from around the globe. indecision in the ukraine while it appears there is a commitment to a multilateral ceasefire in the country fighting continues again talks the talk of peace which forces pursued their assault in the east is pushing in control. i welcome to sophie and co i'm sophie shevardnadze. we're here today in russian city of lights in may where one. family. his wife and two children who are forced to flee their home they say more came without warning. how did they escape and will there ever be able to return.

and his daughter are going to share their story with us today. kareen is forcing thousands to abandon their homes fighting in showing the villages running for their lives and for most the closest safe haven the u.n. says over one hundred ten thousand people have already crossed the russian ukrainian border what awaits the. peace in your great. country ever behold again. thank you so much for being with us today actually is really touched to share your story with us so let's start from the very beginning when did you decide to leave ukraine. that was a decision my wife and i took together. after the massacre. on

may second. when people were burned alive in the trade union building we are real. but it was time to leave after their deaths events the situation kept getting worse and worse for them all. so when we learned that the ukrainian army was moving towards the border and close a top. where fighting is going on at the moment. we decided to take our children away from this nightmare. that was in late may and then went to live in ukraine in the town off sort of on a. it's a coal mining town right yes everyone works in the mines but you still have friends that are working in the mines right are the mines open are they still operate now sure many of the workers joined the self-defense forces but the mines and all of the processing plants still operated what were their wages are they paid. when i

was still there they did pay the salary new market but when the ukrainian t.v. channels began airing statements by the interior minister of russia and others saying that there would be an economic blockade i walk of that salaries and pensions would be frozen with. my wife and i realized we need to flee because the been through before we decided just to go away from that nightmare was to tell me about how you fled your town. we packed our bags in the evening gathered the money that we had there was a big problem daughter just turned sixteen on may fourth but because of the unrest in the country she wasn't able to get her passport you know. you see in ukraine children are eligible for a passport only when they turn sixteen so we handed in the papers and waited so

long with the other papers we handed over the birth certificates. so our daughter ended up without any documents at all and i went to the head of the registration office and said i thought he could speed up the process but he warned me there would be no passports anytime soon. so i asked him if i could have the documents back and he said no problem and that was it. i hope that her and her both certificate would be enough to cross the border the officers would not let us out saying the birth certificate is no longer a valid document now that she turned sixteen. she was supposed to have a passport. so how did you cross the border into russia when i went to the border checkpoint several times hoping that maybe a new shift of officers would help us i hope somebody would let us pass to try to cross the border all together the whole family right but it was no use my wife my

younger son and i we were ok to pass but they wouldn't let my daughter out everybody was sympathetic understood our situation but still wouldn't let us pass so then what. what happened was that the officers at the border control point in the guns gave up their arms after a shootout the same thing happened in the town of sverdlovsk the self-defense forces found out there were right sector fighters there and surrounded the checkpoint they surrounded as well it all happened peacefully more or less turned out. that the border was not controlled any more talk the situation over with my wife she was afraid at first you see early in may we saw ukrainian helicopters arrive here with troops who planted mines in the area mine the roads installed booby traps so that's why we were scared but in the end we made up our minds.

you let your son and your wife at home and decided to cross the border illegally with your daughter yes i took my daughter and crossed the border with. her illegally was night time very early in the morning and it's this he had to go through the forests. plains and forests. how did you manage as you made your way through who or what were you afraid of the most. in the course is was all very scary the most of all i was afraid of walking into a booby trap. on the bush was thick there could have been traps i only saw such things in movies because i was scared. and before that i went to the russian border checkpoint where i was told ukraine's national guard could open fire on us you and your crew if they had in these planes yes but thank god we made it alive i was just going along to take you to get across the border this way which is about three

hours maybe the way out where you scared as well. you very much so then you go back to your wife. yes i took my daughter to the nearest town in russia and left her with my friends. and then i called my wife to say i'd gotten across and then i went back. to take anything with you when you were fleeing with your wife and your little boy. but almost all really to tell you the truth our escape was spontaneous. and we didn't really believe it would work out for them or so we always packed was our i.d.'s and documents and things for our children. we ended up with two bags that said just could you leave behind it how. sad the moment my cousin and my uncle were you. said they want to leave.

they couldn't leave much the ukrainian side wouldn't let them pass. my mother my brother and his family my in-laws they were fleeing under bombardment mortar fire. they made it but i cousin helped my mother get out but he himself wasn't allowed through why didn't they let him through i've heard that they don't let men across the border yes that's right that only women and children leave why is that i mean why would. my friends back home telling me there are people making house calls in cities such as kramatorsk or parts of the region. they force young men to enlist in the ukrainian army to defend their country or what country. are they supposed to defend i don't know if you refuse they shoot you to scare others. they just shoot men

because. people are refusing to serve in the army do you know someone like that or you are just told. been told at least there hasn't been anything like that in our town. but you must be in contact with your cousin with iran what are they telling. going on right now getting any better or worse i can tell you the city was on the shelling yesterday and the border checkpoint was bombed there used to be a female prison next to it. but it got burned down. checkpoint has been burned down the poem was in the post. the bridge linking the ukrainian and the russian border control have been bombed. it was a four hundred meter long bridge going over the railroad and now it's been

destroyed. so i don't even know how people will be able to get across now that was the shelling continue nonstop or does it get more intense at night or does it happen sporadically once a week how intense is to fighting. i can't even tell you but they usually open fire in the morning on june twenty seventh the fighting started at tough boss ten right after the peace agreement and it cease fire yes the cease fire would you know so they started bombing a ten thirty and it went on for hours. but then it went quiet and later on the shelling resumed on the rich and at night shelling continues at night there's also drawn. before we fled we would see drones and helicopters every night so these drones are they bombing the area or are they monitoring the situation. and

i guess they were money. but can you imagine the stress people feel when they hear aircraft circling in the area especially with what's been going on inside. to tell you the truth no one reads or watches ukrainian media there because they simply lie about what's going on. where do people hide i mean what do people like your relatives to you when there is shelling or there are any bomb shelters or just tie it's in their basements or do they go and. some stay at home there is a bomb shelter in our town located in the basement of the local community center. but not everybody was even aware of its existence. even though and people weren't prepared for all this nobody imagined would be bombed by the militia. when we come back we're going to continue to talk to the. refugees from mr crane

a lesson with a few things craniums can deal with this conflict themselves without outside interference. the chimp is about seven years old it's one of the largest ten cities on the east coast of america and zoo got about one hundred people here just because of economics the cost of housing in this area especially is very high and i believe as an american we have a right. to care about or to possess public land until something is created that's my house you see back there live it send them to well good at least then

spend the. rest. if we hadn't done that we wouldn't have been home i want to go stand we don't just hold the you know people a density we don't anybody that needs help so tell your friend to just give us a moral take care of him or a mistake i'm never going to get a sense that he incidentally in one thousand got a place to live once on monday i'll be out here with my dog. put it on your mom in washington d.c. all the face i just i feel alone. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm role researcher.

as a new physician i swear to abide by the. the credit goes. to the best of my ability and judgment. i will prescribe for the good of my patients. i will not give deadly doses to anybody. or advise others to do so. i will never do her. doctors of the dog. to. lead. the way to go all the tried to play. a.

little bit of life for the story taking every minute of the leg the law the weapons. like the many. lemons cases most elite clubs. sometimes for nothing. this silliness will. slip just a little bit of the story will be just if you see a stage eight look easy. but the speech was. the lead.

the a. lead. absolutely. your friend posts a photo from a vacation you can't afford. to different. the boss repeats the same old joke of course. the ex-girlfriend still

in poetry keep. ignoring. the post only what really matters. to your facebook. react to situations i haven't read the reports. for years and no i will leave them to the state department to comment on your point of the month to say it's ok. no god. no more weasel words when you question and be prepared for a change when you throw a punch be ready for a battle prevail on speech and down the freedoms of christ.

we're back with the old school who is a refugee from the eastern ukraine and came to russia not long ago. when i got your personal opinion what do you think why did all this unrest break out some say the west of the countries to claim there is blame the east of the country. what's your . real goodness how do they definitely think it's the west. but them have been thinking about it i mean where do you see. us there is a completely working class region. when protests kicked off in the independence square in kiev people in the bus were busy working and you put those on a little bit with those who weren't happy with you in a covert chant his government doing their job was to rather than take to the

streets which are in the book or in the media who people here like the stability they had. and then when unrest broke out when protesters vandalized central kiev the new government imposed wage deductions on miners from east ukraine to finance its cleanup and reconstruction it is true my wife also works at a mine in miners have all got families to support. who would be happy to give up part of their wage no one we never cared what they were doing we didn't go to their parts of the country the people of us have an opinion of our own so why should they impose their views on us ukrainian media is saying a lot of negative stuff about our region they say people in the bus are a bunch of alcoholics junkies and social parasites if we're so bad then why do you need us. we've held a referendum to declare independence and establish the lugansk people's republic.

and my brother was chair of the local election committee in town by the way i think what changed near a town since to self-defense forces were formed. self-defense forces appeared in our town and some of them have gone to to help defend it. some have gone to look and others didn't ask. there is self defense forces in our town controlling the situation. but i think you are those people there are miners farmers workers you know these people personally do you know anyone from the self-defense forces they are friends. one of them has been wounded and he's in hospital right now has been wounded in the leg and i want to recall to join the self-defense forces yes but my wife wouldn't let me go she told me i have children

to take care of to look after if you don't know i think she will come down and maybe later i could join the fight. they want to return and join the self-defense forces of course so this is completely voluntary right nobody's that's right called upon force to join the self-defense forces no no no way and these are all your local men who you've known for a while yes forest they would just patrol the town. because a small town was everybody knows each other there and once the unrest started we began seeing a lot of strangers in the city as soon as fighting broke out in our area snipers appeared maybe they arrived earlier maybe they came to identify good firing positions. but they had been there before the fighting started contact with your friends are in

a self-defense forces what are they telling you now. keep in touch with my brother . i call him once in a while. so there's fighting going on there. didn't even stop during the ceasefire you know key it calls these people terrorists. i think finds it convenient to label the people of done by terrorists and separatists so the people in kiev's independence square were not terrorists and the people of the bus they are the terrorists. just because we don't agree with what kiev is trying to impose on us and stand by our own convictions which is the way i hear them when he thought about why the ukraine army just large and well equipped can't defeat the self-defense forces. it's not just ukrainians they've got others too. yes this is one hundred percent true from the very start there were advisors

working with the my down from poland all the e.u. countries and the us i think it's common knowledge. that you're closer and more serves the ukraine army is being helped by the year's mercenaries why can't they just sit the self-defense forces. i think it's going to be extremely difficult to defeat people who are fighting for a cause. or defending their land and their rights. because whatever they do the will of the people can't be broken. bones this is important that your region is recorded as an independent state a number assia it's very important to me it does become important now after the conflict erupted or is it always like this. it was the west and the east of ukraine used to live somewhat peacefully. but deep inside they probably had issues with

each other. i wouldn't say there was hatred but i can definitely say we didn't quite like each other. consider yourself ukrainian. don't you you know if your son. i've been thinking about this i was born in the u.s.s.r. and i was taught by my parents to love my country and my great country. and the things i've always been proud of were for example hockey i was proud when the russian team won the world hockey championship. i root for russia when i watch the eurovision song contest. i am always cheering for russia my passport says i'm a citizen of ukraine but after all these events especially after the adesa tragedy for me ukraine doesn't exist anymore as

a state what do you expect from the new president get a question. for me he's not a president who didn't do your grains can solve this conflict themselves will they be able to mend ties or involvement of foreign powers like russia or united states and europe is needed for this too and. i think people in the east have become extremely angry and anxious. a couple of days ago a ten month baby was laid to rest in the town no one should sit. i'm sure his parents would never come to terms with their tragedy. they will never forget that their child was lost in a war that had been unleashed by kiev and the west of ukraine. the east of ukraine would never come to terms with this. that's what i think. some think it was so you need foreign help assemble william manage on your own. course we need help

never a caesar strong young state. it's very fragile we definitely need help and i really hope russia will help us. at least i'm sure no one is looking to the west for any help you can you please to go along the west says the russia's financing these self-defense forces so most of the self-defense forces are russian. you've crossed the border into ukraine is that so. they used to live in a border town as i say. and i never saw any russian soldiers or military equipment crossing over the border i'm not lying i'm telling the truth. i have another cousin she's from the ukrainian city. in the west of the country you know of problems and she supports the my done movement. i didn't want to argue or try to

convince her she is wrong to do so it's just that all the polls now we simply don't talk to each other who are divided by different views it will just be my yes and yes but i know what i'm talking about when i say my town is being bombed just like slam dunks concessions while i was there was my family was there oh you want to go home or do you want to stay in russia. was lying to you i would like my children to stay here but i don't see any future for my children back in ukraine my daughter needs to get into college next year and i don't want her to live in fear i never thought of going back really. think you so much for this interview first sharing this with me and good luck with everything thank you and good bye.

i'm abby martin the stories we cover here are not going to be here in iraq some are big star at the same time there's a reason they don't want to know more. now let's break the set. this is what we do we kill people and break things we can see something if simple as people playing a soccer game you can see individual players and if you see the ball. you can almost see his facial expression you can see he is now focused and crying out. maybe he cursed us or maybe he asked. for forgiveness for us.

there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or in. a. war is probably the most complex and difficult human activity. or. not. i think the phenomenon of friendly fire probably extends back to the invention of gunpowder. to kill a bunch of people you know don't know if they're on the premises there are a us people. reading filming. this son of a shoot my brother in the leg not intentional because of it because it was night

times four in the morning even the best commanders even the mesh shoulder. are going to make mistakes this is this whole idea of brotherhood an author and then and camaraderie in this sense it was in this context that has absolutely no place. please write the scene. first st louis and i think the church. on our reporters were very. instrumental. in the mold. on hot chili indecision in the ukraine while it appears there is a commitment to

a multilateral ceasefire in the country fighting continues again talks the talk of peace which forces pursued their assault in the east is foreshadowed in control. ukraine's president says he's ready to reestablish a truce in the country's east but the army steps up the offensive on defined cities with more residential areas coming under fire. saudi arabia sends thirty thousand troops to the border with iraq for a wave of radical islamist insurgents reportedly force iraqi border guards to flame . and the standoff between asylum seekers barricaded in the band in school and authorities puts berlin on the edge triggering pride tests in support of the refugee.