From Motorcycles to Mercy: Neale Bayly’s Ukraine Stories

A latte with a heart, served underground while missiles land nearby. That’s the kind of moment Neale Bayly brings to life as we follow his two-year journey through Ukraine on a motorcycle—seeking peace and love where the news rarely looks. Instead of chasing explosions, Neale sits with amputees at the Superhumans Center, listens to a young mother find words for loss on an 18-hour train, and rides shotgun with a businesswoman who builds drones beneath a department store before driving them into Kherson in a white Jaguar. The war is real—sirens, checkpoints, shattered bridges—but so are the people who make beds, mop floors, and keep serving coffee with care.

We talk about Operation Freelander, a grassroots effort refurbishing Land Rover Freelanders for frontline evacuations and supply runs—and how that mission unlocked a childhood memory of giving that still fuels Neil’s work. We meet volunteers who collect the uncollectable so families can have closure. We hear how a single hug at a rural gas station reframed purpose: tell the human stories that slip past the headlines. Along the way, soldiers hold doors, teenagers thank warriors with shaky hands, and a nation’s dignity shows up in small, stubborn acts.

This conversation moves through fear, shock, anger, joy, and love—then lands on a simple truth: peace isn’t the absence of conflict; it’s the presence of humanity. If you’ve ever believed motorcycles can be a bridge to connection, this ride will prove it. Join us, share it with someone who needs a dose of grounded hope, and if it resonates, tap follow, leave a review, and tell us which story stayed with you. Your support helps more of these voices be heard.

Links
Wellspring Website
wellspring-outreach.org
NBR Facebook
facebook.com/NealeBaylyRides
NBR Instagram
instagram.com/nealebaylyrides

YouTube

 www.youtube.com/@NealeBayly

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
We talk about it all the timeon the Peace Love Moto podcast.
That one of the many beautifulthings about riding a motorcycle
is meeting other people.
Because when you meet anothermotorcycle rider, whether it's
at a gas station or a cafe orwhatever, you pretty much got a

(00:24):
brand new friend right then,right?
And then if it goes on to thenext steps, it turns into a
conversation.
Then if it turns into aninterview, oh my goodness, have
you got a lot to talk about?
Our guest today is Neil Bailey.
To be honest with you, Neil andI have been talking for the
last hour and 15 minutes andhave not recorded anything.

(00:46):
We did that intentionally.
I didn't forget to press therecord button.
We have just been talking aboutideas, about life, about the
future, about the past.
And it's been wonderful.
So, Neil, we are recording now.
So, my friend, welcome back tothe Peace Love Moto podcast.

Speaker 01 (01:03):
Thank you for having me on.
It's been great to catch up andreally it's been so nice to see
the podcast evolving and thedifferent types of guests you've
been having.
And I know what a buzz you getfor this.
And thanks for bringing thisfor us all to have a good
listen.
Oh, and now for me to have achance.

Speaker 00 (01:20):
Well, it has been a it has been a pleasure.
And again, having a follow-upconversation like we're having
now is just all the all the morefun, although it begins with an
hour and a half of not evenrecording.
But it's been great.
It's been great.
Neil, I just want to I want tocatch up with you on so many
things, on wellspring, on yournot only your motorcycling and

(01:45):
your bicycling adventures thatyou've been on, but still what
we were talking about too, mostimportantly, is world events
where you have been directlyinvolved in support for the
Ukraine and other places whereyou have been there, you have
seen what's going on, and mostimportantly, you have directly

(02:05):
interacted with heart and spiritwith those impacted either
directly or indirectly withtragedy.
And uh having that's somethingthat I just so admire about you.
And I knew this from the veryfirst time we met a year ago,
that you're one of those guyswho steps out, who recognizes

(02:28):
there's a there is an issuehere.
Somebody's got to do somethingabout it, somebody's got to help
in some way, and you do that.
And I just want to begin bythanking you for that.

Speaker 01 (02:38):
Well, thank you.
So we were sitting there, youknow, what you didn't tell the
viewers it took us an hour tofigure out what we're gonna talk
about.
It's sounding really cool, andlike we're having some deep,
meaningful conversation.

Speaker 00 (02:54):
Well, it's a lot of BS too, right?

Speaker 01 (02:56):
Specifically with the all you could eat dinner, we
couldn't figure out the menu,but so we were talking a little
bit about my work in Ukraine andthe perception.
I think I want to talk aboutUkraine and my work in Ukraine,
and there are three words that Iwant to use to describe what

I'm talking about (03:17):
peace, love, and motor.
And I think it fits into whatwe were talking about.
I want to talk about Ukrainefrom a perspective of peace,
love, and motor.
And I think when people thinkabout Ukraine or see Ukraine in
the media, they don't thinkpeace, they don't think love,

(03:38):
and they don't think motor,right?
They see destruction, they seedeath, explosions, or they see a
lot of political argument, alot of ideology around different
ideas, and it creates a lot ofanger, it creates argument, and

(04:02):
I I think there's a very, very,very distorted view of a lot of
what is happening in Ukraine.
And so for the viewers orlisteners or somebody who
doesn't didn't listen to ourfirst podcast or doesn't know
me, since the beginning of thefull-scale invasion in 2022,
this is a very importantstatement to make when you talk

(04:25):
to anybody in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine started in2014 when Putin annexed Crimea
went into ambassador Luhansk.
They've been fighting for avery long time.
And it actually was Februarythe 24th, 2022, at 5 a.m.
in the morning.
As the Ukrainians would saythat when the rockets flew, that

(04:46):
the full scale of invasionbegan.
And my first trip into Ukrainewas on a motorcycle, and it was
with award-winning journalistKieran Ridley, and Ukraine was a
tinderbox in 2022.
Nobody knew what was going on.
The country was full ofmilitary checkpoints, air

(05:10):
alerts, uh maybe not as manymissile strikes as are happening
today, but you know, enough tobe to be very, very unpleasant,
oh nasty, uh horrendous,whatever you would like to say.
And I also didn't haveexperience inside Ukraine.
And the first trip that I wasthere, what I realized now

(05:31):
looking back with hindsight, Ihad to process Ukraine through
my own feelings.
It didn't mean that I was notsomewhat empathetic to people I
was interviewing, it didn't meanthat I couldn't have sympathy
for the situation, and it didn'tmean that I couldn't maybe be
um objective about what washappening to people, but I had

(05:54):
to process through how I felt, Ithink, to deal with that.
And to that end, I went on towrite a big feature story for
Overland Journal, the magazine,and it was a story in a
different kind of way than I'ddone before because basically it
was an intro to what we weredoing in Ukraine, and then there
were five emotions.

(06:15):
And I did fear, shock, anger,joy, and love.
And I took five moments inUkraine, one was fear, one was
shock, one was joy, and one wasanger, and one was love.
And I wrote about thosemoments, and so they're not
congruent in a story, they'renot, you know, there's five

(06:36):
vignettes in a bigger story.
And as I was writing, I didn'trealize that this was what I was
doing.
I was processing Ukrainethrough my emotions.
And I came out and I had madeconnections and I made friends,
and I went back in in 2023.
Well, when I went back in in2023, I went in alone.

(06:58):
I had a GS1250 adventure,camera gear, bulletproof vests,
helmets, press pass, you know,stuff like this.
And wow, now I now I alreadyknew people.
We had hired a fixer in 2022called Andri.
And in between going the firsttime and the second time, Andre

(07:19):
and I worked on fundraisingbecause I had been to the
children's hospital, as youknow, I've been raising money
for kids since 2008.
Yeah, and we went into coalmines because they obviously we
wanted to look at the energycrises.
We went down to the Black Seaand saw the blockades of grain
trucks.
Um we went to Vinitsa after amissile strike.

(07:45):
Uh we dodged missiles andbombs, we were in Kiev.
Um we did stories about theharvest.
Uh, we went to a monastery thatwas sheltering refugees, and
that was very interestingbecause that monastery had also
hidden Jewish boys during theHolocaust.

Speaker 00 (08:03):
Oh, interesting.

Speaker 01 (08:04):
Wow.
Now the the Sudite monks hadshelved had hidden Jewish boys,
shaved their heads and giventhem new names and hidden them
amongst the kids.
So we were doing thesedifferent types of stories in
2022.
So I had some idea, I had aconcept of the country, I knew
people, I had a motorcyclefriend in Odessa called Yuri,

(08:26):
and I had made a motorcyclefriend online um called Igor in
Kiev, and I knew Andri in Lviv.
So I went to Lviv and spenttime with Andre.
And he had at that time gone tothe Superhuman Center.
This is a rehabilitationfacility, mostly funded by um
Howard Buffett, the son ofWarren Buffett.

unknown (08:48):
Oh.

Speaker 01 (08:48):
With the ceremony from the Zelensky family and
Richard Brant.
And today in 2025, it is themost advanced state of the art
center for prosthetics andamputation.
But at the time it was justgetting going.
And so I spent a lot of thatfirst week with the amputees.
I saw what sort of people likeNew York Times, The Spiegel, The

(09:13):
Guardian, Washington Post,these bigger publications would
they were very much doing thissort of hero story with a
beautiful photography of thesoldier with his prosthesis and
then the backstory.
It was like hero process.
So I sort of said, look, youknow, I'm a I'm not one of these
mainstream journalists.
I can't, I don't want to dothat.

(09:33):
And I centered my time on oneyoung man called Nazar, who was
a low-leg amputee, and he wasvery articulate and incredibly
descriptive.
And I spent the week with him.
I'd go to therapy and go to thepool with him, and he'd go to
psychology, and we'd havecoffee, and we over the course

(09:53):
of the week.
And he had endured about30-something surgeries.
Oh.
And but I just learnedeverything from the moment the
rockets began to fly, but whenhe made the decision to leave
his engineering job to go signup to protect his country.
I learned about the crying, thefear, the smell of the dead

(10:19):
bodies, how they would have toscrounge bodies to get bullets,
how like the smell of thegunpowder, the smell of the
bodies, the smell of the dirt.
I mean, the fear, the crying,the I mean, it was just
unbelievable.
He was so articulate aboutdescribing the process of war

(10:40):
and how often they were able totext their loved ones and
without the signals and and whatit was like watching civilians
being blown up essentially.
And and then finally losing hisleg, having multiple surgeries,
learning that the biggestproblem these amputees deal with
when they're actually whenthey've been hit by a mortar or

(11:03):
a drone is the dirt that gets inthe wound.
Oh, right.
So they deal with really,really bad infections.
So they have constantlyfighting infections, and then of
course having limbs amputated.
And then so it was reallyenlightening from a perspective
of getting to really go insidethe mind of a young man who had

(11:24):
had to pick up a gun and go tobattle and ends up being
injured.

Speaker 00 (11:27):
And who gave up his career, right?
For all of that.
Gave up his career.

Speaker 01 (11:32):
They all had to.
I mean, the country is underattack.
I mean, they just picked up agun and went to war.
And it was really it was reallyenlightening to he was he just
he's a great so message.
I mean, he's he's a great,great, great man.
And then finally, one day, theend of the week or the beginning

(11:53):
of the next week before I goton the move, he had his
prosthesis fitted, and I wasthere the first day he wore.
Oh, wow.
And we were whooping.
I have a video of it.
We were whooping and holleringand high-fiving, and you know,
not kind of the behavior youwould think about an amputee
getting a prosthesis.

(12:14):
That's the kind of attitudeit's called superhuman.
So he turns around to me, andI've written a story about it,
and it's not published yet, buthopefully it'll get published
one day as part of a bigger bodyof work.
And I said, What are you gonnado this weekend?
Or what are you gonna do?
He goes, I'm going home to aVino Frank.
I'm gonna walk into town withmy friends for a coffee and say
my girlfriend gets to have sexwith superhuman.

(12:38):
It was just absolutely magic.
And like I said, as we weretalking earlier, when your
perspective of the war is blownup buildings, tanks, stuff
exploding, or politicalargument, because there's we
have two we have two politicalparties in this country that

(12:59):
argue about Ukraine constantly,right?
So they're feeding all of thisstuff into the media.
Yeah.
But what Nazar told me is nevergetting out.

Speaker 02 (13:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 01 (13:09):
Right?
I mean, it's just who's tellingthat story.
I mean, not to be rude to theNew York Times, Washington Post,
or these big magazines whenthey were telling stories, but
they're shooting these glamourpictures of the guys with their
prosthetics and their roboticarms and these stories.
They're not, I mean, there mustbe some people that are doing
what I did, but it was just sofantastic.
So anyway, I finally leftsuperhumans and I started

(13:30):
working my way around Ukraine.
And I really struggled in thoseearly weeks, being alone.
Um that wasn't really theproblem.
The the problem I struggledwith, and maybe I'm looking back
with hindsight, was I keptfeeling like I needed to be
telling the biggest story.
That huge explosion, the tank,the rocket, the plane, you know,

(13:54):
like you know, like thebreaking news, the headlining
thing.
Yeah.
And when and I went and stayedwith Igor and Anna in Kiev, and
they had a dog called Kitty anda cat called Dog.
And they were a couple.
And Igor was a motorcyclist, sowe we rode around Kiev and he

(14:16):
took me to the Cossacksettlements and back roads, and
we did a whole lot of stuff.
And Anna had been in thetheater, and she had a job, and
she had a hundred cord, and hehad his turtle bike, and they'd
just built a new house beforethe full-scale invasion that
they hadn't quite finished yet,but it was nice.
And they lived in a littlevillage, and they were outside
of Kiev.
And they weren't getting hit bymissiles out there.

(14:39):
And on the surface of it, theyhadn't lost anybody, they hadn't
lost a limb, they hadn't beenshot at.
You would think that everythingwas absolutely normal, right?
I mean, pulling in a house of acan, a dog, and a car, and a
motorcycle, and a TV and allthat stuff.
But over the course of the weekthat I was there, starting to
watch how the stress wasaffected.

(15:00):
You know, you get air alertsall night and shahe kids coming
in and anti-missile defensesgoing off, and people don't know
where they're gonna land, andthey don't sleep, and they get
up.
The uncertainty, not knowingwhat to do.
Then they start telling thestory about how they'd had to
evacuate their parents at thebeginning of the war, you know,
hiding in shelters, you know,Igor had to send Anna with the

(15:24):
parents across the border intoRomania because the men couldn't
leave and the women could.
Yeah.
Do you imagine waving goodbyeto your wife, your
mother-in-law, and yourfather-in-law, never knowing
when you're going to see themagain?
And all of these things startedto come out that we don't think
about when we think about war,or we don't or what we see from

(15:45):
this version.
And then I realized, wow,there's more stories, but I
still wasn't quite getting it.
Then I found out Igor one dayturned around and he just told
me the story about at night whenAnna was gone in the beginning,
because the during the Battleof Kyiv, obviously the Russians

(16:05):
were very close to Kiev.
In those early days, they cameup bootcha hostel up and they
were trying to get into Kyiv.
He would have to go and man ablock post at night.
They they built up you knowconcrete pillars and check
hedgehogs to stop.
And here's Egor, the last lineof defense for his village, with
a machine gun.
And he depicted this idea ofthe sirens and the bombing as

(16:35):
these otherworldly giantsmarching across his country, and
here he is alone with this gun,this last line of defense
before this monster comes andsnatches children from their
beds and takes women.
And you know, what the Russiansdid to the civilians is just is
is horrendous.

(16:56):
I mean, you know, and but itagain it took a week.
So it really took a week to getthe story because I had to
burrow down into them.
Does that I hope this is makingsome sort of coherent sense
here?

Speaker 00 (17:11):
Yeah.
So just to just to let youknow, I think our network is a
little bit glitchy.
I lost you a few minutes agojust for a second and then it
came back.

Speaker 01 (17:20):
So I'm not just gonna say low and then it's it's
come back.

Speaker 00 (17:23):
Oh, okay.
Do you you know what might behelpful?
If we turn off our video, let'sbandwidth, that might be
helpful.
Um if we both do that.
Uh or I can do it on my sitetoo.
And and I don't know that Imean I learned that the hard
way.
One of the first interviewsthat I did, uh, there was there
was a guy, he was um in, I'llturn mine off today.

(17:44):
He was in LAX and I'm on thepay by the minute network or
whatever.
It was just awful.
And it he was just saying themost wonderful things, and then
it was getting glitchy, and thenI lost him, then we're back,
and then I lost him.
So anyway, I'll I'll cut thispart out, obviously, but uh
let's see if it if it staysclear from from here.

Speaker 01 (18:04):
Okay, so it's uh you sounding great.
I haven't lost a second orbreakout.

Speaker 00 (18:09):
Yeah, okay, you sound fine now.

Speaker 01 (18:11):
Yeah.
Ultimately, I had to end mytime with uh Igor and Anna, and
I had actually also run into ahospital and met a pastor by the
name of Sega and he hadprobably one of those compelling
speeches I'd ever heard.
Excuse me, and I took notes onthat.
And I drove off down to Odessa,or rode off down to Odessa, I

(18:36):
should say, and I was going toconnect with Yuri, the
motorcycle guy I'd met the yearbefore.
And he actually lives in aplace called Ujni, it's a
seaside town on the Black Sea.
So he arranged for a hotel.
It was pretty basic, so Ididn't stay wrong, there was no

(18:56):
amenities.
But anyway, I I so I rode downto Odessa to Ushni hung out with
Yuri, and then I moved intotown to the hotel that we'd
stayed in in 2022.
I knew it was, it's rightdowntown Odessa.
And Odessa changed a lot.
There wasn't boarded up, peoplewere back on the streets, and
all of that sort of tinderbox,not knowing what was going on,

(19:20):
you know, type of atmospherethat was in Ukraine in 2022 had
changed.
And Ukrainians were sort of nowback trying to live their
lives, shops were open, cafeswere open.
And being alone, it led me tothis extraordinary series of
people in interviews.
And you know, rather than takeup five hours in the podcast, I

(19:43):
ended up interviewing uh a guywho's now a good friend called
Rahman, who was captured andtortured in Kherson for 54 days.
Oh and absolutely horrendousstory.
And he um he still receivespsychological care, and and he

(20:04):
will actually say he'll point athis head and say, Cuckoo.
I mean, he's he'll never be,you know, he'll never be whole
again.
I mean, he does a great job,he's an amazing character.
He actually still raises moneyfor projects in Ukraine.
And it led me to uh a ladycalled Kate, who is a dead body
collector, and that was just anabsolute shocker to me.

(20:28):
Who thinks about dead bodycollectors?
Well, what they do is they goto the front lines and they
retrieve bodies that themilitary didn't have time to
collect, or they're buried underthe rubble, or they're
fragments of bodies that theyhave to identify by DNA, and

(20:50):
their sole purpose is so thatthe parents can have closure.

unknown (20:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 01 (20:57):
This is absolutely something you don't think about
in a war.
That can you imagine your lovedone goes after war and then no
one hears anything about it?
I'm sure there's people in thiscountry have can relate to that
missing in action, or theydon't know whatever happened to
a loved one.
So they have this really,really important job identifying

(21:17):
bits of bodies and and andbringing bodies back.
And it's uh, you know, and ofcourse, they're at a great
danger to themselves being thatclose to the front line and
mines.
And it led me to other rotarypeople, it led me to a lady
called Yulia who had lived underoccupation in in Kherson.
Um, the Russians had invadedthe one side of Kherson, and and

(21:40):
it wasn't until the Ukrainianskicked them out seven months
into the war in 2022 thatKherson was liberated.
And to listen to her stories ofwhat it was like to live under
Russian occupation, and theywere actually probably the lucky
ones because a lot of them theyyou know um Roman had been in
prison and tortured.

(22:00):
It was just it was justchilling, and you know, this
lady had had to, she eventuallywas able to get out.
And some of the stuff that shetalked about, I it probably
wouldn't want to bring with wewant to talk about peace and
love and motive, so they werevery, very unpleasant things.
But she immediately had gone toan organization called Windsor

(22:21):
Change, and she spends her lifehelping other internally
displaced people get settled.
And one of the things that theydo is they go out onto towards
the Romanian border, and out onthe Romanian border, there are
small settlements of peoplecalled Roma people, R-O-M-A, and
they are sort of descendantgypsies from Romania and

(22:44):
Bulgaria.
And they live in very they livein incredibly poor
circumstances.
And we went out to see thislittle lady that had about a
dozen kids, and she was livingalone with these kids in this
very strange, but spotlesslyclean and organized house,
nothing like we have in theWest, the way she had it done.
And they take diapers andformula and stuff.

(23:04):
And I was like, these peoplehave lost their homes, lost
their family members, escapedoccupation in a war, living as
internally displaced people intemporary accommodation, and
they are they're out helpingmarginalized people in their own
country.
Yeah, you want to talk aboutlove.
I mean, it's just unbelievable.

(23:26):
And yeah, the people they help.
So I was really getting thisintense education into something
that you I don't think I couldhave even imagined this during
the first trip in 2022.
And then I met a lady calledVictoria, and Victoria is she
has waist-long, waist-lengthhair, like a lot of Ukrainian

(23:49):
girls or ladies.
Absolutely beautiful, totallyfashionable.
And she had done thetranslation for Roman, my my
friend who'd been tortured, andspeaks obviously extremely good
at she has a uh a merchantshipping crewing company.
She provides sailors formerchant ships, it's called
Marpo, and she's obviously apretty well-to-do business lady.

(24:13):
Well, during the interview, shekeeps dropping all these little
snippets of information aboutcharity projects that she's
doing, and she finishes up bytelling me about she makes
drones and small bombs.
So at the end of the interview,she said, Would you like to see
my drone factory?
Well, so when a beautifulUkrainian lady with waist-length

(24:36):
hair and fashion clothes andher, you know, her luxury office
apartment says, Would you liketo see my drone factory?
Of course, you know.
I said, Well, of course I do.
And so she following day, shewhisps around, she picks me up
in a white Jaguar SUV withleather seats.

(24:57):
Right.
I mean, she's a business lady,she does very well for herself.
And her desk was a big, I mean,you know, Ukraine is a modern
country with people that makeplenty of money and and great
infrastructure.
And she has a friend with herant on, and we go off, and we
pull up outside this departmentstore, and then there's a set of

(25:18):
steps down below the departmentstore, and then when we get
down this huge big metal door,and it had it used to be an
underground gun shop, and nowit's where her team make these
drones.
And it was like doing it waslike a James Bond movie where Q
was in there designingsomething, and she had all these

(25:38):
young guys in there, they'relike mad scientists making these
drones.
They had a four-wheel drone,they showing me the bomb
casings, and then they had aroom with computers where they
trained them on a simulator tofly the drones, and then they
were showing me videos of howthey trained them to drop um

(25:59):
like a Pepsi bottle full ofwater initially.
I guess they tried with bombsand had a few bad results.
Yeah, you gotta get that right.
Right, and then the young ladstarted showing me some of their
you know their kid their kills,which I don't know, you can see
it on the internet, but there'ssomething quite graphic about

(26:19):
some guy showing you one of hisdrones actually, you know, doing
what it does to humans.
And and I was just, you know, Iwas just in another world at
this point.
And then she says, Well, look,we're taking them into Kherson
tomorrow.
And and I said, Well, shall Ijoin you?
And she said, Yes.
Well, if you're not familiar,Khassan has been liberated seven

(26:42):
months after the war, but it'sstill under a really heavy
attack.
It's one of the more dangerouscities in Ukraine.
Um, Kharkiv is very dangerousas well because it's close to
the border.
And what I didn't realize wasthe press pass I'd had the year
before didn't have any dates onit, but it was actually a date.
I didn't think to renew itbecause we have press passes in

(27:02):
America and you just use themevery year.
And so the first thing is weget to one of these checkpoints,
and the soldier starts bitchingbecause my credential was out
there, because I was trying touse my press credentials to go
in, and and of course, you don'tyou don't argue with Victoria,
she sort of leaps out of the carand she's got a little cut-off
shorts and her sandals and herhair, and she opens the trunk

(27:26):
and shows this soldier boxesfull of drones.
And what had been really funnywas when we actually took the
boxes, the drones out of thedrone factory.
If you'd been going down thestreet that day, you'd have just
seen an elegantly dressed womanand a couple of dudes loading
boxes into the back of the caroutside a department store.
You'd have probably thought wewere loading clothes and foot,
you know, shoes shoes.

(27:47):
Yeah.
And so anyway, the guy wasn'tgoing to be able to argue with
Victoria about this, so they letus in.
And then um, as we get intoKherson, the the towns on the
road between have been thesubject of a lot of really
vicious fighting.
So all the villages were blownup.

(28:08):
There was just massivedestruction going in, and you
know, we were there was shitblowing up on the horizon.
You see the black plumes ofsmoke where things were
exploding.
And we go into Kherson, and itwas just like driving into this
post-apocalyptic environment.
And you know, two years, I meanover two years, it's probably
even I can't even imagine howbad it is now.

(28:29):
Yeah.
And here's Victoria just youknow piloting the jag in her
little fashion clothes, andshe's you know, chatting away
and sort of whizzing around bombholes.
Wow.
And getting us into all sortsof shit with the Ukrainian
military.
At one point, we're we're downby the museum, which has been

(28:51):
freshly blown up, and we'rewalking across this open area,
and Anton's just absolutely he'slike, Look, there's Russians
across the river, and we werejust absolute sitting duck if
they had any snipers.
And he's Victoria.
And the next thing, someUkrainian military guy comes out
and chases us out of there, andthen we get chased out of

(29:12):
somewhere else, and then we goacross the river, and there's a
block post, and the next thingis all these machine guns in the
window, and Victoria is thissomehow we get into there.
Oh my goodness, and there'sartillery going off, and there's
missiles coming in.
Absolutely the craziest,craziest day.
And and two of her friends fromthe military came and took the

(29:34):
drones, and we uh went into anunderground restaurant, and I'm
sitting in this undergroundrestaurant, and I'm trying to
process everything that's goingon going on with all of this
stuff, and the guy just bringsme a latte with one of those
little hearts on it.

Speaker 00 (29:51):
Oh my gosh, in the midst of all of that.

Speaker 01 (29:54):
Yeah, you just Anton had a coke, we had some soup,
you know.
There's some music playing onthe radio.
Just like yeah, it was just youknow just so peaceful, really,
to be sitting in this beautifulrestaurant just having a nice
meal.
How does this work?
Outside is destruction andartillery and missiles, and and

(30:17):
here they are just you knowcarrying along.
So she made a really, reallygreat day.
Great, I mean, great story.
And and when we were going in,Anton had said, you know, put
your cameras away.
Um, because obviously I didn'thave a journalistic pass to go
in there.
So I was kind of even thoughthe guy let me in, I was kind of

(30:39):
like a civilian or a volunteer.
So on the way out, we get weget hustled at this checkpoint.
And the guy goes, Are you ajournalist?
I'm like, Well, you know, notreally.
So he sees my camera bag and hewants to look at my camera, my
my the stuff on my camera.
And Anton told me, I think thiswould not have been pleasant to

(31:02):
have got, you know, to havebeen essentially not obeying the
rules.
I mean, Ukrainians are prettystrict on this stuff.
And so I grabbed the camera Ihadn't used and I showed him
some images in the back ofOdessa and the kids.
And I thought maybe he'd behappy because now will you show
me the other one?

unknown (31:18):
This is it.

Speaker 01 (31:20):
So I grabbed the second camera, and with my back
to him, I I turn it on and spinthe playback wheel.
Right?
And I'm like, please land on aphoto.
There's not something that'sclose to the case.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Please don't land on the photoof a blown-up building or some
you know military installation.

(31:41):
And I show him the camera and Ipress the playback button, up
pops a kid in Odessa, and heseems satisfied.
Oh my goodness.
You want to talk about you wantto talk about sweating it out.
I was thinking, oh my god, thisis me in the Ukrainian jail.
Oh, yes.
So we get back in the car, andof course, Victoria and Anton,

(32:01):
and we'd picked Roman up umEnkis on it.
They were just laughing andlaughing, and that of course was
the big joke going home.
Yeah.
So there was so much kind ofjoy and laughter at periods
during that day, and again, notwhat you would think that's
going on in the middle of a war.

Speaker 00 (32:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 01 (32:22):
And this friendship and this bond, and I keep in
touch with all of them.
I see the Anton, I seeVictoria.
We all we all keep in touch.
Roman, um, he's doing a lot ofwork with um actually he he did
a lot of work to change the lawsfor civilians who've been um
imprisoned and captured so thatthey don't have to join the
military because of the lawsinside Ukraine.

(32:42):
Um, there was no provision tosay, oh, a civilian who's been
taught captured and tortureddoesn't have to go to the
military because of his mentalproblems.
I mean, it was just yeah, therewas a martial law, and
civilians have to go to themilitary.
So Roman has been instrumentalin changing in changing that.
And uh so, like I said, I mean,these are just amazing stories,

(33:05):
amazing people, nothing thatyou would have imagined.
And so when I left them, Iheaded I headed out to Hharkiv,
and I wanted to go see somerotary people doing some really
great things after having metBoris and some rotary people in
Odessa.
But I was still struggling,Ron, with this idea of needing
the big story.

(33:25):
And I wasn't doing, you know,what am I doing here?
Is any of this valuable?
It sounds quite valuable now,but at the time I wasn't feeling
that.
So I was out on a very lonelyroad, it's very agricultural
country.
And if you think of Lviv in thewest, Kyiv, the capital city,
and Odessa and Kharkiv, if youthink of them as islands and

(33:47):
they're connected by a longstrip of road, which is like
just farmers' fields, it's allcrops, sunflower, you know,
wheat, corn, barley, bits andpieces.
So that so these cities almostfeel like islands in a sea of
crops with some small villages.
So you spend quite a lot oftime alone just out in the

(34:10):
countryside.
And I started to reallyquestion what my purpose was on
that second trip.
And as I said, the first trip Ivery much processed my
emotions, and I was really inpeople's stories, but I wasn't
quite putting it together.
And I stopped at the gasstation, and an old lady helped
me find the loo and get acoffee.

(34:30):
And then when I was outsidehaving my coffee and sandwich,
she came out and somehow westarted communicating a little
bit Google Translate.
And I showed her a magazinestory I'd done from the previous
year.
So she realized I was ajournalist and I'd come from
America and was writing storiesabout it, and she just lit up,
and we just hugged and heldhands, and it was just this

(34:54):
amazing moment of peace and loveand motto.
I mean, I was on my bike, yeah,in a peaceful moment, having
this loving moment with thislady, and that was when I
realized that that was what Iwas supposed to be doing in
Ukraine was telling the storiesthat I'm telling you today for

(35:15):
your listeners.

Speaker 00 (35:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 01 (35:17):
The lady at the gas station, Victoria, Roman, Kate
with the Dead Body Collectors,Julia, who goes and takes care
of marginalized people, eventhough there's a war on.
And it just the light went onfor me.
And and and it was that small,that small moment with that lady
actually was the biggest momentbecause it was just so powerful

(35:41):
and made me realize what I wasdoing.
And that so that that kind offixed it for me that I was there
to tell their stories.

Speaker 00 (35:49):
Yeah.
Neil Yes.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Go ahead.
I didn't mean to cut you off.
Oh, sorry, I just said Neil.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
What I was gonna say is that,and I'll edit this part too, but
a little bit.
What I what I pick up from thisis that from where I sit, you
know, I have a day job and Itravel more often than I'd like

(36:10):
sometimes, and have a longcommute and have corporate
audits, and we have in difficultsituations sometimes.
And I'm so good at falling intomy own feeling of despair of
why is this world so difficultfor me right now?
I've got to go hop on my bike,I gotta go feel better, and all
that stuff.

(36:30):
And it's just those littlebitty pity pity things that I
can so easily find myselffalling into.
And I think all of us could saythat, so many of us.
But then these stories thatyou're sharing of people who are
in real life-threatening, reallife-threatening situations all
around them, seeing destruction,despair, death all around them.

(36:54):
Yet they go from day to day,they get out of the car, they go
and make the difference, theygo and and and and start
constructing things such asthese drones that are for a
purpose, for the greater good.
And then you you have thepeople who are there too, the
locals there, again, surroundedwith all these terrible,

(37:15):
terrible situations, and theymake you a latte with a heart in
it.
Wow, what kind of person can dothat?
That's just that's just whathas hit me through this
conversation, through thesestories, is that what kind of
person can persevere when itjust makes me lift realize I

(37:37):
need to lift myself up out of myown little pity party, you
know, oftentimes.

Speaker 01 (37:42):
Well, and and the lady at the gas station, um, you
know, she had bricklayers'hands, and she was obviously not
a young lady, and and she'sscrubbing the toilets and
scrubbing the toilet floors.
Why?
There's a war on right?
Why does that toilet need to bespotlessly clean?

(38:04):
Why do the floors need to bemopped?
Yeah, I mean, there's a senseof dignity and pride, and you're
right, and I think you know,part of why it is is my
admiration.
I mean, why have I been backsix times?
Why have I raised the moneyI've raised?
Why do I advocate for Ukrainianpeople every day?

(38:27):
Is that this such incrediblepeople, they're so polite, they
are so they're not, you know, ittakes a little minute to to
break them down.
I mean, they're quite stoic onthe exterior, but you know, once
you get to know them, they'rethey're very, very kind people.
But they're just really polite,they're really meaningful

(38:49):
people.
I mean, sure, I mean they havecriminals, I mean, they have
corruption, I mean they they'regovernment system.
They're gonna yeah, theirgovernment system is is only 30
years away from being RussianSoviet system.
It's not perfect, no system is,but it's getting better.
And I think that that lady justshe changed everything for me,

(39:12):
understanding that that's what Ineeded to do is tell their
stories, and it really changedmy my perspective as I went on
then to Kharkiv and Dinepro Cityand back again.
Was okay, I know what I'm doingnow, I'm telling their stories.
And you know, I've done fourmore trips since, and uh
obviously um some of the when Iwas in Dnepro City, sorry, when

(39:36):
I was in Kharkiv, I ran across aguy called Gordon Jackson
Hopps, and I'm sitting in thesitting in the hotel, and
Kharkiv gets horribly hit.
Um you know, there was somestrikes when we were there.
Um they weren't super close.
I mean, more sound like thunderin the distance, but you know,

(39:56):
somebody's getting smacked, andI look out the window and I see
this this uh lander of afreelander, camouflaged,
beautifully done, prepared, andall the stuff.
And I see this sort of verytidy gentleman with sunglasses.
And short story it's GordonJackson Hops.
And Gordon had become incensedwhen the war broke out, and he

(40:18):
started uh he started runningmedical supplies to Poland, and
one thing led to the other, andthe next thing he's in Ukraine,
and he'd started a foundationcalled Operation Freelander.
And what he was doing is withum a couple called Sue and Norba
to have Freelander specialists,they only work on Land Rover
Freelanders.

(40:38):
They they they source theseLand Rover Freelanders, they
restore them, put new wheels,tyres, engines if they need
them, and then Gordon they drivethem down to Ukraine and give
them to the military, and theyfill them full of whatever they
can give them.
And I witnessed this and I madecontact with Gordon, and he

(40:58):
started to tell me he told hisRolex to finance one of them,
and he takes his vacations andhis sick days, and and he's just
he's just moved heaven andearth over the time that the war
had been going on to get asmany of these freelanders into
Ukraine as possible.
And right now we have one enroute to the front lines um as

(41:19):
we speak.
Wow.
Being actually dealing, I thinkI've I've raised I've raised
the money in driven or sentseven since I met Gordon.
So as I was meeting Gordon inthe hotel and listening to the
story of the Land Rovers, mywhole life connected, and I

(41:42):
realized I was looking at mychildhood through the window of
this hotel with this Land Rover.
And as Gordon said, Putin'salarm clock was going, the air
raid sirens were going, and weweren't sleeping terribly well.
And I realized this was mychildhood.
And as a kid growing up inEngland in a single-parent
household on welfare with nomoney and a pretty hard scrabble

(42:06):
existence, every Tuesday andThursday we would turn the
television on and we would watcha children's TV show called
Blue Peter.
And it was a couple of coupleof guys, John and Peter, and uh
originally a girl called Val andanother girl, then another girl
Leslie.
And every week they would go onan adventure, bake a cake,

(42:28):
bring a baby elephant into thestudio, you know, test drive a
monkey bike, um, go on aholiday.
You know, I remember Peter hadto go learn to ride a speedway
bike one time.
And you know, they would justdo all these different
adventures and things.
But once a year, they would goto Africa and they would

(42:50):
identify projects of need,usually in Ethiopia, current-day
Eritrea, and they would comeback to the studio and say, you
know, okay, we need that, and wewant you kids to go out and run
around the neighborhood andcollect as many knives, forks,
and spoons as you can and sendthem into us, and we'll melt

(43:13):
them down and turn them intomoney.
Well, uh so as kids, they'd puta thermometer.
Well, guess what?
They used to buy Land Roversand tools and grain and stuff
that went with it.
And so all summer long, askids, we'd be running around the

(43:36):
neighborhood pestering andbadgering all the neighbors,
because in those days you couldyour children could go out and
knock on the neighbor's door.

Speaker 00 (43:43):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 01 (43:44):
Um, and we would collect as much of this what is
now recyclable materials.
It wasn't called recycling inthose days, and we and I think
the post office must have had adeal to send it for free because
I know my mother couldn't haveafforded the postage because she
was we had no car, and youknow, life was pretty hard to
travel.
But we would eagerly tune inevery week to watch the

(44:07):
thermometer going up, and thenthe great day would come when
they would drive all the LandRovers into the studio, and of
course, it was filmed in youknow, the way filming would
suddenly they'd be off inAfrica.
And and this was the greatestjoy of my childhood was watching
it, you know, and sometimes Ithink back on what we collected,

(44:27):
we probably really didn't buyas much as a spare tire or a few
lug nuts, but you couldn't tella kid that we would that was
our donations that we sent thoseto landowners, we sent the
grain, we sent the tools.
And I'm sitting, and it's threeo'clock in the morning, and you
know, there's missile strikes,and you're in a war, and and and
it the light goes on.
I'm looking at my childhood.

(44:48):
Gordon Jackson Hops embodieseverything that was joy in my
childhood.
He's rolling up his sleeves,he's mucking in, he's raising
money, and he's bringing LandRovers into a place of need
because those freelancers getused for evacuation.
Yeah.
Because what I had learned assuperhumans, that when the boys

(45:12):
get hit, and it's getting worseand worse, obviously, with the
drones, the difference betweenlosing a limb or dying is a lot
in the time it takes to get themto medical care.
Oh, yeah.
So if the tunicate's on toolong, bang, the limbs gone.
So what I realized is thatthese Land Rovers uh are vital

(45:33):
to life-saving stuff, they'revital for supplies.
But like I said, moreimportantly, I was now seeing
this was my childhood right infront of me.
And I said to Gordon, I said,mate, I'm gonna help you.
I've got to be involved.
And since the summer of 2023,there's two years now, I've
actually raised the money forseven.

(45:54):
Oh taken in and I've driven,personally driven three times to
the front lines to deliver theones I've raised with others.

Speaker 00 (46:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 01 (46:05):
And um, we've been in some pretty hairy situations
down on the front.

Speaker 00 (46:10):
Oh, I can't imagine.

Speaker 01 (46:12):
You know, with um it's pretty dodgy down there,
and but we take them to themilitary, we drop them off.
We know I saw a couple of theones we delivered.
Um, I'd I've only been back acouple of months, and and you
know, they're so useful to theto the guys and what they can
do.
So, anyway, just a littleaside.
So, yeah, that was justabsolutely really beautiful part

(46:35):
of being there.
This this, you know, I I get tobe, I get to do what was the
joy of my childhood.

Speaker 00 (46:42):
Yeah.
So that's beautiful.
And and even as a kid, did youunderstand that what you were
doing wasn't for yourself, itwas for this other, different,
greater purpose?

Speaker 01 (47:00):
No, I don't think I did.
I mean, I think one of thethings it sort of taught me was
without really realizing it, waswe never thought of ourselves
as poor.
Um, you know, we were the wewere the kids that had to have
school lunches, and my motherhad to serve passionate on our
clothes.
So we used to get kind of a bitbullied and picked on when I
look back on it, but somehow Imanaged to shrug that off, I

(47:22):
think.
And um so it wasn't, but but Ithink knowing that there were
people in the world that were somuch worse off than us.
And of course, you know, wegrew up as kids, oh finish your
dinner, kids, just kids starvingin Africa.
Oh God, we're just on thething.
I mean, that didn't that neverwore well as kids.
Yeah, and but no, I just thinkthat it it allowed me to think

(47:46):
that we weren't so badly off.
There were people worse thanus, and you know, it just it it
just there's so much joy inthat, and I realize that that's
been and I'm not saying that youknow raising the money to
Ukraine and Purer has been a joybecause sometimes it's not, but
it does give a lot of joy, andthere's just some wonderful
moments, and obviously I wantedto talk about peace and love and

(48:07):
motto, and I'm gonna have topreface this because I love
Gordon.
Um he's a Geordie, which meanshe's from Newcastle, and
traveling together in May of2024 with these the first two
landrobes that we took in, wereally began to get to know each
other.
And I gotta tell you, Ron,yeah, I don't mind telling you.

(48:30):
If you put Gordon and Itogether and we talked about
what we were like as kids andteenagers, if you could think of
something bad a kid could bedoing, between the two of us we
did it.
And and mercifully we didn'tend up in jail, mercifully we
didn't end up getting shot, andmercifully we don't have

(48:51):
criminal records because we werea pair of little bastards, and
we were sort of sat there, so wewere sort of having this
revelation, and I said, youknow, I'd love to write this
story about this one day, God,but he still works for the
council, and and probably itwouldn't be the greatest thing
for his job for them to find outhis ferry check had passed.

(49:14):
And of course he's turned itall around, and hopefully so
have I.
Yeah, um so we we're in thecity of Lyman, um, which is down
on the front lines, down thereit's uh down near Konstantka,
um, it's down near KrematorSlavians, and it's right on the

(49:34):
front, and everything around usis destroyed.
Literally the only thing leftliving is dogs and rats.
And we're standing in front ofthis blown-up building, we've
come across bridges that wereblown up.
It's just a it's not anunstressful place to be, and the

(49:56):
artillery is just the sound ofthe artillery is just booming,
you know, small arms fire,stuff's exploding, and we're
just standing there, and Gordonturns around and he goes, This
shit's not for wallflowers.
I just love that guy.
That's great.

(50:16):
It was just absolutely amazing,and you just had to laugh, you
know.
Yeah, so so yeah, so this sortof transformation through these
trips coming out of um thatthere was the there's one thing
that really w I wanted to speakon.

(50:38):
Um Gordon's friends Macar andRoman had a stay in a house, and
then they they sort of you knowthey took us around because our
train didn't leave till fouro'clock the following afternoon,
and we had an 18-hour trainride back to Lviv.
It's a lot big country, so it'san overnight train, of course.
We messed up and didn't takeany food or drink.
And we get on the train, andthere's this lovely young lady

(51:00):
on the train, and she spokereally good English, and she
heard us talking, we're like,God, you know, because we we
messed up somehow.
We ended up going to the wrongtrain station.
But and I just sent to Gordon,I said, Gordon, I said, we're on
here for 18 hours.
We don't have anything todrink, we don't have anything to
eat.
I said, We're kind of a bit, wemight be in trouble here.
And Irina, the little girl,goes, Oh, don't worry, there's a

(51:24):
um there's a like a trainattendant, and he has a he has a
small store, you'll be able toget some water and some stuff,
and let me help you.
So she takes us down there, andI get some pot noodles and a
couple of bottles of water and acoffee.
And so anyway, with a couple ofcouple of bottles of water and
a pot noodle and a coffee, we'reready for our 18-hour train

(51:46):
ride.
Oh my well, we're in this oldSoviet-era train, and it leaves
at a Krematovsk at about 4:40,4:20 in the afternoon, and
Gordon climbs up into his bunk,and I'm sitting down with Irina,
and she's chatting and shespeaks really good English.
And I said, You know, Irina,have you suffered during the

(52:08):
war?
And oh my goodness, she tellsme the story of evacuation,
being a refugee, her husbandgoing to war, he went missing.
It took five months before theyidentified his body, leaving
her.
And this little girl, and andyou know, and as we were

(52:29):
talking, the light was fading,and Gordon was upstairs
listening to his music and hisheadphones.
It was just me and her, andthere was another soldier there,
but he was asleep with hisheadphones.
And and I just, you know, wewere just kind of sitting there,
and and I think our legs weretouching, we were quite close,
and that thing.
And I just reached out and Iheld her hand, and there was
this times run where she wouldstare in his face and just

(52:50):
vibrate, and she would just belike, Why are they killing us?
Why are they killing us?
And and I think that moved meto another level inside this
progression of journey that I'vebeen taking inside Ukraine of
really beginning to understandhow I need to be a better
listener, be a betterinterviewer, be more empathetic,

(53:12):
and allow people like Irina toshare these really, really
tragic things with me that I'mnot used to dealing with or not
used to listening to.
And so that was a big, bigmoment, I think.
And yeah, when we werefinished, she said, I don't
know, she said, I just haven'tbeen able to tell that story to
anybody, and I couldn't tell itin Ukrainian.

(53:33):
And I said, Well, I hope youdon't mind.
And she was just holding myhand and said, No, thank you,
thank you.
I really needed to tellsomebody, and it was so
emotional.
And again, you want to talkabout love.
I mean, this feeling, it wasjust such a loving feeling to be
sitting with this little girl,and I hope it aren't brute,
she's in her 30s and got acouple of kids, but to me, she's
a little girl, and just knowingthat she was able to share this

(53:57):
pain and this suffering, butthen feeling like there was I
don't know, it was it was like aloving moment, if that makes
sense.
It was yeah, yeah, it was good,it was really good for her, and
and it yeah, it it didn't wasdidn't leave her crying and not
wanting to talk, or I mean sheactually felt really good about
it.
So yeah, so anyway, I think I Ihope this sort of describes my

(54:19):
process of my journey in Ukraineand and brings something to the
listeners about Ukraine thatyou don't see when you see that
picture of the lady with ashopping bag going by the
blown-up building, or thepicture of the blown-up factory,
or the bridge blown out, or thetanks firing, yeah, or you
know, people crying, you know,dead bodies in the street.

(54:41):
I mean, all of that does exist.
I'm not taking anything awayfrom that.
But this Ukraine is so muchmore.

Speaker 00 (54:48):
There's yeah, there there's individuals, there
obviously, there's families,there's emotions, there's
there's young people, oldpeople, people just like you and
me, who are just in thissituation that's just so unreal.
And it's just um I so admireyou who uh have taken the

(55:10):
literally the physical risk andthe emotional risk and all that
to step out and just like likeyou did, just sit next to
someone and hold their hand whenthat hand needs to be held
right now.
And um, I don't know if this isif this brings us full circle
or not.
Maybe it doesn't.
Maybe it does.
I don't know.
We I feel like that we asmotorcycle riders, we're a

(55:34):
little bit different breed,maybe.
Those of us who ride forpleasure, those who ride for
work, maybe it's different.
But those of us who ride forpleasure, we know what the risks
are.
We go out and ride becausetaking that risk into account.
We enjoy ourselves, we enjoynature, many of us enjoy the
camaraderie and things.
So that makes us a little bitdifferent.

(55:56):
And I think the the key partthere too, I hope, is that most
of us that are motorcycle riderslove that connection with a
stranger.
At the gas station, at thecoffee shop, someone comes up
and asks you about your bike, oryou ask them better yet, and
you've got a relationship thatstarted there, and all of a

(56:18):
sudden that person that you justvisited with is not someone
just in the helmet and theleather jacket.
All of a sudden you have metsomeone who has a real life and
has been through maybe thingsthat you haven't been able to
comprehend.
You would not know unless youtalked to them and took the time
to invest in them and to ask.
So I know that's just hittingon the very, very top surface of

(56:43):
done, but seems like there's acorrelation there.

Speaker 01 (56:47):
No, and I think to your point, I think, you know,
not saying this to say we'rebetter than anybody else, but I
think because I can't speak toother groups, but I think as a
as a group, most cyclists, mostcyclists are a very giving
group.
There's a lot ofmotorcycle-based charities, toys
for tarts and poker runs andand stuff of that nature that's

(57:12):
definitely geared to giving backand doing some good.
I think most cyclists are apretty generous um group of
people.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, I yeah, I can't speak tothe car world and what they do,
but I know that most you know,generally there's always quite a
lot of that type of stuff.
And yeah, there was a couple ofthings I wanted to share on the
uh, you know, in this spacethat I'm at down near the front

(57:37):
lines with with Gordon andcoming back on the train, and
and there's two things thatreally stand out in my mind.
We you know, we watch moviesand we see news items, and you
know, you if if someone had tobuild an identicate of an idea
of a soldier, you know, youwe've all got this kind of Rambo

(58:02):
idea about this, you know, verymacho, very you know,
aggressive uh human and withguns and fighting and stuff.
And we were in a restaurant inSlavian and it was full of
soldiers.
And you know, you're very closeto the front, and and
potentially they're not they'venot come from battle.

(58:25):
I mean, maybe they're moresupply line stuff, but maybe
some of them have.
I I can't speak to that.
And behind the counter of thethe buffet thing, beautiful
food, I mean lovely food,beautiful ladies, some young
girls that are very attractive,middle-aged women that are
really nicely dressed, andeverybody, all the soldiers are

(58:48):
just standing there in a line,totally polite, no one's
heckling, no one's bothering theladies, no one's doing not
saying a soldier from thiscountry would necessarily do
that, but there was just thissense of respect and kindness,
and then the one lad held thedoor open for me to go to the
bathroom, and I'm like, you'rethe one fighting the war, dude.

(59:10):
Get in there and get yourbusiness taken care of, and
yeah, it's just it was reallyquite I don't know, just to see
how peaceful and respectful andand calm and and everything that
they were was really, reallyinteresting.
And the second time that I hadto ride the train back on one of

(59:32):
the deliveries, I had met aguy, okay, Roman, a very popular
name.
And I mean, this guy was awarrior.
I mean, he was a few sizesbigger than me.
I mean, he was a prettypowerful and imposing looking
guy, he had a very big, thickUkrainian beard.
And when he found out,obviously, I was some American,

(59:53):
you know, here doing aid andstuff.
We were using translate, hewent and put his military stuff
on, and he drives the Trooptransport into battle.
And at that time it was in inuh in Belgrade or Pursk.
And you know, he was sayingthat it's just it's making him
go gray.
It's just so stressful.
And you know, he's telling mestories that just you know kind

(01:00:16):
of make your hair go graylistening to them.
And and there was a young boythere, and he was about 15 years
of our age, and he had glasses,and and he was quite frail and
slight, but he spoke pretty goodEnglish, and he was translating
for Roman for me.
And we were going back andforth, and all of a sudden, the

(01:00:38):
the young boy, and excuse me forforgetting his name, he reached
out and he took, offered hishand to Roman, and he thanked
him in English for what he wasdoing, and he thanked him in
Ukraine and Roman.
And I just I felt it justseemed like this really brave
act for a very small, scrawnyyoung lad to reach out to this

(01:01:02):
this warrior who's just come outof the battle.

unknown (01:01:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 01 (01:01:09):
And this big beard, this big muscular guy.
I mean, the guy was a warrior.
And this it must have taken agreat act of the bravery for the
kid to kind of shake his handand do this.
And and I just saw the way thatRoman interacted with him,
shook his hand, and I said, youknow, and I wrote about this
afterwards, and Roman has lostfor all he's seen and all he's

(01:01:33):
gone through, he has not losthis humanity.

Speaker 00 (01:01:37):
Yeah.
Humanity, that's the word thatwas coming to me too.

Speaker 01 (01:01:41):
And he's going home to see his daughter, he's on
leave, and he's gonna stop byand see his sister, and he knows
what he's fighting for.
He's got something to go hometo, and in that moment, I'm
like, what are the Russiansfighting for?
Right?
Roman knows why he's fighting,he knows why he might die.

(01:02:04):
And I just saw the humanity inthat man with the way that he
treated that young lad.
And I just thought, that issuch a strength of Ukrainian
people.
They know what they're fightingfor.
Yeah.
They're fighting for theirwives, they're fighting for
their children, they're fightingfor their mothers, they're
fighting for their home, they'refighting for their ideology.

(01:02:24):
And it was just so powerful,Ron, you know, to be standing
there and sort of these momentsthat are kind of like they're
real-time moments happening, andthey're just they're very, very
emotional.

Speaker 00 (01:02:36):
Yeah.
So well, that's beautiful,Neil.
And you know, and it and itcomes back to again a hats off
and a virtual handshake to youbecause you you're taking that
step out at high risk to bothyour physical, mental, and

(01:02:57):
financial wellness, and umstepping out to to tell those
stories and again to take thathand that needed to be held at
the moment, and you've done thatin so many different different
ways.
So I'm just proud to not onlyuh be able to call you my friend
now, even though we have notyet met in person, but that's

(01:03:19):
gonna happen as soon aspossible.

Speaker 01 (01:03:22):
I think you know, thank you for such a kind
compliment.
But you know, hopefully whatyou've seen or what this chat
has been about is you know, Ididn't come to this immediately.
I mean, I had to slog my waythrough this with multiple
visits and mistakes and andlearning and figuring it out.
I mean, it's taken, you know,maybe maybe someone smarter or

(01:03:44):
brighter than I would havefigured it out real quick and be
doing the job right away.
I mean, it's taken me all ofthese different trips and all of
these different experiences toget to here.

Speaker 02 (01:03:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 01 (01:03:54):
So it was definitely an evolution.
And I think that's why when Istarted this and I said, this is
about you know, peace, love,and motto.
The motorcycle was the vehiclethat took me in.
The peace that I found there isnot peace in a sense of no war,
it's the peace that I found inthe moments with people.

(01:04:14):
And the love is this the lovethat I have for Ukraine, the
love I have for the people I'vemet there.
And these moments that you canonly really describe as love.
And I think it's such ajuxtaposition to what people are
being fed on mainstream mediaabout the war.
Yeah.
You know, this is not whatsomebody sees on the news or

(01:04:38):
reads in the newspaper, or youknow, these these moments, these
small moments that to methey're the biggest moments.
Because they there's to methey're so powerful.
And and and I don't know thatyou know somebody working for a
publication or a journalist orTV person, maybe they're not
allowed to do that, or theydon't get involved at that
level, or maybe there'ssomething you shouldn't do, but

(01:05:00):
hey, that's what I do.
You know, I'm there fundraisingand doing what I can, and and
this is how it's impacted me.
And you know, I reallyappreciate the opportunity to
have this conversation with youand share this with you know
with the listeners and umyourself tonight, because
hopefully maybe someone can hearwhat we've talked about tonight

(01:05:24):
and can think a little bitdifferently about.

Speaker 00 (01:05:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wanted to as we begin to wrapup, Neil, specifically, what
can you tell our me and ourlisteners how can we help?

Speaker 01 (01:05:42):
I think there are a thousand ways that you can help.
And I think even if it's simplylistening to the podcast and
thinking in your mind the peoplein Ukraine are just like you

(01:06:03):
and I.
They they want to go to work,they want to ride their
motorcycle, they want to havetheir children, and they are
under horrendous oppression.
And just thinking andunderstanding that maybe that
creates an energy in the worldthat's not a negative thought
towards them.
It could be um going onto myFacebook page and just clicking

(01:06:26):
a like button or posting amessage when I post about a
Ukrainian person saying, youknow, stay strong.
Um and it could be finding acharity um that you know and
trust and feel comfortable withis doing something to help
Ukraine.
Um there's I I just thinkthere's so many different ways,

(01:06:50):
and maybe just even if you youthink positively about this
beautiful country and thesebeautiful people that are under
this horrible oppression, andeven if the thing the one thing
you feel that you take from thisis feeling better about your
life, yeah, understanding whatwe've got, that would that to me
would be even that would besomething really super helpful,

(01:07:14):
you know.
Yeah, because uh you know it'sit's it's just tragic what they
have to go through every day.

Speaker 00 (01:07:21):
It is.
There is hope.
There is hope, and there's hopebecause there's people uh like
you and the people that you havementioned who have a positive
spirit, who have uh a heart fora future that will be uh healed
and wonderful again.

Speaker 01 (01:07:37):
And um yeah, and maybe even you know, share this
podcast with a friend who mightbenefit from this listening.
Because at the end of the day,we want to feel good about what
we do in our life.
If what we do in our life ishelping someone else and that
makes us feel good, well, ifthat's selfish, let's just be

(01:07:59):
selfish.

Speaker 00 (01:08:00):
Yeah.
You know, for those for thoselistening, again, we we started
this conversation uh for an hourplus, and before we started
recording, and the the topic wasvarious things, but one of them
is why am I here?
What is my purpose?
Do I have a purpose-drivenlife?
I think that was uh that was abooker's.
I think that was uh I mean, andI feel, you know, I feel

(01:08:25):
extremely grateful.

Speaker 01 (01:08:26):
I mean, Andre, my very, very dear friend, he was
our fixer in 2022.
And he was just amazing, and hestill is amazing.
And now he's the press agentfor superhumans, and he goes to
that for those young lads, thoseyoung amputes every single day.
I mean, he's the hardestworking lad.
And he said it best, you know,he said you processed Ukraine

(01:08:49):
through your heart.
Yeah.
And I think that that's whyI've been so you know attached
and and and keep going back.
And and I think it's a greatprivilege um to be to to hear
the stories I hear and to betold the stories I have and to

(01:09:10):
be handed such a precious umcommodity, you know, to handle.
And you know, get obviously myhope is that you know, I wish I
had the type of audience that umthat some of these big
mainstream media outlets have sothat we could be sharing the
stories because I feel inside ofthese stories there's so much

(01:09:30):
inspiration for people.

Speaker 00 (01:09:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 01 (01:09:33):
I mean, be inspired.
I mean, I'm inspired.
I mean, it it should inspire ushopefully to do better things.
So yeah, we'll just keep tryingand um we'll probably head back
to Ukraine, I think, in nextyear.

unknown (01:09:47):
Uh-huh.

Speaker 01 (01:09:48):
Well, these sorts of challenges going on.
Um, if you know, obviouslyWellspring My Foundation, we're
supporting an orphanage inAlexandria, and we support the
children's hospital in Lviv, andthen we support a little lad
called Roman who was blown up inVinitsa.
Um, actually, the missilestrike that we went to um in
2022, we stopped to photographsome combine harvesters, and if

(01:10:11):
we hadn't stopped to photographthem, we would have been right
there.
So that was the day we dodgeduh the proverbial bullet, and
then yeah.
So uh I really appreciate youhaving me on, Ron.
Thanks for the uh opportunityto share.
I hope I hope some of that madesense.

Speaker 00 (01:10:28):
Thank you, Neil.
Thank you, Neil.
As you were speaking just now,and I don't know if it came over
the microphone at all, but ahelicopter flew over, flew over
really low, and I know wherethat helicopter was going.
It was going from east to westfrom the local hospital here in
uh I feel certain.
From the local hospital here inEngland, it was going up into
the mountains to do a rescue.
I feel certain.

(01:10:48):
So just another timely reminderthat there are people who step
out into the void and take thatrisk, hopping on that, whether
it's hopping under thehelicopter, jumping out into the
mountains to find someone who'slost, or stepping out, like in
the case you have.
And again, stepping out intothe void where somebody's got to
make a difference, and maybeit's got to be me.

(01:11:10):
And I appreciate Neil that youhave been that guy.
So thank you, buddy.

Speaker 01 (01:11:15):
Well, thank you very much.
Uh let me just uh turn thevideo on so we can say
goodnight.

Speaker 00 (01:11:20):
Yeah, I'll stop recording here.