Testimony to EU Members of Parliament on Eastern Ukraine and Pokrovsk
This morning in Brussels, I had the privilege to give an address at a special meeting made up of MEPs from the European Union, sharing my experiences and perspectives as a journalist and documentarian from the ground in frontline cities like Pokrovsk, Kherson and in Kharkiv. The following is a transcript of my written remarks.
Brussels, Belgium - European Parliament
Distinguished Members of Parliament - It is a privilege to speak with you today on my observations from the ground near Pokrovsk and conflict regions in Ukraine.
My name is Honor Phillips, I am a freelance photo journalist and documentarian from the United States and a board member of the reporting and storytelling foundation, Ukraine Story.
Just over a week ago I was with a humanitarian convoy in frontline positions documenting the stories of citizens and soldiers in targeted regions including Kharkiv, Kherson, and the embattled city of Pokrovsk.
My mission to Pokrovsk happened in the context of a larger documentary journey. Ten months ago that journey brought me to Bucha where I spoke with Oksana, an eye witness to horrific war crimes who described how the Russians established a green corridor yards from her home, and then systematically shot and killed civilians - men, women, and children who believed they were escaping to freedom.
In the Carpathian mountains, my team interviewed orphans who escaped Russian occupation and were taken to a safe house. One thirteen year old told us that she watched Russians execute her neighbors by the river bank of her home in the East.
In Irpin we talked with religious leaders tasked with the responsibility of helping young women who survived Russian rapes overcome desires for suicide.
At the Paris 2024 Olympics my team interviewed Ukrainian athletes, including Gold medalist Yaroslava Mahuchikh who spoke emotionally of the trauma preparing to be an Olympian when under constant attack, and of the 500 athletic facilities destroyed and nearly 500 fellow athletes killed by Russia. When I spoke with Ukrainian national champion beach soccer athlete Anastasia Klipochenko, she explained that the agony was at such a level that she had to delete news apps and air-raid alert messaging from her phone for days leading up to an event. Otherwise it was simply impossible to perform.
In the last few days I was in Lviv as the city turned out to mourn the senseless murder of a mother and her three daughters, and to stand with the father who lost his entire family in one moment of Russian terrorism.
Back in the United States, my home has been an open door for about a dozen Ukrainian pilots receiving F-16 training. We hoped to be a home away from home for them. Yet it was the Ukrainians who encouraged us with their indefatigable spirit and clarity of purpose.
But it was on my recent trip to the front lines where the innovation and accomplishment of Ukraine were on full display. Also obvious was the mounting crisis on the ground in the face of Russian advances in the East, and timidity of the West to help Ukraine take necessary steps toward victory.
On this trip, I worked with a talented team of aid volunteers and tactical medicine instructors from Poland and the United Kingdom from the Traczer Foundation. Under the command of European sledding champion, Igor Tracz, we provided Tactical Combat Casualty Care, (TCCC,) and brought needed aid and equipment to units at forward positions, It was their 74th mission. We supported Ukrainian brigades in Mykolaiv, Kherson, the city of Pokrovsk, and front line brigades in Kharkiv.
Honor Phillips in Kherson on the site of a Russian KAB bomb impact
From medical supplies, to ballistic armor, to helmets, virtually everywhere we went Ukrainian brigades were in need of basic combat essentials that are taken for granted in most western countries.
In Kherson city, the Russians sit on the opposite side of the Dniper River and pound the city with rockets and artillery trying to make it unlivable for civilians. Russian drones fly over Kherson targeting anyone they can get. The morning I arrived, one Ukrainian police officer was filmed by the Russians as they dropped an explosive directly on him from a drone. He was killed.
The historic academic gem of Kharkiv and its civilian population are under constant Russian bombardment by Iranian made drones, large KAB glide bombs, and precision missiles launched from deep within Russian air space where they feel safe from the limited Ukrainian air defenses. The incredibly destructive KAB bombs can be well over one ton of high explosives, and have been used to devastating effect on Ukrainian cities. As has been well said, the Ukrainians are forced to shoot down the arrow while the Russian archer gets away free, ready for yet another attack.
In a drone dugout near Kharkiv, I experienced one aspect of the defense of their homeland special to the Ukrainian experience. Watching successful drone operations I was amazed by the innovation and spirit of self sacrifice. They invent tactical devices, rig ordinary tools, and in many cases, unit commanders have to privately raise money to source their own equipment.
Pokrovsk is a gateway to the remaining free cities of Donetsk oblast and a key logistics and transport hub. While many have turned their eyes to the remarkable Ukrainian successes in Russia’s Kursk oblast, this key logistics hub teeters in the balance. There is current fighting on the periphery villages leading to Pokrovsk and daily bombings of the city. In Pokrovsk, soldiers are outmanned and outgunned.
I arrived in Pokrovsk and witnessed a city in the eye of the hurricane braced for destruction. I watched a constant flow of humanity fleeing in search of safety. The citizens of Pokrovsk have been evacuating now for over a week, tying their lives, their families and a few select possessions to their cars and escaping.
There is a chilling horror to the reality endured by people born in the same home where they lived an entire life, now fleeing with certain knowledge that all will be reduced to rubble.
One image remains in my mind. A young girl, maybe 15, wandering alone on an abandoned street of Pokrovsk. No other person in sight. Why was she still there? Did she make it to safety?
One of the Pokrovsk defenders is my friend Max. He represents the diversity of the Ukrainian story. He is a man of faith, a husband and father, and a veteran of ten years of fighting Russian aggression. He barely survived the massacre at Ilovaisk which had its ten year anniversary last week.
Pokrovsk is personal to him. It’s his home where he spent much of his life. His father is buried there. He describe it as a city that “is no longer a place to live in, it’s a place for war.”
“How long will you remain?” I asked.
“Until the end.” He replied.
“I hope to see you on my return.”
“Yes, if I am still alive.”
Max talks of a day in which people can show love and charity one for another. How he hopes to be part of that future. But for now, he must fight to give his two year old daughter a chance to experience it. So he rescues trapped civilians and plays his role in the defense of his city.
After Pokrovsk, we briefly spent time in Kramatorsk, leaving an hour or two before the missile hit the Hotel Sapphire killing Reuters journalist Ryan Evans, another reminder that there are no safe places while Russia wages a war of terror.
One more thing. In the Ukrainian positions I saw 19 year old young men fighting beside grandfathers - a phenomenon uncommon to modern warfare.
Why are they there?
It was a question I asked an older soldier on medical leave in Lviv. With tears in his eyes he took out his phone and showed me a picture of his daughter: “This is why.”
There is another message shared by Ukrainian defenders with differing degrees of eloquence and specificity. It boils down to this: “We know what’s at stake. If we lose, it’s our culture. Our identity. Our families. Our lIves. It’s also Europe and the free world.”
Losing even a single city has implications beyond the strategic. In the context of Pokrovsk loss could mean “zachistka," the Russian phrase for cleansing. We now know from intercepted messages that zachistka was the command in Bucha. We know from 930 days of experience that zachistka has been the Russian practice throughout the war. If past is prologue, we must expect Russians will engage in zachistka in Pokrovsk and related cities. This could include the murder and torture of civilians, the rape of boys and girls, the destruction of houses of worship not in conformity with the Moscow patriarchate, the kidnapping and deportation of surviving children to Russia, and the execution of prisoners of war.
It is worth noting that today is 9/11, the 23rd anniversary of the terrorist assault on the Twin Towers. Since 9/11 in 2001, the world has experienced much terror, but the scope of Russian terrorism against civilians in Ukraine is at a scale not seen since the Second World War. It is a reality that effects more than 40 million Ukrainians who wake each day wondering if they will be next.
Ukrainians understand what many in the West feel freedom to ignore: Russia and its alliance with Tehran, China, and North Korea where terror is virtue when advancing state interest, has created an existential crisis for the post World War II rules based world. They understand that Ukraine is the test.
And this crisis hinges on determined young men and grandfathers who have already done the impossible - successfully challenge Moscow’s war machine for 930 days. It also depends on the resolve of the West to make the ethically and strategically correct decision to cast a vision of victory with Ukraine.
The crisis was summarized by my friend Terry Virtz, a former F-16 pilot, astronaut and commander of the International Space Station. From 254 miles above the Earth in 2015, Terry watched Putin bomb the Donbas. Beside him that day were Russian Cosmonauts, some who now serve in the Rada advocating for terror.
Terry summarized the crisis this way: ”If Ukraine wins this war, it's the last battle of World War Three. If they, lose, It’s the first.”
Thank you.
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