Brunelle in Ukraine: Wheels at the Front
We here at Push the Envelope, like so many millions around the world, were shocked, appalled, and devastated on the morning of the 25th of February when Russian troops rolled across the Ukrainian border advancing in the wake of a barrage rocket and cruise missile fire, these troops plunged Europe into war. Both of us are of Ukrainian descent. For one, their family immigrated from Ukraine to the Canadian prairies before the first world war; and for the other, their family immigrated before the second world war and established a popular bakery in Thunder Bay. Having seen the lands of our ancestors be home to so much fighting and bloodshed over the last centuries, it was hard to grasp why, once again, an autocratic dictator was attempting to subjugate and erase our history, people, and culture. We have, however, been awed by the resilience, courage, and spirit of the Ukrainian people throughout this ordeal.
While we’ve been watching events unfold from an ocean away, a friend and fellow cycling activist, the veteran cycling videographer Lucas Brunelle has been in Kyiv since the 26th. On the evening of March 9th, in a brief pause between volleys of Russian missiles, we were able to connect with him for an exclusive interview from Kyiv. Before we get into our conversation with him, we’d like to take a moment to introduce Brunelle to those of you who may be unfamiliar with his work. Often described as a daredevil on wheels, Brunelle has been filming cyclists for decades and is responsible for many innovative cycle film techniques. In a time before Go-Pro cameras, and even before decent cell phone cameras, Brunelle strapped two camcorders to his helmet and started to film cyclists in a way that no one had ever been able to do before. As a fellow cyclist riding with cyclists, Brunelle brings his audience an in-depth and intimate view of the thrills, dangers, and beauty of life on two wheels. From those humble beginnings, he has since traveled the globe with his bicycle and film gear, visiting over 70 countries including Iraq, Syria, and throughout Central America. The child of a Ukrainian mother, he turned his life upside down when Putin invaded. Almost immediately, he booked a flight and went back to Kyiv where he has many friends and both biological and cycling family.
Given his close ties to Ukraine, this is definitely not his first visit. In more peaceful times, Brunelle cycled to the Chernobyl Nuclear site and his chronicle of that journey, and others can be found at his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/LucasBrunelleYT). Even in peacetime access to this site is highly restricted, but with a bicycle and geiger counter Brunelle was able to go where few can.
It is this freedom and access that Brunelle highlighted when we caught up with him in Kyiv via Zoom. Brunelle looked much younger than his actual age, his slender face with wire-frame glasses was topped with a black cycling cap and framed by the bookcase behind him as he sat in his friend’s apartment in downtown Kyiv. He had a calm but concerned demeanor and his serious tone, laden with the gravity of the situation, was occasionally punctuated by profanity for emphasis as we spoke. However, this same candid conversation revealed his love of life and the limitless potential of the bicycle to change the world. We began our conversation by asking about his motivations for returning to Ukraine.
Brunelle: It’s a dual deed for me. It’s the fight for freedom, on account of the fact that this is the lynchpin for the world and the fact that we can’t let this fall because China wants to take over Taiwan and Putin wants to take over other countries. He said years ago, he wants Poland back and he considers Latvia and Estonia as part of Russia. Then there’s the matter of my family. My mom is 100% Ukrainian and I have a lot of friends who are Ukrainian. Not only because my family is Ukrainian, but the fact that we’re a pretty hardy people as you can see the way that we’re fighting this war. I love these people and have a very personal connection. And again, a connection with freedom. Bicycle is the ultimate expression of freedom. This action that Ukraine is taking to fight Goliath like this and kick ass is the ultimate expression of freedom to fight against dictatorship and corruption, and slaughter an army that has come to invade and come to kill and injure our civilians. Orders have been given to these soldiers to do so. So anyway, hearing all this certainly motivated me to come here. I said, ‘that’s it’ and I booked a ticket and packed my stuff and got over here ASAP.
Despite his extensive experience biking through conflict zones, we asked Brunelle whether he had done anything different in planning for this trip given the extremely short time he had to prepare.
Brunelle: I really was overcome with emotion. I know some of the people, victims of these random missiles that they’re just shooting into the residential areas. I saw that, and I didn’t do a lot preparing to come over here. In Syria, I got intel from military personnel that I knew, I got all kinds of protocol in place, and I even got security lined up. Here, I didn’t follow any of that. I just booked a flight and got on. I was involved in humanitarian aid and in fundraising, but that was it. But then I took some of that with me, and I just said, fuck it, and I just came over here. So, no, the preparation here has not been very much. This individual’s place that I’m staying at is involved in a fight. Same thing for a number of people here that I’ve known for years. So, I guess I’ve been preparing for this for years inadvertently. Syria and Iraq, riding there? I had never been there. I didn’t know anybody there. Getting here was a little complicated and getting out of here is going to be probably more complicated, so I decided not to bring a bike. But I got no less than 40 offers of bicycles. There were 40 plus people offering me their bicycles, of which there were probably a dozen road bikes in or near Kyiv, that I got to choose from, says a lot. In my bag, I packed everything that I would need that I normally bring with me and extra tubes and stuff, for riding a road bike, knowing that when I got here, I would just try and find one. But that’s an example of how Ukrainians are, and that’s also an example of how people are with support. It worked out beautifully.
We then asked Brunelle about his experiences being in downtown Kyiv, how daily life has been affected, and how this compares to other conflict zones he’s experienced.
Brunelle: We were eating last night. In the next room over and missiles came into Kyiv and they shot them down. Whole block shock, then we heard the sound or the rumble. And that’s what that was. That was on the news on the alerts on Kyiv alert this morning. It’s pretty constant. It’s not like when I was in Syria, where it’s very erratic, and ISIS just plunders. Here it is a slow moving artillery and gunfight. Which is quite something to have front row seats to and the fact that as a kid, a child of the 80s, I watched this on television, the Russians, fighting people, the same way that they are now.
Given Brunelle’s expansive travels, we asked how the public image of the Russian military compared to what he was witnessing in Ukraine, and also what he had seen while travelling in Russia in the past.
Brunelle: They spent so much money on their yachts, and stolen money out of the military budget, that their military is sloppy. It’s in very bad condition. I saw that when I was in Russia. I’ve been to Russia multiple times in St. Petersburg, all over Moscow, all over Russia. I can never go back now, after what I’ve done here. But it is something that I did notice there is just how awful their military was, just in very bad condition. We know they have some showpieces but the reality is that there are conversations that we have intel on that the Russian soldiers are calling home and basically saying ‘we’re screwed’. And it’s true. We have a manifest for them about how to surrender at this point. We have farmers now that are taking all of [the Russians’] equipment, their tanks and supplies and stuff. We let the column proceed and then we cut the back off, and then boom. It’s pretty simple warfare, but to lose 10,000 men in a week, I can’t remember such a military disaster. I’ve been within a couple kilometres of the frontline of the fighting. I’ve seen some stuff I shouldn’t have and I have, twice this week, been just south of the frontline in Irpin, just south of the river that [the Russians] are trying to cross. And they’re there, they have their column, and they’re sitting ducks, that’s the last thing you want to do in war. They’re playing checkers here, they’re not playing chess, and they just keep getting picked off. They’re sitting ducks.
Given how close he’s gotten to the frontline on his bicycle, we asked Brunelle how he protects himself and identifies himself as a member of the press.
Brunelle: It’s a combination, I’ll have the bright yellow Ukraine jersey when I’m in a safety corridor, ‘Inside the wire’ as they say. I’ll have a flak jacket underneath my Ukrainian Jersey, I’ll do that. So, I do have a press ID but the press has even become a target for the Russians, they’re shooting us now. I’m sure they would not hesitate to shoot a cyclist.
We were also curious about how being a cyclist at the front line influences how he is perceived by those around him, and how he is perceived as a member of the press.
Brunelle: It’s kind of interesting, there is press here that interviewed me, because I’m the only person with the press who’s covering this war by bicycle. They really get a kick out of it. It’s interesting, because I thought that being on a bicycle, people would be more receptive to me, especially Ukrainians. I am Ukrainian, I look Ukrainian. But the fact is, it just reminds me of the 80s. There are Russian saboteurs, literally Russian saboteurs among us and when you sit down somewhere, when I stop to change the batteries in my camera or whatever, I’m looking at my six. I’m using this little mirror on my glasses. I’m watching and looking behind me and I’m looking around me. Everybody here is doing that, everybody here is wondering who’s who, who’s a threat to them. That’s what it’s come to. And that’s night and day from the way that these people were, the way that we were I should say, as Ukrainians. Even back in 2014, when we overthrew the goddamn government here and of course before then, when I was here, it was a different place than right now. It’s going to change back. We’re resilient. But everybody’s watching their six right now. And it’s not ‘Oh, hey, what’s up?’, you know, or anything like that. It’s just a look of suspicion no matter who it is. So that kind of threw me off guard. It’s just something that is an adaptation we’ve got to do right now as Ukrainians.
Brunelle spoke more about how life in Kyiv has changed, how movement in the city has been affected and how it contrasts so strongly with the Kyiv that he knew and loved from his past visits.
Brunelle: It is a ghost town, and I’ve never ridden in such a place that’s so quiet right now is something that would drive some people crazy how quiet it is here right now. And we’re in the middle of Kyiv. I have not seen one single roadie out. I’ve seen other riders that are riding a rusty chain or they’re riding a cruiser or something really old. But in terms of a proper road bike and speeding around the city. I’m the only one that’s doing that. That’s some luck, the fact that I’ve been okay, honestly.
Despite the grim surroundings, the bicycle has also been a solace for Brunelle, and members of the Hedgehog, a Kyiv art collective. The collective members have more recently turned their creative energies into building Hedgehogs, tank obstacles, for the many roadblocks and checkpoints that have sprung up all over Kyiv.
Brunelle: I did ride with a group of riders, from Hedgehog. So Hedgehog is the community that I mentioned in my Instagram live the other night, where they’re an artistic community, and musicians and a creative community underground, in this city. And they’ve gotten more recruits from people that were living alone and came to live with them in this wonderful community. It’s very cool. Some of them ride bikes. So we went on this little group ride and there were four of us and we shredded around the city for a few hours. It was just the coolest thing. And the air raid sirens were going off and we didn’t care. We kind of made fun of it. The air raid sirens were going off, and we’re just riding faster as if it’s some kind of competition or mockery.
Why choose the bicycle though, many of you may be wondering the same question. Why not use more conventional transport like a motor vehicle?
Brunelle: There are barricades that I can go behind and they had blocked off the approach to the frontline where the fighting was going on in Irpin. So what I did was I just took my bike and I went through these big developments, like Alphabet City in New York, these block houses, and I just went through those, a good like two kilometres which you wouldn’t do on foot. As I said, a car cannot go through there because they blocked the road off. I got closer to the front line because of that. Sometimes they have checkpoints that are lengthy, the only traffic in the city will be queues at checkpoints, because they’re looking for saboteurs. They’re looking for anything they can find. They’re ripping cars apart sometimes, but I just breezed right through those with a bicycle. I see TV crews going places, and usually I’m beating them to whatever the hell destination is on Ukraine alert. The bike has allowed me to cover this war in ways that other people cannot possibly do in a car with the press.
It’s not just the bicycle that separates Brunelle from other members of the press, but it’s also his approach of engaging with the local cycling community in his travels. By using these community connections, he gains a much closer and more intimate understanding of the situations he is immersed in.
Brunelle: The press is staying at the Intercontinental Hotel not far from here, starting at 350 Euro a night, and they’ve got security and they’ve got vans, and they’ve got all kinds of stuff with them. [Cycling is] something that none of these reporters, none of this press, no matter where they’re from, big or small, are doing. I’ve been in over 70 countries, and I’ve been to all of the most dangerous places. I can go pretty much anywhere in the world, and I can do this because of relationships with people that I’ve had for years, that I’ve ridden with and that I’ve done illegal things with, gotten chased by the police with. So it’s something that I can do with biking, no other press really can get this angle of what is actually going on. The value of the city and of these people, the strength of it, not just fighting, but in them as a cultural or artistic creative community that is resilient.
Many of you may be wondering how you can help, what actions you can take in to help support victims of conflict in Ukraine, and we put this question to Brunelle.
Brunelle: They can support Hedgehog. Many of you in the cycling community have been to something like this where there are multiple rooms of all these really cool things going on, and there’s all this amazing art, and music, and stuff. They’re doing this while there’s a war, of course as I said they are doing the barricades as well. So I would like to remind people that there’s a donation page they have.
We ended our conversation with a much broader conversation on the role that bicycles can play in helping to end conflicts in the short- and long-term.
Brunelle: The fact is riding a bike is a cure-all. I don’t have any of the problems that my friends do. I’m 50 years old and I have zero meds because I ride a bike. I want to reiterate that the world would be in the same shape and not dependent on all these energy sources and awful fuels if more people rode a bike. We are up against a battle that is almost impossible to win because we’re fighting against our enemy: the couch, Netflix, and people just sitting there eating junk food. So my battle against that is to make cycling films, because the more people watch a film, the more powerful it becomes. The bicycle is the ultimate expression of freedom. The more people that see that message, and that see it done in a cool way in a video, the more people are going to realise. When society is not free, then to be free you have to be an outlaw. Maybe I glamourize that, but you know what fact is that you make powerful enough films and you convince people to ride. That’ll change the course of the environment forever. It is completely stupid, that we have so much dependency on Russia for all these resources. We wouldn’t be having these conversations or any of this stuff going on if people rode a goddamn bike.
Here at Push the Envelope, we are very grateful that Mr. Brunelle was able to take the time to answer our questions. We hope that he has a safe journey, and that this war in Ukraine will end soon. We, and Mr. Brunelle, invite you to discover more about the art and tank obstacles being made by the Kyiv Space Hedgehogs at their website: https://kosmostabir.org/kyivspacehedgehog where you can see images of their work, and also provide direct support. If you are interested in any of Lucas’s work as a videographer visit: lucasbrunelle.com and he can be found on YouTube at LucasBrunelleYT, and on Instagram he is @lucasbrunelle. We would also like to thank you for having read through this piece. These have been very difficult times for us all, and we are all looking forward to a new spring, and to the blooming of sunflowers under clear blue skies free of helicopters, fighter jets, and missiles. Perhaps when that day comes we can all grab our bikes and, in the immortal words of Men Without Hats: we can go where we want to, a place where they will never find, and we can act like we come from out of this world, leave the real one behind. Until that peaceful day comes though, Slava Ukraini!
