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1:28

Sounds Music Radio podcasts,

1:31

Today. Are Russia editor speaks

1:33

to people in and around

1:36

Moscow who are growing disillusioned

1:38

with the war in Ukraine.

1:40

Despite the Kremlin's rhetoric in

1:42

Washington, a stalled military aid

1:44

package for Ukraine has exposed

1:46

the shop political divisions in

1:48

Congress. We hear how it's

1:50

failure to pause could incur

1:52

a far higher cost. We're

1:54

in Tbilisi, Georgia, where many

1:56

Russians have fled to avoid

1:58

the threat of can. description,

2:01

but welcome signs are hard to find.

2:04

And we go to a food market in

2:06

the Ukrainian port of Odessa, once

2:08

brimming with sausages, smoked cheese

2:10

and berries, and hear

2:13

how the war has taken its toll

2:15

on the lives of market traders there.

2:18

First, the second anniversary of

2:20

Russia's invasion of Ukraine this

2:22

weekend marks another grim milestone.

2:25

Admiral Odomiya Zelensky recently addressed world

2:27

leaders at a summit in Munich

2:29

to issue a warning that Ukraine

2:31

would be destroyed by Russia if

2:34

it's left to fight alone. This

2:37

came against the backdrop of news

2:39

that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn

2:41

from the eastern city of

2:43

Arvdivka, the site of a

2:45

months-long battle that has become a symbol

2:47

of the country's resistance to Russia. Sarah

2:51

Rainsford was in Ukraine when

2:53

Vladimir Putin first launched his

2:55

full-scale invasion two years ago,

2:57

reporting on the defiance and

2:59

rush to defend the country.

3:02

On a recent trip back, she found

3:04

a much more sombre mood. When

3:07

Russian soldiers fired a missile at Harkif

3:09

last month, perhaps they told

3:11

themselves they were fighting Ukrainian Nazis,

3:13

as Vladimir Putin had claimed. Maybe

3:16

they accepted another of his false

3:18

justifications for invading Ukraine that NATO

3:20

was an imminent threat on Russia's

3:23

border. In fact, their

3:25

missile killed seven people in their beds,

3:27

including a child. Most

3:29

will have been Russian speakers, like the soldiers. The

3:33

five-storey block of flats they hit was

3:35

identical to those that still stand all

3:37

over the former USSR, the

3:39

kind the soldiers' own families probably live in.

3:43

Two days after that strike on Harkif,

3:45

I found a family wandering among the

3:47

wreckage. They'd escaped death by

3:49

two minutes because they'd just stepped out of

3:52

their house when the missile hit. Now

3:54

Alastasia and her teenage daughter Marina were

3:57

searching through the slush and the mud

4:00

the scraps of their lives. They

4:02

just found Marina's birth certificate. And

4:05

somehow Anastasia was still smiling.

4:08

When I asked where she found the strength,

4:10

she hugged Marina close. It's because

4:12

we're here, she said. We're alive.

4:15

But Anastasia wanted the world to see

4:17

the destruction. She wanted

4:19

people to understand that Ukrainians are

4:21

standing up to Russia so that families in

4:23

Europe don't have to suffer like them. And

4:26

she said they still need help. We

4:29

need the weapons to shoot down

4:31

the missiles that attack our lovely,

4:33

cozy homes, Anastasia told me. It's

4:36

not only frontline soldiers who have run dangerously

4:38

low on shells. There's a shortage

4:40

of air defense systems too.

4:43

Harkiv is so close to

4:45

the Russian border that missiles land within

4:47

seconds. There's no time for an air

4:49

raid warning. When I

4:51

first visited the city right at the start of

4:53

the war, Russian forces were just a few kilometers

4:56

away and Harkiv was under

4:58

constant fire. I

5:00

found thousands of frightened people then living

5:02

underground on the Metro for safety. Pensioners

5:05

sleeping in train carriages, children

5:08

curled up on the platform. The

5:10

Russians were eventually pushed back, but

5:12

the danger never went away. Now

5:16

the mayor has taken a drastic decision.

5:18

He's building schools entirely

5:21

underground. I asked him

5:23

whether that meant Ukraine was at war for

5:25

the long term. We're forced to live with

5:27

these conditions, he told me carefully, and

5:30

we adapt, but we need to win as soon

5:32

as possible. The people of

5:35

Harkiv want that desperately too. I

5:37

met Natalia two years ago when she and

5:39

her daughter were fleeing to safety. But in

5:41

recent months, she told me their city had

5:43

been kicking back into life. Refugees

5:46

like her returning. Now

5:48

this new wave of missile attacks had

5:50

Harkiv on edge again. Natalia

5:53

and her friends were messaging each other,

5:55

she said, wondering whether they'd been stupid

5:57

to come back. She

5:59

grew up speaking Russian, like many in the

6:01

city, travelling back and forth across

6:03

the border. All

6:05

I feel now is anger and hatred,

6:08

Natalia told me. When my relatives

6:10

write from Russia, I just reply, glory

6:12

to Ukraine. And that's it. I've

6:16

never heard Ukrainians spoken so widely in Harkif,

6:18

as I did on my last trip there.

6:21

People are taking their Russian language books

6:23

for recycling, too. It's a

6:25

sign of how Vladimir Putin has bolstered

6:27

Ukraine's national identity by trying to wipe

6:30

it out. But

6:32

there is another shift, too, in the mood.

6:35

For the first time, I heard people question

6:38

the cost of this war, quietly

6:40

wondering how many more people will die

6:42

trying to retake territory seized by

6:44

Russia. It's just a

6:46

whisper, for now. Others, like

6:48

a woman from the occupied southeast, told me

6:51

in tears that people in her town

6:53

were still desperate to be liberated, even

6:55

with the Russian ruble now the currency

6:58

in their shops and Russian propaganda on

7:00

their airwaves. One night, Natalia

7:02

and I met in a bar, where for a

7:04

moment it felt like the war wasn't happening. There

7:07

was a karaoke side room, a band

7:09

on stage at the back, tables piled

7:11

with burgers and ribs. Before

7:14

long, the alarm vibrated on my phone.

7:17

Ballistic missile threat. No

7:19

one in the bar moved. In Harkif,

7:21

there's little you can do. They

7:24

call it the Unbreakable City, but

7:26

big parts of it are in tatters. The

7:29

hotel we used to stay at now has a

7:31

giant hole in the side. The

7:34

cafe opposite is still open behind

7:36

boarded up windows, but

7:38

a waiter who was on duty the day of

7:40

the attack admits that he struggles to sleep now.

7:43

He keeps hearing the sound of the missile careering

7:46

towards him. Harkif

7:48

is still resilient. It's still

7:50

defiant, but it is a

7:53

nervous place again, exhausted like

7:55

all of Ukraine. weekend's

8:00

Munich Security Conference, breaking news

8:02

sent shockwaves through the room,

8:05

that of the death of

8:07

the Russian opposition leader Alexei

8:09

Navalny in an arctic prison.

8:13

His defiance in the face of Vladimir

8:15

Putin's clampdown of any form of dissent

8:17

in Russia, even after

8:19

he'd been poisoned, was recognised and

8:22

honoured by many leaders around the

8:24

world. In Russia,

8:26

however, news outlets covered Mr Navalny's

8:28

death largely as a side note.

8:31

The Kremlin was equally muted. But

8:34

what about the Russian people? Steve

8:37

Rosenberg reflects on how Alexei

8:39

Navalny's death, along with the

8:41

invasion of Ukraine, has

8:43

shifted the outlook of many ordinary

8:45

Russians. In the

8:47

centre of Moscow is a monument to

8:50

the victims of political repression. It's

8:52

called the Solubyevsky Stone. It's

8:55

on Lubyanka Square, opposite

8:57

what was KGB central

8:59

office, and is now

9:01

the headquarters of Russia's current domestic

9:04

security service, the FSB. The

9:07

stone itself is a boulder

9:09

from a distant archipelago synonymous

9:11

with the Gulag, Joseph

9:13

Stalin's notorious network of prison

9:16

camps. Since Alexei

9:18

Navalny's death in a remote penal

9:20

colony, Muscovites have been

9:22

coming here to honour the memory

9:24

of Russia's most famous opposition leader.

9:27

I'm here on a bitterly cold winter's

9:30

evening. People are laying

9:32

flowers, lighting candles, and

9:34

standing in silent contemplation. Suddenly

9:37

they hear music. It's

9:39

coming from a mobile phone. 23-year-old

9:42

Anna Stasya is listening to

9:44

a famous Russian song called

9:46

Hope. She tells me why.

9:49

In his final Instagram post on February

9:51

14th, Anna Stasya says, in

9:54

which he expressed love for his wife Yulia,

9:56

Alexei Navalny had quoted lines from

9:59

this song. She

10:01

points out the police vans parked

10:03

nearby and the police officers looking

10:05

on. Here, they're not

10:07

preventing people from laying flowers, but

10:10

in recent days, across Russia,

10:12

hundreds of people have been

10:14

detained by police at events

10:16

commemorating Mr. Navalny. Detained

10:19

for grieving, Anastasia says,

10:22

before adding, I think Putin is

10:24

afraid. He was afraid of

10:26

Alexei Navalny when he was alive, and

10:29

he's still afraid. Now Navalny is dead.

10:32

On the day that Alexei Navalny's death

10:34

was announced, one of his supporters told

10:36

me, I'm in shock, just

10:39

like I was two years ago, when the

10:41

war started. It made

10:43

me think about everything that has

10:45

happened in Russia since President Putin

10:48

ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine,

10:50

two years of upheaval, tragedy

10:53

and bloodshed. From

10:55

the heavy casualties to the hundreds of

10:57

thousands of men drafted into the army.

11:00

From the shelling of Russian border

11:02

towns to the Wagner mercenaries marching

11:04

on Moscow. Their leader,

11:07

Yevgeniy Prokhozin, would die in a

11:09

plane crash two months later. And

11:12

now the death in prison

11:14

of Alexei Navalny. In

11:16

Russia, stability and predictability

11:19

have melted away like

11:21

snow in spring. True,

11:24

if you walk through the city centre, life

11:26

looks normal. Near the

11:29

Kremlin, I can see a large group on

11:31

a guided tour. Despite the

11:33

cold, parents are queuing up

11:35

with their children for the merry-go-round,

11:38

and street musicians are busking. I

11:40

get chatting here to a couple. Alexander

11:43

tells me that so much has

11:45

changed in two years. There

11:47

are bad vibes now, he says.

11:50

And the prices are bad. They're high. He

11:52

tells me that his family can't make

11:55

any long-term plans. His

11:57

wife, Kristina, conveys the same sentiment.

12:00

of uncertainty by quoting from

12:02

Master and Margarita, the famous

12:04

novel by Soviet writer Mikhail

12:07

Bulgarkov. Christina reminds me

12:09

that the mystical dark force

12:11

in that story, satanical

12:13

professor Wohland, had said this,

12:16

man is mortal, but that

12:19

would be only half the trouble. The

12:21

worst of it is that

12:23

he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal. Two

12:26

years ago, few here had

12:28

expected their president to launch

12:30

a mass invasion of Ukraine.

12:33

The official Kremlin narrative continues

12:35

to be that it wasn't

12:37

Russia that started this war. It

12:40

was the West which has been plotting to

12:42

destroy Russia, and some here

12:44

are still willing to accept

12:46

this alternative reality. And

12:49

yet, from the conversations I've had with

12:51

people in recent months, I've

12:53

come to the conclusion that most Russians

12:56

just want this war to be over. Although

12:59

few believe that they, as

13:01

individuals, have any power to

13:03

make that happen. I

13:05

recently visited the town of Adychovozhoyeva,

13:07

60 miles from Moscow.

13:10

Here, the giant mural of a

13:12

Russian officer killed in Ukraine stares

13:15

down at passers-by from the side

13:17

of an apartment block, at

13:19

a giant World War II memorial, his

13:22

portrait has been added to the

13:24

alley of heroes. As

13:26

if to support the Kremlin's claim

13:29

that Russia is defending the motherland

13:31

today, just like it defended it

13:33

in the Second World War. In

13:36

Adychovozhoyeva, I met a retired

13:38

teacher called Svetlana. The

13:40

main thing, Svetlana told me, is that

13:43

there shouldn't be any war. We

13:45

need to stop it. So I

13:47

asked Svetlana, what needs to be done then?

13:50

Svetlana had no suggestions. Oh,

13:53

she exclaimed, there are great minds

13:56

up there in power. But

13:59

I am not. nobody. Steve

14:02

Rosenberg. Over

14:04

recent months, the stalled passage of a $60

14:07

billion military aid package through

14:10

the US Congress has

14:12

heightened concerns that Washington's support for

14:14

Ukraine is on the wane. At

14:17

the start of the war, President

14:20

Biden took the lead in coordinating

14:22

the provision of international assistance to

14:24

Ukraine with strong bipartisan backing. To

14:28

date, the US has contributed just over

14:30

$75 billion

14:33

worth of support, far

14:35

exceeding international counterparts. Anthony

14:38

Zirka reflects on how the

14:40

current US position has changed

14:43

since his trip to Kiev in the

14:45

weeks before the Russian invasion began, and

14:48

what that could mean for the future. Just

14:52

over two years ago, I was in Ukraine

14:54

as part of US Secretary of State Antony

14:56

Blinken's press pool. The visit

14:58

was a last-ditch American diplomatic effort

15:01

to avert an invasion that seemed

15:03

inevitable, but that the Russians were

15:06

still adamantly denying. As

15:08

we traveled around Kiev in government

15:10

vans, I was struck how normal

15:12

everything looked. Ukrainians went

15:14

about their daily business seemingly in denial,

15:16

oblivious even, to the fact that hundreds

15:19

of thousands of troops were massed on

15:21

their country's northern and eastern borders. During

15:24

one of these rides, a US State

15:26

Department diplomat told me about the intense

15:29

propaganda campaign the Russians had been conducting

15:31

in Ukraine. They were saying

15:33

that the US would not be a reliable

15:35

friend. America and its

15:38

allies were using Ukraine as a

15:40

pawn in a larger battle, a

15:42

pawn that would eventually be sacrificed.

15:45

They pointed to the chaotic US

15:47

withdrawal from Afghanistan as a harbinger

15:49

of Ukraine's fate, that the Ukrainians

15:52

would ultimately be abandoned as American

15:54

attention turned elsewhere. It

15:56

was an accusation US officials

15:58

vehemently denied. But here

16:01

we are, two years later, and

16:03

the spigots of American aid to

16:05

Ukraine have run dry, the result

16:07

of a legislative logjam imposed by

16:09

Republican leaders in the US House

16:11

of Representatives. It's a blockade

16:13

that shows no signs of being resolved.

16:16

This lapse in US support has

16:18

prompted dire warnings from President Joe

16:20

Biden, Democratic politicians, and the Republicans

16:23

who continue to view Ukraine aid

16:25

as a foreign policy imperative. Last

16:28

week, Mr. Biden said that abandoning

16:30

Ukraine plays into Vladimir Putin's hands.

16:33

We can't walk away now, he said.

16:36

White House officials have warned that

16:38

without US support, Ukraine's defenses will

16:40

falter, the first example being

16:43

the recent Ukrainian withdrawal from the town

16:45

of Avdivka. In a

16:47

recent Pew Research survey, nearly three-quarters

16:49

of Americans said the Ukraine war

16:51

was important to US national interests,

16:53

with just under half saying it

16:55

was very important. But

16:57

behind these numbers is a sharp

16:59

partisan divide. In a

17:02

December Pew poll, more than half

17:04

of self-identified Republicans said the US

17:06

was providing too much aid to

17:08

Ukraine. This sentiment has been

17:11

reflected in recent congressional debates over a

17:13

legislative package that includes $60 billion

17:15

in new support for Ukraine.

17:19

Republicans who oppose the spending say the

17:21

US should focus on domestic issues, that

17:23

Ukraine wasted the more than $100 billion

17:26

the US has already sent,

17:28

that helping Ukraine is pointless

17:30

because eventually Russia will prevail.

17:33

Those arguments proved unconvincing to a majority

17:35

in the Senate, and there appears to

17:37

be a majority in the House that

17:39

supports Ukraine aid as well. The

17:42

challenge is that Ukraine aid may never

17:44

even come to a vote in that

17:46

chamber. There is a

17:48

vocal group of House Republicans who vehemently

17:51

oppose new aid, and who's backing Republican

17:53

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson needs

17:55

if he wants to keep his job.

17:58

There are parliamentary maneuvers Ukraine's

18:00

supporters can try in the

18:02

chamber, but the obstacles are

18:04

significant and time-consuming, and

18:06

time is running out. Looming over

18:08

the entire debate is the prospect that Donald

18:10

Trump could win back the White House in

18:12

November. The former president has said that

18:15

he could end the war in one day, a promise

18:17

few foreign policy experts take seriously.

18:20

More concerning to Ukraine supporters were

18:22

Trump's recent comments that Russia could

18:24

do, quote, whatever the hell they

18:26

want to members of NATO who

18:28

didn't spend enough on military defense.

18:31

If the former president is so indifferent

18:33

towards standing by allies the US is

18:35

committed by treaty to defend, how

18:37

concerned could he be with those the

18:39

US has not formally pledged to support,

18:41

like Ukraine? I've asked US

18:44

officials what they're telling American allies who

18:46

are certainly worried about what could be

18:48

an American foreign policy handbrake turn if

18:50

Mr. Trump were to win back the

18:52

Oval Office. They've told

18:54

me that the US and its foreign

18:56

partners are putting domestic US politics aside

18:58

and focusing on doing what they can

19:00

to help Ukraine right now. I

19:03

suspect that may be a less than

19:05

honest answer. Ukraine's

19:07

future likely hangs on how

19:09

current American domestic political divisions

19:11

are resolved. There are

19:14

some who remain optimistic that the

19:16

US will eventually find a way

19:18

to continue to support Ukraine's war

19:20

efforts because the consequences of failure

19:22

are too great. Perhaps

19:24

they are right or perhaps they are

19:26

as oblivious as the Ukrainians I watched

19:28

on the streets of Kiev two

19:31

years ago. Anthony

19:33

Zirka. Georgia has

19:35

become a prime destination for Russians

19:37

fleeing the war with Ukraine, especially

19:40

the threat of conscription. A

19:43

small country, compared to its giant

19:45

neighbour, the sudden arrival of tens

19:48

of thousands of Russians has proved

19:50

overwhelming at times. And

19:52

given Georgia's own past conflict with

19:54

Russia, not everyone is happy to

19:56

see them. been

20:00

exploring the tensions. The

20:03

moment you set foot in the Belisi,

20:05

it's difficult not to notice that you

20:07

hear Russian spoken everywhere you go, or

20:10

that there are Russian car number plates

20:12

on almost every street. Tens

20:14

of thousands of Russians have settled

20:17

in Georgia following Russia's invasion of

20:19

Ukraine, swelling Georgia's small

20:22

population. And what

20:24

do they see when they arrive? First,

20:26

staring them right in the

20:28

face, are the anti-Russian slogans

20:30

graffitied in abundance on buildings

20:32

across the capital. Death

20:35

to Russians, proclaims one. Russians

20:38

are not welcome here, says another. Good

20:41

or bad. In this

20:43

time of war, the term good

20:45

Russians means those who do not

20:48

support President Putin's so-called special military

20:50

operation. And bad Russians? Well,

20:53

you can guess. The blue

20:55

and yellow of the Ukrainian flag is

20:57

everywhere. Painted on shop

21:00

fronts, hanging from balconies, even

21:02

on lampposts. So

21:04

are Ukrainian patriotic slogans. Glory

21:06

to Ukraine, death to the

21:08

enemy are scrawled in walls.

21:11

I found this somewhat surprising given

21:13

that Georgia's current government is quite

21:15

friendly towards Russia. But

21:17

I saw messages from Georgians to their own government

21:20

too. Do not suck

21:22

up to Russia is an approximate

21:24

but at least broadcastable translation of

21:26

one poster I saw. It

21:28

was in a placard being carried by

21:30

a group of teenagers protesting outside a

21:33

government building. Another placard

21:35

proclaimed Russia is a terrorist

21:37

state. You can understand why

21:39

Russians are coming to Georgia. Many

21:41

are fleeing to avoid being drafted into

21:44

the Russian army and forced to kill

21:46

or be killed in Ukraine. When

21:48

Vladimir Putin declared his partial military

21:51

mobilization, thousands descended on

21:53

the border with Georgia, many

21:55

spent days queuing to cross. Better

21:58

off Russians have come here to avoid the

22:00

worsening economic climate at home. Others

22:03

told me they found it increasingly hard

22:05

to stay in the stiflingly repressive environment

22:07

there. Georgia's rich

22:09

culture and vibrant nightlife all

22:11

make this country an attractive

22:14

refuge. So does the

22:16

fact that Russians don't need a visa

22:18

to come here, although that's a deep

22:20

source of anger to many Georgians, who

22:22

resent the fact that until fairly recently,

22:24

Georgians did need visas to visit Russia.

22:27

There is of course one very good

22:29

reason why ordinary Georgians side with Ukraine.

22:32

In August 2008, Georgia lost

22:34

about 20% of its own territory

22:36

to Russian-backed separatists after a brief

22:39

war with Russia. Coincidentally,

22:41

this is about as much territory as

22:43

Ukraine has lost to Russia 15 years

22:45

later. There

22:47

are still thousands of displaced people,

22:49

an ever-present reminder of what it

22:51

has lost. Thousands

22:54

of hostility towards Russians can be seen

22:56

in the most unexpected places. In

22:59

a bar, I was surprised to find

23:01

leaflets on every table. In Russian, addressed

23:03

to Russians in general, which read, While

23:06

you're having fun here, your army

23:08

is killing and raping people in

23:10

Ukraine. Every Russian, the

23:12

leaflets went on, bears responsibility for

23:14

that. I glanced over

23:16

to a nearby table where a group

23:19

of Russian diners were chatting and laughing

23:21

beneath a huge Ukrainian flag. Oblivious,

23:23

it seemed, to the stark message. I

23:26

honestly hate going up because of it, a

23:29

Georgian friend who works as an interpreter told

23:31

me. I hate seeing them

23:33

enjoying my country, she said, while their

23:35

fellow Russians are killing people in Ukraine.

23:38

But other Russian migrants here are trying to

23:41

show they don't support the war. In

23:43

Dbilisi, I met an old friend, a journalist

23:46

from Moscow. She booked a

23:48

flight to Georgia on the day Russia

23:50

invaded Ukraine, and has been there ever

23:52

since. She told me that

23:54

many of the Russians she knew in Georgia

23:56

opposed what Vladimir Putin was doing. Some

23:59

had helped raise money. for Ukrainian refugees, she

24:01

said. She herself has been

24:03

to anti-war rallies in Belisi, along with

24:05

other Russians. So how

24:07

does she feel when she sees all

24:10

the anti-Russian graffiti in Belisi, I asked?

24:12

I feel uncomfortable, she said. She sounded

24:15

worried. I know I'm not welcome

24:17

here, she said. I know I

24:20

can't stay. Vitaly

24:23

Shevchenko. Since

24:25

Russia's invasion, more than six

24:27

million Ukrainians have sought refuge

24:30

overseas, and millions more

24:32

have been internally displaced as a result

24:34

of a war. There

24:36

are also many people who have stayed

24:38

put, determined to carry on living their

24:40

lives as they've always done. Dubbed

24:43

the breadbasket of Europe, many Ukrainians

24:46

earn their living growing and selling

24:48

food, and while the country's

24:50

agriculture industry has been upended over

24:52

the past two years, there are

24:55

people striving to keep it alive,

24:57

as Caroline Eden discovered on a

24:59

trip to a market in Ukraine's

25:01

southern port of Odessa. In

25:04

Odessa, a port city on the Black

25:06

Sea, made wealthy by grain and trade,

25:09

food has long told the story of

25:11

its history and collective desires, and

25:14

no more so than at Privoz, one

25:17

of the country's largest food markets, where

25:19

Odessans have shopped since 1827. I first sold

25:24

my own shopping bags there in the summer of

25:26

2016. Squeezing past tables

25:28

of curled sausages, local micardo

25:30

tomatoes, and displays of barnacle

25:33

covered flounder, I tasted

25:35

various types of smoked cheese proffered

25:37

on knife blades by women in

25:39

frilly aprons. The

25:41

atmosphere was roaring, cheerful, busy,

25:43

and every conceivable smell permeated

25:46

the air. Tobacco,

25:48

fish, meat, cheese, and

25:50

sunripe and fruit. Today,

25:53

as another long wartime winter grinds

25:55

to an end in Ukraine, I

25:58

return to Privoz to speak again. to

26:00

the market traders. Predictably, I found

26:02

a very different scene. The

26:05

usually crowded halls hushed and subdued.

26:08

At one counter, Tassiana, dressed all in

26:10

black and with silver hoop earrings, explained

26:13

how business was going as she rearranged different

26:15

cups of pork laid out before her. She

26:18

has meat to sell, she began,

26:20

but not enough customers. Many

26:23

of her clients are away fighting or have

26:25

left for Poland or Moldova. The

26:28

restaurants she sells to are open in

26:30

Odessa, but they only have half the trade.

26:34

Everyone at Privoz stands around eating

26:36

rather than selling, she added. Outside,

26:39

by lorries, unloading root vegetables

26:41

from northern Ukraine, tangerines from

26:43

Turkey and pomegranates from Azerbaijan,

26:46

the truckers too have had to adapt. Now,

26:49

fruit and porters from Azerbaijan in the

26:51

South Caucasus, for example, ship

26:54

across the Black Sea from Georgia to

26:56

the Romanian ports of Konstanza, carrying

26:58

on into Ukraine by road, rather than shipping

27:00

straight to the port of Odessa, which has

27:02

become a target. In

27:05

another section of the market, I stopped to talk

27:07

to Svetlana, who pulled back a

27:09

knitted cover revealing a huge

27:11

bucket containing several kilos of

27:13

live crayfish. Picking

27:15

them up gently, she moved the crustaceans

27:18

about, swapping them back and forth towards

27:20

a plastic bottle of ice to keep them

27:22

cool and fresh. People

27:24

love crayfish, she tells me, boiling

27:27

them with salt and dried herbs. But

27:29

the problem is they are traditionally a

27:32

party food and nobody is celebrating now.

27:35

She used to transport them all around

27:37

the country, but now she only sells

27:39

to keep, and the profit from exporting

27:41

these live delicacies to Turkey has disappeared

27:43

entirely as no aeroplanes are coming in.

27:46

Sitting on a stall next to Svetlana,

27:49

Mikhail is also selling crayfish as he has done

27:51

for the past 15 years. They

27:54

both only stopped work at the beginning of

27:56

the war for a month, he says, and

27:58

despite the severe downturn in business, neither

28:00

has ever planned to leave Ukraine.

28:03

I've got a husband and a son here and

28:06

my business, Svetlana says. I

28:09

move on to try and find a particular

28:11

stall vendor I remember buying condiments from years

28:13

ago. She has left Ukraine, I

28:15

was told, and returned to the mountains

28:17

of Georgia. Her relatives

28:19

though who I do meet are continuing

28:21

their family business of selling Georgian spices

28:24

and tangy plum sauces. After

28:26

I left the market, a Russian

28:28

drone hit a new apartment block

28:31

at Odessa's Arcadia beach. Then

28:33

at 4.30am the next day I

28:36

was woken up by a siren from the

28:38

air raid warning app on my phone as

28:40

a barrage of missiles hit Kiev and Lviv,

28:43

but thankfully not the Odessa region. As

28:46

I sat in the shelter I wondered

28:49

if Svetlana, the crayfish seller, had moved

28:51

with her child to safety. She

28:54

told me that she doesn't take chances and

28:56

sometimes retreats to the markets underground car park

28:58

when an alarm sounds, that Mikhail,

29:00

her friend, told me he only takes

29:03

cover occasionally now. It

29:05

is extremely hard to lead a normal

29:07

life when most days there are such

29:09

warnings. Two years

29:11

on people take more chances, staying

29:14

in bed or continuing to work and

29:17

hoping for the best. Caroline

29:19

Eden and that's all for

29:21

today. We'll be back again next week on

29:24

both Thursday and Saturday mornings.

29:27

Do join us. Hello, it's Amol

29:29

Rajan here and it's Nick Robinson and we

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want to tell you about The Today podcast

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