Due to the crisis in Ukraine, many of the Ukrainian community have been invited to talk on the TV and radio. I was approached by a radio station to do an interview. I was aired in short 10 second bursts during the news bulletins on the planetradio network (stations include: greatest hits, gem etc.). However, please read the full interview below.
Summary Transcript
00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:03.200
Reporter
Can you just start with your full name and where you’re from please?
00:00:03.200 –> 00:00:07.200
Peter Stasiw
Can I say my Ukrainian name? Petro Stasiw and I’m from Derby.
00:00:17.400 –> 00:00:24.470
Reporter
Okie Dokes. Can we just start with a little bit about your background as in you know where you were born and how long you’ve been here?
00:00:24.460 –> 00:00:38.140
Peter Stasiw
Yeah. I was born here, and my parents are born here, and all my grandparents came here after the war. And so, a few of them were liberated from some of the labour camps if they were taken there and others came and joined later.
00:00:40.340 –> 00:00:45.780
Reporter
So obviously big in the news is the escalating situation in Ukraine.
First of all, your reaction to that, how do you feel about it all?
00:00:52.070 –> 00:01:16.620
Peter Stasiw
So it’s not new news that Russia always being aggressive to Ukraine over so many years. Nothing has changed really. And the only thing that stayed the same is a kind of a dictator figure in control of that Russian area. It doesn’t matter what they’re called Russia, Soviet Union, whoever was in charge of that area, it’s always being aggressive toward Ukraine.
00:01:18.400 –> 00:01:25.790
Reporter
So are you effectively saying, you know this is what you’re used to? This is, this is how the people live there.
00:01:26.770 –> 00:01:28.630
Peter Stasiw
Yeah. We’re kind of fed up with it and that’s how we’ve lived for so many years and now since 2014, since then I think that was the pinnacle of everything. We kind of moved away from Russia and were going in the right path towards the West, towards democracy, less corruption and I think from this point it was all good and we were finding the right path to could get kind of protection from west.
00:02:02.840 –> 00:02:09.340
Reporter
So do you still have connections direct connections in in Ukraine with friends and family?
00:02:09.890 –> 00:02:36.800
Peter Stasiw
I’m not direct connections in Ukraine and I do have ancestral cousins, sort of that connection. And I’m still in touch with some of the relatives that in Poland because after the war, they changed the borders. And so that area of Poland was Ukraine. I’m still in touch with them, but no one directly in Ukraine. And it’s my homeland, so I’d try and do everything. You know, spread the message out and try to raise awareness.
00:02:47.990 –> 00:03:06.680
Reporter
So what will the people that you’re in touch with, what is the mood like? You know? Are they scared? Are they worried or is this, as you say, a way of life? And actually, it’s just because of the media attention that we’re getting. We’re getting fed all of this, that that it seems, uh, a bigger deal.
00:03:07.640 –> 00:03:08.910
Peter Stasiw
Exactly, when you talk to them that it’s like it’s nothing new. Like everything is horrible in war. Lots of my older cousins who are like my grandparents’ age know how it was back in the war when there was fight against the Germans and Russians. And obviously it wasn’t a good thing, but it seems to just be Russia trying to get influence and they they kind of used to it. Of course, no one really wants it, but that’s why when you hear all these news reports about no one’s really panicking ’cause they’re so used to it.
00:03:58.000 –> 00:04:01.900
Reporter
Yes. So they’ve got a higher tolerance to this than us.
00:04:00.990 –> 00:04:01.730
Peter Stasiw
Exactly.
00:04:03.220 –> 00:04:10.090
Reporter
And how does it make you feel that that you’re, you know, a UK citizen and not having to live like this?
00:04:15.380 –> 00:04:20.990
Peter Stasiw
Kind of maybe lucky because over here is and there’s no real threat of war. That’s about it really. But it’s 21st century. It shouldn’t be like this in any country in the world.
00:04:30.980 –> 00:04:36.200
Reporter
What do you predict may or may not happen over the next few days?
00:04:37.050 –> 00:05:00.900
Peter Stasiw
I don’t think much is going to happen over next few days and because everyone knows what’s going to happen. If someone knew your plan, you’re not going to carry it out. So I think it’s just probably a warning and maybe he’s put in as you know, trained all these troops and they will come back next month, come back next year.
Putin is trying to see the opportunity. So like with Crimea, when he illegally annexed it in 2014, he’s just looking for that opportunity when the eyes are the West are looking out somewhere and then he will strike over. If everyone knows that he might invade, everyone throwing weapons and everyone is getting ready. The whole Ukrainian population is getting armed then he is not going to do it. He is gonna do it when everyone starts relaxing.
I think Putin is just bullying and see what it can get until the final Cliff edge, but that’s dangerous game. So anything, anything that could have started a war. A stray bullet could have started it. It’s kind of living dangerously.
00:05:53.130 –> 00:05:53.890
Reporter
Living on the edge and is there anything else that you would like to add. All that you’ve not mentioned ’cause I’m not that immersed in it. You know I’m sort of dipping my toe in the water because it’s a big news story at the moment, you know?
00:06:07.730 –> 00:06:12.740
Peter Stasiw
Lots of people think, oh, Ukraine, Russia, same people. And so we might have same roots, but we’re not the same people. And it goes back if you go back 1000 years then, and it was, it was a land called the Kievan Rus. And the Kievan Rus was ruled by some kind of Viking kings. That’s how it’s set up.
00:06:32.350 –> 00:06:45.040
Peter Stasiw
And Russia at this time wasn’t even started. Meanwhile, Ukraine was being mentioned, people calling their land Ukraine. It was an area of the Kievan Rus.
00:06:45.940 –> 00:06:49.810
Peter Stasiw
And it wasn’t until there was some kind of break up with the rulers at that time where one of them went over and formed in the Principality of Moscow, so it wasn’t until after Ukraine was kind of formed until Russia was formed. So Putin with his essay said we are one people: Russia and Ukraine, Maybe that is true, but Ukrainians then have as much claim to Russia as Russia to claiming Ukraine.
00:07:16.860 –> 00:07:23.530
Peter Stasiw
We have different cultures and people say, oh, there’s lots of people speaking Russian and Ukraine, that’s true.
Well, it’s like people speaking English in and US or anything. It doesn’t mean that they’re English and are the same. There probably would be more Ukrainians speaking Ukrainian. But there was a genocide in 1932 to 1933. I’m not sure if you know, it’s called the Holodomor where Starlin basically took all the wheat produce in the Ukrainian lands. And people starved to death. And that was ethnic cleansing. So once lots of Ukrainians died, forced were lots of ethnic Russians from the Moscow area into Ukraine.
And then, of course, they’re going to speak Russian, not Ukrainian. So the actual fact that over there might be Russians in Ukraine. It’s because Ukraine were killed and Russians put there.
I think that’s a big misconception that people have.
00:08:30.780 –> 00:08:55.770
Reporter
Absolutely. So in terms of the amount of stuff that we’re gonna use. We’re very sound bitey so we could, we could talk for way longer, but I won’t be able to use it. So I think probably just to end to kind of going back to this situation that we are seeing and talking about and the reason we’re doing this and if we if you can just summarize then in general.
00:08:59.990 –> 00:09:07.850
Reporter
How it is our interpretation here and how it will compare to how it feels for the people there?
00:09:08.540 –> 00:09:14.430
Peter Stasiw
Ukraine, I don’t know how many miles away is. Why should we care? The choice is simple, democracy and peace compared to the opposite, with Putin in the east and dictatorship in Belarus, in the north. That’s basically it.