(Photography: Elad Zahavi | Editing: Yedidia Cohen | Production: Itzik Ohana)
In the special broadcast in ‘Shabbat Square’ to mark the one year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, ‘News 13’ man Yossi Eli talks about the feelings inside Ukraine.
>> to watch the full transmitter <
Eli himself visited the country a few days after the invasion when it seemed that within days Ukraine would be under Russian protection, and he came back for a visit a year after the terrible destruction.
“You get there, you see huge amounts of refugees who are crying, trying to get out of the country as quickly as possible, you see lines of three or four days to get out of the border and they don’t agree to everyone going out because they are looking for the right men to take into the army.” He testified about what happened a year ago.
“There was really a big mess there – the Ukrainians really didn’t know how to eat this war. They talked about the fact that in two weeks Ukraine would surrender to Putin, to Russia and they thought that this story would be over.”
But after a year the situation was different: “I go back there a year later and I see that the Ukrainian spirit is simply something completely different. We see a much more orderly situation. The Ukrainian army is standing on its feet and not scared.
You really see as if you have arrived in the US army. You also see their technique, their fighting method, their fighting spirit – completely different from what we can imagine from what is happening on the Russian side, where there is no motivation.”
Watch the full interview.