268. From Kharkiv Nights to Hollywood Lights: Kateryna's Story
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Hello and welcome to Battleground with me, Patrick Bishop. We're privileged to have as our guest today Katya Ratushnya,

She's a commander of the Special Forces Unit Saigon, which features heavily in the Oscar-nominated documentary film Porcelain War. Porcelain War is a 2024 documentary film which won the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize and follows the experience of Ukrainian artists as they face the current Russian occupation in Ukraine.

Well, Katya is not an artist. In fact, in civilian life, she's a business analyst and expert in AI. Well, quite early on, she saw the danger that was looming from across the border in her hometown of Kharkiv, where Russia is not very far away, and decided to put herself through military training, along with some of her friends and fellow citizens. When the war came, she was reasonably prepared to

and within hours of it starting, found herself in the front lines where she stayed ever since.

Now in the film we see quite a lot of Katya right up on the front lines of the fighting in Bakhmut. Some of it's filmed through a GoPro camera on her head running from building to building in the thick of incoming Russian fire. Quite extraordinary scenes and we see her trying to get into a damaged building to rescue wounded comrades. Absolutely extraordinary stuff. Katya, welcome to the podcast.

I'll start off just by talking about your life and your experience. But at the end, I'd like to ask you, what are your personal feelings and the feelings of your comrades about the Trump administration's policies and what you think is going to happen? Okay, well, let's start from the simpler one regarding the story, how I like trapped in this situation. Actually, everything started in 2014.

when Russia attacked Donbass and occupied the Crimea. But at that time, I was, well, 10 years younger, obviously. And actually, I was mostly thinking about my education. I have just graduated the university. Everything was so interesting around. I spent so much time at my dance school.

hiking, walking mountains and so on and so on. I just, I had a happy life. That situation has broken the feeling of this comfortable and stable world around me. And I decided that I should be prepared to join military because by the time I was like

Like a sportsman, I was dedicated to, like, sport running across the forest with a map and a compass. I think you could guess what kind of sport I mean. They call it, like, sport orienteering, something like that. That's right, orienteering, yeah. That's it, that's it, yes. And I definitely understood that the skills are highly demanded,

at the front line, because it's all about recognition, it's all about target positioning, aiming, leading the groups across the terrain. I was strong enough, but I was not educated about military, about tactics, about risks, about fire systems, about shooting and nothing at all. So day by day, the community of, let's say, soldiers

Social Volunteers was built.

This was in, just to explain to our listeners, so this is in and around the eastern city of Kharkiv, which is your hometown and where you feel very much attached to and anchored in. Yes, exactly. We have about, let's say, 30 kilometers to our state border. And as practice has already shown, it takes less than one hour for Russian tanks to reach the circle road around the Kharkiv city.

It's very fast. It's very fast. And just this time was not enough by that time to come to the positions for, for example, anti-tank rocket complexes.

let's say, javelins, even to take javelin and to go to that edge, we had not enough time by then. It was really tough. But now, of course, we are ready. Now we are experienced, now we are ready. By the time there was specific understanding of an armed person, of an armed civil person, which means that having your own rifle in Ukraine was something that in our society could not be understood.

understood and could not be accepted without of any extra questions. Once I have decided to purchase my own first rifle, everybody asked me, why do you need it? I said, guys, look, Russians are almost here. We have only 30 kilometers. They have started active war

Donbass, they have occupied Crimea and you ask me why should I have my own rifle, really? When was this that you made this decision? It was 2016. Oh, as early as that. Yeah, because in Ukraine we have like a law which states that we can have our own rifle since we have reached 25 years old age.

What was your attitude towards your Russian neighbors at that? I mean, in the sense of both Russians in Russia and the people around you in Kharkiv. You know, Kharkiv is a Russophone city where a lot of people speak. Most people speak Russian as their first language. What was your attitude towards...

real Russians, if you like, and people who felt themselves to be Russian? Since the war started, it is very complicated for me to accept them as human beings.

Really. It's really hard to talk to them. It's really hard to say hello back to them. And just because I am... Well, okay, my parents have educated me politely. And that is the only reason that I have to say hello back to them. But now I really hate this habit in me. I just... I know that...

I make it like automatically. Somebody says hello to me and I should say hello to him. Yes. It's like a politeness. But I really don't like being like a communicative person to them.

It's really hard. It's really hard. Yeah, even in such things. Tell us about the start of the war and your unit, the unit that you command, the Saigon unit. What's its function? And tell us about some of the actions you've been in. Well, it's important to understand that Saigon, it's not an official administrative name. Saigon was a small special operations forces group that

typical for that military structure. It's important to understand that the group was established during all years starting from 2014. Me and our like head of group Silver

And Slava Leontiev, whom you have seen in the film, and also guys whom you have seen in the film, Diver, Troar, and other, other, other, Karsar, they all joined us when we established an educatory civil organization in Kharkiv.

Actually, it is where I have started from. Coming to these voluntary activities in 2014, we were looking for some educational facilities to get educated how to shoot, to learn about tactics, about strategy, about tactical medicine and other, other, other things. But there were no such facilities just at all. There were two options. Either you should join the army right now

And it will be a question if the army will educate you well enough or you just should stay at home doing nothing. We decided to change the situation. We started our own courses. Not being military people,

I started a military topography course because, as I have mentioned before, yes, I was a sportman in sport orienteering. Slava Leontiev has also started his course of shooting. Slava Silver, who is not shown in film directly, but he's also there, and his words are... Slava Leontiev, like, tells his words.

by his voice. Slava Silver has started anti-tank and fortification force. And we built a strong community of instructors who were actually like new instructors. We were not educated as instructors, as military instructors, but we built ourselves during this year, starting from 2014 and till 2022 when the war started. So our unit Saigon was

All people in UNICEF, they all have come during these years looking for this education. So again, Katya, which year are we talking about here? This is after 2022, is it? We are talking about years from 2014 to, let's say, 2020.

All right. Okay, so we're still pre-war. Yes, pre-war. It's very important that Saigon unit existed far before the full-scale war started. Because all of us understood the situation that the day will come when Russia will start the full-scale war.

We understood it very well, and we all understood that we could not stay aside. We should definitely join the army, and we should join the army as capable, well-educated, and strong military units. It was very difficult to foresee our exact roles.

We were very naive. All those activities which we carried out for almost eight years before the full-scale war started, they joined us. They created the highest possible trust in our group. And actually, we were well-prepared to live in a small apartment

There were 22 people in a three-room apartment. We were moving like crabs, going shoulder to shoulder. It was a very, very tight place. It was almost impossible to find a space on the sofa just to sleep. We were changing these places on the sofa to sleep one by one, turn by turn.

It was like, you know, and just being a very, very friendly group, understanding everybody's needs, everybody's characters. And it helps us to survive the most dangerous and the most difficult part of war, the very beginning of full-scale war. It's, let's say,

First two months, they were very nervous. We were almost without, we had not time to sleep. We had not enough time to understand what's going on because the situation was changing literally every hour. You just got some information from other units and while you are driving home to bring it to other team members, the situation changes right now.

What was the actual function of your unit in those early weeks and months? In fact, we started as an air recognition unit. We have received our first DJI Mavic drone, gone to the front line, the front edge of Kharkiv defense line, raised up our drone to the sky,

and watched the terrain. We have discovered several tanks, we have discovered howitzers and sent the coordinates to the artillery. But the problem is that by the time actually there were so many separate units

And it was so difficult to create the trust to our units, to our data, to our information that actually artillery ignored this information too often.

Once they understood that we are capable in real to come to the front line, we don't afraid, we can come there, we can rise up our drone to the skies. They called us, they asked us to be at the point where should we launch the drone at some exact time. We launched the drone, they started shooting.

the target and we just send them corrections. Here's how far from the target do we see the blast of the missile. Something like this. It is what we have done during first, let's say, one month and a half. In the middle of April, we decided to leave Kharkiv city and move to the front line to the west. It was like...

Chuhuiv city, Pechenihe city, and we have found a small piece of terrain on the other bench of Siversky Donets river.

It was Basaliivka village. I just, I really cannot imagine that somebody of audience will really search Google map to find this Basaliivka village, but it's a small, small village. Yes. And actually we were like surrounded with water from one side and with enemies from the other. Describe your experiences there on the front line. First days,

were again very nervous. We literally did not put off our armed vests, our helmets. We slept with our rifles in hands, almost like this.

All the time we had at least two people who were monitoring the terrain around our house, despite it was a pretty large village. Bazalivka is a pretty large village. Let's say before the war started, I think about 5,000 people could live there. There is a farm, there is a fishing enterprise, pretty big fishing enterprise. So actually it's not an abandoned village.

It was a pretty nice village with many houses and shops, let's say, like this. So, firstly, we decided to take an apartment, if we can call it apartment, a small two-room flat bed with almost broken windows without furniture at all. And we stayed there.

But we understood that Russians will shoot the center of the village. So we decided to move to the small house, like at the edge of the village, like between the forest and the village. The risk was that Russians could easily get across the ponds and come to our home, like from the forest. But we, like we managed the situation. Somehow people get used to,

to new circumstances of their life, they accept the new risk level and this new reality becomes normal. And you've been doing that pretty much continuously for the last three years. You look remarkably kind of calm and relaxed, I must say, given some of the experiences you must have had. How do you prepare yourself mentally for

for these continuing ordeals? I think most people would find one day in the front lines was enough to last them a lifetime. It's a very individual thing, you know. Personally, I used to walk very, very long and different mountain hikes. My longest one took seven weeks in mountains.

So basically, I can manage household uncomfortable things easily. I can keep them in mind. I can find the way how to make uncomfortable space comfortable.

It's also important to understand that our previous life experience, our professional experience, our normal stress level matters so much here. In case if somebody...

Me, for example, my job was really nervous before the war started, several years before. I used to be an export-import manager. In Ukraine, it's a very nervous job. So a lot of stress. Yes, that level of stress actually helped me to adopt my mind to these conditions. I really understood how it worked.

And I really understand that those who have not worked with some responsibilities, with some little bit higher level of responsibility, it's really hard to them. It's hard to them to refuse having some comfort things which they used, like, want to have. It's a very individual thing. And the role of the leader in such conditions is,

rises up very much because if the leader of the group feels himself or herself comfortable, then the group also accepts his understanding of the situation. Yeah, they take comfort from the mood and from the, you know, if the leader is calm and appears to know what he or she is doing, then the rest, they get a kind of benign kind of infection, if you like. It definitely works. Yeah, their vibe, they're giving up.

When we were in Kharkiv, we heard a lot of stories, indeed in Kyiv, about the Ukrainians who, unlike you, are not doing their bit, who haven't invested their lives in defending the country. Is that a problem for you when you look around and see young men in the streets of Kharkiv who should be fighting but have somehow managed to avoid that? Thank you for this question.

Well, now, to be honest, I understand that, yes, it's a compromise. It's a compromise and I have to find balance every day. I have to talk to myself, literally talk to myself to calm down and to understand that

that this war will last for a long time ahead. It's the first point. On the one hand, we have a catastrophic lack of people at the front line. It's true. But on the other hand, we still need to have young men here to handle other businesses, to handle industry. They have to...

grew up is the one part. The second part, right at the very beginning of the war, let's say, well, okay, let's say half a year of war passed. Let's say about autumn of 2022. For example, sometimes I had to call to a taxi. It's a common situation. Everybody has called taxi. And there is a taxi driver. In Ukraine,

In most occasions, it will be a man and he will be in long pants. And it's a question. Are there two legs? Does he have two legs or is there a prosthesis under his pants? You understand? So it means that even if you see a man in the street, it doesn't mean that he has not participated.

In case if he walks on his foot in pants, you cannot be sure that he has really two legs. He could be an amputee. Yeah, yeah. He could easily be an amputee. And it's very, very important to stay calm and not to argue with every man you see in streets. Well, that was extraordinary stuff, wasn't it? Do join us after the break to hear what Katya had to say next.

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Tell me about your trip to Los Angeles the other day. I mean, to us, it seems totally surreal that you would be in Kharkiv on the front lines one week and then you're shaking hands with Hollywood celebrities. Tell me about that experience. It was not an easy experience. It was not an easy experience.

And the point is, it's very important for us to visit peaceful places, peaceful cities, to understand that our normal, even here in Kharkiv, sitting with a cappuccino in a cafe, it's not a healthy normal, which it used to be before.

I don't mean that we should build our life exactly as it is in Los Angeles. No, we had our own normal state and we still have to like to have some kind of an example.

Just a reference that we should make our life peaceful again. We should be free to move around during nighttime without any limitations. For example, being in the military, I have no limitations, but all the civilians should stay home from the midnight till the six o'clock in the morning. They cannot leave their houses.

It was a big contrast. When people were shaking my hand and greeting me and saying me warm support, well, you know, it was very pleasant on the one hand. And on the other hand, there was like some kind of a question like, guys, I really appreciate your support, but I understand that it is so difficult for you to support us personally.

in real, to support us in practice. And I was not able to give them any advice or give them any meaningful feedback more than just thank you. Yeah, yeah. Well, on your LinkedIn, you do talk about that a bit. And on our show, we're always flagging up

good causes, charities where you can send money for humanitarian or indeed to purchase drones or whatever. So yeah, there's plenty of places where you can send your money, but it's not very coordinated, I have to say. Now, earlier on, you said this war is going to go on for a long time. As we're speaking, the Ukrainian delegation are meeting for the first time with the

U.S. delegation in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Do you have any optimism about what might come out of that? It's difficult to talk about optimism here because we are too close to the enemy and the enemy bombs my city every night. We should be realists.

We understand that only thing I am absolutely confident about that we will not give up. We will not give up regardless of upcoming result. Regardless. I just, you know, it's really hard to me to say something except of we will win. It's really hard because I understand what will be the consequences of we lose this war.

In Ukraine, here in Ukraine, it's a very popular question in the society to ask, what does the victory mean to you? It's a very popular question here. And everybody, regardless of is he or she in the army or is he or she a civilian person, everybody starts saying something like,

It will be a peaceful sky. We will be all happy. Nobody should be like obliged to join army, something like this. But I have another question. I always ask them, guys, what does it mean to lose for you? It's not a comfortable question. It's a hard question. And everybody is afraid to ask this question.

Those who have been at war, who have seen what happens to occupied territories and what happens to territories at the front line, we have a very clear answer to this question. Very clear. We also have understanding that all victims who were killed, who are now arrested in Russia,

All of them will be like for nothing. All of them will be lost. And it's a very hard situation. Those who don't understand what will happen if we lose, they don't value the victory as they should. And they don't contribute to this victory as they can.

So if I'm understanding you right, for some people it's just that peace would be the absence of war, that the war stops. But if you've been engaged in the war, if you've been doing the fighting, if you've been seeing your comrades killed, seeing the destruction that's been done, knowing what happens to prisoners when they're captured, if they're lucky enough to survive, not being shot straight away out of hand, you want justice as well. You want some degree of justice, don't you? Absolutely. And also, you know, it means that the

The peace should come without of their participation. Just without. Don't touch them. Without of their participation. They are waiting until the situation, until we won this war. Sometimes they ask, hey, Kate, so when will we won? And I ask them, guys, what do you mean? Me and you? Like me and you? Who will won? Me and you? Join me. Join me. I will show you an effective way

way to resist, to fight, saving your life, eliminating the risks. Of course, we cannot exclude them. We all understand that everybody could be killed right here, right now, but we can eliminate these risks and raise up your efficiency. And I know how to do it. I know where to do it.

But it's a problem. It's a problem. It's more comfortable to talk about future victory, but not about a possible loss of this war. What about territory? Does that mean a lot? Well, obviously it means a lot to you, but is it vital? Do you think that Ukraine hangs on to its pre-2014 orders or would you be

prepared to compromise on territory if you were sure that your safety was guaranteed, your security was guaranteed, not just by yourselves, which is, of course, the most important and the first only one you can rely on these days.

but by outsiders, be they American, Europeans or whatever? It's a great question. Well, let's first of all create some understanding of what kind of terrain are we talking now about. Almost all of this terrain is completely destroyed. The houses should not be rebuilt again.

The soil is absolutely poisoned with bombs and with the products of, like, explosives. It could not be used for planting crops, for example. It's poisoned. It will cost... I cannot imagine how... the amount of money.

and efforts like human job to restore all of the territory. It's what we're talking about. And the social and political meaning, I am sure that it's very important to get all the territories back. Just to show that

Any Terrant is allowed to just get a part of territory of neighbor country. It should not create precedent. We cannot allow this. We should get the terrain back. Crimea occupied Donbas, occupied Kharkiv region, parts of Kharkiv region, occupied parts of Sumer region, occupied sea territory. It's very important.

And it's very important to create the demilitarized side. Demilitarized? I can't say that. Yes, on the Russian side, on their side, but not ours. On their side of the border, yeah. Interesting. Now, you've seen two Americas, haven't you, in the last couple of weeks? You see the America that welcomes you and applauds you and celebrates you absolutely everywhere.

it should be. And you see the other America, the MAGA America, the America of Trump, which has basically betrayed Ukraine, but betrayed America as well, betrayed American values, in my view. What do you make of that? First of all, it was very confusing for me when just ordinary people in

in the streets when they understood who I am they apologized for two things the first apology was for like the political the politicians and

And the second apology was about they insisted that I have to look at their phone and to view their private Facebook feed, which was absolutely yellow and blue.

with statements, we support Ukraine, we stand with Ukraine, and so on and so on. And it was something like, you know, they were saying like, it's not ours, we support you, I personally support you, just look at my feed, look at my Facebook feed, it's all blue and yellow.

That's it. What's for the situation in general? It was a very complicated really. It influenced our behavior. It influenced what we were talking. Of course, I don't think that it could be a surprise for somebody that, of course, we discussed the situation internally. We came to an agreement how not to harm the attitude to Ukraine more.

How to keep us aligned with our Ukrainian government, regardless of our personal attitude. It's very important. It was all about external politics. It was all about diplomacy.

And actually, we were not attending Oscars as private persons, like private person Katya, private person Slava, and so on and so on. We were all representatives of Ukraine. We were not common visitors of the Dobby Theater. We were diplomats.

So actually, we were not allowed to feel the situation as regular. You had to be diplomatic. In fact, yes. When you hear the current administration saying President Zelensky is a dictator, most of the country hates him, if there was an election tomorrow he would be voted out instantly, what do you feel when you hear that? Well, look, it's

It's a tricky question. I understand. It's a very tricky question. The point is that to understand it and not to harm your mind, your own mind, my own mind, their own mind, it's important to make a simple example. Let's simplify. Let's talk about some kind of a ship which is drowning in the ocean. And there are like three ways of behavior.

One way is to run as fast as you can to a small boat and leave the drowning ship. The other behavior-like pattern is to get to the pumps and pump out the water. And there is no way to refuse because you will drown with this ship. You will go to the bottom of the ocean and you will die.

Regardless of the class where you will travel in. Was it a luxury first class or was it something like economy class? Regardless, it will not matter at all. And the other behavior pattern is try to kill a man who educates you how to pump.

which means you will die, which means you will also die. So actually, as Slava has said in the film, the democracy now, it is some kind of a paradox. You have to limit your freedom to live free in the future. Regardless, we have a democracy in Ukraine. Regardless, Zelensky, he's not a dictator.

He's not a dictator. He just, he does his job. Do you admire him yourself? Not in all of his decisions, but being a military, I must do my job every day. I must do orders which I have. And it's like my pomp.

And I have to arrange. Yeah, but he's the guy at the pump. Yeah, he's the pump master. So you have to get along with him. I cannot leave it. You wouldn't necessarily vote for him when elections eventually take place. Yes. It means like, yes, this simple example, actually, it excludes all complicated details and simplifies the things to see most common patterns, behavior patterns. Yeah.

Unfortunately, we have no choice. We have no choice here. Yeah. If, as you say, the war goes on, and certainly I think our feeling at this end is that there isn't really a Trump peace plan and there certainly isn't a Putin plan.

peace plan. So without being too depressing and pessimistic, there's a strong likelihood that the Americans will step back and it'll be up to Ukraine with support from Europe to carry on. Do you feel optimistic that Europe is capable

It's certainly willing, I would say, but do you think it's capable of actually providing the necessary military and financial and economic support to keep Ukraine able to defend itself? It's complicated for me to esteem the numbers.

And to understand how much in financial or military support or even human support could they show us, it's much easier for me to predict what can we do here in Ukraine. Because I see the situation from the person's view and I understand that it's not a certain way to die.

to join military, to join the army. It doesn't mean that everybody who joins army will die like in two months. Now in Ukraine, we have so many people

facilities to get educated before you join the army and even to choose the exact position in exact military unit. It is what we had not when the war started. Those who say that now they are not prepared, they are not educated, they are not like for this, they are not created for army service. They say, guys, three years of full-scale training

Invasion Fast. We have created so many schools, so many experiences documented and explained in the very detail that you can understand, you can literally look videos

recordings, talk to those who operate there and decide in which role would you join. You can choose your own pump in this situation. A green pump, a strong, a soft, a small, a big, any pump. As long as your hand is on the pump. You just need to choose the strategy. You just need to choose the strategy to resist, not to give up.

And it is what is really meaningful. I cannot predict how will Europe behave. I cannot predict the amounts of support, of supplies. It's not predictable. Yeah, no, it was in a way a silly question because no one knows, do they? But I hope you get the impression, though, that Europe knows the extent of what is at stake here. And part of it is selfish because they...

I think understand now that Ukraine is fighting their war for them and so must be given all the help possible, but also that they themselves are threatened. And I think that message has got through even in Britain, even though we're an island. I think a lot of people believe it possible now that Russia has, well, it certainly has got bad intentions towards us, but that might one day actually come to war.

So we are very, very grateful and we're full of admiration for what you're doing. There's an enormous amount of support for Ukraine and people try and translate their good feelings into practical action. So that's quite good to see. So Katya, all I can say is it's been a great honor to have you on the program and we wish you all the best and we're going to stay in touch.

And we'll be in Kharkiv later in the year. So we will take you out for a fun meal or something and get together with some of your comrades, I hope. I will be absolutely happy to welcome you here in Ukraine, despite all the threats we have here. But we try to do our best to save our guests and to show that we still have so many to fight for. We still have so many to keep it alive.

Yes, we have lost a lot, but we still have so many to stand for. I must say that when we were in Ukraine, the impression we all got was that people seemed very positive. They seemed full of life in a way that, you know, you don't see necessarily in countries where there's no threat at all. We think you cover a rather large

depressed societies to somewhere where death is a reality and yet spirits see much higher and much more positive than they are in peaceful countries. So

Yeah, I mean, as I say, we're all rooting for you. We're full of admiration for you. And it's been a privilege to hear you talking to us. Thank you for your support. Okay, well, that's it. What an extraordinary interview that was. And what a remarkable woman. Do join us next Wednesday for the next episode on Battleground 45. And of course, on Friday, when we'll be bringing you all the latest from Ukraine. Goodbye. Bye.