268. From Kharkiv Nights to Hollywood Lights: Kateryna's Story

Battleground

Goalhanger Podcasts

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4.6 • 703 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we bring you a remarkable interview where Patrick spoke with special operations unit commander Kateryna Ratyshna, a young woman from Kharkiv who has been fighting on the front lines since the very beginning of the full-scale invasion. Kateryna, who also appears in - Porcelain War - a recent Oscar-nominated documentary about the war, shares her deeply personal experiences and the motivations that drive her fight. This is a truly humbling conversation that offers a unique insight into the dedication and resilience of Ukraine's frontline soldiers, and their unwavering determination to keep their country free. If you have any thoughts or questions, you can send them to - [email protected] Producer: James Hodgson X: @PodBattleground Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Battleground with me, Patrick Bishop.
0:16.0	We're privileged to have us our guest today Katya Ratruchnia. She's a commander of the Special Forces Unit Saigon,
0:24.2	which features heavily in the Oscar-nominated documentary film Porcelain War. Porcelain War is a 2024 documentary
0:31.5	film which won the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize and follows the experience of Ukrainian artists as they face the
0:39.7	current Russian occupation in Ukraine. Well, Katya is not an artist. In fact, in civilian life,
0:46.7	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, and within hours of it starting, found herself
1:13.6	in the front lines where she stayed ever since.
1:16.6	Now in the film, we see quite a lot of Katya right up on the front lines in the fighting
1:21.6	in Bathmut. Some of its film through a GoPro camera on her head, running from building
1:26.6	to building in the thick of incoming
1:29.0	Russian fire, quite extraordinary scenes. And we see her trying to get into a damaged building
1:35.6	to rescue wounded comrades. Absolutely extraordinary stuff. Katya, welcome to the podcast.
1:42.1	I'll start off just by talking about your life and your experience,
1:45.9	but at the end, I'd like to ask you, what are your personal feelings and the feelings of your
1:49.8	comrades about the Trump administration's policies and what you think is going to happen?
1:56.0	Okay, well, let's start from the simpler one regarding the story, how I, like, dropped in this situation.
2:03.1	Actually, everything started in 2014 when Russia attacked Dunbass and occupied the Crimea.
2:11.2	But at that time, I was, well, 10 years younger, obviously.
2:16.2	And actually, I was mostly thinking about my education.
2:22.2	I have just graduated the university. Everything was so interesting around. I spent so much time
2:28.9	at my dance school, hiking, walking mountains, and so on. I just, I had a happy life. That situation
2:38.2	has broken the feeling of this comfortable and stable world around me, and I decided that
	...

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