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Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

0:48

Hello, it's 797 days

0:51

since Russia began its full-scale invasion of

0:53

Ukraine. And today we're talking to

0:55

the mayor of Backmood. This

0:57

rocket destroyed our hopes. Our hopes

0:59

for a bright future, because 2022

1:01

and 2023 were supposed to be

1:03

successful years for us, but

1:09

rockets destroyed it for us. Backmood

1:13

was obviously a Ukrainian

1:15

town in the Eastern Donetsk region, which

1:17

was almost completely destroyed by Russian forces.

1:21

And Alexeya Reva, its

1:23

mayor, is the longest-serving

1:25

elected politician or official

1:27

in Ukraine. He's

1:29

70 years old. 70 years old. He's

1:32

been in charge of Backmood since 1990. And

1:36

now he's in exile because... So that's

1:39

before Ukraine's independence, is

1:41

it? Yes, it became independent in 1991, so that's true.

1:46

And he can't be in Backmood, obviously, right now. And

1:49

he heads the Backmood government

1:51

in exile in the central

1:53

Ukrainian city of Nipro. fighting

2:00

there, you were telling us

2:02

how it was famous for its salt and

2:05

also its sparkling wine. Well, absolutely.

2:08

Artemiuszka Shampanska, as it was

2:10

known, was produced in Bakhmut

2:12

because of its gypsum mines,

2:15

derelict gypsum mines, where the

2:17

temperature and the humidity are

2:19

exactly the salt you need

2:21

to ferment your sparkling

2:23

wine. Oh, yeah. And thereby

2:26

there were salt mines and both

2:28

the sparkling wine and the salt were exported

2:30

all over the world. So, yeah,

2:33

it was a reasonably famous town as well.

2:36

But if you talk to people from Bakhmut, Coase

2:39

is the word they keep using, leafy,

2:41

beautiful and very comfortable to live. But

2:43

that's all in the past. This

2:45

is Ithankest. You call

2:48

him God, for evil. Evil

2:50

cannot be trusted. Ask

2:52

Prigozan. You are not dealing with

2:54

a politician who might be symbolised

2:57

in forms through his or his needs.

2:59

Why? Ukraine is unbroken,

3:02

unvowed and unconquered. It's not just unafraid.

3:04

It's not a politician. Hello,

3:12

this is Victoria Dobbs in the Ukraine Car Studio.

3:15

And this is Vitaly Shabchenko also in the

3:17

Ukraine Car Studio. The

3:19

Battle of Bakhmut, Vitaly, what happened? It

3:22

was one of the bloodiest battles

3:24

in this war and it went

3:26

on for months. What

3:30

you could see everywhere in that mode is

3:32

this section. You can see apartment

3:34

blocks that are completely destroyed. We're

3:36

walking all over shards of glass.

3:38

Pretty much every second you hear the

3:41

sound of artillery fire. You can tell

3:43

every minute that this is a city

3:45

that is being intensely fought over. And

3:50

it cost thousands or

3:52

tens of thousands of lives on

3:54

both sides. And

3:58

by May of 2019, the. Of

4:00

twenty twenty three, almost all of

4:02

bus moot lay in ruins, was

4:04

captured by Russia or whatever was

4:06

left a wet suit. Was

4:09

it a deal with it? Strategically important? It

4:12

was a reasonably sized town and

4:14

I am personally connected to it.

4:17

My grandfather's from both modes, that's

4:19

where he met my grandmother. I

4:21

have got black and white pictures

4:24

of the to them and and

4:26

boss mode. So

4:28

yeah, it was emotional. And

4:32

part of the reason. Of

4:34

Russia's capture of it was due to

4:37

the involvement of the Wagner great that's

4:39

correct. Surveyed the late and feared that

4:41

you've Ganja Pregerson and he claimed to

4:43

have played a crucial role and the

4:45

cats are have been mocked for Russia.

4:50

Will. But.

4:54

Months after his quote unquote

4:56

victory that over the ruins

4:58

of Buff Moot, he was

5:00

dead himself. And

5:02

we are going to talk to

5:04

the map of that loot today.

5:06

Alexi Reza hello to ye! Welcome.

5:09

To Ukraine cast Mr. Reza. The time

5:11

was telescope loss when the Ukraine cost

5:13

me. What are your birthday was. And

5:15

even heard of any is one of

5:18

our producers. Who is going to translate for us

5:20

are funny I should say and system of on the

5:22

since around the world. Thank you very much

5:24

for being with us sir! Where are you

5:26

living now? Version or dismissed

5:28

as new Burrow at the moment

5:30

I'm in new Pro but I'm

5:33

regularly going to Crumble Tours do

5:35

ski fucker and poker of can

5:37

you do the don't see for

5:40

his fatale So us mood is

5:42

a was in eastern Ukraine in

5:44

east and Donetsk region neat Pro

5:46

is kind of central Ukraine and

5:49

obviously Mr ever cannot be and

5:51

buffalo because a not much of

5:53

it as left and be it's

5:56

been captured by. by russia

5:58

so that's the many

6:01

Ukrainian officials have had to take as

6:03

Russian forces were advancing. Mr.

6:06

Rever, can you describe

6:08

the situation in 2022 when the fighting

6:10

was happening? Were

6:14

you in Bakhmut? How did

6:16

the battle unfold? In

6:18

2015, Bakhmut was hosting refugees from Debaltze.

6:26

In 2022, Bakhmut was

6:28

hosting refugees from Popasne,

6:31

and later we became refugees

6:33

ourselves. Can

6:36

you remember what the fighting was like? I

6:42

remember everything. It was

6:44

extremely difficult. We have

6:46

such a beautiful town,

6:49

it's so comfortable. And

6:51

at 5.30 in the morning on the

6:53

24th of February, we started

6:55

preparing an evacuation and humanitarian aid

6:57

for people in our city. We

6:59

were thinking of what to

7:02

do with the places like school, what

7:04

to do with the big businesses. People

7:06

were very worried, but I think we

7:08

managed to calm them down a little

7:10

bit. And

7:13

then bombs started to fall on Bakhmut.

7:15

Yes, and these rockets destroyed our

7:18

hopes. Our

7:22

hopes for a bright future, because 2022 and 2023

7:24

were supposed to be successful years for us. Years

7:31

when we developed our community

7:33

and our city, but

7:35

rockets destroyed it for us. When

7:38

did you realise that it's

7:41

time to go, that Bakhmut

7:43

would be captured? I stayed until

7:46

the very last day, until

7:49

they destroyed my home. I

7:55

left Bakhmut on the 24th of February, 2023, to

7:57

the... town

8:00

called Konstantinif. We tried

8:02

to evacuate as many people as

8:04

we could, but it was extremely

8:06

difficult to find the right words

8:09

to convince them to leave their

8:11

hometown, to take their kids

8:13

and leave. You

8:16

see, that's something I don't understand. That

8:20

town was being destroyed,

8:22

razed to the ground,

8:24

and yet people were determined to stay there

8:27

together with the children. Yes, it

8:29

was exactly like that. People

8:34

lived in the cellars, in the basements, and

8:36

we were trying to deliver them some

8:38

firewood or some coals or food, and

8:41

we constantly tried to convince them, but

8:43

that was extremely difficult. We helped

8:46

them as good as we could, sometimes even

8:48

just with the kind words. And

8:50

one thing that we repeated constantly is, you have

8:52

to leave, you have to leave, but

8:55

it was extremely difficult to convince them. Obviously

9:01

some people didn't leave. How

9:03

many people in Bakhmut have died,

9:05

including children? Well,

9:08

the official number in 2024 is 214 people,

9:10

but since we left Bakhmut, we can't really

9:20

confirm how many people died after that.

9:22

We can't comment on that. But over

9:24

200 people died, including

9:26

presumably children. How do you deal

9:28

with that? It's

9:31

a big tragedy, and my heart

9:33

has been torn apart, because we

9:35

also don't have the exact number

9:37

of people who died, because we

9:40

know from the official sources that

9:42

people were dying and then were

9:44

buried in the gardens or in

9:46

the cellars. So we

9:49

will never know the exact number,

9:51

but it is extremely painful. Do

9:53

the bullet. Do the bullet.

10:00

colleagues or friends. Thank

10:07

God, my family, no one died from my

10:09

family, but a lot of my friends died.

10:12

And local MP who was also doing

10:15

a volunteer aid until the very last

10:17

moment, he died as well. Loads

10:20

of local workers, medics

10:22

and administrative workers died there.

10:26

Bahmut was one

10:28

of the more comfortable places to

10:30

live in Donbass,

10:33

in Donetsk region. I've spoken to a lot

10:35

of people from Bahmut and they

10:37

said, on your watch, Mr.

10:40

Ever, it transformed.

10:43

New parks appeared, the embankment

10:46

was improved, there was this

10:48

alley of roses, it was

10:51

a nice place to live. And

10:54

then when the Russians came, it was all

10:56

destroyed. Do not feel

10:58

it was like your baby being

11:00

slowly destroyed. I

11:05

lived 70 years and

11:07

34 out of them I've been

11:09

the head of Bahmut and now I'm the

11:11

head of the military administration of Bahmut. And

11:14

I have to say that it's extremely

11:16

painful. And when people

11:19

ask me, what did I lose? I'm

11:21

telling them that I lost everything except

11:23

of hope to rebuild my

11:25

hometown. And I lost

11:27

many friends, I lost many colleagues. At the

11:30

end of the day, I lost a comfortable

11:32

place of living. And Bahmut

11:35

locals used to say that

11:37

Bahmut is the place of

11:39

happy living. So

11:43

right now you are in

11:46

charge of the Bahmut military

11:48

administration in exile

11:50

in Dnipro. What

11:52

does that involve? What do you do? Since

11:57

the start of the war, we realized that

11:59

there will be loads of people. of refugees

12:01

and lots of resettlers. And we started working

12:03

on opening centres

12:07

of support for people from Bakhmut.

12:09

As of today, there have been 18

12:12

centres like that opened all over Ukraine,

12:15

where people can get

12:17

medications, where people can get

12:19

clothes, they can get baby

12:21

food, they can get help

12:24

of a lawyer, so they

12:27

can just get a support. Back

12:29

in Bakhmut, as you know,

12:31

hosts the National Music Academy of

12:33

Ukraine. And we got in touch

12:35

with Oleksandra, and she shared this

12:37

memory with us. Bakhmut

12:43

for me is a student town full of

12:45

warm memories. The first years

12:48

of a young person's independent life. Life

12:51

with friends in the dormitory, first love,

12:53

a place where I

12:55

became professional musician. Bakhmut is

12:57

a city of roses, old

13:00

atmospheric buildings, cozy streets. Every

13:03

spring walking around, I can't

13:05

help but remember those warm Bakhmut evenings.

13:08

Crawling tiredly with friends to the dormitory,

13:10

where each of you is building plans

13:12

for a happy future. Do

13:15

we think we'll come back? How

13:17

can we return to a city that no longer

13:19

exists? A city of ruins

13:22

and broken lives? A

13:24

city abandoned by God? Bakhmut

13:26

now lives only in our memories. Sometimes

13:29

it seems that it was all just a dream.

13:32

And this city is only the creation of your

13:34

imagination. You will have heard

13:36

Oleksandra say that it's a

13:42

city abandoned by God. Do

13:45

you agree? No, I don't think so.

13:47

I strongly believe in our victory

13:53

and I believe that most

13:55

of the Bakhmut residents will return to

13:57

their houses, to their streets, to their

13:59

favorite And

14:03

what do you say to President Putin who's done

14:05

this to the place that you love and

14:08

that you have essentially served

14:11

for what, three decades? Fascist,

14:18

he's inhuman, a

14:21

monster. I've just been

14:23

looking at pictures of Bahmut

14:25

after the destruction. I

14:27

mentioned earlier I've got pictures of Bahmut

14:30

when my grandparents met there.

14:32

Leafy, cozy. In fact, cozy

14:35

is the word used a lot by

14:38

people from Bahmut. Leafy, lots of

14:40

parks, kind of quiet,

14:42

slightly provincial, but

14:44

very nice to look at. Now there's

14:47

lots of pictures of destroyed

14:50

buildings riddled with shrapnel. There's a

14:53

picture of a monument to

14:55

a geologist. I think it's outside the

14:57

museum of geology

14:59

or mining in Bahmut center.

15:02

Completely gutted. Nice building, but

15:05

windows gone, walls

15:07

gone, and there's this

15:09

geologist standing half

15:11

destroyed. The ferris wheel, like

15:13

a skeleton of a ferris wheel, what's

15:16

left of a fountain. It's

15:18

post-apocalyptic. This is what we saw

15:20

from Chernobyl. And now

15:22

this is what happened to Bahmut.

15:25

Well, the first photo is

15:28

the geologist monument. It's

15:35

right next to this mineral museum, which

15:37

was opened in the 1920s. Sadly,

15:40

we didn't manage to evacuate the building's

15:43

collection of minerals. So it's a statue

15:45

of a geologist on a mountain in

15:48

front of or at the side of what?

15:50

What is that building? It's a

15:52

museum of minerals. Right. Geologists

15:54

called geologists. And of course, the windows are

15:56

blown out. You can see damage on the

15:58

walls and on the walls. the statue as well.

16:05

The next photo is of the Ferris wheel.

16:08

It's actually in a park in Bakhmout and

16:11

this park for locals was always split

16:13

into two sections, the upper

16:15

part of the park and the bottom part of the

16:17

park. In the bottom section

16:19

it was always nice, peaceful and

16:21

quiet while in the upper part

16:23

was louder. You could

16:25

hear kids laughing, young people

16:28

would gather, go on the

16:30

dates and people would go on

16:32

walks. And

16:39

the third photo is the central

16:41

Fontaine which is located in the

16:43

historic center of the town where

16:46

loads of Bakhmout locals like

16:48

to spend their time and

16:50

that was the place where school

16:53

graduates gathered for the prom and

16:55

sometimes there would be more than three

16:58

southern people of those who are graduating

17:00

from school and their parents and their

17:02

relatives. It was also a place where

17:04

people celebrate their weddings and

17:06

it's right in front of the local

17:09

culture center which used to

17:11

be a place where people would come for

17:13

dancing, meeting, where

17:16

people would meet each other

17:18

and get married and it's

17:20

extremely painful that

17:23

this place was destroyed by Russian

17:25

missiles. And finally,

17:27

how much do you estimate

17:29

it will cost to rebuild Bakhmout?

17:36

Preliminary it will be about two

17:38

billion. Two billion dollars for

17:40

one city and who should pay

17:42

for that? Russia and Putin. I

17:49

never spoke about it during the interview but

17:51

I have a memory from my youth. In

17:56

1998 I wrote a book called

17:58

City of My Destiny. which was

18:00

a story about Bakhmod. And

18:03

our city has a very

18:06

tough destiny. And it's

18:08

tough for people who built it, it's

18:10

tough for me, it's tough for its

18:12

locals, it's tough for its history

18:14

and culture. But I believe

18:16

that the destiny of this

18:19

city will include rebuilding and

18:21

repopulating. Well,

18:25

we wish you all the very best, Mr

18:27

Mayor, and thank you so much, Alexey River,

18:29

for talking to us here on UkraineCast and

18:32

talking to our listeners around the world. I

18:34

am Shira Yapul, I am the one

18:36

who is here. Interestingly,

18:43

Victoria, Mr Mayor, he kept

18:45

switching to Russian, but

18:47

he was very keen, obviously, to make

18:50

an effort to speak Ukrainian. But the fact

18:52

is, that part of Ukraine,

18:54

Donbass or Donetsk region, predominantly,

18:58

is where Russian is, was

19:01

being spoken until the full scale invasion

19:04

started. Yeah, right now, that's why if

19:06

we go back all the way back to February 2022,

19:10

that was who Putin said

19:13

he was defending, Russian speaking Ukrainians,

19:15

people like Alexey River. Absolutely.

19:18

And right now, if a

19:20

Ukrainian, particularly Ukrainian official, is

19:22

seen speaking Russian in public,

19:24

that's really bad form. That's

19:26

why Mr River was really

19:28

keen to speak Ukrainian. But

19:30

when he, you know,

19:33

he couldn't, when it was obvious it was much easier for

19:35

him to speak Russian, he switched to Russian. We've

19:38

got another Q&A for you on Friday. We're

19:41

going to hear more about the situation on

19:43

the front line, where things have worsened with

19:45

multiple Russian attacks. That's according to

19:47

Ukraine's head of the armed forces.

19:50

Please keep sending in your messages

19:52

to our number, which is plus

19:54

four four three three zero one

19:56

two three nine four eight zero. And

19:59

you know, can use our email address

20:01

which is Ukrainecast at bbc.co.uk And

20:07

wherever you're missing in the world, take care.

20:09

Goodbye. Ukrainecast for BBC.

20:22

I'm Helena Bonham Carter and for

20:24

BBC Radio 4 this is History's

20:27

Secret Heroes. A new

20:29

series of rarely heard tales from World

20:31

War Two. They had no idea that

20:33

she was Britain's top female code breaker.

20:36

We'll hear of daring risk takers. What

20:38

she was offering to do was to

20:40

ski in over the High Carpathian Mountains.

20:43

Of course it was dangerous, but danger

20:46

was his friend. Subscribe

20:48

to History's Secret Heroes wherever

20:50

you get your podcasts.