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Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. No membership drive today. That's over. Thank you for all your support in our annual winter membership drive. I discovered this week that I am related to a family of Ukrainian refugees. I knew I had some living relatives, I should say who originally came from Ukraine but I did not know about this branch or the family until I got an email from one of my relatives describing their plight.

I'm going to read part of this email now, as one way to humanize the mass horror taking place there now with one family's story. I'm not going to use these refugees’ names so as to protect them from any possible retribution, I'll say before I read it, that one theme here is the solidarity and kindness of strangers under extreme circumstances. My relative's email says, "So-and-so had been living in Kyiv with her three children and rather ill mother. No one thought possible what is happening now so they had made no plans to leave, not much gas in the car, insulin for her mother. Her inclination was to stay, but she was getting lots of conflicting advice.

About a week ago. She decided to leave. It took a couple of days to get insulin and gasoline, but they finally made it out heading west toward a cousin's home on the Polish border, north of Lviv, almost 400 miles. The roads were icy and traffic terrible. The first day they could only travel 25 miles. Relative here in the US, went on the internet and through six degrees of separation found an acquaintance near where they ended up so they could spend the night. The next day was not much better. Relative here went on the internet and found an apartment.

A young couple had moved in with their parents and left their apartment for refugees, cooked them a hot meal, and gave them an opportunity to have showers. The next night was spent on the floor of a church. After that much of the traffic turned south toward Moldova while they continued west turning north near Lviv. Lviv has become a humanitarian nightmare with close to 100,000 refugees crowding in on route to Poland. The road north from there was a rutted dirt road, about 50 miles to the cousin's home. They were driving through the dark in a dense forest area.

They hit a rut in the road and two tires exploded with about 30 more miles to their destination. They called their cousins who were willing to drive there, but it seems to me that this might mean abandoning their car. A man drove up, put on two new tires, refused payment, and offered them lodging. They were initially afraid to go to a strange man's house, but he came back later with four of his children, assuring them that it would be safe.

It sounds like he came with a bunch of his friends. Headlights of seven cars lit the way to his home. The kindness of people along this trip is extraordinary. I've been in that area and the descriptions I heard sound pretty accurate." This email from one of my relatives continues from a few days ago. "Today, the family made it to the cousin's house about 20 miles from the Polish border in a relatively secure area. They decided to stay for the day and night in an area near where her father grew up.

This was a favorite spot for her in Ukraine, a very rural farm area, dotted with small towns. It was the first relaxing day and weeks of anxiety. The children could play with each other and relative could sit back with a glass of wine. Sounds almost surreal. The mother, this is the grandmother really, has an expired passport and their youngest child has no documents. Hopefully, they can get through. The European Union is apparently giving citizenship with healthcare to Ukrainian refugees who pledge allegiance to a European country.

They will need healthcare because of their mother's ill illness.

They have now only their car, the few belongings they could bring and each other." Those are excerpts from an email I got from a relative earlier this week that refugee family, three generations, five people did now make it to Poland. These are of refugees I'd never met, now refugees in Poland and that obviously is not nearly the worst of the worst stories, not nearly, but it's bad enough and it's the one I've got.

With me now is Nadia McConnell, founder, and president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation based in Washington, a think tank and what they call it, do tank representing Ukrainians and Ukrainian interest in the US and development of democracy and the economy in Ukraine. Ms. McConnell is a former deputy assistant administrator for legislative affairs at NASA and director of congressional relations at FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Ms. McConnell, welcome to WNYC and of course, I'm sorry, it's under these circumstances.

Nadia McConnell: Well, Brian, thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm sorry, your story just is so reminding me of my own family's story. Thank you as I said for the opportunity to talk about what we're all trying to do to help. I first want to also thank this incredible outpouring from all over the world. Your story of this family, the kindness of strangers, we have been really heartened and humbled about people and organizations that are really giving all they have to help the people of Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we'll open up the phones now for your stories of Ukrainian suffering under the Russian assault. Who do you know personally or know of personally whose story you would like to share? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Anyone else with ties to Ukraine, also welcome to call in or anyone with questions about how to help the people there or the people fleeing there for our guests, Nadia McConnell, founder and president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Miss McConnell, I saw a stat that about half the refugees are children. Do you know that to be roughly true?

Nadia McConnell: Well, we know it's mostly women and children because the men are all staying behind to fight. I don't know between women and children, I would suspect that maybe it's even a higher percentage but then, of course, you have the [inaudible 00:07:17] but it's the most vulnerable that are forced to flee and not knowing what their future is, whether they're ever going to return.

To see this tragedy unfolding right on live television is really daunting but again, the fact that the world has responded and if you will permit me to just share a little bit about how we are organizing ourselves to be just another entity that's trying to help. We're trying to build a whole ecosystem if you want to say, of providing humanitarian assistance, going to Ukraine. This is going to be with us for a very long time. Initially, right now, the most critical needs are medical supplies. In 2015 and '16, we were sending humanitarian shipments via ship containers.

Well, today we need to get them over by air transport. We have if you think of the whole system, the supplies, and the transport and distribution on the other side, we think we've gotten the supply side because of the generosity of everybody. Like I said, we have the American Hospital Association that is reaching out to their nearly 6,000 hospitals to donate supplies. We're working with the March of Dimes, and many other organizations. We feel like we've got a good base of gathering the supplies.

On the distribution side, we've been in Ukraine since 1990. We ourselves have been doing various programs throughout the decades. We have our own infrastructure that we've built, but we are also are connected to other existing in-country structures as well as humanitarian organizations that have been on the ground well, since the beginning of the war. The missing piece, the very weakest piece, and the most critical is the transport. Getting the supplies from here to Ukraine, and of course via whether it's Poland.

Poland is now getting overcrowded and saturated. Now, of course, other countries like Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and Slovakia, will be also other points of entry. Then we have the system set it up for trucking, these humanitarian supplies into Ukraine itself. Again going back, we've announced an initiative which we are calling Ukraine Airlift. Those of us of a certain age might recall the Berlin Airlift after World War II when the Kremlin blocked things going into the sector that they controlled in Berlin and so the US military was parachuting food supplies to get it to the people.

I also think for maybe the newer generation, the millennial I'm also thinking of the movie Dunkirk, where you had small ships or small boats, medium-size ships rescuing the British shoulders. That's my idea for the airlift is to identify any aircraft that is capable of carrying cargo across the ocean. We're also looking to our government to see--

Brian Lehrer: Can I follow up on that?

Nadia McConnell: Oh, sure.

Brian Lehrer: When you talk about that airlift, are you talking about flying into Ukrainian airspace?

Nadia McConnell: Oh, no.

Brian Lehrer: No, just to fly to the refugee areas across the border?

Nadia McConnell: Right now most of the stuff is going into Poland and then it's truck from Poland from the air airports into Ukraine. Then there are being similar setups in Romania, Moldova, Slovakia, and Hungary. All of these countries on the border will be receiving humanitarian assistance and then will be trucked in to different parts of Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: How can our listeners who want to help those refugees or maybe help the effort you were just describing do the most for them?

Nadia McConnell: There are two ways. Right now if you go to our website to usukraine.org, there's a how can I help. We are raising money because we're working with a Kyiv Rotary Club and they're focusing on the refugees and they need money because it's more efficient for them to buy products in nearby Europe than for us to ship it. Money is very important but we're also looking for sources of different supply needs like I mentioned, medical supplies but also with the air transport, that is going to cost some funds.

We sent our first shipment last week. It cost us $15,000 and that was like 20 pallets, that was not a full plane. We're looking for both donated airplane help, we are also raising money that if we have to pay, we'll pay.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. We have some people calling in with their own personal stories of people they know who are in Ukraine or Ukrainian refugees right now and we're going to talk to Margaret in Toms River, Margaret you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling today.

Margaret: Hi, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear just fine Margaret, hi.

Margaret: Thank you. Hi, I said my daughter was born in Ukraine. I adopted her when she was 10 months old. She's 21 now. She has dual citizenship. She has no family back there but we have friends that are like family to her. One of our friends is trapped in Kyiv, she's got a 93-year-old mother and a sister who's ill. We've tried to send them information about car services and all kinds of things and they just can't get out. They're going to be stuck there. Other friends who have left Kyiv and are south and west of the city now and relatively safe but not completely safe.

It's hard to know what to do to help them. I check in twice a day. I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer: It's okay.

Margaret: I check in twice a day via messenger and send them articles to read, something to distract them and just ask if they're safe and I feel helpless.

Brian Lehrer: Can you help Margaret help her people Nadia?

Nadia McConnell: Only to say that most of us, I have relatives, we have employees that are there. One of our staff here her family is in Kyiv. Her son went back to fight. There are places where they can turn for help. I'm sorry I didn't catch where they were exactly located.

Brian Lehrer: They're in Kyiv. Margaret. Can I ask you--

Margaret: They're in Kyiv.

Brian Lehrer: Margaret, what are they the most afraid of that causes them to want to leave? Is it that the Russians will be bombing civilian areas where they live or is it something else?

Margaret: That and the mother is too old to stand at a train station and wait for a train and the sister is ill and my guess is can't travel either. She sent her daughter west when the fighting first started out. Because of the age of the mother and the sister who's sick and may need medicine, they're unwilling to leave their apartment. They've organized and they go to the basement when they hear a lot of noise but there's not a whole lot else they can do.

Nadia McConnell: I'm sorry. To be more specific, if you will write to me that's nadine@usukraine.org or airlift@usukraine.org. We've taken these calls and we've tried to contact people. You don't want to do this on the air but if you want to skip information where they're located and we're talking to people in Kyiv I was this morning. We can see if we can get somebody to them to see if they need medicine or what are the transportations if they want to move west.

Brian Lehrer: Nadia and it's Margaret for your spelling, it's like Nadia.

Nadia McConnell: Nadia Comonich. [laughs] I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer: That's right. Nadia, N-A-D-I-A@ what?

Nadia McConnell: @usUkraine and that's one word, no dashes, .org

Brian Lehrer: usukraine.org and Margaret, put in the subject line or the body of the email that you talked to her on the Brian Lehrer Show. Let me go right to another caller, Vlad in Bergen County. You're on WNYC. Hi Vlad, Thank you for calling in.

Vlad: Hi good morning. My family originally is from Odesa Ukraine and we were political refugees back in the Soviet Union times. We still have family and friends there. People have gotten out as much as they can. I've always identified as Russian and now I'm just embarrassed to do so. I'm in New Jersey now and if there's ever a refugee program where the United States is taking people, I would love to volunteer my home or if there's anything else I can do.

Brian Lehrer: That's very generous. Vlad, Thank you. Let's talk about that.

Nadia McConnell: If you could go to our website usukraine.org and there's a thing that says how can I help. We are collecting different categories of volunteerism. There is a place where you can say once there are refugees coming that you're willing to host them. If you put that information down, we're not accepting anybody yet except those who have I guess visas or some connection. We trust that that's going to be evolving and more refugees will be allowed to come.

Sometimes like when we came, you had to have a sponsor. This is an evolving thing but we're gathering all of these volunteers and when we have information, we'll be contacting you or directing you to whomever we'll be organizing those kinds of efforts.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for offering your home, Vlad when the time comes. Why isn't the United States taking refugees yet? The refugee question is really complicated. On the one hand, there are an estimated 2 million refugees already out of the country. The European nations around there are taking pretty much all of them. On the other hand, the US has been so unwelcoming to Syrian refugees and refugees from Yemen and refugees from Central America. It looks racist if we open our arms in a different way to refugees from Ukraine.

Nadia McConnell: Brian, I'm not aware of all the details of all of these refugees from different countries but it is a slow process. I know I was checking to see whether or not Ukrainians will be and what status Ukrainians will be allowed into the country. I've likened this process a little bit like building an airplane while flying it or maybe I've changed it now, building a jet plane and flying it. We're trying to manage an evolving situation, not having everything in place.

I've also been discussing with Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur about the fact that in the great lakes, once the ice breaks, one of the first ships that come in is from Poland and that we anticipate that they will be bringing in refugees through there. Then the idea would be that we would then put supplies on for the ship returning. There's a lot of moving parts that we are trying to address, not only the immediate but anticipating what the needs will be in the midterm as well.

Brian Lehrer: Also with us now, in addition to Nadia McConnell, Founder and President of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation is Asia Mieleszko, a representative from the New York-based music and cultural organization, Ukrainian Village Voices. Asia is Polish American but trained in Ukrainian folk music and very plugged in to the group's efforts to help the people of Ukraine right now and they're doing quite a bit. Asia, thanks for a few minutes. Welcome to WNYC.

Asia Mieleszko: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Tell everybody what is Ukrainian Village Voices?

Asia Mieleszko: Ukrainian Village Voices is a rather culturally diverse collective of singers, people from different academic and musical backgrounds that are United in their deep love and care for Ukrainian village music.

Brian Lehrer: What kinds of efforts do you have underway to help the people in Ukraine?

Asia Mieleszko: Well, so far, I think principally, we've been collectively lending our voices in song and speech to numerous fundraising events, media appearances, and so on. Since our work is rooted in the village traditions that reflect Ukraine's diverse musical heritage, it's been very powerful that through us, this music, which is not only dear to us on a sonic level, but also representative of certain communal ideas is reaching the ears and the hearts of American and Western audiences. It's extraordinary music by ordinary people. It's by the people, for the people type of singing tradition and song-making. I think that especially whenever we get to sing this music which it's been very surreal.

We've been granted a lot of platforms to present it, but it is still a rather niche element of just music in general. It's just been incredible to present music that's made in community without pretense, but not without discipline to a wider audience. Outside of just our performing and lending our voices, we've also dedicated 100% of our album sales from our debut album, which is on Jalopy Records to two Polish NGOs working to ensure refugee safety, welfare, and dignity along the Polish-Ukrainian border. I can talk about those more later if there's any questions.

Brian Lehrer: Well, you could talk about that a little bit now in terms of if there's any particular group that you've done musical fundraising for or anything else that you'd like to shout out. Also, I'll tell our listeners when we end this segment in a few minutes, we'll go out with the little excerpt from this new album from Ukrainian Village Voices just so you can hear Asia and companies' work, but what do you want to say about those efforts?

Asia Mieleszko: The two Polish NGOs to which we're funneling our album sales are Stowarzyszenie Folkowisko and Grupa Granica. Well, both of them have dedicated resources and efforts to this particular war to this crisis, but also, I personally really like them for their longstanding legacy. The former, for example, is rooted a lot in dignity and resources is in village life in general, across Poland and even going into Ukraine because villages are rather divorced from the city centers often in a number of ways. I like this organization because we do village music.

When we in 2018, as a group, went to Ukraine on a ethnographic mission and visited many of the villages from which we sing songs, you clearly see the divide between city and village and often what needs to be done, what's missing, what can be done to preserve this way of life without necessarily having anything missing. Still enter the contemporary, but still, have of some elements that are necessary for its preservation.

Then Grupa Granica also has been really active for almost a decade across the entire Polish border, ensuring that all refugees no matter where they're coming from, where they're going, are treated with dignity and are given resources especially as many try to cross the border in the wintertime, which is pretty brutal in Eastern Europe in general. Just the work and the legacy of theirs is really meaningful to us. I'm glad that our album sales get to support them.

If I could make one more shout out because I know you have a guest here from Razom, but I think if I can just urge anyone listening to follow the vetted initiatives of organizations like Razom for Ukraine, we've been part of their fundraisers. We have been friends of theirs for years now and they have an amazing robust team of volunteers which adapt and update as the situation develops and they're very transparent, active, and responsive. They are, I think the leading, especially New York-based Ukrainian diaspora organization to which if anyone's looking, "Oh, where should I donate?" Definitely Razom for Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Just to be clear our other guest right now is not from Razom, We're working on somebody from Razom for next week. Our guest right now is from the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, but still a good shout-out for them. Oh, we have confirmed. My producer's telling me that we have confirmed a guest from Razom for Monday's show. We will continue that conversation then. For now, we thank Asia Mieleszko from Ukrainian Village Voices. Listeners stand by because when the segment ends in just a couple of minutes, we'll give you a little sample of their music. Nadia from the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, did you want to say something?

Nadia McConnell: I absolutely do. Yes. Thank you. Very familiar. We cooperate with Razom. If you go to our website, not only do you have the opportunity to support our Ukraine airlift project, we do list organizations that are vetted and that do a variety of things. Razom is listed. We're also working with United Help Ukraine. We are building this coordinating coalition and it's being headed up by Ambassador Cliff Bond and [unintelligible 00:27:11] We're trying to pull in and just a network of sharing information just and Razom as I say is there as well.

Brian Lehrer: Asia, thank you very much. Let's see if we can get one or two more phone calls on here with people's stories before we run out of time in this segment. Also listeners later, we're going to have Derek Chollet from the US State Department who's giving us a few minutes. We will talk directly to a US State Department representative about US policy which is contentious right now toward the war in Ukraine, but first Yuri in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Yuri?

Yuri: Hello, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: I'm okay. What you got for us?

Yuri: I am the Director of Ukrainian Film Club at Columbia University, and we are now responding to this outpour of support on the parts of American public organizing screenings of Ukrainian films everywhere there is interest. The first such initiative emanated from Salem, Massachusetts. This coming Sunday, they're going to have a screening of the Ukrainian film, The Guide with an address recorded by a Ukrainian director Oles Sanin. This is the first step in this direction and we plan to do more. All the tickets that are going to be sold as part of these screenings will go to support Ukrainian foundations and organizations.

I am in contact with Ukrainian filmmakers. I have many friends there. My family are in Ukraine. All of them are in Ukraine. Some of the Ukrainian filmmakers are trying to do what the situation allows them to do. Some of them are now war photographers documenting Russian atrocities in Kyiv. Some had to cancel their participation in international events. For instance, the Museum of the Moving Image was to host an internationally recognized Ukrainian film director Valentyn Vasyanovych with the US premiere of his latest film the Reflection.

The premier will go ahead, but without Valentyn's personal attendance. He is not able to travel understandably. We are trying to use the power of film. to Ghana support, this wonderful outpour of support of the American public in favor of Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Yuri, thank you so much for your call. I just want to thank you for your call. We're running out of time in the segment. Nadia, I'll just ask you to finish up. Of course, we've talked about the humanitarian effort in this segment. Later on, we're going to be talking about the war effort with the Washington Post correspondent and the US State Department representative who's coming on. Is your group though also involved in lobbying the US government for the things not giving the Ukrainian war effort now like the no-fly zone and the use of the airbase in Germany?

Nadia McConnell: Yes. We do advocate and we have a unique initiative which we formed a number of years ago which we called the Friends of Ukraine Network. It has many of our former US ambassadors to Ukraine, a lot of military generals. We have been for several years now providing recommendations for priorities and assistance. Again, if you go to our website you'll see that. Generals like Breedlove, Wesley Clark, Ben Hodges, and the likes. They go and have various meetings.

They've been very active, like I said, for years and there's been some public, you'll see their writings, but there are also meetings that are being held regularly. They're also having calls and discussions with the national security council and the likes. There is a lot going on on the advocacy side which-

Brian Lehrer: What would be your short response to the basic US position right now that a no-fly zone would put us in direct aircraft to aircraft combat with Russia and the results of that would be much more deaths and destruction than is even taking place now.

Nadia McConnell: We need at least a humanitarian no-fly zone. I would recommend that one of our military people that are working these issues that you invite them because they can give you a more detailed answer. There are a lot of different ways to accomplish what the Ukrainians are seeking without this direct to direct, I guess confrontation that is being discussed.

Brian Lehrer: Is there any diplomatic settlement solution to this war that would be acceptable to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation. I'll ask our guests from the State Department later too, but I don't know if you saw Fred Kaplan, the military affairs columnist for Slate peace proposal yesterday. He's certainly no Putin apologist, but he was raising things like acknowledging that Ukraine won't join NATO which doesn't stop it from forming military alliances with the US or anyone else individually.

Recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea from 2014 because we're not reversing it anyway. A referendum in the Eastern areas with the pro-Russia separatists supervised by the United Nations. Things that would let Putin, who's not winning the war in the way he hoped, declare victory and save a little face, but without actually giving him anything. Anything there for you?

Nadia McConnell: Boy, we need another segment to discuss this. Let's remember the referendum in Crimea. It was the clash tick-off referendum that was held under duress. That's just one thing. Look, it's up to the Ukrainians to decide what they are willing to accept and not accept. We also need to remember how many agreements have been made with the Kremlin and have any of them been held up? When you have currently even the refusal to allow a humanitarian no-fly zone and the one that they offered was for people to go from Ukraine to Russia, I don't think that really is the goal or this is where people want to go.

I again would urge you maybe to have some of our military people and national security people that we have on our task forces. Because this is an important discussion and there's a lot of shorthand phrases being thrown out that do not represent reality. Ukrainians have never asked for boots on the ground, they just wanted the tools to be able to defend themselves. Unfortunately, they're short of those, even basics. There's a lot that could be done short of what some people have said is not doable or that we shouldn't go there.

Brian Lehrer: More on this coming up in the second hour of the show so if you're interested folks, stay tuned for that. Next, we're going to talk to two New York-based epidemiologists on what actually is and what actually isn't the status of COVID in our area. For now, we thank Nadia McConnell, founder, and president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation based in Washington. Thank you so much for giving us your time today.

Nadia McConnell: Well, thank you for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Good luck to all the Ukrainian people. We go out with a sampling from the album being used as a fundraiser in addition to a great musical release by our other guest from Ukrainian Village Voices.

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