste shelter radioactive. Where... from all of this area radioactive, is with foresters. Foresters also with radioactive nuclear.... radioactive... Nucleus. And now... there are a fire in the forest. And the smoke of this, now... not to Kiev, but it... but there are a 9,000, 1,000 or 2,000 hectares of forest are now at fire and smoke, of coming to Kiev, Kiev, Kiev. It's not to Kiev, but to the rivers near Kiev. It's the first. And we need to... I don't know how to say it in English, but it's very dangerous. Now the wind is not to the... not blowing to the cities. But we haven't any possibility to blow this fire. Where are staying Russian occupation? And now we are living and waiting where the winter from this fire and forest blow. This is the situation. with fire and forest blow. That is the situation. I can add only what, if you don't strictly know what Chernobyl was in Kiev in 1986, when Chernobyl blows, it was very scared. And for fact you can see the English serial about it. It's Chernobyl. It's made by British Cinematics in 2019. If you want to know what is Chernobyl, it's very dangerous. So let's come to another topic. It's interesting because in the European Union, your president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is actually considered a hero. A hero of the war. He's doing a great job. He's very, very skilled in information and media issues. and media issues. He is everywhere to see and everywhere invited to a lot of parliaments of national member states of the EU. How do you regard your president? What does your president mean to you? How can you describe the president of the Ukraine for you personally? For me personally? of Ukrainian people. Yeah, we maybe... Okay, I'll remember another words of... Say about your question. Who is Volodymyr Zelenskyy for me? For me, it's our president. For me, it's a hero not only on the words. He is staying now in Kiev. And I can say that situation stands on 24, on 28th of February, when it's Russian invaders camps. It was very dangerous situation and he stands in Kiev, in the government's block on the Kiev for all this time and all of his military men about him said that he can be evacuated, he can be in safe and he said no and for now he is in Kiev and you can see on the official government channels, his everyday videos, when he says to the world, and he says to our Ukra... for me as Ukrainian, he says that he is with us, he is making all to make simpler our whole life in now. It's about simple numbers. He raised up for 10, something, to 15 persons, pension for the old men. All of the pensions and pays now for them are stable. My parents were 70 years old. They have money for living, for buying food, in war time. And it's about Zelensky, about what he did.... about him, it's about... about his... heading our army. Our army is not so good in its armours. I will read you some notes that I make in more good English, yes, that we need. But our army is poor, but our armours. We have now rockets in our aircraft defendants. We have now heavy armors that we don't... heavy armors that we can use from the tanks, from the naval techniques. Not in the situation where we need to save Marines' life. Yeah? We need a heavy armor. And Zelensky, for now, make a very big deal with dialogue with another countries to give this armor to our militaries. It's a great job. It's a very great job because Putin is now forced in our countries that he made his nuclear bombs and Putin says that NATO and European Union stay away. It's my only work with Ukraine. And after this pressure, Zelensky made a dialogue with your politicians. I know that you have a fear about these nuclear weapons. I understand you very much. We are also feared about it. But maybe it's our plus that we in this war, we are ready for this war. Because in 2014 we have the first time of this war without nuclear weapons about us. But we know if Russia has this weapon, he will force it with them about all over the world. And now we have lived the first shock in 2040 and we are ready for it. I know that it's very scary. I don't know what you feel, but I understand you when you think about the possibility of the second Chernobyl or about words of Putin about his nuclear bombs. It's very scary. And it's a great job of Zelensky we loved him for his jobs, for the dialoguing of with all in our world for helping us and for heading our armies to protect our people what I said about hero Zelensky as a citizen. We all hope that this terrible war will soon be over and it's interesting to learn how do you already look into your nearer future? What do you expect after this war? How can a society like the Ukrainian one peacefully come back into a new daily life with all these distractions and all these lost people and all this trauma. Do you already have an idea how that could work? About nearest and far future. Yes, in our social webs, in Facebook, in our communities... now, we... parallel to our volunteers work, yes, with food, with armor for army, we are... looking for the... another ways, that we will grow after this war. We know that we already win the first step in this war. Yes. There are no Putin's blitzkrieg. There are no his armored armored faked governments in our district centers, yes, we know it's our great win. But we know that maybe it's one of the 20 or 30 steps when we have to make for the future. Why I said about this long work? Because it's like a copy what we have in 2040. When we... and we remember this history, that's why we know what we have to make in our way. We are looking at, I will say it's by steps here, about me. by steps, yeah. About me, I... I worked myself, I have a society around me. So I have some... some... some big information, yeah, about... about world, about economic and about what we have to... for... for this future. Yeah, we are... we are prepared for it. We were prepared for it, because we are... we lived in the waiting for this second war. If you are... It's without... Without translation, but if you find somewhere, where one of... Okay, in other words, there is a man in the second name, Okay, I'll say another word. There is a man in the second name, Alexei Aristovich. He is near Volodymyr Zelensky, and he is a war military Soviet. And here are our strategic men who said about the future of our war and about plans of Putin. We know that we have to fix all of these war crimes that we have now. And now we are made a site where we are fixed site when we are fix it for the international tribunal it's the first then we have to pay back all of for all of he is destroyed now in Ukraine, they are planning to get these paybacks for us and to rebuild our country. If we don't have this money, that's why they can give us technologies, they are specialists, they are gas, they are oil. We will rebuild our country and for our economics we will strengthen our army. Because now we are strictly north. We are living like, I don't know this word, funeral, near the camp with the crimes. And we have to know that there is no human dialogue with that man on our side of the border of the Russian Federation. That's why the second after we built our economy, our cities, our homes, we want to strengthen our army. And now we have a professional army that has an open... It's a professional army, because we have a past from the 20th, 14th, we have a lot of men who can... it... who can stop this war. That's why we are know that we are win, That's why we know that we are winning, because we have people who know why we are to minimize the economics and establishment weeks of our government. Now we have an electronic apps for our smartphones, for having documents for fix these war crimes. It's called Electronic Kyiv. I have it on my smartphone and I know when aircraft defense saying us go to the shelters and in other ways we have a pace repace our pensions for we can fix in these apps we are want to make a up-to-date government and to government and to rise economy with minimize this bureaucratic gaps about the people and governments it's our plan we know that all of this corruption all of these thieves in government when stays here, we haven't in wartime time to think about their crimes. But we all remember it and we all will fix it. When the war with ends, we want to set them to the places, not in government. This is a strong plans, because if they, they people, that people, that want to receive the money from our old people, want to receive money on our borders, want receive money from the helping from the World and European Union. We want to take crimes. All the people know about it, and to have war in the way our place out of our governments. That's our plans. And we are step by step making our future for now. We want to help our people. We are going to volunteers. Yes, for now I'm... for now I... I find some things for the volunteers on our railway station, where the human... human... humanitary...... I don't know this word, maybe you know, the... Red Cross organization were. Yes, they are putting a... helping... trains on this railway station. Yes, and volunteers need were for... for sanitizers for these things yes i came we came from one way uh and uh after our interview i will uh go to railway station to give them with helping yes uh we are like like so some people in Ukraine and out of Ukraine says Ukrainians are like ants, or bees. Yes, we are little people in one by one, but we are together. And make make help what we can. But in summary, all of the results is great. And you see these results. We don't need advertising and another word to say. We do what we can and we have great results. And we are very thankful for helping us. Many thanks, Mikhail. I really appreciate your courage and your confidence into your future. It's great to hear. Many thanks for this talk i hope we all hope that you will stay safe and yeah just keep in mind our solidarity and we probably keep in contact and yeah wish you a nice day in Kyiv. I was glad to give you an interview I promise you saying about with photos what I say you and some another text but maybe another time but no we had we talked it's already finished yeah we talked about 34 minutes I have all your pictures I will edit yeah I will add the pictures in the post production whenever I think it could match to what you're saying that would be great yeah thank you very much Michael and all the best to Kiev bye bye thank you