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Support for NPR and the following message

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come from Orion Pictures with women

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playing only in theaters. Tickets

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0:13

Ready? Ready. Hey.

0:15

Do you have any stuff translate? Wow.

0:18

Man, this is rough translation. I'm

0:20

Gregory

0:21

Warner, and bad voice is

0:23

Mollie Mollie Webster. Mollie Webster of

0:25

Radio Lab is here with me in the studio because

0:27

we have been working on this collaboration

0:29

has been months in the making that

0:32

kinda sits at the intersection of

0:34

both our

0:35

shows. Yeah. But I won't say anything more about

0:37

that. We'll find out why.

0:39

Just a heads up, this episode does

0:41

deal with some sensitive issues, including

0:44

sexual violence and

0:45

war.

0:46

And it comes to us from a colleague that

0:48

both of us have worked with. A colleague who

0:50

was telling us a number of stories about Ukraine

0:53

and one of them just leapt out

0:55

to us It starts with this woman,

0:57

if Gania, she's Ukrainian, and

0:59

she moved back to Ukraine two

1:02

days after the full

1:04

scale

1:04

invasion. So late February.

1:05

She moved to Ukraine. Yeah. And within

1:08

days of being on the ground in Ukraine, she had

1:10

set up an NGO. And the NGO was all

1:12

about getting supplies to

1:15

Ukrainians during the war. A lot

1:17

of times it had to do with medical supplies. And

1:19

so she would use Facebook. Here's the list

1:21

of men's or generator or whatever.

1:23

Then people was like, yeah, let's help.

1:25

And she'd throw out these requests, and

1:28

she would just see, like donations would come rolling

1:30

in and it was amazing to her.

1:32

And then one day, I

1:35

made a post. We're looking for money to

1:37

buy a body bags.

1:39

We just understood that it's not enough

1:41

body bags in

1:42

Ukraine. For Ukrainian soldiers.

1:44

For anyone. Every human

1:47

being have to be passed in a normal

1:49

way. But this post, it's like a

1:51

two or three, two and a half likes. It actually

1:53

only gets like five likes

1:56

and two

1:57

sad, dear emojis. And

2:00

not enough donations. It's

2:01

like people didn't donate just

2:03

because they didn't wanna be associated with body

2:06

bags? Yeah. It's like you

2:08

can't donate a body bag or

2:10

even think about a body bag donation without

2:14

thinking, oh god, we're out of body

2:16

bags. Like, you know, if someone's asking for

2:18

two hundred body

2:18

bags, that's two hundred dead. But somebody

2:20

need to do this, you know. That that's life. This

2:24

is rough translation. Some kinds of donations

2:27

are not made for Facebook. They have

2:29

to be done in the shadows or in

2:31

secret. We were not aiming to achieve

2:33

something that was illegal. Today, a

2:35

story about one such donation to Ukraine

2:38

of a lifesaving drug in a legal gray

2:40

zone that everyone involved with has

2:42

been worried about talking about until

2:44

now. This is actually kind of crazy what we

2:46

did there.

2:46

was very proud and in love. That

2:49

clouded my judgment.

2:51

Because you understand what you're doing, but you're

2:53

ready for the punishment to

2:56

protect people's

2:57

identities. We're not using last names or

2:59

sometimes any names at all. This

3:01

story is a two parter. We're dropping episode

3:03

two next

3:04

week. In this first part, a covert

3:06

operation and a chain of strangers

3:09

where

3:09

everyone would have to decide how far

3:11

they could go and who of them to trust

3:14

At this point, I'm convinced we're

3:16

getting screwed over.

3:18

But what if the weakest link is

3:21

you? Our

3:23

story today comes from Katz Laslow.

3:26

She is a European reporter. She

3:28

is in fact the colleague that first told me

3:30

about the story of Iglenia

3:33

and the body bags. And

3:35

today, she's going to start in

3:37

Germany with a couple and a

3:39

question. Yeah. Here's cats. When

3:42

does the story start for you?

3:45

Well, really, with the beginning of

3:47

the Russian invasion in

3:48

Ukraine, This is Vicki.

3:51

I made quite a deliberate decision to

3:53

tell you slowly.

3:54

And this is her boyfriend Ari.

3:56

Because I knew that your family was there.

3:58

They live in Germany, but Vicki actually has

4:00

roots all across the former Soviet Union,

4:02

and she's still got family in

4:04

Ukraine.

4:05

Of course, then you think If some

4:07

things would have shifted in my biography, it

4:09

would be me or my mother there. This

4:11

is the biggest humanitarian

4:13

crisis in Europe in eighty years.

4:16

They were young people all over Europe

4:18

calling their grandparents asking, what

4:21

do we do? And the only

4:23

way I

4:24

managed to handle

4:27

it was to get active. Vicki

4:29

walks down the street and there's this closed

4:31

night club, which has become this place where

4:33

people are just like scrambling to organize donations

4:36

that are flooding in. And then I started

4:38

sorting through boxes in the

4:41

donation center. I ended up in the

4:43

medication corner and most people

4:46

who were sorting through it had no idea what

4:48

these medications actually are. Vicki is actually

4:50

a doctor So she knows

4:52

what everything is. I like to

4:54

make things more organized. She is

4:56

someone who makes excel spreadsheets that

4:58

are beautiful. And

5:00

after me, like, sorting through boxes for, like,

5:03

eight hours or something, somebody

5:05

said, ah, we are actually We

5:07

heard that your doctor and tomorrow we are

5:09

going with a big convoy of cars to

5:11

the Polish Ukrainian border. We're gonna

5:13

go we don't know what's gonna happen, and then

5:15

oh, it would be good to have a doctor on

5:17

board, but if not, we'll figure it out.

5:19

So she calls a bunch of friends who actually

5:21

work for international aid organizations, and

5:24

she asks Should I go? They

5:26

said no, but we really strongly advise against

5:29

this and and

5:31

and you're just messing up with the

5:33

official structures. If private

5:35

people are blocking the roads, and

5:38

and this just creates more chaos. Hundreds

5:40

of thousands of people are pouring

5:43

over the Ukrainian border. Which is

5:45

only a nine hour drive away. And

5:48

Vicky really wants to help. I decided the

5:50

next morning under the shower. Okay. Screwed

5:53

I'm gonna go, but she feels totally

5:55

unprepared. I had a bit of a stomach ache

5:57

when we drove there thinking, god, like, I'm

6:00

Now driving there, thinking I can do something

6:02

here, and we are gonna be traffic for

6:05

the big guys now coming in. She's picturing

6:07

the Polish Ukrainian border And what

6:09

she's imagining is, like, food distribution

6:12

trends, major NGO flags,

6:14

like, I don't know, Unicef or Unicef, or

6:16

Unicef, or just

6:18

one of the big organizations or NGOs, and

6:20

they were not

6:21

there.

6:22

When she finally gets to the border, Vicki

6:24

sees There's no one I

6:30

spent a fair amount of hours at one

6:32

border crossing into the night to really see

6:34

some grandmother or

6:35

mother, like, steering a pot and packaging

6:37

it into, like, warm soups,

6:40

warm this, like, these

6:42

potash women were standing there the

6:44

whole night. And this was

6:46

like all these warms that the

6:48

people fleeing received, all

6:51

of these people refugees who

6:53

are just outside. It's

6:55

below freezing and they're either

6:58

stuck waiting for transport deeper into

7:00

Europe. Or if a family

7:02

that's still on the other side and they can't see

7:04

them and they don't know where they are. And

7:06

there's nobody official saying, you know,

7:08

you made it. This is your next step. This

7:11

was

7:11

around, like, eight or nine days after the war. So

7:13

I mean, you could say this is understandable.

7:17

All the organizations are doing assessment. We

7:19

are assessing assessing. This is what you would hear,

7:21

but it also made me really angry because,

7:23

you

7:24

know, I mean, this is a no brainer

7:26

to know that if it gets to minus ten degrees

7:28

at night at the border that you need something to keep

7:30

the people warm.

7:33

And I think this was

7:36

really one of the moments where I thought,

7:38

like,

7:40

we are not traffic here. Private people

7:42

are not traffic. They are the solution at the

7:43

moment. And so Vicky decides

7:45

to step in, but all the way in. She

7:47

kinda blows off her job. She throws herself

7:50

completely into volunteering.

7:51

After five or six weeks, she's completely

7:54

wiped out. I was in bed

7:56

with high fever. I really shivers

7:59

She gets COVID, and I

8:01

was laying a bed sort of scrolling through,

8:03

I think, twenty kilograms,

8:06

WhatsApp, Signal Facebook

8:09

groups, all volunteers.

8:11

And this is also where all requests were sort

8:13

of flying around. And then I read

8:18

they're urgently looking for abortion

8:20

pills for

8:23

women who were raped by

8:26

Russian soldiers. This

8:28

was a week after all the news broke about

8:30

Búcha. These requests coming

8:33

the week that all

8:36

of those really grim photos

8:38

from Búcha came out of

8:40

dead bodies being left in the middle of

8:42

roads stories of Russian soldiers

8:45

using sexual violence as a weapon.

8:48

Just in that week, at least twenty

8:50

five people came forward and shared

8:52

firsthand how they'd been raped while

8:54

trapped in basements in Mucha. Rape

8:57

as a weapon has been confirmed in

8:59

every occupied territory

9:01

since. And Butch's liberation, it

9:04

was the first time that people outside of these

9:06

occupied territories really found

9:08

out. I

9:11

mean, this was shock relief for everyone. Right?

9:13

Like, reading the news. Like, we had, like,

9:16

faces to that. We were everyday

9:18

in contact with Ukrainian women. These

9:21

very proud and strong women that kind of

9:23

like with their children carrying them

9:25

with like one little bag and So

9:27

just to imagine that this is something that

9:29

that they are not granted the

9:31

access to the pills

9:33

in situation like that, like these women that

9:35

I had faces

9:37

too. I don't know. If she hadn't

9:39

been at the border, she would have read this news

9:41

and thought big organizations.

9:43

They will take care of

9:45

these women. Why should it be me?

9:48

But from the experiences that we've

9:50

had before that Actually,

9:55

that wasn't the case in a lot of places

9:57

that governments and organizations are

9:59

taking care. So Even

10:02

though I was telling myself, I think I need to pull

10:04

myself a little bit out of

10:06

things. This was sort

10:08

of the one where I was like, Okay?

10:10

What can we do about this?

10:16

The idea if and that someone from

10:18

one country can get an abortion to

10:20

someone in another country all

10:23

came about because of the creation

10:25

of something called the abortion

10:27

pill or abortion pills, which are really

10:29

two types of medication, mifepristone and

10:32

misoprostol, called Miffy and

10:34

miso. Taken together at

10:36

any point in the first trimester of

10:38

pregnancy, they can induce an abortion.

10:41

The trick with them is that they are very, very controlled

10:43

they're one of most controlled medicines that

10:46

we have, especially moving

10:48

country to country or crossing borders. And

10:51

so the notion on a practical

10:53

level, on a legal level of donating

10:55

abortion pills is a pretty complicated

10:58

one. I knew that through

11:00

some context of my partner's family,

11:03

there was a woman rights activist.

11:07

So I thought I may be this

11:09

is somebody we could

11:10

ask. I immediately called her. This this

11:12

friend of the family asked

11:14

if she knew some people, is there a way? How

11:16

do people usually do this? So

11:19

she then gave us the

11:21

number of supplier

11:24

she had worked

11:24

with. So he reached out to

11:26

him.

11:33

Yes. Hello. Can't you hit him? This supplier,

11:35

we are not using his name because he

11:37

is talking about stuff that he could be arrested

11:39

for.

11:40

Are you comfortable with us calling you supplier?

11:43

Yeah. Why not? Even his mom doesn't quite know

11:45

what he does.

11:45

For her, you know, I'm a missionary in

11:48

Africa. The supplier is based in

11:50

an African country. He is of European

11:52

descent, and he has made a name

11:54

for himself as being one of the main abortion

11:57

pill suppliers to

11:58

Europe. And honestly throughout

12:01

the world. I had some passion for all

12:03

these women who die unnecessary from abortion.

12:06

So what we try to do is to reduce

12:08

unsaved abortions.

12:09

He just said, I have somebody in Prague

12:12

for five hundred kits, one euro per

12:14

kit. Which

12:14

is very cheap. And a kit in this case

12:17

is five pills. It's one Mieffer

12:19

and four Mieffer. So the plan is they're

12:21

gonna pick up these five hundred

12:22

kits, drive them through the Czech Republic,

12:25

into Slovakia. Here and across the

12:27

Ukrainian border. The first plan

12:29

was really straightforward and really

12:31

not not complicated.

12:33

But then there was a little bit of a turn.

12:36

The supplier calls them back. Like,

12:38

very quickly afterwards, two hours

12:40

or something. He said he had a

12:42

different proposal. Instead

12:45

of this deal, why don't

12:47

I donate to you guys?

12:51

A lot more. Instead

12:53

of like five hundred

12:54

kits, ten thousand kits, ten

12:56

thousand. This

12:59

is a big chance we have, getting

13:02

women access to these life saving

13:04

medicines. I mean, of course, it's it's

13:06

women being raped in need of that medication.

13:09

But in the time of war breaking

13:11

out in your country, I can imagine myself

13:13

and other women that are maybe

13:16

just pregnant

13:17

from even just their partner deciding

13:21

that this is not a good moment to bring a child

13:23

into this

13:23

world. The supplier tells them he's

13:25

got an idea for how this can work, but they

13:27

have to act quickly because he

13:29

happens to be putting together this huge medical

13:31

donation for Ukraine. With

13:33

lots of different stuff, pain killers

13:35

and antibiotics and COVID medication,

13:38

all kinds of pills actually. And he doesn't

13:40

actually have time himself to get all of this

13:42

stuff to Ukraine. But if

13:44

Vicki and Ari can meet him at the airport

13:47

and organize the transport over

13:49

the border, then he can add abortion

13:51

pills pretty much for free.

13:54

We were selling this like, okay. Let's get it done.

13:56

But he says, here's the thing.

13:59

The airport that the supplier is gonna fly

14:01

into, it happens to be an airport

14:03

in Poland. And in Poland,

14:05

it's illegal to give anyone an abortion

14:07

pill. At the moment, there's a serious

14:09

court case going on. There's abortion activist.

14:12

She gave one set of pills to someone. And

14:15

she's potentially gonna go to jail

14:17

for three years. I mean, the court case hasn't

14:19

finished, but that

14:20

woman never even took the pills, and that's one set

14:22

of pills. I

14:23

just think it's crazy to even think

14:25

about trying to bring the pills through

14:28

Poland, which has some of the strictest

14:31

abortion laws

14:33

in that region. I mean, like, every year,

14:35

thousands of women are fleeing to

14:38

other countries to try and get an abortion,

14:40

and then here they wanna bring all these pills

14:42

in, but then I guess I think, okay, wait,

14:44

they're just bringing them through Poland. They're

14:47

not stopping in Poland. So like

14:49

that, I guess, they could probably

14:51

do. Well, the problem is they can't

14:53

prove that they're not gonna hand them out

14:55

in

14:55

Poland. Right? Like, if you just get

14:57

intercepted by customs or

14:59

police, You

15:01

can't very convincing you to say, oh, no. No. No. We're

15:03

just driving on. Yeah. That so

15:06

then how would you actually ship it through Poland?

15:08

The supplier says, all

15:10

you need is this form. The d

15:12

one form. A form and

15:15

someone official who can help with logistics.

15:17

He seemed really confident

15:20

in this is super

15:22

easy. I've done this before.

15:24

I will bring it you pick it up. The only

15:26

thing that did say, which made me a bit worried, said,

15:28

well, well, maybe not just

15:31

anybody, at the

15:31

airport, get somebody who can

15:34

talk smart with the customers.

15:38

Not just Yeah. Yeah. Somebody

15:40

who can who can like, talks a

15:42

little bit smart and smooth with the customs

15:44

people. Yeah. So we thought, but why why is

15:46

it actually needed?

15:49

When rough translation returns, the

15:51

doctor becomes a smuggler or

15:54

she tries

15:54

to. This message comes

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16:31

We're back with Rough Translation. I'm Gregory

16:33

Border. I'm Molly Webster. We're here with reporter,

16:36

Katz Lasm, though. And when we last left the story,

16:38

Vicki and Ari have agreed to the supplier's

16:40

offer. They're gonna meet them in an airport in Poland

16:43

and pick up thousands of abortion pills and

16:45

transport them to

16:46

Ukraine. And part of the rush is

16:48

that they're racing against two different

16:50

clocks. One of those clocks is biological,

16:53

which is that in Ukraine, you only have nine

16:55

weeks to take this medication. But

16:57

the way The weeks are counted is

17:00

not from when you get pregnant, but from the date of

17:02

your last period. So imagine

17:04

you get pregnant at the beginning of the war.

17:06

By the time Ari and Vicki are trying

17:08

to get these pills to you, you're technically

17:10

like eight or eight and a half weeks long and

17:13

you really only have like three days left

17:15

to get this medicine, to get a medical

17:18

abortion. And the other clock

17:20

that the couple's racing against is the

17:22

supplier's

17:22

plane. He's already booked his

17:24

flight. The

17:25

first time we got in touch with him was a Thursday

17:27

and his plan was landing on

17:29

a Monday. They realized they need

17:31

all kinds of things that they don't have.

17:33

Like a truck that can be officially sealed

17:36

by border guards, a registered

17:38

Polish logistics company that can attest

17:40

for the

17:40

shipment. We were trying to explain that

17:43

his plan is not gonna work, but he was

17:45

just in a madness of pecking and

17:47

re pecking. Meanwhile, the supply

17:49

keeps calling them back.

17:51

Every time we spoke to him, which is really every

17:53

few hours, reboot it more. Be

17:55

talking about the larger

17:56

quantity.

17:57

Hand luggage can not only ten

17:59

thousand medical abortions, but fifteen

18:01

thousand medical abortions. And on top

18:03

of that fifteen thousand emergency

18:05

contraceptives, morning after pills.

18:07

And on these video calls with the supplier,

18:10

it's when the couple realized something new

18:12

about the supplier's method to

18:14

get these pills into

18:15

Poland. I didn't want to polish customs to

18:17

find that even if a pistol.

18:18

He's like taking them out of the boxes and

18:21

he's putting them in other containers. If

18:23

these fields are labeled Miza Prostel

18:25

and Miza Preston, it's a big problem. He's

18:27

putting them in

18:28

these, like, big tubs of sports

18:30

nutrition protein powder. Put

18:32

these in these plastic bag and then those are, like,

18:34

pills and little sandwich bags. What

18:37

is your packaging there? How much is it the

18:39

numbers kept changing the

18:41

names, the package.

18:42

Vicky's organization brain is going crazy.

18:44

The Mizo two hundred into white

18:46

box has been the MiFID one hundred

18:49

and it was just

18:51

he speaks really fast and really confusing and

18:54

you couldn't really follow

18:56

him anymore. And

19:00

and was this the first moment where

19:02

you were actually conscious of, like, bending

19:04

rules? Like, this was not gonna be legitimate,

19:06

actually.

19:08

Yes. That was the first time.

19:10

They

19:10

could all go to jail. Like, you

19:13

can't just walk around with thousands of unlabeled

19:15

pills. Especially if you're a

19:17

doctor, Vicky could lose her

19:19

medical license. Of course,

19:21

there was a part that thought can

19:23

we not take an official rule? Because abortions

19:25

are not forbidden in

19:26

Ukraine. But at the same time, like,

19:29

with everything in these first weeks,

19:31

there was no time to take all these official rules.

19:33

I've never felt more sure that

19:35

this is the right thing to do

19:37

somehow. They're already getting

19:39

additional requests four abortion

19:41

pills from Ukraine. We would start

19:43

getting messages from people saying, hey,

19:45

we heard you guys are transporting something. Could you

19:47

get it to us? It was very

19:49

clear that if we were not going to do

19:51

this, then this shipment

19:53

wouldn't

19:53

go. If we pull out, then

19:56

we're then we're basically canceling this. For

19:58

everybody.

19:59

The things were packed, the flight was booked,

20:01

and this was our best chance.

20:03

Okay.

20:03

So they're gonna do this thing. What

20:06

is actually the plan? Okay.

20:08

Buckle up. Because by Sunday night,

20:11

they have set up a relay race, which is

20:14

The supplier has gotten the pills from

20:16

India where they're manufactured. He's

20:19

taking them from his home base in Africa,

20:21

which we can't name, up to

20:24

a Polish airport. At the Polish

20:26

airport, he will hand the pills to

20:28

the couple who are on the customs forms

20:30

as like the receivers

20:32

they're supposed to spend as little time with the pills

20:34

as possible. Because what's

20:37

the word that Ari always like this, like, plausible

20:39

deniability, like, lose that in the moment

20:41

that you have that in your

20:42

hand. Right? They will then immediately

20:45

give the pills over to a Polish logistics

20:47

guy he will then hand the pills

20:50

to a driver who is taking the

20:52

pills along with the entire medical shipment

20:55

over the border to a hospital in Ukraine.

20:57

At the hospital in Ukraine, if Kenya,

21:00

who we met at the top of the show. The body bags, woman.

21:02

body bags lady, she will

21:04

extract the pills and start distributing

21:07

them to

21:09

doctors and gynecologists who

21:11

will then get them to patients.

21:15

And the thing to remember is in this whole chain

21:18

of humans, the only person

21:20

who is being told that these are abortion

21:22

pills is if

21:23

Kenya. We've never met these people

21:25

before, So we didn't know if we could

21:27

trust them. So what is everybody else on the chain

21:29

being told the pills

21:31

are? The supplier's system to keep

21:33

these pills safe. Mostly from the border

21:35

guards in Poland, was to relabel

21:37

them as vitamin c. Vitamin

21:40

c plus was Mihir, an Vitamin

21:42

C without the plus was

21:43

Mizo. Can you like

21:46

paint the airport scene? What

21:49

am I imagining? They walk into the

21:51

report, like, where are they

21:52

waiting? Like, do they need to go up

21:54

to anyone and say, hi. We're

21:56

here for customs shipment

21:58

and these are this is our paperwork or

22:01

they

22:01

don't really know. Like, they've never

22:03

done anything like this before, and they

22:05

don't wanna mess it up. We didn't know

22:08

if the situation is gonna require that

22:10

we would have to have some kind of discussion

22:12

with the customs people. So

22:14

we thought, how shall

22:16

we dress like, let's dress. It's like

22:19

the most

22:19

reliable, boring, proper

22:22

people. I was wearing a BEige

22:26

sweater and underneath a

22:28

button up shirts with the collars sticking out

22:30

of the

22:30

sweater. And wearing

22:32

my glasses. Right.

22:33

Because nobody's ever broken the law on a baby. Exactly.

22:36

Which doesn't happen.

22:38

So they arrive early. They're

22:40

in their boring outfits. They choose

22:42

a boring

22:43

bench. There's no better

22:45

scenarios than just sitting it out now.

22:47

And so they wait.

22:51

They scroll through their fans, big

22:54

glance at the customs door, glance

22:57

at the police. I'm feeling super

23:00

calm, but I just have go to the toilet every

23:02

ten minutes.

23:04

Like, nothing strange about that. I

23:06

feel my lungs weirdly, my heart.

23:09

I can just out felt like my heartbeat

23:11

for like two and a half hours. The

23:16

logistics guy shows up and

23:18

the three of them waits more. And then

23:20

suddenly, my phone rang

23:23

and it's our supplier.

23:25

I landed. I'm here with customs.

23:27

Can you put your logistics partner? On

23:29

the line. And the logistics partner

23:32

gets on the phone. He speaks in Polish,

23:35

nods,

23:36

laughs a little, says, okay.

23:38

Hangs up, looks at

23:40

both of us, and says. It's

23:43

through.

23:49

Oh my god. Suddenly, the supplier

23:51

will through the door. Yeah.

23:53

I see I

23:56

see a man in a

23:58

suit. He's like a guy in

24:00

his face.

24:01

Quite tanned and he's wearing like

24:03

a blue fro IP shirt.

24:05

Like somebody who would have this like little,

24:08

like, briefcase, like, with wheels

24:10

where he just puts in his important documents

24:13

for the meeting that he's flying into. But

24:16

instead of his little slick briefcase,

24:19

he's got one of those airport trolleys stacked

24:22

to the top with these bags

24:24

just a huge amount of

24:26

these, like, classic colorful bags that you

24:28

zip up that are super handy and you grab them in

24:31

a panic because they're really light and you stuff all

24:33

your clothes in them. Yeah. I really yeah,

24:35

bizarrely wrapped in plastic, and

24:37

he's just, like, slowly pushing it in

24:39

front of him, trying not to drop

24:41

it. These bags are like jam

24:43

packed with antibiotics, with COVID

24:45

medication, with anti inflammatory medication.

24:50

And then hidden between all of those

24:52

pills are the abortion pills,

24:54

Vicky is thinking, oh my god. Okay.

24:57

If this now goes in one big

24:59

package into

25:00

Ukraine, is this really

25:02

gonna work out? We thought, what if something goes

25:04

wrong? And then, these

25:07

land in some hospital in

25:09

Laveave, and I used maybe

25:12

falsely. Did something about the sight of

25:14

these pills make you think, oh my god. This

25:16

plan we have, that's just not gonna

25:18

work.

25:19

I did imagine some kind of doctor on

25:21

the other side or a paramedic or somebody

25:23

opening it and nobody knowing,

25:26

oh, that there's What are these pills

25:28

suddenly? These loose pills in bulk

25:30

in a plastic bag? What happens if

25:32

by some mistake, They

25:34

wind up sitting in vitamin c box,

25:36

and then they give them to someone, and it's not

25:38

vitamin

25:39

c. And you really don't want to be taking

25:41

me for or miso. Not

25:44

knowing what it is. And even though she knows

25:46

she's supposed to just hand the pills over

25:48

to the next person on the

25:49

chain, their role is done.

25:51

We sort of

25:55

debirt from our plan

25:57

when you say that? Yeah. True.

25:59

They decide They're gonna go with the

26:01

logistics guy to his warehouse in

26:03

Poland and then repack the bills before

26:06

he gives them to the

26:07

driver. Let's go through it together to make

26:09

sure that

26:11

Yeah, that everything separated properly.

26:14

Everybody, even the supplier. Yeah. The supplier

26:16

is the only one who knows that this stuff has been

26:19

packed. But he's got a connection flight in

26:21

one and a half

26:21

hours. So they're just like, okay. We're gonna

26:24

do this as fast as possible. We

26:27

arrived there and then We thought,

26:30

okay, let's sort of quietly start

26:32

doing this. The two of

26:34

us started doing this on the floor in the

26:36

warehouse. Opening the bag, getting it out.

26:38

That's what we figured out. The

26:40

markings he had put on the boxes was

26:42

done with a whiteboard marker. So

26:45

all of the markings had

26:46

disappeared. Every now and then you would

26:48

see a smudge. You had to really dig deep

26:50

into, like, take out half of the bag

26:52

and until you find the first

26:56

box or or bulk packaging.

26:58

You're really me so deep in

27:00

these bills.

27:04

Seeing that, they are now very

27:07

glad that they decided to take this detour

27:09

and separate out all the abortion

27:11

pills. We

27:11

tried to be very organized, and then as

27:13

we noticed was not that much time yet. I remember

27:16

I was getting really stressed, but

27:18

two other people who were working at the warehouse

27:20

start helping

27:21

too. And

27:21

by the end, there were like six people doing

27:23

this. This was a I

27:26

thought the operation was of the utmost

27:28

secrecy and now

27:30

a lot more people know what's going

27:32

on. It just Doesn't it make it

27:34

more risky? Yeah. I think initially

27:36

they're worried about people knowing. And as

27:38

they're repackaging the pills, they're worried more

27:40

about, like, are we gonna find all of these pills

27:42

in time to put them in the right place and

27:44

ship them onto Ukraine.

27:46

And it's only when they fished out all of

27:48

the abortion pills and tossed them into

27:51

three moving boxes.

27:52

Three cardboard boxes that

27:55

they're finally ready to go home. It felt

27:57

like our things over. We're

27:59

driving towards home. I mean, it felt a

28:01

lot of tension fell off. And yeah.

28:05

It was a really good feeling even though

28:07

super exhausted We were super exhausted.

28:14

But a couple of days later.

28:16

Ari leaves for work and

28:18

We got a message. Yes. Genny has texting.

28:21

All of the medication has arrived, and

28:23

that the only thing that isn't there is the abortion

28:25

pills.

28:26

While we are speaking to

28:28

her about how confused she is.

28:31

We kept calling the

28:33

logistics guy where are the

28:35

the boxes are not there? And he kept insisting,

28:37

no. No. They arrived. They arrived. And

28:40

they're talking to Yevgenia, and Yevgenia

28:42

is

28:42

like, they did not arrive. So we

28:44

are getting two conflicting messages about

28:46

the same shipments from both sides of

28:48

the border. At this

28:50

point, I'm convinced we're getting

28:52

screwed over. When they start to think they've been

28:54

tricked.

28:54

What do they imagine? What are they playing

28:56

out might have happened? That it somehow the

28:59

driver cannot be trusted and

29:01

he is against abortion and

29:03

is going to throw these into the

29:04

river.

29:05

Or he could wanted to sell them on the black

29:07

market and make a lot of money off of them because

29:09

they're hard to get. Yeah. It's

29:11

all strangers. It's all strangers

29:13

sort of joining forces. You never know if there's

29:16

some hidden agenda on either of the

29:17

sides. And they know that if they'd stuck

29:19

with the supplier's chaotic plan and

29:21

left the pills hidden among the antibiotics and

29:24

pain

29:24

killers, Those pills would still

29:26

be with the rest of the medical shipment in

29:28

Ukraine.

29:29

Like, that's when they start feeling really stupid.

29:32

That

29:32

they're like, what were we thinking? I'm

29:34

just feeling so

29:37

naive and

29:40

and defeated Yeah.

29:42

It was not nerves anymore. It was really frustrating.

29:45

It's frustrating. The whole plan

29:47

is just crumbling, and they're like, how

29:49

are we ever gonna tell these people that

29:52

this

29:53

shipment that we've been telling them is gonna arrive in

29:55

a few days with this essential abortion

29:57

pills has been lost.

30:00

How are we gonna tell them? And they're thinking

30:03

how are we gonna tell the supplier who's their needed

30:05

a huge amount of money in terms of these

30:07

pills that it just didn't work out.

30:10

And also, why the

30:12

hell did we take this risk to

30:15

Take all of these pills through Poland. When

30:22

rough translation returns, a chance discovery

30:25

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30:28

right after this break.

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31:24

Hey, we're back with Rough Translation, picking up

31:26

the story of few hours after

31:28

the pills go missing. We

31:29

heard from the logistics guy. Then we he tells

31:32

us. We know where they

31:34

are. They found the pills. In

31:36

the driver's private car.

31:38

While the rest of the shipment is in his

31:41

truck already in Ukraine, Honestly,

31:44

to me, this part is super suspicious,

31:46

but nobody really had time to investigate

31:48

why, and it didn't really matter.

31:50

They are just trying to finish this delivery.

31:53

And so the second they find the pills,

31:55

the logistics guy is like, okay. I've got

31:57

a new driver who has time to drive the

31:59

pills to the border, but

32:01

he can't take them into Ukraine. So

32:04

do you have someone on your end who can pick

32:06

them up in Poland and get them to

32:08

leave? We weren't really sure who to

32:10

trust. In the end, they asked

32:12

the one contact who knows that

32:14

these are abortion pills and who's in Ukraine.

32:17

And the person who has experienced distributing

32:19

medical

32:20

supplies. If Gania,

32:22

the decision was, okay, me and

32:24

to my friend, girls, we're just going

32:26

by car, traveling to Europe

32:28

to to pick it

32:29

up.

32:30

Yeah. Kenny, I called up her friend, Maria.

32:32

We're gonna take a ride to Poland,

32:34

to take couple boxes as a volunteer

32:36

to say, okay, that's fun.

32:41

Side note, for the war in normal

32:43

times, Maria was a fashion editor.

32:45

She says, in this wall, you know,

32:47

you're so stressed all the time. You're

32:49

trying to eat. You're trying to sleep, you're

32:51

reading news, so you are looking

32:53

for something to do, so you can

32:55

be useful and we

32:58

We take some coffee with moxo cigarette.

33:00

We just talk about whatever.

33:04

Then we cross the border. They get to

33:06

the meeting spot. Which is It's

33:08

abandoned gas station.

33:12

Like, in a movie, you know, with when

33:15

you're meeting some gas station or something,

33:17

it's raining. Like, suddenly, you're

33:19

in the middle of nowhere, taking

33:22

something from car, from strangers,

33:25

you know. And we didn't open the

33:27

boxes just for the mini

33:29

car. They drive off back to the border.

33:31

And as they get closer, we

33:34

grab some

33:34

food. And I

33:36

said, okay. Maybe we'll check

33:39

what is in that boxes.

33:41

She said, yeah. Okay. Maybe we'll need to take

33:43

a look.

33:44

Wait. You're killing me. Like, do you know it's

33:46

abortion pills at this point? Or does she

33:49

not tell you? She told me, but I

33:51

saw it, okay, abortion pills. No problem.

33:53

And we just opened this box and

33:55

there's black garbage

33:57

bags. Like, there

34:00

is no packs or

34:02

prescriptions. Nothing. They're just

34:05

black garbage bags in

34:07

a box. In your pocket, and

34:09

it's full of pills. And especially

34:12

when you know how vitamin c looks like,

34:14

you know exactly that it's it's

34:16

not it. That's it.

34:19

Okay. We're gonna be arrested.

34:23

It looks like a drug spiking.

34:26

I don't I don't wanna touch it. If

34:28

getting at this point is dedicated

34:30

to helping the war effort

34:33

and getting medical

34:35

supplies to Ukrainian people, if

34:37

she is arrested or in any way

34:39

compromised because of this

34:41

delivery, that all

34:43

that's gonna stop. It was like

34:45

I was standing somewhere in

34:47

other country with my car.

34:50

I have to breathe it and I have to

34:52

go back home and I

34:54

can't stay here, but

34:57

somebody need to do this and how

34:59

to do this and why why it's me.

35:02

It was a feeling like a how

35:04

to just stop it. I'm

35:07

definitely not against abortion, but

35:10

it was like why

35:13

we should bring it in

35:15

this amount. It's a large

35:17

amount to Ukraine, into Ukraine,

35:19

to take it. And the reason the

35:21

first reason was rape

35:25

cases. And here

35:27

I became a bit sit. I

35:29

mean, I need to to

35:31

do this. They

35:34

decide they're just gonna keep driving. Night

35:37

is falling, coffee is approaching, they

35:39

have to get over the border. That

35:45

very same evening back in Germany,

35:47

Vicky and Ari are also getting ready.

35:51

We had our six year anniversary of

35:53

our edition And we don't go to fancy

35:55

restaurants often,

35:56

but that was a nice restaurant and it was

35:58

a very intimate

36:00

like, it it just has a few tables. So

36:02

it's not a very loud environment.

36:05

Right? It's not that we can have a conversation

36:08

about smuggling pills over

36:10

the Polish Ukraine border and not

36:12

have anybody here

36:13

us. On the table next door because there's like four

36:15

tables and a waiter that appears

36:17

every ten minutes.

36:19

Both our phones are face

36:21

up on the table. They

36:22

just staring at their phones waiting

36:24

to hear from your Kenya. I think the waiters

36:26

must have thought, like, what a strange couple?

36:29

This relationship must not be going so well.

36:36

Meanwhile, near the border, Maria,

36:39

seeing all these bags of loose pills turn to

36:41

Yovinia and asks Do you have the

36:43

documents for

36:44

that? So if Guinea calls Ari, of

36:47

course, he cannot have a phone call in this restaurant

36:49

with five tables, so he goes outside I'm

36:51

left at the table, super tense because I don't

36:53

know what's

36:53

happening. She

36:54

wants

36:54

to know what's happening with these documents. Who are they

36:56

from? What do I have to do with them? What

36:58

can I say about them? That paperwork,

37:01

it doesn't make sense anymore because the abortion

37:03

pills have now been separated from the

37:05

rest of the medical shipment. So there's documents,

37:08

but they

37:10

no longer actually apply to any of

37:12

this. We don't have documents

37:14

as we are official volunteers. We

37:17

don't have any prescriptions and we'd

37:19

have no proof what kind of pills that

37:21

is. This is

37:23

serious, guys.

37:25

I remember me getting really nervous that maybe

37:27

something would go wrong. You did

37:30

you feel responsible for

37:32

her? Of course, yeah, for

37:34

the pills and for everything. Everybody involved. At

37:36

that point, so many people have put some

37:38

risk. Let's let's not have something

37:40

go wrong here. So

37:43

if Kenya and Maria are finally

37:45

at the border and it's a day when it's

37:47

going really, really slowly, they're

37:49

actually stopping every car, searching

37:51

the cars, taking out the packages. And

37:54

they finally pull up to the border

37:57

booth. They're first car, the border

37:59

guard comes out of her booth and she says,

38:01

get out of the car, open

38:03

up the trunk. And so they open up

38:05

the trunk of the car, and

38:08

there are the three moving boxes.

38:11

The border guard is like,

38:13

can you tell me? What's

38:16

up with your tail light? And we

38:18

were like, what? And

38:20

they look, and the tail light is broken,

38:22

it's not working. In the border guards, she's

38:24

asking all of these questions about the taillight.

38:27

She said, oh my god. You were driving

38:29

like that's for Poland. It's impossible who,

38:32

like, allowed you to do that. But you have Guinea

38:34

and Maria, like, oh my god. What?

38:37

And then the border guard sort of turns back

38:39

to the boxes,

38:40

says, what are you carrying? And

38:43

we said pills. She said do

38:45

you have any documents with

38:46

that? Yes. Of course.

38:47

She understood that. Okay. It's not the same?

38:50

And she just waves them through.

38:53

Basically, that's it.

38:56

They pile back in the car and then just drive

38:58

off. So

39:01

at seven fifty PM,

39:03

we got the message. Friends,

39:06

congratulations to all of

39:07

us. We are in Ukraine now. Wow.

39:10

We'll be in the VIV at night. Tomorrow,

39:12

we'll item packing and I'll call to understand

39:15

where our vitamin c is and what to do with

39:17

it.

39:20

It was really like a firework explosion,

39:23

the sort of feeling. Like, think

39:25

that was the best feeling I've ever had ever

39:27

in this

39:28

relationship. That was incredible. And

39:30

you

39:30

want to share it with everybody.

39:32

You kind of felt like jumping

39:34

up and screaming and like sort

39:37

of Like, oh, I wanna scream it

39:39

at the top of my lungs and tell everybody,

39:41

like, oh, we are getting married or we're having

39:43

a baby. Oh, we smiled at abortion pills.

39:47

Now we're gonna go dance

39:49

or night long.

39:59

The next day? They get another

40:01

text from your Afghanistan. It's a huge,

40:03

huge, huge help, and we are so grateful

40:05

for the

40:05

help. You're really beautiful, but I

40:07

feel like a criminal. After

40:11

that, we won't work together anymore.

40:13

I'm sorry.

40:19

And that was it after

40:21

this moment, this sort of community

40:23

of strangers just

40:26

dissolves with different

40:30

feelings of shame and success

40:33

and a lot of questions. Because

40:35

like, what happened to these pills? And

40:38

were they needed? And did

40:40

pregnant women get them? Did

40:42

doctors want them?

40:48

So we decided to cross border

40:51

ourselves and find the Ukrainians,

40:53

the

40:53

doctors, the pregnant women who were

40:56

waiting for these pills.

40:57

That's coming up on the next episode, next

40:59

week.

41:00

That's episode two. On Rough Translation and

41:02

on Radialab. See you there.

41:09

This episode was reported by Katz Laslow

41:12

and produced by Daniel Girma and Tessa

41:14

Payoli with help from our senior

41:15

producer, Adelina Lancey and Kees.

41:18

Our editor was Brenner Farrell. Thanks to the

41:20

many people who listened to this piece and made it so

41:22

much better. Vojciek Alexiak, Katie

41:24

Lee, Maria Jozunova, Valeria

41:26

Fekina, Sarah 4G, Newel King,

41:28

Robert Croewich, Sonacriticov,

41:31

and our shining friends at Radio Lab.

41:33

Thanks also to Michael Lowinger and Laura

41:35

Griffin, and to the many many experts

41:37

in sources we interviewed who asked to remain

41:39

anonymous. The rough translation team includes

41:41

Louise Therese and Justine Yan. Our intern

41:43

is Lelina Tawarek, our supervising producer,

41:45

Isliana Symmstrom, Irene Naguchi

41:48

is the executive producer of the enterprise

41:50

storytelling unit of which rough translation is

41:52

a part. Peter De Campo and Katie

41:54

Dahl are our visuals editors and illustrations

41:57

came from Akzo Doreskovka.

41:59

Thanks to Tony cabin. John Ellis

42:01

composed our theme music, original

42:03

music from Nick m

42:04

Neves, and additional music from

42:07

Blu Dot Sessions and First Com music.

42:09

Mastering by Gillie Moon, fact checking by

42:11

Marissa Robertson Texter, legal guidance

42:13

from Micah Ratner and Denton's, and

42:15

NPR's Senior Vice President for Programming

42:18

is Anja Grenfell. I'm Gregory

42:20

Warner, back next week with Molly Webster,

42:22

Radio Lab, and more Rough Translation.