A Dispatch from Ukraine

By Alona Kobozieva

“We took the children, cats and left Kyiv. But we stayed close.  We’re not going to run away from here,” says Alona Kobozieva. Photo by Dmitry A. Mottl, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Editors’ note: Normally, we run reported stories that use individual narratives to paint a larger picture within the food world. Friday night, after Russia had begun attacking Ukraine, our editorial director, Layla Schlack, received a phone call from sommelier and wine educator Cha McCoy who visited Ukraine a few years ago to explore its wine regions. McCoy said one of her friends from that trip was eager for the world to hear what’s happening on the ground. 

We were able to speak on the phone to Alona Kobozieva. We at Whetstone feel strongly that bearing witness is our duty, and that act doesn’t always fit within the confines of traditional journalism. Below is a transcript of our conversation, held Saturday. Some parts have been condensed for clarity and accuracy.

How are you doing right now?

Right now? I'm in a safe place, or as safe as can be, like 40 kilometers from Kyiv. Right now, we don't hear any rockets, planes or anything like that. Yeah, so right now, I’m pretty safe.

No rockets or planes is good. I'm glad to hear that. 

Unfortunately, in Kyiv yesterday and day before yesterday, I saw planes, I saw bombings, I saw damaged buildings, and my friends and colleagues, they’re still in Kyiv.

I know it's hard to get out right now. I know there's a lot of traffic getting out of the city, and there's not a lot of ways out.

[Garbled] But for the people left here, people who decided to stay, who are still in Kyiv? It's hard to leave right now because they're all [garbled] all the time because of air danger. So, people are coming to stay in bomb shelters during that time. And I actually left, too, just because we spend the first day and night in the bomb shelter in the morning, yesterday, we realized that if Kyiv fall, it will not be, like, a safe place. So, we took the children, cats and left Kyiv. But we stayed close.  We’re not going to run away from here.

Okay, yeah, it sounds like a lot of people are staying to fight and it's really inspiring.

Yeah, yeah. And for a lot of people, like my colleagues, they're not only staying, but the men, they want to be part of the Kyiv territory guard, and they are helping.

It's really impressive and inspiring, the response to this that I've seen from the news, but I would love to hear your story and figure out how I can help you share it with the world.

What helps probably, like the main help that can be possible right now, is just saying the truth about what he have seen. And, it was definitely not just happening on the border. It happens everywhere. We’ve had a lot of weapons, a lot of rockets. The rockets, they're sending from the territory of Russia or [Belarus]…they are sending these ballistic rockets to all parts of Ukraine, not only on borders, not only to Kyiv. They’re sending them even on the south, eastern borders, western borders really close to Europe.

And are you normally—I know Cha was saying that the vineyards are in Odesa? Is that where you are normally living? 

So, I used to work for alcohol companies here in Ukraine. Yeah, they're still having vineyards in the south of Ukraine. From what I've heard, from people who are from there—the region of Mykolaiv, Mykolaiv region where they have vineyards—battles happened today but I know that, starting from last night, it's under control of Ukrainian. So good for now. But, anyways situation change every moment, and battles on the coast, and I don't know, maybe even in the vineyards, it’s not a good situation for that territory…It's very close to the sea, and Russian ships were sitting there. So, the Ukrainian soldiers were ready. 

Yeah. And how are you getting news and updates right now? 

How do I what? 

How are you getting up your updates about this? Obviously, some of it you can see and you can hear, but how are you getting updates about the situation? What news sources are you looking at?

I would say where we all get the fastest way of getting information right now are Telegram groups. There are a couple official, like groups of presidents that Parliament, Facebook pages, of the speaker of our military, and also the news channel. We are getting information from there. 

And for sure, I have chat with my colleagues. I work in a company that is more than 1,000 people, an IT tech company. Yeah, we're all in touch. People are moving around the country, so we're keeping updated on [garbled] from people who are somewhere. And also, we've started collecting data, photos and videos from different parts of the country. When my colleagues see something like Russian tanks, or anything, they're sending that information to our special chat with information [like] where exactly is that, a geographical point, and we’re sending that information to the military. 

…For people in the U.S. who are going to read this, what's the best thing that they can do to help the situation?

I think that's the main thing that the whole world should get the true information with what’s going on here, as much as possible—your politicians, government.