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Hello and thanks for joining us for this special episode of Sustaining US here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.

Today, we're talking about sustaining Ukraine and we have an amazing panel of guests.

Joining me first to discuss is Dr. Irene Wozniak.

Dr. Zelnick is Ukrainian and a world leading scientists.

Irene is with the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Irvine in Orange County, California.

She's also the associate director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center.

Irina is an expert in renewable energy.

And I have a lot of questions for you, Irina, in a moment.

Also joining us in just a few minutes is Irene is cousin Natalia Donetsk, who is in the Ukraine as we speak, taking shelter to survive the Russian bombings and bullets where she's been since the Russian invasion began on February 24th, 2020.

To that interview, you don't want to miss a live when Italia in just minutes.

And then we speak to Alexander Matsuoka in New York, also a Ukrainian who was a diplomat and a member of the United Nations secretariat.

His interview during the second half of this broadcast.

First to Irina.

Irina, thank you so much for being here.

So greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

David.

Before we even talk about all the issues, just tell me how you're doing emotionally, psychologically, Your family, your countrymen and women are back in the Ukraine suffering devastating effects.

Can you talk about how you're doing?

Thank you, David, for asking.

It's been a really difficult time of the last month.

And I just I've been worried about all the Ukrainian people.

Thousands died.

Thousands of people are displaced, children losing their homes.

My family in Ukraine, it's been quite difficult, difficult time to go through through this times.

But but, you know, I'm here in Orange County and safe, but my heart goes to all the Ukrainians who's been fighting so bravely against the Russian war and Russia's invasion.

So, yeah, thank you for asking.

But it's it's it's been it's been tough.

Your family, Ukrainians, have so much bravery, so much courage, as do you.

With that said, how do you get through this?

In a sense?

What are you doing to help your fellow countrymen and women people in your field?

I know it's sort of a personal crusade, a personal campaign, so to speak, of yours now to try to help out your Ukrainian people.

So when when the war started, I asked myself, what is it that I can do here, being a scholar, being academic here in California, I, I actually started to work with a program called Scholars at Risk, and this is international program.

And they help displaced scientists, academics, journalists, artists to to to find safe haven here in different countries.

And so I've been working with the University of California to secure funding for about four families to come here, UC Irvine, and to to find temporary shelter until they can go back home after the war and help rebuild the the the infrastructure.

Because, David, the universities are destroyed in Ukraine.

There is there is nowhere they can go back and continue, whether they're students to study or whether they're teachers that teach the students.

Kharkiv, which is a major hub for Ukrainian education system, is is shelled.

Hundreds of buildings are destroyed.

So so it's really it's really difficult specifically in the eastern Ukraine and all those displaced academic students, they really need some some help and temporary shelter.

So that's what what I've been trying to do, fundraise for this program so we can really bring some scientists.

I know it's a small effort, but we we want to start somewhere.

Every effort has a lot of meaning.

You have a website, though, don't you?

Talk about that because you've raised quite a bit of money already.

We we did.

We have the this official funding crowdsourcing campaign.

It's it's called our funder.

So that's funding for our audience.

Is that funder.

And we're going to we're going to put that on a screen.

We'll leave it on the screen during your interview.

So folks who can help out the best they can, we want to try to help you as well, but talk about the fund or what you're doing specifically.

So so we have raised over $50,000 now through the crowdsourcing campaign.

And this funding will go into supporting displaced scholars, journalists or other academics.

So we also have commitment from the University of California, Office of Provost, Office of Vice-Chancellor, various deans.

So we have raised already more than $200,000.

So we are in process of bringing those academics here.

We already have applicants and we are really rushing through to get them here.

Like I said, a personal crusade, well worth it.

Stay with us.

I have a challenging question for you.

I want to sort of set the stage and talk to our audience and explain them, because you were talking about this is a sustainability issue.

Let me try and explain that for our audience.

Here is also part of the reason why we're also talking to Dr. Irene is in York.

Since the war began, as she mentioned, thousands, tens of thousands have been killed, both Ukrainians and Russians, as the world is just hoping for peace in that region.

Millions upon millions of Ukrainian refugees have fled.

Many of those millions to Poland.

And now with hundreds of thousands fleeing to the US.

As Iryna also mentioned, millions of Ukrainian children have been displaced from their homes.

We've all witnessed this brutal news video every evening on the news from Ukraine.

Of all the collateral damage, all the innocent civilians being killed in such torture, some ways it's been overwhelming.

Here's the point related to all.

This is a point that cannot escape us.

Russia is the major the major exporter of oil and gas to the entire world, especially Ukraine and Europe, which greatly relies on Russian oil and oil drilling landscape, so to speak, has changed dramatically here in the US, with President Biden ending Trump's energy independence and obviously canceling many oil drilling projects.

And really until recently, Biden was also relying in part on that Russian oil.

And now the Biden administration relies on Middle Eastern oil, in part OPEC oil, Venezuela oil.

This from hostile radical nations who've been at odds with us, to say the least.

This is a shock to many of the Biden critics.

The reality is these nations do not have any of the safety standards, the environmental standards, the human rights standards that we here in the US have with our own oil production.

The fact is their oil is dirtier, it's more toxic.

This is both an economic and a national security issue.

We've had a renowned liberal, a liberal Democrat, energy expert on this program who has said as much.

So, yes, while oil drilling and energy independence is a partizan issue, often the left trying to stop the usage of fossil fuels and climate change, let's be honest, the sad reality is this is a human being issue where there should be no divide because human beings are our greatest resource.

So Iryna, I set the stage with that because with all that said, in your climate science background, I know you're trying to change the world with hydrogen.

We're going to get to all of that in a couple of months.

We visited your lab at UC Irvine.

However, with a geopolitical disaster, your people being killed in Ukraine and this leverage of oil is always sort of this black gold, as they call it in Texas.

Right.

It's blood money, so to speak.

Has your opinion of oil drilling as a climate science has changed even temporarily here in the U.S.

So we are energy independent.

So possibly Ukraine or NAITO, they have more leverage, not relying on Russia.

This is a very difficult question you bringing up, David.

Very important question.

And, you know, desperate times call for desperate measures.

I am advocate for renewable energy.

That's what I do.

That's what my research programs are deploying clean technologies, enabling solar wind technologies through storage and conversion batteries, fuel cells.

This is what I do every day, right?

This is what I how I try to inspire my students next generations to do this to to to get this clean energy sources out.

So we can we can get rid of air pollution so we don't have to have carbon dioxide emissions so we can prevent global warming.

Now, the last month has been extremely difficult, as I had to think through some of this questions you just brought up, right, because because energy independence in a time of war, European war becomes probably the most important thing, the most important thing.

Every every country should be looking forward.

Right.

If we look into the the the oil and the gas that Russians export and the blood money.

Right.

You call that right?

Because yes, we have all the sanctions on Russia currently, but but Russia still getting all this millions of dollars, billions of dollars in because Russia is a major oil exporter.

Right.

And we look at Europe, we look at Germany, who realized 50, 50, 55% of of German Germans rely on Russian natural gas for heating, for industry.

What's going to happen if they stop?

They stop supply of of Russian gas.

They have to transition back to coal.

That's not a step forward in terms of renewable energy.

That's step backward because coal, if you burn coal, you emit more a more greenhouse gases than if you burn natural gas.

Right.

So so what can we do?

Should should we should we start should we have more oil drilling here to achieve energy independence and to help Europe even temporarily?

I would say yes, even I'm willing to compromise because I feel like I feel like, as I said, desperate, desperate.

We have desperate times now and we really need to we really need to think strategically as a nation.

How do we achieve that energy independence?

You mentioned when it's all mentioned, all pork imports, this are this oil is not clean oil.

And and we can and we should do something about it.

In closing on that, just before we get to Natalia, you've just made news and I'm sure you're going to take some criticism from some of your fellow peers in the science community here on this program.

We greatly respect climate scientists, scientists and the science itself.

But on this program, we're also about common sense bringing liberals and conservatives, the left and the right together about practicality.

And if it means oil drilling temporarily to save lives, it just seems that could be a solution.

Obviously, as a climate scientist, you make news when you sort of concur with that.

So thank you for your honesty and for giving an uncensored answer.

I don't mean to offend you, but these are questions we have to have answered.

So thank you for your honesty.

Thank you.

Okay, So now we want to get to your cousin and Natalia D önitz, who is in the Ukraine as we speak.

She had been, if I'm not mistaken, in Kharkiv, which has been bombed and shelled.

Now she's in a different part of the Ukraine.

She had taken shelter in her basement.

I believe you have to translate for us.

Obviously, we've not rehearsed anything.

I'm speaking to your cousin for the first time.

Natalia, via Zoom in Ukraine.

Are you there with us?

And how are you.

Natalia?

Yak, yak, yak.

Visit us, Russia.

Teach us pressure.

So now she's okay.

Now our hearts are with you.

We are with you.

We want to try and help Irina to help all of you in the Ukraine.

With that said, basically, take me through your day.

You're you you hid in a basement for two months.

Take me through your day would last.

Correction.

I'm just reading the love of P-valley Drop me sissy yak to the head of my ambition again, you know move to Nottingham your browser policies of the follow up a little care with thriller so Stockholm it was Thriller got a W I got my my every day started and ended the same way I, I woke up and I went to bed with the same sounds of artillery fire and I was waiting to to hear when when those when this artillery fire will end.

Natalia, how have you managed to survive all of this?

Natalia Yak, yak, yak doesn't dismal up at is routed.

Zaza Yeah, very natural to me in the knowledge that we move radiation from radiation, we seal new brain.

But I'm old smuggler that I, i, I had faith in Ukraine in our victory.

I knew will win and I knew we will.

We will find the end to this war.

And for this reason, that's what kept me going.

And were you telling me I'll ask Natalia.

Natalia, you have not seen your family.

What's the dynamic there?

Didn't The Bachelor saw you original?

They teach us risk as coaches.

And this is a subject.

You are watching them when you're in Las Vegas.

Team you Spiro Agnew.

I need also legitimate puzzles.

But they told me star struck me once more.

We brought you also introduced to me and we seem to be showing you the which we are not you said they genuinely I'm a lot private who struggle I know you full also so from the first day of war, me and my husband have has been separated and he has been staying for the 40 days with with his parents in the Russian occupied town.

He has managed to escape, but I have not seen him yet since since that time, on the 10th day of of the war, I managed to send my daughter to Poland and I have not seen her since then.

This is a vital question I am hoping she can answer.

Natalia, what do we not know?

In other words, what is not being told in the news?

That's going on in the Ukraine?

What must we know?

We're hearing so much it's difficult to decipher what is true, what is not true.

Can you help us with that?

Possibly.

Natalia, None number out on the win because which is Ukrainian aluminum the was meet sure show you proud Russian that you're proud to to tomorrow's numbers goes out the death shows the two we which is okay you know sure sure mostly when I'm the Picasso you know when.

A.

Lot was not disclosed to Ukraine you should not show system of self-promoting which in guitar dollar I see shirts just a butcher Ukrainian.

So for now in in our media our media shows in depth all the details of the war everything now is in the media in the news in Ukraine so we can see everything in depth.

And finally, just out of curiosity, Natalia, how do you believe the US we here in the US can help you in the Ukraine?

Natalia You have to you have to do more.

Is young America.

Most of the Ukrainians are us.

You do most of America.

She chose delicate.

You know, her low brain in a multi animal almost you Americans clearer than your what you would I think that those Americans to be heroes the America is the idea still is up all my neighborhood what up Anushka Bella door I'm sorry I need to be in the I Americans and the American government has already been doing so much for Ukraine and I would like to thank American people and America for helping us.

What I would like to see is that this support continues until we win the war.

But yes, she would not break the new rule.

Would you intrude?

Only my me and Glenn are praying it, which in turn you can to buy me a dog.

Nothing will sheep.

I'd be a day.

I think you get this.

I think you extend that a hand to us in the most difficult time in Ukraine.

And I think when Ukraine has victory is going to be joined victory.

It's not going to be just victory for Ukraine.

Natalia, thank you so much.

Our hearts are with you.

We wish you the best.

Please stay safe and we really hope to talk to you soon.

Thank you so much.

Natalia.

Not just to talk Emma, Gucci, Jaclyn to visit the interview.

Now, she did kiss the boy you in the Oscars with the genie in the new c e We are going to be by Cuba.

Banter by Sheeba.

Thank you, you two.

Thanks, Irina.

And now also joining us via Zoom from New York is Alexander Masuka.

Alexander is Ukrainian and worked for the UN for nearly 30 years in different capacities.

Alexander, known as Alex, was the director of the Security Council Secretariat of the UN.

Currently, Alex has been elected president of the Ukrainian American Association, known as Self Reliance.

Alex, thank you so very much for being here.

We greatly appreciate it.

Hello Alexander.

Tell me about the current state of Ukraine, but from your purview, from the purview of a diplomat, how are things going with Russia and Ukraine as far as do you see any end to this disaster with the help of the US and possibly other NATO countries?

Well, let me say something about this war.

It's this war is not about destruction and war crimes.

We have we saw terrible war crimes.

It's a war about lice.

The Russian Federation, the world declared this war in Ukraine while telling that they're trying to liberate it, to stop genocide of the people of Donbass.

Nobody knows what people done must mean, and they do want to densify Ukraine, which while in practice means, well, genocide of Ukrainian people.

Because we saw this atrocities by the Russian forces and they claim that they want to defend the occupier Previously occupied areas which were, as they said, brutally bombed for eight years.

I just want to remind that according to statistics, official statistics, in 2002 thousand, 21 five people died in Donbass.

In 2000, 28 people died in Donbas in 55 days of Russian aggression, full scale aggression against Ukraine.

We are talking about thousand, dozens of thousand people killed by the Russian troops.

So basically it's a war of elimination.

It looks like the Russians who were just now declared the second stage of this war, It looks like the major aim is to eliminate Ukrainians, to just wipe us out of our territory, because what the what what we can see in in the city of Mobile, they are not destroying this city.

They just wipe it out from the face of Earth.

And there is no way, no way we can agree of anything as was the prime minister of Israel, said Golda meir said that they want to kill us.

We want to survive.

There is no, no, no, no place for compromise.

Now we can repeat it to her that there is no place for compromise because they want us, that we want to be alive.

It's it's also interesting, Alex, you mentioned in a phone conversation we had I've only spoke with you once prior to this interview.

You said to me, David, in interesting, your program is sustaining us.

I said, Why is that?

You said, this is actually a sustainability issue.

I said, How is that, Alex?

And you said something if I recall, it's about sustaining civilization.

Talk about that.

That's that's that's that's another issue.

It is not this war is not about the Russia and Ukraine.

It's not the war against Ukraine.

This is a war against this is Russia, a war against civilization.

And they claim they say themselves that they're fighting not with Ukrainians, but with nature, when well, when they say NATO's, they mean the entire Europe.

They mean entire entire human civilization.

And I and my me, my opinion, the world realizes that it's not about Ukraine anymore.

That's why you see, it is absolute unprecedented level of support.

Alex, final question.

It's almost unimaginable that in this day and age, I mean, we're talking, what is it, 80 years after World War Two, you you're a historian.

Put this in a historical perspective.

I mean, it's really unheard of, right?

Russia is invading a sovereign nation in Europe.

Unimaginable.

How do we then deal with Putin?

No one stopped Hitler.

Do we intervene or do we stay out?

Because you also said in that phone conversation we have, we had you likened Putin to Hitler.

It's it's it's indeed.

Well, it's it's obviously it's some brazenly similar they even use this is similar symbols.

But what what is more important that unfortunately Putin wasn't stuck on time when he invaded Georgia in 2008.

Nobody while he was slapped on the wrist by but by by the international community.

And he got away with that.

So his appetite to do the same thing like like Adolf Hitler, who who seized the Austria and Czechoslovakia and was washed up in Greece.

And then everybody said, okay, probably.

Well, he will be satisfied with that.

And now again, the bull said, okay, well, proper probably would.

You will not go anywhere further.

And he did say, we are not going to invade Ukraine.

He said this in 2008.

Now he he changed his mind and fortunately they will realize that they cannot afford they cannot afford another Hitler in Europe.

And look who is the most active supporters of Ukraine and the Baltic states or Poland and the Great Britain?

Why?

Because all of them, where they all of them experienced the Russian invasion in making in 39 or 1940, at least at least Poland and the Baltic States and the Brits were fighting Hitler alone in 1940.

Again, Finland, who was traditional neutral state now is is is going to apply for Canadian members.

Why?

Because in 1939, the way invaded by the Russians, they know that they may be the next Alexander Masuka.

Thank you so very much for your interview.

Thank you for being here.

My pleasure.

Irene, a final message for our viewers.

What do you want us to know, whether it's about you, Natalia, your family science or this Ukrainian war?

David, I think I can say I can have so many messages now to say.

I just I think what Natalia has said really resonated with me, that this war is is it's not just Ukrainian war.

And the world has shown that.

And I think once we pass this war, we will we will see light at the end of the tunnel and we'll see hopefully we'll have a chance to rebuild Ukraine together and get a stronger nation.

And and hopefully once once we are back to that, we can also resume our quest to sustainable, renewable energy.

Dr. Irene is Anya Cave, UC Irvine.

Thank you for your friendship.

Thank you so much for being here.

Of course, we are going to see you in a couple of months on a special broadcast at UC Irvine as we take a tour of your amazing lab to learn all about hydrogen.

We did not speak about it today, but we will see you soon.

Thank you.

Thank you, David, for this fantastic opportunity.

Thank you.

And thank Natalia once again.

And certainly thank you to Alexander Mitsuko as well.

Now for more information about our program, just click on Kelsey dot org and then click Contact us to send us your questions and your comments or story ideas so we can hear from you or direct message me at @DavidNazarNews on Twitter.

All one word, @DavidNazarNews on Twitter.

I'll get back with you and be sure to catch our program here on PBS or catch us on the PBS out for All Things Sustainable.

Thank you so much for joining us for this special edition of Sustaining US here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.