Ukrainian Man Who Converted His Kharkiv Bar Into Emergency Shelter Tells CNN ‘We Will Keep the Country’: ‘There Is a Reason to Continue Fighting’
A Ukrainian bar owner who transformed his business into an emergency shelter and helped organize volunteers to deliver food and supplies across Kharkiv told CNN on Saturday that “we will stay strong and we will keep the city.”
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, has come under intense shelling in civilian areas from Russia in the past week amid Vladimir Putin‘s invasion.
Jim Acosta introduced the bar owner, Bohdan Yurov, noting that “he and his network of volunteers have been driving through blown up blocks to deliver food and medications.”
“They are now feeding about 1,800 people every day,” Acosta added.
Yurov said that while the city may look abandoned, people are still there, including the roughly 45 volunteers sheltering in his bar.
After CNN played footage of Yurov traveling through the decimated city to deliver supplies, Acosta asked why he took photos of the deliveries he would make.
“All those pictures are basically just to have some huge collection of people who we feed, just to have proof, you know, that we are not going to surrender, that we are still staying here,” Yurov said.
He later added: “We got used to all the bombing and the fact that we need to drive in some body armor, but at the same time we know we are doing this to keep people safe.”
Yurov’s deliveries mainly focus on vulnerable populations who are unable to go to supermarkets or leave to get their own supplies. He noted that he still has sufficient supplies to continue for a couple weeks and that aid from Poland and elsewhere continues to help as well.
Asked by Acosta what his message to the world is, Yurov replied that it is “quite simple.”
“We will stay strong and we will keep the city and we will keep the country, but it’s only possible with the whole world being united,” he said. Like literally, we get up every morning only because we understand that there is a reason to continue fighting.”
“While Russian forces are quite ridiculously huge, at the same time we see that somehow we still managed to keep them outside the city,” he added.
Watch above, via CNN
