A Cape Cod-Kyiv connection

DENNIS—For Cape Codders wondering what it can possibly be like for Ukrainians to live through the horror of Russia’s unprovoked attack over the last six weeks, WOMR-FM’s “The Anne Levine Show” is now offering an extraordinary, exclusive 60-minute conversation with the general manager of the country’s first all-Ukrainian music/talk station—now relaunched as “Radio of National Resistance.”

Bogdan Bolkhovetsky is general manager of Kraina FM, which launched in 2015 as the country’s first station to broadcast exclusively in Ukrainian, becoming a major source of national and cultural pride after decades of Russian hegemony during the Soviet era.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, including a bombing assault that took down Kraina’s main broadcast tower in the capital city of Kyiv, Bolkhovetsky and his team relocated to a secret studio location in the Carpathian Mountains. They quickly turned the music-and-talk station into a live, 24-hour clearinghouse for information and fulfilling urgent requests for volunteer donations of military, medical, and humanitarian supplies.

In their 60-minute interview, conducted over the Internet from Ukraine on Wednesday, April 6, and available at http://www.anneatnight.com/2022/04/06/bogdan/?fbclid=IwAR0O5B303Prt9241BBqk7Pp0c-afrwcl2SeUgz6JKXDrwnrKaoI9YF3ftkA, Bolkhovetsky offers by turns chilling—and inspiring—insights into what it has been like to live through and survive the Russian attack.

Some of the highlights of their conversation:

• Bolkhovetsky describes the frenzied scramble he, his wife, college-aged daughter and 9-year-old son made to escape Kyiv as the bombing starts early on the morning of Feb. 24. “My family wakes up, and we just throw [things] into bags. Literally, I had three winter coats with me, and one [pair of] sweatpants I was wearing for 26 days. Because there is nothing else. You just throw in the things. And you have a kid who is crying, and he's nine years old, and it's 5 in the morning. It's dark outside, it's cold. And he's asking, ‘Papa, what's happening? What's happening? Are we going to die? Are we going to die? What's happening?’ "
• Bolkhovetsky and his family first fled to their vacation home about 25 miles outside of Kyiv, barely a half-mile from a runway of Hostomel Airport—only to see the airport quickly come under attack from Russian helicopters. “As soon as we got there, hell broke loose because they started storming Hostomel Airport. And Hostomel runway is literally 800 meters from, maybe 900 meters, from my porch … The helicopters attacking the Hostomel Airport, I saw just literally from my porch. And they were coming in waves, many helicopters, many helicopters, many time … They attack airport for half an hour, then they go back to their base, get their ammunition, reload, and come back in half an hour. So we figure out a pattern, half an hour they're here, half an hour they're out reloading--we got into the car and just moved to anywhere further in Western Ukraine.’’
• Of Putin, Bolkhovetsky says: “I see this bastard saying [BS], it's just unbelievable, about Nazis in Ukraine, about our country. I mean, he's just a sick person. A very, very mentally sick person who needs help and who needs to be kept in asylum somewhere.” Later, when Levine asks him “if there was one thing that could really improve life” for Ukrainians, Bolkhovetsky’s answer is immediate--and unsparing: “Oh, it's very easy. Kill Putin … It's on top of everybody's mind … Ask anyone Ukrainian. You will have 40 million [people giving] all the same answer: Kill this [expletive]. That's it. And everyone breathes easier after that, you see? … Fresh air, no more war. Everything is fine.’’
• How Kraina FM functions as “Radio of National Resistance”: “We invite our military listeners to call in and to say what they need right now. And they might need binoculars, they might need printers to print out some documents or papers. They might need socks. They might need computers or laptop. They might need some medicine. And people who listen to the station, if this member of the audience, if he has a laptop at home, he just brings him to the military guys … or they just contact us through the webpage or through social media [and] we just text him the phone number of the person who was asking for a printer.’’
• On why donations of medical supplies to Ukraine are now particularly critical: “What is really needed at any moment is blood-stopping medicine and blood-stopping devices, anticoagulants. That's in such huge demand because these [expletives], they bomb everything. They bomb just children, women, peaceful people. And it's a huge demand right now. Everything that stops blood--everything.”
• On the power of old-fashioned radio during wartime when cellphones, television, and the Internet can so easily be disrupted or shut down: “Very, very fast, you figure out that the only thing that will keep you informed is radio, this small, old-fashioned thing called radio. That's it. The power of radio, I can tell you, it works. And the tougher the conditions, the more important radio is. Everyone is smart when you have a new iPhone and 5G connection and the iCloud access … But if Russian missiles hit the station and you have no internet, you have nothing. You can use your iPhone as a brick only. And the only means of communication would be a good, old-fashioned AM receiver or FM receiver, which is free. You don't have to pay for it. You just tune in and you listen to it. And the information you listen to, it will save your life … It might literally save your life or you might save somebody's life.’’
• The highly effective role that volunteers and donors from Cape Cod and the United States generally can play: “You send packages to Europe and from Europe, people bring it to Ukraine just in two hours. … a lot of people are volunteering. You will send it somewhere. I don't know to Poland or to Slovakia or to Hungary. To any country. We will find a place. A lot of people are [volunteering] everywhere, and they just collect [it] … If someone needs special medicine, you just go to your Slovak friends, and your friend from the USA sends the medicine to Slovak friends, and Slovak friends just bring toward the border.’’
• And on the importance to Ukrainian morale of volunteer support: “I want to thank you for what you're doing for us, because that is very, very important to know, and to feel this support, and to know that we are not alone in this war. And to know that people from far, far abroad, I mean, we are not neighbors with you, and you are supporting and you are helping and you are putting in effort. You have no idea how important it's to us. Please believe me … To know that we are not alone. Yes. Thank you so much for what you are doing. There is no small or big help here. All help is huge.’’

Anne Levine joined the non-profit, non-commercial community station WOMR 13 years ago. With her husband, Michael H. Levine, she broadcasts “The Anne Levine Show” weekly from her East Dennis studio, covering everything from politics, pop culture, music, and other topics including occasional newsmaker interviews like this week’s with Bolkhovetsky.

WOMR (OuterMost community Radio) first went on the air on March 21, 1982, and since November 1995 has broadcast from 92.1 FM throughout Cape Cod and parts of the South Shore, including Plymouth. Sister station WFMR 91.3 FM in Orleans, commissioned in 2010, expands WOMR’s coverage to the Orleans-Chatham-Harwich-Hyannis side