Today is my birthday, but more interestingly, it is also the day we are finishing the post production work on our Ukraine film project, which is now called Kyiv Of Mine.
This intense labour of love started in 2018 and this weekend it will go live on YouTube. Our motivation is this: Ukraine deserves a better conversation in the world.
We hope that our work here stimulates some new interest and support for Ukraine.
If anyone of you reading this wants to do something nice for my birthday then please share this trailer link with all your friends, family, and people you work with. It all helps.
These days you don’t need Netflix or any other kind of entertainment service. The news is more than enough. Hollywood doesn’t write scripts this out there.
Since Trump entered politics the term “fake news” is now commonplace. We used to trust certain things in life. I trust the doctor. The pilot flying the plane. The news company reporting on current events. I trust the chef at the restaurant. I trust the teachers looking after the Bunster at kindergarten. We used to trust a lot of people. But in today’s world of crazy conspiracy theories and deranged politicians, we have all become less trusting.
Imagine if I did not like what the doctor told me and started shouting “Fake doctor”. This is what is happening with the media. Yes, the media is often way too opinionated. Their purpose is to report the news. And so many journalists have become famous with big online followings, that they seem to be bigger than the actual news. But that does not mean they are making up facts and figures.
“After three years in Kyiv, Tymoshenko says his parents have recently returned to their home village outside Nikopol, another frontline city under regular artillery and drone fire. He grew up there in the countryside “playing with sticks”, before moving to Kyiv to study political science.
The authors he read – Plato and Aristotle – do not reflect the non-ideal world today, a place of ‘brute power and money’. He believes there will not be much to laugh about when the war finally ends: “I’m sure Ukraine will win and Russia will burn. But we’ve lost so many people. You can’t imagine Victory Day as ‘Wow!’.”
In the meantime, he suggests things are looking up for Ukrainian female comedians. ‘We will only have female ones because we men will all have died,’ he says blackly.“
At the leading international LANDEURO conference on European land forces, held in Wiesbaden, Germany, Robert “Madiar” Brovdi, Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said:
“I lead 12 units of drone pilots. Ninety-five percent of them were civilians before the war began. They were businessmen, athletes, lawyers, singers – anyone you can imagine, but not military. Altogether, we make up 2% of Ukraine’s entire army. Yet we destroy one in every three enemy personnel and one in every three enemy targets.
Putin, who promised to take us in three days, has – in three and a half years – only taught us how to defend our homeland, our children, and our land.”
It is a calm, quiet night in Kyiv. I imagine most people are fast asleep. I didn’t sleep much. Yesterday was a stressful and intense day of work and I was over tired and over wired. I have been up for a few hours. At 9:30 am I will leave the Nest to go to a meeting. Another busy day ahead. And yes, life goes on, bombs and all. But it is anything but normal.
The night before was the opposite of a calm and quiet night. Reading the local news updates, the Wednesday attack was one of the biggest yet on Ukraine’s capital, and it lasted 10 hours. I was in the basement shelter until the sun came up and then went to bed at 5 am and woke up two hours later, and started to work. It was a long, busy day yesterday.
The attack on Wednesday night was hundreds of Shahed drones and there were also a bunch of ballistic missiles. It is all insane, and everyone is so exhausted. The thing about these killer drones is that they are not like the size of toy drones like you see in the shops. The Shahed is huge. When one of these things get knocked out of the sky you don’t want to be down below. The falling debris can be lethal.
How can this be happening in this modern world?! It is pure evil. Ukraine will survive and thrive one day. But there is a lot more pain still to come. The attacks on Kyiv are getting bigger and more frequent. Please God this insane war comes to an end. It will, but not anytime soon.
