The Ever
Closer War
VRT |
36min
Postproduction script
00:00:01:24 Sergey: We had to kneel.
00:00:03:22 Vitali: They'll kill us.
00:00:05,09 Serhiy: My wife, my daughter and my son.
00:00:09:12 Man 3: Working with the dead is something I’ve never experienced and it’s just absolutely outrageous. Outrageous.
0’16-0’30 Vranckx title sequence
(removed in textless version)
00:00:30:21 Rudi: In Ukraine, we'll go from Kyiv to Kharkiv, on the eastern front. Three months of war. I'm here with the Flemish-Ukrainian Anastacia.
0’36 Rudi Vranckx, journalist
00:00:41:12 Anastacia: We'll look for civilian victims and war crimes and see the destruction the Russians have wrought.
00:00:48:12 Rudi: The past 100 days sent a shockwave through Europe. A war just around the corner.
00:00:55:13 VO: April 28th, Kyiv. We reach the capital in the evening. Dull thuds break the silence. Russian missiles have hit their target.
1’06 Title: The Ever Closer War
00:01:08:01 News anchor: Now, over to Rudi Vranckx. What can you say about the attack?
00:01:12:07 Rudi: The first missiles were shot down by Ukraine's anti-aircraft weapons.
00:01:17:18 VO: The next one hits an apartment building. A fellow journalist is pulled out from under the rubble, dead. That on the same day when UN Secretary General Guterres is in the city, looking for a solution to the deadly conflict. The missile attack is a clear message from Putin to the world. Our interpreter is Anastacia Galouchka, 28 years old. She was raised in Flanders, but has Ukrainian roots. Anastacia goes to law school and works for international organisations. When war broke out, she dropped everything to show the world what’s going on in her own country.
2’03 Anastacia Galouchka
00:01:57:10 Anastacia: For the first four days of the war, the world just ceased to exist. I couldn't eat or sleep, and I got calls from friends in Kyiv who were being bombarded. They said: We're going to die here. It made me go pale.
00:02:13:11 Rudi: And you decided to go to Ukraine?
00:02:16:05 Anastacia: I was scared. I'd never been in a war zone. No one knew how fast it would go or where they'd go. They clearly planned to capture Kyiv in one day, but it... It's my Kyiv. No Russian tank can stop me from going home.
00:02:32:20 Rudi: We're stopping. It's a checkpoint. Hang on. Hang on.
00:02:41:01 Anastacia: Your passport.
00:02:50:09 Rudi: Are you mad at the Russians? Can you detach yourself from it or... It's still very personal.
00:02:56:18 Anastacia: I've had times with people when it was much harder for me. The details were so raw. I mostly have it with children. Then it's hard to stay detached. It sticks with you.
00:03:10:22 Rudi: The war is personal for you?
Anastacia: - Yes. Yes...
00:03:16:12 VO: On Sunday March 6th, disaster struck a fleeing family in Irpin. Tetiana and her children were killed. This footage went around the world. Everyone looked on, incredulous. Everyone including Serhiy, Tetiana’s husband. He wasn’t there at the time. We’re meeting him at the spot where his wife and children died.
3’18 Archive footage
00:03:43:06 Serhiy: That's where the bomb went off.
00:03:45:19 Rudi: How did you know that this was your wife and children.
00:03:51:04 Serhiy: I saw a photo from The New York Times on Twitter. Their faces were blurry, but I recognized their clothes as well as the dog's crate, the suitcases and all of our stuff.
00:04:11:20 VO: Serhiy takes us to their home. They came to live here, outside of Kyiv, because this was a nice, quiet neighbourhood, where children can grow up carefree. When the whole area was shelled, Tetiana decided to flee with the children.
00:04:25:03 Serhiy: Hello. Sorry about the mess. I haven't gotten to tidy up yet. We had to flee quickly. My daughter made this.
00:04:47:12 Rudi: Really? How old was your daughter?
Serhiy: Nine years old.
Rudi: And she made this?
Serhiy: Yes.
00:05:00:19 Serhiy: This is our eldest son, Nikita.
Rudi: How old was he?
Serhiy: Three or four.
Rudi: And this was from 2004.
00:05:13:15 Serhiy: This is a recent photo of my daughter.
00:05:19:21 Anastacia: How old was your son?
Serhiy: - Eighteen.
00:05:25:06 Serhiy: Shrapnel from the missiles came in here. Some of it was cleared away. You can see that there is still shrapnel stuck in the furniture.
5’35 Archive footage
00:05:43:10 VO: Everywhere in the neighbourhood the violence of war has left its mark. Thousands have fled the area. And yet, we find locals who have stayed on.
00:05:54:02 Sergey: It went very quickly. In a few seconds, I saw missiles headed our way. And I started to pray. I ran into my neighbour's house, and then the place exploded. We were bombarded for ten days. We couldn't go on. We had to get on our knees. They handcuffed us and held us prisoner for five hours. They held us at gunpoint. We couldn't even go to the toilet. We had to go in our trousers.
6’01 Sergey Smatich
00:06:27:04 Anastacia: The Russians broke in here?
Sergey: - Yes, and they stole everything.
00:06:33:06 Rudi: Maybe this place is booby-trapped.
00:06:37:04 Sergey: Watch your step.
00:06:46:16 VO: From the rooftop, the scope of the destruction is clear; homes destroyed as far as the eye can see.
00:06:58:09 Anastacia: That says: Putin is a dickhead. Putin is a bastard.
00:07:02:16 Rudi: Looking at that, it's clear that Putin came through here.
00:07:09:11 VO: Everywhere we go, we find people who want to tell their story. Father Andrey, who had to dig a mass grave puts us in touch with Vitali, who’s had to experience the Russian occupation first-hand.
7’28 Vitali Zhyvotovskyi
00:07:23:08 Vitali: When the Russian soldiers started shooting here, my daughter and I went to the bomb shelter. When they broke the windows, my neighbour came outside to ask them not to destroy everything. They just shot him in the yard, and he lay there for five days. We couldn't bury him. I tried to avoid them. I didn't know their plans for us. Then they started breaking down my door. They couldn't get it open, so they used explosives. Look, this is the result of the explosion. The blast threw the second door open, too. They brought at least seven civilians here. Ordinary people in civilian clothing. Later, I found those people's papers. The papers of the people who were held hostage here. I turned the documents over to the police and the prosecutors. Here, two men were kneeling with bags over their heads. There was another one, with a bag over his head. Armed soldiers were keeping an eye on them. They beat the people.
00:09:04:02 VO: In the house we still find traces of the Russian occupiers. Vitali and his daughters were locked in their own cellar. They heard the Russians abusing their victims.
00:09:17:17 Vitali: On the stairs, I heard the footsteps of the young men they took. They were all beaten. In the end, I heard a loud scream. They cut off their fingers and laughed: Someone won't have any fingers anymore. My daughter was terrified and said: Dad, they'll kill us. The worst part wasn't the thought that they would kill us, but when and how they would do it. We had lost all hope.
00:09:54:14 VO: Back to Serhiy. We accompany him to the final resting place of his wife and children. He takes us to the new part of the cemetery: a burial ground created especially for victims of the war.
00:10:10:14 Rudi: There are so many new graves.
Serhiy: - In March, there were none.
00:10:38:19 Rudi: Did you see your wife and children before they were buried.
00:10:41:18 Serhiy: Yes, of course. I had to unlock my wife's phone. I asked the morgue to take her body out of cold storage, so I could unlock her phone with her fingerprint. That was the hardest moment. I discovered that a cold finger cannot unlock a phone.
00:11:23:05 Rudi: Why did they bring them to the morgue?
11’34 Serhiy
Perebyinis
00:11:24:24 Serhiy: It's the legal autopsy procedure. The body is cut open completely, from the mouth down. The medical examiner must be able to establish a cause of death. Then, I received three death certificates. My son's body was riddled with shrapnel. My daughter was hit in the head with shrapnel. My wife took shrapnel to the throat and chest. She lived for an hour after that. She was taken to the hospital, where she died. That's why that procedure exists. Naturally, when I saw that... I didn't have anything with me, so I asked the funeral directors to bring three cloths with them, with which to cover their throats. It was difficult to see all of that. My wife, my daughter and my son. A criminal case has been opened, due to violation of the rules of warfare. I made a statement and handed in all of the photos and video footage of the crime scene I could get from the press. I also showed evidence of the suitcases and backpacks peppered with missile shrapnel. All of that to prove that it wasn't fake.
00:13:23:00 VO: Ukraine wants to collect as much evidence as possible of war crimes. The morgue plays a lugubrious central role in this. Human remains are collected here. They’re stacked in refrigerated trucks, waiting to be identified. The work in the morgue is difficult. We run into a volunteer, Andy, from the United States.
00:13:49:06 Rudi: You’re American. How did you end up here?
00:13:51:09 Andy: When I see the family members who are in pain, wanting to know where loved ones were, that motivated me to do something. So I sold all my belongings and got a one way ticket here. Working with the dead is something I’ve never experienced before, it’s rough, visually, the smell…
00:14:12:10 Rudi: You are dealing with the bodies, you see the condition they’re in?
Andy: I’d say if the person was lucky they have all their limbs, or their head even. A lot of them we’ve had have just had a shell of a head with nothing inside, it’s just pieces. Or torn arms or missing limbs. Some of them have been burned beyond recognition.
00:14:33:13 Rudi: If you were to describe a day, what do you usually do?
00:14:36:18 Andy: What I usually do is, they’ll have people who come here looking for their family members. If they identify one of them, then I’ll help them transport the body from a truck or one of the refrigerated trucks to this area to be processed. What struck me most about the bodies here is that they’ve all been women, children and senior citizens.
00:15:03:08 VO: We ride along with a war crimes prosecutor and a French gendarmerie identification team. They exhume bodies, later to be examined. The exhumation is heart-wrenching for the next of kin.
00:15:52:00 Officer: What is the date of birth?
00:15:55:06 Mother: 2nd December, 2011.
00:16:00:18 Officer: Date of death?
Mother: - 1st March.
00:16:05:04 Mother: Open it.
00:16:06:06 Officer: Don't get too close.
Mother: - No, I want to be there.
00:16:37:09 Mother: Could you take off her necklace?
00:16:40:22 Grave worker: I can't.
Woman: - Leave it with her.
00:16:43:11 Mother: Put the ring back on then.
00:16:47:02 Father: We were sitting at the table, eating, and they started shooting. At first, we thought it was fireworks. It got worse and worse, and then we knew they were shells. The little one sat down, and I protected the eldest girl. The youngest was killed.
00:17:07:08 Anastacia: I'm sorry to ask such difficult questions, but where was she hit?
00:17:13:03 Mother: Her head was all shot up.
Father: - They blew her brains out. How else can I put it? They blew her brains out.
00:17:22:02 Mother: We don't want her to be exhumed. I don't understand why it's necessary to take her away. She'll be buried for the third time. If they don't take her, I won't get a death certificate.
00:17:38:21 Father: Half of the village saw that her brains were no longer in her skull. Why does this have to happen now? When will we get her back?
00:17:53:04 Anastacia: When did you start working on war crimes? How, precisely, do you go about it?
00:18:01:16 Andiry: We've been
doing this since the first day of the war. We collect all the evidence of these
terrible crimes, committed by Russian soldiers in this territory. Each piece of
evidence is subjected to a separate legal review. If we find the Russians'
lunch boxes, pieces of their uniforms, clothing, documents
or passports, that's all evidence that Russian Federation soldiers have been
here.
18’09 Andriy Toerbar,
Judicial officer
00:18:41:21 Anastacia: The International Court of Justice?
00:18:43:21 Andriy: - Works in parallel. They also document all crimes that are passed on to them. This isn't just an operation, and it isn't just a war. This is a real genocide of the Ukrainian people.
00:19:03:15 VO: Back in the morgue, the French gendarmes get ready to take DNA samples from civilians. It’s the first time here in this conflict. Many of the bodies have not yet been identified. By doing this, they’re hoping to give a name to the victims and offer some comfort to the next of kin.
00:19:21:06 Andy: The process is when you get an unidentified body, and they take it and examine the wounds. They’ll pull projectiles out if there’s projectiles, or shrapnel. They’ll swab the body for DNA, they’ll swab it for expulsive residue, to try and determine how they were killed, which is important. The French are top notch, I’m really happy that they’re here, the Ukrainian people really needed help with this. Because they weren’t prepared. They weren’t prepared for anything like this. I don’t think anyone’s ever really prepared for a massacre.
00:19:50:19 This woman is one of the many. She hopes to be able to find her son’s body through DNA.
00:20:02:06 Woman: He said he would call back. His phone isn't working anymore. I don't know where he fled, or from whom. They were taken away in buses. No one knows where. People thought the government was evacuating them. That's how people were taken away and eliminated. Bodies are still being found in the woods. There's no clarity. Nothing is clear. I don't know what to expect. They found burnt corpses.
00:20:38:11 Rudi: Does she hope her son is among the unidentified bodies?
00:20:48:22 Woman: Maybe he was taken to Russia or buried somewhere here. I don't know.
00:20:57:13 Anastacia: She doesn't know.
00:21:00:16 Woman: If he's somewhere here, it's over for him. If he's there, too. He is dead, anyway.
00:21:20:02 Religious song: shedding tears of sorrow while her Son was dying: oh, Son, my Son, for what great transgression must you bear this trying hour of oppression on the cross?
00:21:56:12 VO: We leave Kyiv and drive to the east of this immense country, where the front is now. The war seems to be in a decisive phase. Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second largest city, 50km from the Russian border and under fire from day 1.
00:22:14:10 Rudi: This is the third month of the war. Isn't that strange for you?
00:22:20:05 Anastacia: Yes. You get used to it. That's worse. When you get used to the sound of shells and you realize that, it makes you feel like: that's not how it should be. I didn't come here naively. I realized that it's dangerous. We weren't playing games. It's not a fun adventure. It's really something that can cost you your life. I have friends here, and I recognize what used to be their apartment or their university. And that hurts infinitely much.
00:23:01:14 VO: We get ready to go with Kraken, a nationalistic battalion, to a newly liberated village on the border. The Russians are still nearby.
00:23:23:17 Rudi: The men are a little nervous. Checkpoints.
00:23:27:04 Anastacia: This is within range of short-range artillery.
00:23:32:06 VO: Most people have already left. But, Kraken battalion soldiers are looking for the few people who still remain here.
00:23:52:16 Anastacia: Do you live here?
Man: - Yes, three houses down.
00:23:56:13 Anastacia: Why didn't you leave?
Man: - Where to? My daughter is disabled. She's been bed-ridden for 23 years. She can't see or hear.
00:24:13:22 Maksym: The Russians had a firm foothold here, and they fired heavily on Kharkiv. They captured the hills. We liberated this village. We chase Russian occupiers out of residential areas. Then we evacuate as many civilians as we can.
00:24:31:15 Rudi: That's still smoking. It was destroyed yesterday. What are they so scared of?
00:24:40:00 Maksym: If we stay in an open area for too long, unmanned planes can fire on us. It's unsafe, and it's quite probable that one will fly our way.
00:24:58:10 Anastacia: There's a drone. They don't know if it's ours, but there's a drone.
00:25:07:11 Soldier: If there's an artillery group and it launches an attack, it will end badly for us.
Anastacia: - Should we wait here?
00:25:18:01 Soldier: Are we going, Borenka?
Maksym: - Can we leave?
00:25:24:13 VO: The drone has disappeared. We can continue.
00:25:29:13 Maksym: 152-millimeter armoured artillery. Their men are active here. That's why drones are constantly flying around, and their artillery is going the whole time, too.
00:25:48:12 Anastacia: Hello. Why haven't you left?
00:25:55:03 Man: I don't want to. It's my house, my family. I'm living in constant fear.
00:26:01:10 Rudi: Have many people stayed behind?
Man: - Very few.
00:26:07:06 VO: This woman couldn’t leave. She’s relieved that the soldiers have come to rescue her.
00:26:13:16 Old woman: I should have left sooner.
00:26:18:03 Anastacia: Why did you stay?
00:26:20:04 Old woman: There was no one left. My family was already gone. I don't know where they are.
00:26:29:02 Anastacia: So, why do you want to leave now?
Old woman: - There's a lot of shooting.
00:26:36:04 Anastacia: Where will you go?
00:26:38:04 Old woman: Probably Kharkiv. Wherever.
00:26:41:07 Anastacia: Do you have someone to go to there?
00:26:46:20 Old woman: No, no.
00:26:48:17 Soldier: We'll hand her over to the medical personnel. The doctors in Kharkiv will help her.
00:27:01:04 VO: We dare to get a little closer to the front line.
00:27:13:22 Maksym: We are in an open area. That's why we have to run. Their sharpshooters shoot with a bigger calibre. It's a short distance, 300 to 400 metres. There are their people.
00:27:26:20 Anastacia: The Russians are there, where the forest line is.
00:27:29:22 VO: Kraken is a battalion made up of extreme nationalist volunteers. IN this war, they’ve been the target of Russian propaganda, which calls them Nazis.
00:27:39:04 Maksym: The core consists of veterans of the old
Azov Battalion. They're soccer fanatics. In the beginning, there were thirty of
us, people with military experience. After that, new people joined us, and now
we've grown into two battalions. There are now a thousand of us. At first, we
had nothing. We didn't even have vehicles, and we made do with our own cars. My
car, a Volkswagen Touareg, was burned when I got
taken away, wounded.
27’51 Maksym, Kraken commander
00:28:33:24 Anastacia: Do you know what Putin says about Azov and Kraken?
00:28:38:12 Maksym: I can say something about Kraken, too. There are no Nazis in it. Our battalion has people from various backgrounds. There are a few guys who used to belong to gangs of soccer hooligans. But they've outgrown that now. They were 20 then. Now they're 30. Now they are grown men, and they understand the difference between Nazism and nationalism. Let's take cover. They fired on this place yesterday.
00:29:31:24 Rudi: The world was, everybody was surprised in Europe that you could hold them off.
00:29:37:16 Maksym: We've been learning to defend our homeland since we were little. Now we are being attacked by people who told us we must stand up to fascists. They attacked us. They are the fascists. Their methods are far worse than those of the Germans in World War II. The people hate the Russians. After what happened in in Bucha, Irpin and Mariupol, no one will forgive the Russians. We cut off relations with them. There's no more big brother. If he kills your children and rapes your wife in your own home, then that's the end of big brother for us. Our children will learn about our acts of heroism. They will defend our country, carrying guns. I'm sure we will win.
00:30:47:10 VO: From the front back to the city. In Kharkiv, many have their doubts about how to deal with Russia now. Families have been torn apart by the war, because people in Russian territory don’t get to see what’s happening here.
00:31:05:05 Oksana: I have a brother in Crimea. He's been brainwashed by propaganda. It's impossible to communicate with him. He says: It's normal that you are being bombarded. There are Nazis. I said to him: Which Nazis were in my house, then? You know me. We're family. But I can't convince him. Most people believe we need to be saved. But from whom? Have we been saved? I don't know if I'll ever have a house or car again.
31’11 Oksana
00:31:45:10 VO: Life still goes on mostly underground in Kharkiv. The metro is the place for people with nowhere to go. I visited these people one month ago. It’s taken on a homely atmosphere; the war is their life.
00:32:00:11 Man singing with guitar: An exhausted city is silent. An old singer sings with a guitar in his hand. Guitar, I won't give my heart away just like that, you and I are here, on Earth I only find comfort with you, oh, guitar.
00:32:33:04 Rudi: They make it almost like home. They're trying to make life go on somehow.
00:32:38:17 Katya: When I prepare food, I imagine I'm at home, cooking. People open up in a different way, and everyone helps out. I've been here since 24th February.
32’41 Katya
00:32:52:15 Rudi: How do you keep going?
00:32:54:01 Katya: - The first group which gives up, are the people who think it will be over soon. The second group, which gives up, is the people who don't believe we'll win. And the third group is the survivors, who live in the moment. So, now I think of those words and go on with my life.
33’28 9th May
00:33:29:12 VO: We too have now become part of the propaganda war. May 9th is the day Nazi Germany was defeated in Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian army shows us their latest conquests with pride: tanks, a helicopter, bodies, the inferno of the front line.
00:33:50:11 Soldier: This tank was hit by a shot from our artillery. They left behind all their equipment when our soldiers started their counter-offensive. They were running left and right across this path. When we fired on them, they stopped running.
33’59 Yevgen
00:34:25:16 VO: At a deserted military training area, a rail wagon is opened. Inside are 41 body bags; Russian soldiers, says Ukraine. It’s said that Russia doesn’t want to repatriate a total of 7,000 soldiers’ bodies. Wars aren’t just won with weapons, but also with propaganda and will power. What mother wants to receive her dead son’s body in a bag? Whenever this war ends, will there be truth and justice?
00:35:00:01 Rudi: Are you expecting an international tribunal? Or is that naive?
00:35:03:20 Anastacia: - Of course I hope for one. But justice is also giving a voice to the victims and recognizing their suffering. And I think... I'm trying to focus more on that than dragging every Russian soldier before a tribunal.
00:35:23:19 Rudi: Justice is also... Justice is only served against war criminals if they lose. Another lesson from history.
00:35:31:17 Anastacia: True. But what is winning or losing in this war? I wouldn't even know.