Hollie McKay | Reporting from Kyiv, surrounded by Russian forces

Hollie McKay is a war correspondent and war crimes investigator. After reporting from Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban, she sneaked into Ukraine during the Russian invasion. She talked to Ken from central Kyiv as the Russians advance. 

Transcript

Ken LaCorte: 0:00

I just spoke with Hollie McKay. Holly's a journalist who I've known for a number of years, I hired her probably 15, 20 years ago at foxnews.com where she started the Pop Tarts entertainment column for me. Since then she's she's changed her journalism trajectory and become a war correspondent, she spent a lot of time and a lot of very dangerous places from the north part of Iraq. She was in Afghanistan as as it fell to the Taliban. And right now, she's in Kyiv, Ukraine, having got herself into this war after it started to report from the ground there. And currently, the Russian siege is picking up around Kyiv, and she's soon going to be encircled by Russian forces. Here's Hollie. Alright, first things first, tell me your tell me your physical situation, how safe or unsafe you are the type of place you're in, how far you are away from the windows, all that all that stuff.

Hollie McKay: 0:56

Right. So I right now I'm in the center of Kyiv in a hotel. And I guess the safe as I can be, I there is a little bit of showing tonight. So I moved to the basement for a little while, but but other than that, in the days been fairly calm. It's very quiet on the streets, it's a very, very different place to the cave that I was in a couple of weeks ago. It's just it's a drastically transformed sort of situation. I'm sure you've seen a lot of the reports about a Russian convoy that is kind of approaching the city that is believed to be quite extensive. So that is obviously a nerve wracking component of it as to what point this convoy actually reaches the capital, what their approach will be, there's a lot of fear that there will be sort of large scale fighting and artillery and that kind of thing. At this point, it's very hard to know, I spent some of the day you know, with some of the presidential officials and the top sort of military right in there, that area downtown in the Capitol and, and the spirits are really good and people are Ukrainians are optimistic that they're sort of a counter offense will work but but again, it's it's just a, a situation that is very fluid.

Ken LaCorte: 2:13

I mean, they are fighting and you are in the midst of a true Russian siege of a of a capital city. I mean, we haven't seen this. You know, we I guess we've seen it in Chechnya and some other places but not Not,

Hollie McKay: 2:27

not in Yeah. And it's and it's incredibly bizarre can like little things. That you people are finding these very strange that have markings on rooftops, and strange markings on roads and, and this sort of this reddish color, and with kind of crosshairs and and basically they're presumed to be planted by sort of Russian mercenaries in the city as target points for artillery and in places to bomb. So Ukrainian officials are encouraging anyone who say something like that to cover it to try to get rid of it to sabotage it in some way. Because, you know, that is seemingly, you know, and that's a throwback from what the German Air Force did in World War Two. So it's just this very, very bizarre modern day war, but also huge aspects of being in some kind of time capsule.

Ken LaCorte: 3:17

Right? Right. Now, the, the media right now is in the West, is portraying it as as the Russians are having a much harder time than they expected. Now, it's tough for us to know how much of that is real, how much of that is coming, because the Ukrainians are doing a much better job, certainly at the information warfare, they're using. They're using modern day techniques and and social media to get their stories out. And you don't see that from Russia. What's your sense of how accurate that and then what you see when you go to the new sites in the West?

Unknown: 3:49

So I mean, my understanding, you know, again, it's, it's very hard to gauge because I haven't seen the Russian soldiers myself. So I it is hard to gauge. I think that I think that it definitely you can say that it's it's sort of been a fairly amateur performance by Russia, which really should be the second most powerful military in the world. And I think what we're sort of seeing is that a lot of con conscripts we used to invade and the Kremlin really thought that the capital would just sort of surrender and concede, which obviously has not happened. But the thing with Russia is, they've just got endless resources. They have so many more resources as a country of 144 million compared to Ukraine, which is 44 million, and they've got Belarus, and they've just got just a massive supply of weaponry and heavy weaponry that the Ukrainians just don't have. So that is going to be hard match I think skill wise, but what I'm sort of seeing so far and and my understanding of situation is that a lot of these Russian soldiers really didn't have any idea. Essentially what they were going into a lot thought that they were going to Belarus or go into Crimea to do a training exercise, and then their passports were taken from them. And they were sent sort of into Ukraine, and in what initially, they assumed to be some other type of training exercise. So you're really seeing kind of a em from what I've heard from people in a lot of the villages, especially sort of in the east, telling me, at one point, Russian soldiers that sort of occupied a village, and three days later, they were asking for food, and broke into a grocery store, because they just didn't have any supplies. So that sort of shows you a little bit about how maybe disorganize This worries and maybe how rushed it was. And I think it also speaks to the kind of bizarre state that we're seeing President Putin in and why now and why this invasion made any sense to him at all.

Ken LaCorte: 5:51

No, you were you were there a couple of weeks back, when were you there last in Ukraine?

Hollie McKay: 5:56

Right. So I left. I was in Ukraine for a couple of weeks. I arrived, I believe, the last week of January, and I left? I guess it was three weeks? No, about two, two and a half weeks ago, I left because my assumption was really that that nobody really, I guess expected this invasion to actually happen.

Ken LaCorte: 6:18

What we had talked and you had mentioned that you were like, you know, nobody out here in Ukraine thinks this is happening. And they're questioning United States and CIA. And and you know, don't Don't make trouble. Right. That was almost Yeah.

Hollie McKay: 6:30

And yeah. And they were saying to me why, you know, Russian troops have been stationed around our border since April of 2020. April 2021. And why is this kind of a story now. And the I think a lot of them were fairly perplexed. I think. They were also trying to instill calm in the situation, they were trying to not ruin their economy. And I guess, really hoping for the best, that does make me a little nervous, because you know, some of the same officials I speak to who were lovely people, but they're also very calm about what may unfold in the next sort of few days. And you're basically saying, you know, we've got this, and not to undermine that they don't have it, but I do have to question how much they're sort of putting on a brave face, or really just a little bit. I don't want to say naive, but not trying to put forward the notion that something very serious could unfold,

Ken LaCorte: 7:27

you can be optimistic, or you can be pessimistic, but you're still in the middle of a war. And so it's like, you gotta you gotta, you gotta find it. So look, the big fear for the country and me for you is the notion that as as Russia has a harder time with this, it, it stops being relatively restrained. In other words, we haven't seen carpet bombing of cities, we haven't seen a lot of things that that you know, Putin has done in other parts of the world a number of years ago. We haven't seen that yet. Is that is that a fear that you have? And is that a fear that that you're sensing out among just regular people?

Hollie McKay: 8:02

I think, well, Ukrainians never expected this war. I don't, I haven't sort of heard anyone say that, that they're outright concerned of a total carpet bombing. But I'm sure that fear is there. And it's something you know, me as a as a war journalist has to factor into the decision making that I do. But I as Putin has been fairly restrained, we are seeing a bit more of an uptick of civilian areas being targeted, and khaki, which is the second largest city of Kyiv, which Putin sort of started to assault at the end of last week. And that seems to be ongoing. So whether he's going to try to take a more restrained approach, if and when the Russian troops come to Kiev, or if he just is going to get frustrated at this point, and just kind of go for it. So he just seems to be in a precarious mental state, and it's not a war, he definitely is going to lose easily. Irrespective of what happens. The end game is very unclear to me, because for if he even wants to win, there is no way that Ukrainians are going to accept some kind of pro Putin puppet government that wouldn't last a day before some sort of giant revolution happened there. So I don't know what Putin's endgame in this, I don't know why he thinks he can take over a city and to suddenly have control over it. And as you see, now he's in massive domestic trouble. And Russia has been absolutely leveled with sanctions from many directions, their airlines cannot fly into your many countries in Europe, as well as the United States, banks. The oligarchs are now being isolated. Just every possible, you know, you've got big tech that's pulling out so Russian people are really going to suffer as a result of this regardless of what happens in Ukraine. So I just can't imagine what his endgame in this is. And I think everybody's sort of scratching their heads.

Ken LaCorte: 9:49

Well, you know, prior to this, a lot of people I think, expected it to be a little bit like Crimea. In other words, with Crimea, you're like, you know, a lot of them want to be there. Right. And you could say probably the same for us. For the eastern parts of Ukraine, a couple of those provinces wouldn't mind being part of part of Russia because they're primarily Russian. And everybody just kind of shrugged their shoulders. The world didn't go crazy. But two things in this in this war have happened so far. One is, is the Ukrainians fought back in a way that nobody expected. I mean, you know, you are in Kabul, as we'll talk about Kabul in a second, because wherever you go, bad things happen. If they fought back a lot harder than expected, and and, you know, a lot of people thought this would be over in a day or two, like, like it has been and other other things. The other is President Zelenskyy. He's become a little bit of a worldwide hero. I mean, the guy is good looking. A stud part of his, you know, being a leader and a heroic leader at a time of where, you know, he might end up he might end up dead very, very shortly. But it is rare to see that kind of bravery and and, and, and the ability to rouse a country like that was very, very impressive. Did you Did you sense that I mean, the guy went from a comedian to a pretty popular president, and now he's kind of a little bit of a superstar there.

Hollie McKay: 11:11

Yeah, he absolutely is a rock star. And I think Ukrainians are just incredibly proud of him, even ones that really didn't support him at all, even tell me, I didn't vote for him, but they're just incredibly proud of the stance that he's taken. The fact that he won't leave and I can attest sort of very that he is certainly in Kyiv right now. And yeah, he is he's rallied people together he has sort of taken risks with his approach he's he's basically put the onus on Ukrainians and every single citizen to to fight and that is really something that he's he's brought Ukrainians together in a way that nobody really thought was possible and right down to, you know, the encouraging everybody to the the grandmas to make Molotov cocktails in which they are doing and then, you know, Russia, I mean, Ukrainians are really, really taken this in their stride. And, and someone one person said to me today, and honest, and he said he's a volunteer medic, and he said, You know, I wasn't even in Kiev. When the invasion started a week ago, I was just outside the city. And he said, so I, you know, came back sort of a day later. And he just said, I can't believe how quickly I've adjusted to this situation, how quickly the sound of shelling has become normal, how the streets are empty, how we're stopped at every checkpoint, and he's sort of driving medics around. And it's, they really just come together in an incredible, incredible way to fight, fight for their country. And the fact even, you know, enacting mock martial law straight away and stopping 18 to 60 year old man's from exiting the country is something that I think, you know, what really was something that needed to happen. We need as many boots on the ground as possible. And, and even my driver yesterday, a wonderful young woman, I call him my angel, and she sort of said to me, no, she's single. And she said, You know, when when I start dating again, when this war is over, she said, I'm going to ask any guy, her date, where he was during this time, because that will make a big difference to me, you know, if we someone who's trying to get out of the country still, and they certainly are men that are still trying to get out or dual citizens, but she said, you know, it matters to me where they are at this time and what they're doing for Ukraine,

Ken LaCorte: 13:31

you'd rather have the guy who doesn't run out the door when, when something like that happens. So So usually I can, I can look at a globe, you know, a map of a globe and wherever the most screwed up part of the world is. Hollie McKay is there. So you were literally just months ago in Kabul, as we in Kabul, where we went another another city went Afghanistan. i

Hollie McKay: 13:54

Oh, I was it. Yeah, I was even worse. I went to the north to massage Sharif. Right. And so I was the only foreigner in there as it fell. And that was the day before Kabul. So I had to kind of wait it out a little bit there. Yeah, alone with the Taliban and till I could get back to Kabul.

Ken LaCorte: 14:12

Okay. And then so you go down to Ukraine, you go home for a little bit. And then how on earth did you get back in the middle of a war zone in the middle of a war?

Hollie McKay: 14:20

Well, you know, um, this is another point that I'll make just on the we're sort of seeing a lot of news reports in the past few days. And and a lot of this was coming from, from cave officials to that the city was completely besieged. There was no way to get in. And when I know, I'd said to people that I wanted to get in and I had one friend who said, Oh, you know, I'm in touch with the top levels of the United States government intelligence, and they said, there's absolutely no way that anyone is getting in or out of TV, and I just thought, I'll find a way so I had no concept of what I was doing. So when the invasion started, I can't sit it out. It just felt like such an important story. And this was happening in Europe, and it just I'd already invested So much time, so I thought I just I have to figure it out. So I flew to Budapest, in Hungary. And then I had a random sort of follower on Instagram really, who had been chatting to me for the past couple of months, just a young guy ran sort of security. He said, You know, if you ever need anything, Budapest, let me know. And he happened to message me that day. And I said, Look, I'm flying to Budapest to try to get to Ukraine. And he said, Well, you know, you're welcome to stay at you know, I live with my girlfriend and sister you welcome to state apartment if you need it. So I say great, fine. So I went to Budapest, you know, these lovely random young Hungarians took me in. And then the next day, he drove me down to the border, and we took a bunch of supplies for the refugees, Ukrainian refugees fleeing, and we went to this tiny little border village. And honestly, I didn't know anybody. He had to go back to, to Budapest. And so I went to a church, and it is through the language barrier. They were just the loveliest people, and they gave me the church office to sleep in at night, as I was kind of making plans of how I was going to get in, through a contact of a contact of a contact. I said, Look, I'm trying to get into cave and I don't know anyone right there that can drive me because it's a long distance. And by some sort of Angel, this lovely girl called me and she said, I can pick you up at 10am from the border tomorrow, if you're ready to go, and I just thought, I don't know. But she I said, How long is it going to take us it came and she said normally eight hours, but we're not taking any highways, because they're all dangerous, and the bridges have broken. So we're just going to take little backroads. And it'll take about 20 hours. And I thought, Okay, I'm just gonna do it. So I crossed though I walked up the Hungarian border into Ukraine, and the lovely people were there to meet me, and she was just sort of calm Angel just was like, Oh, welcome, you know, we're gonna have a nice road trip. And so we basically drove through the night, it was, it was 20 hours. We didn't stop we took back roads. And obviously, because there is curfew that was a little bit dangerous, because we didn't want our car to be shot at. So you sort of have to drive with very low lights, and it's snowing and and there were just so many checkpoints. So just I think I lost count after a while. But I was counting for a while and I got to almost 40. So what happens you get to a checkpoint in the night and you just sort of see a flash of light, someone would wave a light and then it would go off. And so you would just turn the interior of the car on so that they could see you just stop. And then they would instruct you to kind of move forward and check your passports and things like that. I say it's the first time that I found it much easy to be a woman in a warzone normally, if not, but because we were women in the car, so we weren't sort of double checked. We weren't really seen as threatening and because we were taking medical supplies to some of the volunteers Vitesse. So I think they appreciated that. But eventually we got into Kiev, and that was early morning yesterday my time. So I had a little bit of a nap at her apartment just outside the city. And then I started to get concerned I needed to get into the city before any closures sort of happened. So basically called a cab cab took me to my normal hotel that I stayed in Kiev. And then I set up and got the ground running today with with interviews sort of all over the city before curfew at 5pm.

Ken LaCorte: 18:25

Now why was the the Thelma of Thelma and Louise part why was she coming into the two nuts to nutty gals driving mid anyhow? Why was she going down

Hollie McKay: 18:35

he's just got she's as I said that she's just an angel of a human being she is just going back and forth driving across the country back and forth taking supplies so because there are no medicines in Kiev, there's everything is closed, there's sort of not a lot coming in and out. So she will drive to the western part of the country where there are still things operating pick up medicines, you'll also go to the border because they're herds of a group of volunteers on Facebook really getting donations and to buy medical supplies and things that a lot of the volunteers need my new things like body armor that really trying to get but that that is a little bit difficult. So they're going to the you know the Polish border or the Romanian border and organizing to pick up supplies and then bring them in and distribute them back to Cape so basically if she was on the road again today also helping evacuate people so she's taking a lot of the elderly people and people with pets and and taking them to some of the border areas as well. So who are very scared or scared to get on trains and things so as Ukrainians have come together and just the most amazing way and people are just so incredibly giving in and I could also say that for you know the hunger and that I saw just people donating whatever they possibly could, giving cash giving food giving money, what is really, it's given me so much faith in humanity that I think I lost for a while and so I always say about wars. It really is the worst of People, but it is the best of people to and you see how people come together and it just is so generous and so giving and throughout the difficult times, and it's yeah, it's really inspiring to see.

Ken LaCorte: 20:14

You have no way to get out though, right?

Hollie McKay: 20:17

Ah, well, I have a rough exit plan, but you know that can you

Ken LaCorte: 20:21

are? Are you surprised? Are you surprised that? I mean, you have electricity? You have internet, you made a phone call to get the cab? That stuff still going? Is that a little surprising?

Hollie McKay: 20:31

It's very late. I mean, it's a bit limited. But I mean, certainly I have good Wi Fi where I am. You know, I mean a hotel, and they give us great food. And you know, there's beer in the fridge and things like that. I don't know how much supply there is. I don't know when that kind of runs out. But yeah, but right now, you know, the water is running hot, and I have my electricity and you know, things feel. I feel like I'm you know, in a stable place able to work even though it is certainly a warzone outside. But I just I don't know how long the supplies last. But I'm going to take advantage of it while I have it. But yeah, but mostly the cabs and things aren't running, but that there are sort of a few exceptions. And there are very few cars on the road, but not it still somehow trying to make ends meet.

Ken LaCorte: 21:22

Finally, what do you what are your plans for tomorrow? Can you get out of it during the day? And what kind of going outside?

Hollie McKay: 21:31

Yeah, so I spent, you know, I spent a good part of the day, I was a bit of drama. So got it, it wasn't gonna go into it. But I ended up getting a really bad second degree ban on my legs and stomach last night. So that was really in my room and I blood water. And for some reason the cups in the room, the lid doesn't fit. And so when I went to drink this scolding thing, it just it fell. Oh, you know, and I have a very, very bad boom, but I not dwelling on it. But luckily, so this is the beauty of not just sort of coming to a place when when it's in the middle of a war, but having some context and experience. So I have good friends of mine that have a volunteer mobile hospital. So when I woke up this morning, and I saw that this wasn't just a scolding band, this was definitely much more serious. I called them and they just sort of took me in, we're amazing. And we're continuing to dress it all day. So I went out and spent a lot of my day kind of based out of their base downtown where they're treating people. And from there, I went to the downtown presidential area, we're interviewing some of my contacts there that are pretty high up in the in the military, and then was kind of traveling around and one thing I did is I went to some churches. Now churches are really mostly closed but but I was able to make some calls and to speak to some of the the Archbishop's and priests and I really just wanted to understand because Ukraine is very much a, you know, country founded on the Orthodox Church. And it's a country where faith is very strong. And so I wanted to really understand the church's role in all of this and what they were doing to prepare and kind of what their message in all of this is. Because there is a big schism between Kiev and Moscow Orthodox churches, there was a big split that happened in 2019. So it to me that was sort of an interesting, take just to also get a snippet of, of what is happening in all aspects of Key of Life right now. And yeah, just it's been kind of a fascinating day of just hearing people's opinions and how they're preparing and what they think. And tomorrow, I'll continue with the love that probably start my day with getting medical treatment myself, which I hate. And I hate taking away resources in a time like this. But the joke is that I don't have to be worried about the Russians because I have to be worried about exploiting coughing up. Yeah, so my plan is to sort of continue continue with a lot of that, and just yeah, really documenting everyday life to people in a way that that people can hopefully kind of understand what's happening without, without sort of the how do you say, giving them a little bit more than a soundbite from a hotel rooftop. So that's really what I'm trying to do. And without sort of some of the Breathless dramatic reporting that I've seen, it's not to say that it isn't a precarious situation. I just don't know that it necessarily does us any favors if the reporter themselves is sort of fearful and scared. So I'm just trying to to kind of be the, the layman really?

Ken LaCorte: 24:38

Alright, well, you scare the crap out of all your friends and people who like you like, even though we've been in the business, and I've watched you be from a former ballerina to an entertainment reporter for Fox News to a war. A war time reporter who's seen a lot a lot of both scary and I think uplifting stuff and so take care of yourself or We will hurt you. And any other any other things you can think to close it up or you got to get No, I

Hollie McKay: 25:06

just think, you know, let's keep an eye on it, the situation's obviously changing and, and yeah, just be aware that you know, when I saw this in Afghanistan too, and just be really aware that, you know, as we could sort of see with the Snake Island incident where everyone said, Oh, these 13 men were martyred when that really wasn't the case. And obviously, there was a nugget of truth in that story that they were bombarded by a Russian washer, but I just think it's, I saw this so much in Afghanistan was just the perpetuation of doctored photos and misleading headlines. And you see that not just from the Russians, if you will, no, Russians are notorious for that kind of chaos. But but you also see it from the Ukrainian side too, and sort of drumming up that propaganda and just sort of approach it, I guess, with a bit of a cautious eye and no, there are many different elements at play. And, you know, if you can't verify it, then it's or it sounds too good to be true. It probably is. You have your windows taped up. Yes. Everything is secure as secure as it can

Ken LaCorte: 26:07

be minus the hot water. Sorry, yeah. All right, you, you take care of yourself first sound of rumbling around there, the basement is a good place to be. And ping me we'll we'll talk longer when you are out of danger and we'll talk soon. Okay.

Hollie McKay: 26:23

I look forward to it. Thank you for your support.

Ken LaCorte: 26:25

Alright. Hi, you take care