My guest today is Anna Bowles.

In the interview, the British writer, editor and activist talks about why she spends four months of the year in Eastern Ukraine, supporting and writing about NGOs there - the local organisations that help people survive.

Right now Anna is helping with the dangerous evacuation work, 13 km from the frontlines but easily within reach of Russian glide bombs. Every day people are killed.

The city used to have a population of around 200,000 - now fewer than 30,000 are left.

“People know that it is just a question of time,” she says.

“Strangely enough, this place seems to have been forgotten both by most international media - and, worse, also by the big international aid organisations.”

If you want to support the work that Anna does in Kramatorsk, or support local aid organisations, go to Anna’s Substack page, where you can find the relevant links and get her latest updates.

They are not pretty.

You can also listen to this podcast on Spotify.

You can listen to us on Apple.

You can also listen to us on Youtube.

And - you can also read this interview we did with Anna a year ago.

BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN

(Warning: The combination of the courage an resilience of the people in Lviv, combined with Chopin’s music - and, possibly, the fact that I myself used to live in the neighbouring street to the Organ Hall - I am afraid, turned this podcast into a bit of a love letter to Lviv. On the other hand, how could it not be?)

On Tuesday afternoon, Lviv was hit by a barrage of Russian drones. All in all, 948 drones and missiles hit Ukraine, 3 people died and many more were injured.

I interview the director of the Organ Hall in Lviv, a famous centre for classical music in the city, whose concert had all the windows smashed in when a bomb hit another building a few houses down.

Taras Demko, Director of the Organ Hall in Lviv; damage from the Russian attack.

This attack on Lviv is, of course, just yet another example of Russia committing war crimes by attacking buildings and people that have nothing to do with the war.

That same resilience that Taras and his team showed in going through with the Chopin concert only a couple of hours after the attack and damage to the concert hall, is the same resilience and courage we see displayed day after day everywhere in Ukraine.

If I were Mr Putin, I would listen to Ukrainians like Taras Demko - and go home.

If you have read and hopefully listened this far, you must like it. So how about becoming a paid subscriber, so we can keep producing such pieces? This stuff doesn’t make itself, you know 😉