Status: 02/24/2022 10:21 a.m
The journalist Roman Schell is in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where he follows the work of an NGO. In the interview, he describes how he experienced the attack on Kharkiv and how the people in the country are now reacting.
NDR info: How did you experience the attack?
Roman Shell: I woke up at my hotel at 5am due to violent explosions. I opened the window and saw the flames rise, saw small flashes. People here in Kharkiv are leaving the city, there are a lot of traffic jams at the moment. People want to leave the country and are heading west. There are no planes at the moment, you can no longer fly to Kiev. Heavy explosions can be heard in Mariupol, in Odessa, in Kramatorsk, all over the country. There are reports of people leaving Kiev and heading west. The Ukrainians assume that the Russian troops will take the eastern part of the country first. People assume that they might be safer in western Ukraine near Lviv.
To person
Roman Schell is a Russian journalist and reports for the German public broadcaster from Ukraine and Belarus.
NDR info: How is the Ukrainian army doing?
quick: At the moment it is difficult to say. Yesterday evening the soldiers were still combative. There have been several videos on the internet of them saying to the Russian troops before the possible invasion, ‘You are not welcome, we will fight’. I don’t think the Ukrainian army is giving up. I believe that a lot of blood will be shed in the next few days because the Ukrainian army will not give up. It is well equipped, better than in 2014. However, it is in no way comparable to the Russian army. But I believe that the Ukrainians will fight.
NDR info: Was Ukraine prepared for Putin to actually take this step in the war?
quick: No, people just didn’t believe it. They assumed that there might be a more violent escalation of the conflict on the front line in Donbass. I have been accompanying a team of psychologists from an NGO along the so-called contact line for a week. We drove 350 kilometers to use their powers to treat people traumatized by war, children, young people and adults. Along the whole line of contact we heard explosions, shots and machine guns, artillery, mortar shells. That was very dangerous
The team treated 10-15 young people from this region. In the afternoon we drove away and then, in the evening, after a violent attack, these children called us and asked that we just take them with us. And that’s what we did and brought these kids and young people out of the war region. They were first in Kharkiv and are now being taken to western Ukraine to rescue them. The whole city is now going to western Ukraine in the hope that Putin won’t be able to harm them there.
NDR info: They now want to get to safety together with the others. In what way do they want to do that?
quick: The NGO provided their vehicles, three small buses. I’ll just keep driving west with the kids
The interview was conducted by Stefan Schlag, NDRInfo. It has been adapted for the textless version.