Daily Archives: May 6, 2022

Muni Long Wiki: For those who are unfamiliar with Muni Long, You, like everyone else on the planet, must be looking for information about Angela right now, which is why weve compiled all of the available information about Muni Long for you.

Were here to answer all of your questions about her early life, family, career, controversies, and financial situation. Instead, we would assume that you have arrived at a set of information that you are willing to share with us.

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Muni Long was born on September 14, 1988, in the city of Vero Beach, Florida, United States. She is a singer and songwriter from the United States. Jukebox, her first studio album as a solo artist, was released by Capitol Records in 2009 and has received positive reviews.

If you are looking for Muni Longs Biography and want to know everything about her personal life as well as her professional life, you have come to the right place, and the entire set of information will become a must-read for you once you finish reading this.

Muni Long was born in the city of Vero Beach in the state of Florida, United States. She is a singer and songwriter from the United States who is married to Masimba Chibanda.

In the following decade, she worked with other recording artists, penning hit songs such as California King Bed by Rihanna, Worth It by Fifth Harmony, Love So Soft by Kelly Clarkson, Imagine by Ariana Grande, and the global smash Timber by Pitbull featuring Kesha.

She has also been nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year for her work on H.E.R.s Back of My Mind (2021), for which she received a nomination. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Muni Long.

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Muni Long belongs to the white ethnic group. No one knows who her father is and nobody knows who her mother is either. To learn more about her Wiki, read this article and check out all of her personal information on this webpage.

According to available information, Muni Longs marital status is Married. Masimba Chibanda is her husbands given name. We provide you with the most up-to-date information. If youre interested in learning more about his love story, keep reading this article to find out all the details.

Angela Elizabeth Tobin was born in the city of Vero Beach in the state of Florida, United States.She has stated that she began singing at the age of two, but that she did not feel comfortable singing in front of others until she was older.

She later discovered YouTube and began uploading videos of herself singing in her room to the site.With increasing popularity on YouTube, Long was signed to Capitol Records under her given name in 2009, when she was just 21 years old.

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Her debut album was originally scheduled for release on October 20, 2009, but it was postponed to allow for additional recording to take place.

Since leaving Florida, Long has lived in Atlanta, and then Los Angeles before returning to Florida.Her song Family Tree was inspired by the time she was kicked out of her familys home as a teenager, according to the singer.

She went to Vero Beach High School, which is the same high school where Jake Owen went.

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What Is the Net Worth of a Muni Long Over a Period of Time? - Brandingirononline

Its rare in music tech for a disrupter to emerge so rooted in the core values of the electronic music community, yet, in a nutshell, this is exactly what new software tool Aslice is.

Born out of a real need to address disparities within dance culture, the software offers a financial bridge to electronic music producers who frequently miss out on both the big paychecks of top-tier DJs and royalties from collection agencies. Aslice is on a mission to create a fairer ecosystem through software that enables DJs to effortlessly capture their playlist data and voluntarily offer a small portion of their gig fee (the amount is variable, but 5% is suggested) directly to the producers of the tracks they play.

The American companys innovation works through gathering information captured on USB during a DJ set and then uploaded onto Aslices laptop software afterwards. It dispenses of the need to scrawl out half-remembered sets and go through the finicky process of uploading tracklists on the DJ's side, and instead acts as its own collection agency, using metadata and algorithms to match and attribute tracks to their owners through public databases.

According to the 2019 IMS Business Report, DJs made a total of $1.1billion from touring. Yet research published by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) indicated a mere 0.4 percent of artists across all genres in the UK make a living from streaming royalties. Add to this, streaming giant Spotifys recent heavy investment in non-music related activities such as military AI and celebrity podcasters and you have a landscape where producers frequently fall to the bottom of the food chain.

If Aslice feels refreshingly altruistic, a lot of this is down to the pedigree and commitment of founder, Zak Khutoretsky aka DVS1, who has long used his prominent position as a globally renowned DJ and producer to address the needs of electronic music communities. Aslice, he says, revealing the company name origins, is a slice of the pie.

Khutoretsky, who first emerged out of the 90s midwest rave scene in the US, could be considered an activist for preserving true club values, significantly with his 2014 essay highlighting the battle between art and entertainment and the importance of no-camera policies in clubs. Then, in 2019, Khutoretsky launched the initiative S.O.S (Support Organise Sustain), hosting panel discussions and seminars aiming to counterbalance the increasingly business and industry-dominated values of dance culture. If anything, Aslice feels like a natural successor to this committed lineage, from essay to discussion to real-time action.

At the end of 2019, I was getting ready to make my kind of typical end of year post saying 'I have a great life as a DJ. Thank you to everyone for coming to the gigs and hearing me play and also for supporting my labels. Khutoretsky explains the genesis of the idea. But I felt awkward making that post and I decided to instead make one thanking everyone for the music I get, for the producers who send me unreleased tracks."

Because my DJ skills are one thing but the music I get from people is really the other half of my success. So I asked myself: How can I support the artists? Finally, I called my longtime assistant, label manager, and good friend Sebastian and said: I have this idea now that I'm playing mostly digital, I have all my playlists, all my tracklists, and I keep seeing a couple of hundred names of young producers who are sending me music, who are not getting paid. So I asked him to send 200 artists 50 dollars each as a thank you. Sebastian replied that its a great idea, but that its going to take a lot of admin time to figure this out. So we discarded this idea for the time being until the pandemic overwhelmed all of us, and the whole scene shut down.

The disparity between DJ and producer earnings has widened over the past 25 years

It was during this uncertain period as nightlife shut down when Zak returned to his studio in Berlin and decided to go head first into it - arranging a focus group comprising, he estimates, about 50 artists, publishers, producers, agency people, big or small, unknown or known, to shape the idea. He then mortgaged his house, hired a development team and recruited Ethan Holben (former Global Head of Red Bull Radio and Vice President at Yadastar) to serve as the CEO. And we started building Aslice over the last almost two years.

The disparity between DJ and producer earnings has widened over Khutoretskys timeline. Ive been DJing for over 25 years now, he reflects. At the beginning, producers who put out records when vinyl was the only medium, you could sell enough physical copies to earn a living even if you just put out a record every so often. And then over time with digitalisation, the ease of putting out music took priority over how you actually got paid to create or produce or anything.

Yet its not merely that the producers role has been financially devalued through digital means, either through the accessibility of making and releasing music, or the unliveable rates offered by streaming services like Spotify, who currently pay between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream. The existing performing rights societies (PROs) that are set up to distribute royalties, too, are ill-equipped to support global dance communities.

One of the biggest feedbacks I've seen since we launched the public beta is people saying, but why arent collection societies solving this problem? The collection societies already exist. Khutoretsky explains, yet recent figures from AFEM (Association For Electronic Music) suggest that, at any given time, 40% of the Beatport Top 100 is not eligible to get royalties, as the tracks are unregistered with PROs. We point out to them that this problem has existed for 40 some years now and those entities that exist to fix it, aren't fixing it.

Aslice could benefit producers whose work isnt designed to be received by a commercial audience

The reason for the ineffectiveness of existing collection societies is down to what Berlin based music tech expert, Kalam Ali, co-founderofstart-up IN X SPACE, casually and with a degree of humour describes as The Helene Fischer problem, referring to the German singer who reportedly earned $US32 million in 2018. He says: If not claimed, money from PROs goes to the top artists at that moment.

The issue is, Ali explains, that you've got money coming in through either a venue paying a fee or ticket sales on the door and tracks being played from a music producer in a club context. And by law, the venue is giving back some money to PROs to pay those music writers.

Its an established system, that works when you go to Glastonbury, when you go to any concert at Wembley or any big event, where venues have paid for these licenses and they pay out based on a standard model however, inside the clubs, this data is impossible to record, so whatever money's being collected is just going into a pool and if it's not claimed, it goes to artists based on radio airplay or streams. Hence, the artists already in the spotlight are more likely to receive money in the pot from PROs than underground electronic music producers.

Notable supporters of the software include Richie Hawtin, dBridge and Surgeon

Club music differs from commercial music in both functionality and intention. Club tracks are by nature, designed to facilitate an experience for a community in a specific context and not to be (infrequent crossover examples aside) pushed into a commercial marketplace of radio play and maximum PR. Noting that club music isnt built with the same visibility in mind as the music of Helene Fischer, a system like Aslice could benefit producers whose work isnt designed to be received by a commercial audience.

It comes at the perfect time, underground DJ and producer, Monovsun, says. He came to hear of the software through a social media post in which DVS1 had been playing his music. Monovsun explains: in this post-pandemic global climate, everyone is more aware, especially in the electronic music scene. Its the time to leverage on that. it's a good moment to tell this to the big artists that they can do their fair part and support who makes the music for their sets. In 2019, the top 10 DJs alone account for $273 million of the $1.1 billion dollars earned by all DJs combined. If Aslice is to succeed, it could be down to the patronage of big-name DJs - notable supporters of the software include Richie Hawtin, dBridge and Surgeon.

Imagine if a producer didn't have to DJ to make a living, Khutoretsky says, if a producer could earn enough money from producing, then the DJs could stay relevant as DJs and producers could stay relevant. And if a producer is good and they can be compensated and they can spend more time in their studio, they're gonna become better producers, release more music, supply more DJs, And that ecosystem gets a lot healthier, not only financially, but also opportunity-wise.

Visit Aslice's website to sign up or find out more.

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Aslice is the new software tool that's making sure dance music producers get paid - MusicRadar

Depending on who you follow/care about/ignore, the broken sun remains a life and death catastrophe or just one of those things. With TikTok coverage of first rehearsals being universally panned, there was little else to talk about in the world of fan. And then

Thank whatever deity or non-deity you worship for Ronela Hajati. Clearly being of sound mind when it comes to creating a buzz, the Albanian team triumphed in a social media takeover yesterday. What follows is masterclass in PR.

The non-story started when someone at the Eurovision web team got cold feet about uploading one of the professional photographer pictures from Saturday mornings rehearsals. They removed the offending picture see above. After certain fan sites waded in, Twitforks were gathered and paraded the length of the information superhighway. Heads should roll, the otherwise terribly reasonable and not at all unhinged good people of Twitter and Reddit proclaimed.

Chinese whispers turned an ill-advised admin decision into censorship not seen since the Great Firewall of China, before the mood mutated into a protest against female oppression. Soon there was talk of the EBU/Eurovision forcing Ronela to change her provocative choreography.

Things got worse when La Hajati happened to post something that neither confirmed nor denied the rumour.

The day rumbled on with nobody from the Albanian camp stepping in to stop escalating calls for the head of the producer, until late last night a sheepish online message from within Ronelas team confirmed the choreography wouldnt be changing. Suggesting that maybe, just maybe, the whole thing was made up.

And as for that photo the one the EBU didnt want you to see. Its absolutely everywhere and everyone is talking about the song and staging.

Chapeau Ronela. You know how to work it (and fandom).

Image Credits: EBU.

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What the internet thinks about Eurovision 2022 Day Three - OnEurope

Now in its third month, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has stunned the world and sparked the biggest international security crisis of the twenty-first century. Beyond the headlines, the war has plunged an entire nation of more than 40 million Ukrainians into a barely imaginable world of grief, fear and chaos. Leading Ukrainian media personality Vitaly Sych has kept a war diary recounting his experiences and observations during the past two terrifying and heroic months as Ukrainians have adjusted to the new realities of Vladimir Putins criminal invasion.

UKRAINE WAR DIARY: PART I

When my wife hurriedly woke me up in the early hours of Febuary 24 and I first looked out of the window, I could not believe my eyes. The familiar panoramic view from our apartment on the twentieth floor overlooking the Dnipro River was now dotted with huge columns of black smoke. Our entire building was shaking from explosions as missiles rained down on the outskirts of Kyiv.

The unthinkable had happened. Even though we all knew Russia had amassed a huge army on the Ukrainian border, I remained convinced until the very last moment that it was all a geopolitical bluff. Like so many Ukrainians, I could not believe anyone would launch a full-scale military invasion in the center of Europe. Such things simply did not happen anymore. Not in 2022.

I grabbed my phone and was immediately confronted by footage of Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaiming the start of a special military operation in Ukraine. His speech was completely unhinged and full of wild historical distortions. This is war, I said to my wife.

For weeks I had downplayed her concerns about a possible war, often while gently teasing her and making sarcastic remarks. Despite my apparent confidence, my wife had remained unconvinced. She kept the tank of the car full, evening purchasing and filling an extra petrol canister. She packed changes of clothes and personal documents for all the family and bought lots of dry food. I thought this was over the top and said so. Sadly, she turned out to be right.

The day had barely begun, but it was already time to get our eight-year-old twins Peter and Anna out of the city. We had read numerous reports from the British and US intelligence services describing in detail how Russian security forces had compiled kill lists of Ukrainian journalists, activists, and politicians hostile to Moscow who were to be rounded up and executed during the initial stages of the occupation. My wife and I knew my name must be somewhere on those lists.

A brief look at my Facebook profile or a glance through the magazine I manage would be enough to get me into trouble with the Russians. My magazines last cover page before we were forced to suspend publication due to the war had featured Putin alongside senile Russian dictators Lenin and Stalin. All three were portrayed in wheelchairs styled to invoke a well-known Soviet photo of Lenins last days. The headline read Kremlin Madhouse. This was entirely in keeping with the spirit of the publication. It was clearly unwise for us to stay in Kyiv.

We picked up my wifes mother and tried but failed to leave town. By 9am, all roads leading out of the Ukrainian capital were at a standstill. A massive exodus was underway as terrified Kyivans looked to escape the city and head west away from the advancing Russian tanks.

After a couple of hours spent hopelessly stuck in traffic we gave up and went home, only to learn that the Russians were already trying to land troops at Gostomel Airport, which is located in the Kyiv suburbs to the northwest of the city. It was obvious that we had to evacuate urgently. This time we chose the southern highway instead of the jammed western route. As we moved slowly toward the city limits, jet fighters roared low above our heads. I still dont know whether they were Russian or Ukrainian planes. Eventually, we managed to exit Kyiv.

We headed to Vinnytsya where my mother lives. A 250-kilometer trip that typically takes three hours took us 10 hours. We drove mostly along godforsaken backroads that would normally be empty except for the odd tractor or perhaps even a horse and cart. But today these roads were jammed with caravans of cars ranging from simple hatchbacks to luxury jeeps. It seemed as though half of Ukraine was on the move, carrying their worldly belongings with them.

My wife cried the whole way. With good reason, she thought we might never be able to go home again. We had left our entire lives behind us in a matter of minutes; our apartment, our house near Kyiv that we had spent so long saving up for, our jobs, everything.

We could not even take our beloved cat with us, who can barely cope with the one-hour trip out to our summer house and would have been unable to handle the long and stressful escape in a crowded car. Thankfully, we were able to save our cat by mailing our apartment keys to neighbors who now make sure he is well fed and cared for. During those first nightmare moments of the war when we were forced to make life-changing choices in an instant, the most difficult decision of all was the one to leave our cat.

It soon became clear that we had made the right decision as our journey evolved into a three-day marathon with six people crammed into one car. By midnight we reached my mothers apartment in Vinnytsya. It was the first time we had felt relatively safe since that horrible day had dawned.

After a brief stopover, we decided to take my mother with us and head further west. The journey from Vinnytsya to Lviv is normally a five-hour drive but it now took more than three times as long. At some point during the night we lost our navigation signal while passing through a forest and found ourselves in complete darkness. As we tried to get our bearings, a nearby airbase was struck by a Russian missile. It was the kind of scene you expect to see in a horror movie and it will remain forever imprinted on my mind.

We eventually reached Lviv. By this point, I was completely exhausted. I had been driving for more than 24 hours and was running on pure adrenaline. Stress had robbed me of my appetite and I had barely eaten anything since leaving Kyiv.

The last leg of our journey still lay ahead and was perhaps the hardest. I had to get my family to the border but I would not be leaving Ukraine with them. Due to the imposition of martial law in the hours following Russias invasion, I could not exit the country. No Ukrainian men aged eighteen to sixy could. And to be frank, I would not have gone even if it had been possible. All of my male workmates and lots of female colleagues had stayed behind, some of them even remaining in Kyiv. I would never have forgiven myself if I had left.

After a short sleep in Lviv, we began exploring our chances of getting to the border. Poland is less than eighty kilometers from Lviv, but crossing into the EU in the first days of the war was no simple matter. All of the checkpoints were completely jammed with people and the delay times were insane. At some crossings, cars were advised that they could be waiting for up to a week.

We checked the train station and it looked like Kabul before the arrival of the Taliban, with women and children screaming and trying to squeeze onto trains departing for Poland. Many families had simply abandoned their suitcases on the platform.

This scene was enough to convince us against taking the train. Instead, we decided to head south toward the Slovak border where, according to reports, queues were significantly shorter. This last stretch took me a further 16 sleepless hours, with our journey regularly broken up by document checks at the many paramilitary block posts that had sprung up like mushrooms in those first few wartime days.

The plan was to get my family over the border into Slovakia where friends of friends would pick them up and drive them to Bratislava. From there, they would fly to Dublin. My sister is married to an Irishman and was waiting for them in the Irish capital.

After more than three days of almost non-stop driving that felt like three weeks, we finally reached the border. Our farewells were mercifully short. As we kissed and hugged our goodbyes, I had no idea if I would ever see my family again. They crossed into Slovakia and were finally safe. A week later, The Irish Times would publish an article about my familys escape headlined Now we have a chance to cry.

I remained on the Ukrainian side of the border. I was now alone. Like everyone else still in Ukraine, I was facing a future of grave uncertainty. I returned to Lviv and my wartime life began.

UKRAINE WAR DIARY: PART II

Are you still alive? read the text message from my colleague and radio show partner Serhiy Fursa. I immediately understood that the noise which had woken me up minutes before was the sound of Russian ballistic missiles. I peered out of my window and saw smoke rising from somewhere in the downtown area of Lviv. Five Russian missiles had hit the city, leaving seven dead and dozens wounded. Serhiy said he actually watched three of the missiles from his balcony but failed to take a video.

This was the third Russian airstrike on Lviv, a city close to the EU border that is generally regarded as safe. Are we still going to do our radio show today? I asked Serhiy. Why not? he replied. So we did. Since settling in Lviv during the early days of the war, we have already broadcast more than 40 episodes of the show. We go on air every day, always around lunchtime.

My accommodation in Lviv is an apartment rented by a colleague of mine who is a partner in the investment banking firm that owns our media house. All of the partners in the company, including the Czech owner, have relocated to Lviv. Even though his Czech passport would have allowed him to leave Ukraine, he decided to stay with his people.

We soon learned that we had been very lucky to get an apartment for just the two of us. Others have had to cram four or five into a single apartment as internally displaced people from across Ukraine have flooded into Lviv. As a result, the city is now packed full and finding available accommodation is next to impossible. We have even begun to joke that we shouldnt invite any colleagues over to our flat in case they stop talking to us when they see our luxurious living conditions.

There are only two problems with our flat. The first is actually more of an inconvenience. I have to share a bed with another man. We have bought separate pillows and blankets, of course. But the fact remains that Ive been sleeping with a man for more than a month. Life will never be the same again!

The other problem is more significant. As with all real estate, location is the most important feature. And in our case, this is definitely a problem. The apartment we are renting is close to a huge military base and the local headquarters of the Ukrainian intelligence service. This makes it an obvious target for Russian missiles.

The threat of Russian airstrikes is no longer hyperthetical. Indeed, the ambassador of Kazakhstan was living just a few blocks away until recently but was advised by his security team to move out of the neighborhood. This apparent danger is a source of amusement to locals. When they find out where we live, they joke that our landlord should actually be paying us. To make matters worse, the apartment is on the top floor of the building. A prime location indeed!

The military base next door has an outdoor area with all sorts of old Soviet-era military equipment on display. There are tanks, artillery, and rocket launchers dating back to WWII and the Cold War. Given the often poor quality of Russian intelligence and satellite imagery, we wonder whether they might mistake these museum exhibits for the real thing and launch an airstrike. Such speculation would once have been amusing but it is now no longer funny.

After several deadly Russian missile attacks that killed dozens of Ukrainian soldiers, the Ukrainian military has introduced new protocols. When the sirens go off in the city, hundreds of military personnel with Kalashnikovs stream out of the military base next to us and disperse in order to make sure there are no concentrations of soldiers in any one place. They then hang out for hours on end in nearby parks and residential yards.

Air raid sirens come every day and every night, often at about three or four in the morning. You can hear the sirens throughout the city. It is ubiquitous and sticks in your head like the beat of a bad pop song. After a few hours, the second siren indicates that the danger has passed. I still cant distinguish between the two. If you miss the first one because you are asleep, you think the second one is the start of an air attack. Sometimes we have to ask each other: is this the first or second siren?

To liven things up even more, my apartment mate has downloaded an application that notifies him of airstrikes with a tremendous alarm. He jumps up in bed and obviously I cannot avoid also hearing it. After that, nobody can sleep. Digital technology is not always helpful.

Living under the constant threat of Russian airstrikes is a chilling experience. The missiles themselves are accompanied by the distinct smell of death. Even though the Russians insist they only target military infrastructure, in reality they often hit civilian targets and kill ordinary Ukrainians.

In Syria, Russia fired a total of about 100 missiles over a five-year period. In Ukraine, the Russian military launched more than 1,500 missiles during the first month and half of the war alone. Some were launched from Belarus. Others were shot from bombers over the Black Sea. Their range leaves nobody in Ukraine immune. Nowhere in the country is truly safe.

Everybody in Lviv seems to have grown used to air raid sirens. I was out jogging in the park one morning when the siren sounded. It had almost no visible effect. Parents continued strolling with children and old people remained engrossed in their conversations on park benches. One elderly lady turned to her granddaughter and said calmly but firmly, Dont worry. Well be fine.

I cant help thinking that this sense of calm is false. We wont be fine. In truth, you can never really get used to the air raid sirens. The first thing Id like to do when this war is over is go somewhere abroad where I will not have to hear any airstrike warnings at all.

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UKRAINE WAR DIARY: PART III

The first days of the war were incredibly tough professionally as I attempted to somehow keep our media holding from collapsing. I lost contact with colleagues and had no idea whether they were being bombed in Kharkiv or were somewhere on the road trying to evacuate their families. Some people simply disappeared. Others struggled to cope with the emotional stress of the situation and were unable to work. One of our most prominent colleagues suffered a breakdown and began publishing crazy fake posts on social media.

I eventually had to accept that I could not help everyone and decided to focus on sustaining our operation and supporting as many colleagues as possible. Without exception, the war has been a personal crisis for all of us.

About a week after the war begin, the dust began to settle and we were able to get an idea of where we might be heading as a media organization. Nothing was straightforward. Our star reporter was sheltering from Russian airstrikes in Kyivs metro system. Our weekend editor was stuck in Kharkiv under heavy bombardment and we temporarily lost touch with him. Thankfully, we later learned he had survived.

The head of our English-language operation, a Scotsman, had to evacuate his family to Glasgow. This meant that responsibility for English-language coverage fell to a young Ukrainian editor who was also busy trying to help her grandmother cope in an apartment with poor wifi connection on Kyivs left bank.

Our financial and IT reporters had joined the Ukrainian army. Our chief designer and political editor werent planning to join the army but were drafted in Lviv when they arrived with their families. Our two most prominent radio presenters joined the territorial defense force in Kyiv. The procedure for signing up in wartime was so simple that they merely had to appear with their IDs in order to receive a Kalashnikov.

For a while, I feared we would not have enough people to run our company. Despite having been one of the largest news organizations in Ukraine on the eve of the war, it looked like we might not survive.

Then things stabilized. Or at least, we achieved as much stability as is possible during wartime. The Russians turned out to be far less sophisticated that everybody had expected and failed to knock out the Ukrainian internet. Dozens of our team reached safe places with decent internet connections in western Ukraine. Despite facing unfamiliar and often highly challenging living conditions, we gradually got back to work.

For obvious reasons, we ceased publication of our weekly magazine. Colleagues who normally focused on topics like sports, tech, auto news, entertainment and science were asked to forget about their previous lives and strengthen our war coverge. We went into 24/7 mode, pumping out non-stop content during night shifts and over weekends in Ukrainian, Russian and English.

We were soon producing 300 news items per day and ranking among the top two most visited sites in Ukraine. In March, our audience skyrocketed and reached 25 million unique users along with around half a billion page views.

In recognition of this success, we became the target of a major Russian cyber-attack. Despite being under physical Russian bombardment in Kyiv Oblast at the time, our chief programmer managed to get us back online. He was also able to upgrade our cyber security to levels that have prevented any repeat cyber-attacks.

While we cranked up our online coverage to a wartime tempo, we relocated part of our radio equipment to Lviv and organized an improvised new studio in a shopping mall where we were given two rooms free of charge. Before the war, our FM radio covered 44 major cities across Ukraine. This number has been slightly reduced by the Russian habit of taking down our transmitters in occupied Ukrainian cities like Kherson and Melitopol. Nevertheless, we continue to broadcast to more than 30 cities as well as via YouTube and online.

I started a daily radio show in tandem with a well-known investment banker and blogger who also relocated to Lviv. He speaks Ukrainian and I speak Russian on air. Our idea was not just to analyze key events but to support our audience. Working on the assumption that listeners already knew the most recent headlines and were aware of any bad news, we figured we would focus on positive developments such as Russias economic woes, international support for Ukraine, and signs of internal divisions in Moscow.

We are not fools and understand the gravity of the situation. At the same time, we want to provide a glimmer of hope and also some much needed humor. Russias top officials and propagandists are all legitimate targets and there is certainly no shortage of good reasons to ridicule them.

Air raid sirens can be very disruptive when youre trying to do a live radio broadcast. Every time the sirens start up, the shopping mall shuts down and everyone runs to the shelter. We eventually decided to stay put and continue our broadcasts. The alternative would be to leave our radio frequency blank for hours on end.

Ukrainians seem to appreciate what were trying to do. Our YouTube audience grew fivefold in just one month, even though we have no cameras in the studio and only offer an audio stream.

The single most rewarding episode of our wartime broadcasting experience came from Bucha, the Kyiv suburb where Russian forces committed war crimes that shocked the world. One old lady emerged following the liberation of Bucha and recounted how she had spent weeks in a basement listening to nothing but our radio station. When she met our reporter, she hugged her and burst into tears. This tale alone made all our efforts seem worthwhile.

UKRAINE WAR DIARY: PART IV

When I first arrived in Lviv in the last days of February, the city looked and felt like it was on the verge of an apocalypse. This usually vibrant hub of tourism, culture and history had become a ghost town. The streets were empty while only a few of Lvivs famed cafes and bars remained open. There was a ban on alcohol sales and all shops were closed except for food stores and pharmacies.

Despite this eery quiet, Lviv was by then already packed with refugees from Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. I often ran into acquaintances from the capital including restaurateurs, bankers, and fellow journalists. It felt as though we had all become part of a new chapter in Erich Maria Remarques classic WWII refugee novel The Night in Lisbon.

The many members of this displaced tribe tended to spend most of their time on the phone trying to help friends and family who were still under bombardment or stuck in occupied regions of the country. I was no exception.

My eldest daughter, Masha, who is twenty-six, was trapped in Kyiv with her boyfriend. By the time they had decided that they needed to leave the city, it was too late. Evacuation had become too dangerous. Their home district in the north of the city was the scene of shelling and street battles as Russian troops sought to advance into the heart of Kyiv.

Masha spent a week in a basement hiding from Russian bombs. She would call me regularly, crying and sharing reports about Chechen forces who were said to be closing in on Kyiv. The Chechens would soon enter the city and rape all the women, she said. As we later learned, these fears were justified. But at that point, I was more interested in trying to calm her down by telling her that the Chechens had already suffered catastrophic losses in Bucha, including the death of their most notorious general. This was also true. One week later, Masha and her boyfriend were eventually able to leave the city and head south. It was a huge personal relief for me. Millions of Ukrainians were not so fortunate.

Even though Lviv didnt experience anything like the problems in Kyiv, food did become scarce. Buckwheat, rice and pasta were the first to disappear as people prepared for the worst and stocked up on long-lasting foodstuffs. I must admit that I was partly to blame, purchasing enough food for an entire month. Supply chains for things like chicken and dairy products also soon broke down, leaving shoppers with little to choose from except the most expensive brands of tea, coffee, delicacies and cookies. With all the empty shelves in the stores, it started to feel a little bit like going back to the USSR.

During the early weeks of the war, many people in Lviv feared that Putin would convince Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka to join the invasion and launch an offensive into the Volyn region. This would bring the war right to the borders of Lviv. Despite at least four separate warnings of an imminent invasion, the Belarusians still havent ventured into Ukraine. Lukashenka is certainly a monster but he is not a complete idiot, it would seem. He also has access to reliable data on the sheer scale of Russian losses in Ukraine due to the fact that many Russian casualties have been brought back across the border to Belarusian hospitals and morgues.

When not doing my radio show, I found myself sharing an office with investment bankers who had also moved to western Ukraine from Kyiv. Like millions of their fellow Ukrainians, these finance professionals followed frontline military developments closely online and cheered the destruction of each successive Russian military convoy.

Monitoring Russian losses quickly became the most popular form of wartime entertainment for Ukrainians. The idea of deriving pleasure from footage of military carnage and dead soldiers would have seemed perverse or even obscene just weeks earlier, but graphic content now circulated in large quantities through a growing number of telegram channels, often accompanied by black humor. Many women discovered that they also enjoyed looking at such grim images.

You wouldnt expect this kind of behavior from a healthy person during peacetime. But everything changes after youve read hundreds of reports about children bombed, ordinary Ukrainians executed and women gang-raped, especially when the crime scenes are so familiar and the victims are personal acquaintances.

The endless accounts of Russian atrocities have taken their toll on Ukrainians in many ways. Almost everyone I know has trouble sleeping. There is also much fury and hunger for revenge. One of our radio hosts asked listeners what they would do if presented with a button that could instantly kill all Russians, including friends and relatives. He was half-joking, of course, but was also honest enough to admit that he would personally press the button without hesitation. The general consensus among listeners seemed to be that such an opportunity would be tempting.

During our radio discussions, we also pondered the question of how much blame could be attached to ordinary Russians. Had they given Putin a mandate for the war and the mass murder of Ukrainians, or was it all his personal responsibility? After the first few weeks of the war, this debate became redundant when independent polls indicated that more than 80% of Russians supported the war.

Of course, it is difficult to find entirely objective opinion polls in a totalitarian country. But the figures emerging out of Russia as the war progressed were entirely in line with a wide range of anecdotal evident suggesting that a clear majority of Russians backed the invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainians are also well aware that it was not Putin who personally bombed Kharkiv or executed civilians in Bucha. These crimes were committed by Russian servicemen who received their orders from Russian officers. They could have refused but they chose not to.

My wifes sister lives on Moscow. She moved there when she was 16 and is now a Russian citizen. She and her husband were terrified when the war began. They were ashamed and called many times to offer words of support. They followed news of the war closely and knew all the details about the horrors taking place in Mariupol, Kyiv and Kharkiv. This demonstrated once again that talk of Russians living in an information vacuum is wishful thinking. If the average Russian wants to access accurate information about the war, they can do so easily.

Three weeks into the war, my sister-in-laws fourteen-year-old daughter came home from her Moscow school and asked whether it was true their country was killing children in Ukraine. They answered that yes, it was true, but asked her not to tell anyone. By then, the old Stalinist tradition had returned to Russian schools, with teachers asking kids what their parents were saying at home about the war and reporting any criticism to the authorities.

The reality is that the Russian public does not want to know the truth. The lies they are fed by the Putin regime make them feel good and they are afraid to leave their comfort zone. For years, highly emotional propaganda on Russian TV has fueled imperialistic sentiments among the Russian public while dehumanizing Ukrainians. Many Russians now simply refuse to believe information about atrocities in Ukraine and dismiss the overwhelming evidence of war crimes as fake. I am not at all surprised by such attitudes. It is extremely difficult to admit that youve been so comprehensively misled by your own leaders and convinced to support a criminal war.

Millions of extended Russian-Ukrainian families have been divided by the conflict. A former classmate of mine from Chelyabinsk, a Russian city in the southern Ural Mountains, moved to Ukraine many years ago. He recently tried to explain the realities of the war to his mother back in Russia. She refused to listen and declared that everything he said was fake. Am I fake, too? he asked. They have not been in contact since.

UKRAINE WAR DIARY: PART V

My taxi driver yesterday was Serhiy from Mariupol. He and his family had managed to leave the devastated Ukrainian port city just before the Russians encircled it. He had since become a taxi driver to make a living. Mariupol is not just a global news headline. It is a vast and unfolding human tragedy that casts a pall of sadness and terror over all Ukraine. If there is a hell on earth right now, it is Mariupol.

So it was only natural that I wanted to talk. Serhiy said 95% of residential buildings in the city, including his own, had been destroyed. Around 100 people among his personal acquaintances had been killed. He said that most of the information he had came from survivors, both those still trapped inside Mariupol and the lucky ones who had managed to escape. As he recounted these horrors, I was struck by the lack of emotion. Maybe he had become apathetic or didnt want to offload the burden of his pain onto me.

What astonished me most of all was his plan to return home and rebuild Mariupol. As long as it remains in Ukraine, he added. I know plenty of people who have serious emotional reservations about going back to cities that have suffered much less destruction than Mariupol. His experience moved me deeply, but there was little I could offer him except a generous tip.

Russia has good reason for pushing so hard to take Mariupol. Putin desperately needs some kind of success for domestic consumption ahead of Victory Day on May 9. The annual celebration of the Soviet Unions defeat of Nazi Germany plays a central role in modern Russian mythology. This years holiday must be marked by a new triumph.

There is another less obvious but equally important reason why Russia is determined to seize Mariupol at all costs. The Kremlin simply cannot afford to let the world see what it has done to the city. Current estimates indicate a death toll of between 10,000 and 30,000 civilians during the two-month siege. In other words, the destruction of Mariupol dwarfs the atrocities committed in Bucha and is likely one of the biggest war crimes in Europe since WWII.

At the other end of Ukraine, life has returned to Lviv. The citys population has grown by 30% since the start of the war. Shops and movie theaters are now open once again. The alcohol ban has been partially lifted with everything available except for hard liquor. As a result, restaurants and bars are full. The crowds are cosmopolitan and often include lots of foreign journalists as well as people who have relocated to Lviv from across Ukraine.

During the weekends, the shopping mall that serves as the Lviv base for our radio station is absolutely full of people. The main indication that life is still far from normal remains the ubiquity of air raid sirens. Most shoppers would probably be happy to stay, I imagine, but due to wartime regulations all stores close and everyone must take cover.

I have recently received news that my summer house north of Kyiv in the village of Nova Bogdanivka was pillaged by Russian soldiers. I invested so much of my time and energy there renovating, building a summer terrace, and planting a garden. It is also a home where my family spent most of our weekends and nine whole months during the height of the Covid pandemic. At least the Russians didnt burn it down.

Nova Bogdanivka was on the frontline and was the scene of heavy fighting for a month. I learned about all the developments there from a Telegram channel that united all residents of our 250-house community. When the war began, most of us left for other parts of Ukraine or for the relative security of nearby Kyiv. A handful of residents stayed behind in the village. During the fighting, they were forced to hide in basements to survive and were very cautious about discussing their situation in case any of the details somehow leaked out and reached the Russians.

At some point, a village resident published a photo of my neighbors SUV dotted with bullet holes. His son recognized the car in the photo and begged everybody in our Telegram group for help. It was a terrifying moment. Nobody could do anything and everybody knew it was our neighbor. Later we learnt he had died.

On reflection, our village was actually lucky. One resident was killed and all of our houses were looted by Russian troops or orcs as they are universally referred to in our Telegram group. The neighboring village was far less fortunate. Every third house was completely destroyed by heavy artillery. The fate of this neighboring village became the subject of a harrowing feature-length report by independent Russian news site Meduza detailing multiple murders and rapes by Russian troops. Relatively speaking, we have nothing to complain about.

My neighbors from Nova Bogdanivka have begun uploading photos from their security cameras to our messenger group. It turns out that the Russians stole anything they could carry from carpets and vacuum cleaners to used clothes and kitchen cutlery. Some of them filled up suitcases with stolen items. I can understand why a soldier might decide to steal money or jewelry, but why would anyone want to take somebody elses clothing or knives and forks?

The second army in the world, as my neighbors sarcastically describe the Russians, turned out to be a bunch of impoverished bums. Nova Bogdanivka residents who managed to talk to the invaders discovered that most came from the poorest regions of Russia including the North Caucasus, Siberia and the Far East. Some of them admitted that they had only previously seen asphalt roads on TV. Whether he intended to or not, Putin has conducted a special operation to show the whole world the poverty and degradation of the Russian military and modern Russian society as a whole.

I have not yet learned the full extent of the damage to our house. It is still too early to check as the retreating Russians left mines and booby traps throughout the village. I dont know when we will be able to go back, but I am already terrified by the thought of our eight-year-old twins Peter and Anna going for a walk in the village or just playing in our garden. I fear this lingering sense of dread will be with us for many more years to come.

Vitaly Sych is Chief Editor of NV media house which includes a weekly magazine, national talk radio station, and news site (NV.ua). This war diary was originally published in the German language by Die Zeit newspaper.

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Image: A Taras Shevchenko bust in Kyiv region town Borodyanka stands next to a building destroyed by Russian bombardment. (Photo by Celestino Arce/NurPhoto)

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Ukraine War Diary: You can never really get used to the air raid sirens - Atlantic Council

This June, lifelong friends and former rugby players Damian Browne and Fergus Farrell will attempt to row 3,000 nautical miles across the Atlantic Ocean together from New York to Galway.

Former Connacht and Leinster lock Damian Browne is no stranger to the agonies and ecstasies offered up on the water; back in 2018, he rowed solo east to west across the Southern North Atlantic and ultimately arrived to the island of Antigua to a heros welcome.

He is well acquainted with physically enduring quests; the Covid-19 pandemic recently delayed his plans to conquer the highest peaks in all seven continents of the world.

He is now bidding to become one of a select few to successfully row across the Atlantic Ocean in both directions, however he will not be alone as he sets out on this expedition.

Fergus Farrell represented Connacht at U18, U19 and U20 level while he was also capped for the Irish Youths at U18 level.

It was subsequent to his playing days that Fergus faced his biggest test, however. In 2018, an accident in his back garden resulted in him rupturing three spinal discs, one of which leaked onto his spinal cord and almost shredded it entirely.

Having been admitted to the National Rehabilitation Hospital [NRH] Spinal Injury Programme, Fergus was initially left without the use of his legs and feet. The prognosis after surgery in the Mater Hospitals National Spinal Unit was unkind; he was given a 5% chance of walking if he regained movement within 72 hours of his operation. Even with the hand he was dealt, Fergus remained optimistic.

He said: Even after the 72 hours, I had no movement but I didnt give up on myself. In a lot of areas, were told things and we accept them and just stay still; if you can challenge those things mentally, you should always do that.

After 21 days, Fergus regained some movement in his toes and that began an arduous road towards walking unaided once again. In 2019 the year after his accident - Fergus walked the 206km from his yard in Athenry to the NRH in Dublin, raising vital funds for the hospital in what was named the Toughest Trek Challenge.

Thus, neither party are strangers to reaching beyond their own apparent limits, and this June they will negotiate the unforgiving Atlantic in unison.

Damians appetite had been whetted ever since his successful crossing from east to west, and he initially had his brother Andrew in mind as a partner for the corresponding journey before Andrews wife fell pregnant.

He told of his thirst for further adventures following the successful arrival in Antigua.

In 2018 I rode the Southern North Atlantic, east to west. That was incredibly challenging, but from the challenge came great rewards.

While I was coming to the end of that, I felt like I had the space mentally to start thinking about what I might do next, and one of the options that kept coming up for me was another ocean row.

Building up to that crossing and during that crossing I knew that it was possible to row across the North Atlantic.

It was much less done [west to east] but it had been done so I started doing a little bit of research on that.

A few people had finished in Ireland - very few - I think it's only been done 70-odd times and the success rate is 34% - so only a small number of those boats actually got to the other side but a few of them had finished in Ireland.

So, the cogs kind of came together and I said that would be something I would do at some stage.

As the finer details of the planned trip began to crystallise, Fergus was in a strong position to put his name in the hat once Damians brother Andrew was ruled out of the running. Strong not only because of his own knack of overcoming huge obstacles, but also owing to the pairs long-term friendship.

He said: Weve known each other since we were 11 or 12 years of age but we didnt become friends until we were 18 or 19 and started playing rugby with each other rather than against each other.

Damian had hoped his brother would be able to do it [the Atlantic row] with him.

I did the Athenry to NRH challenge and through that I discovered that this is what really helps me to continue on a better path and what keeps me focused and challenged.

Damo had mentioned the Atlantic row a long time ago and I just said Id be very interested in doing it with him. Andrew had to step out after his wife fell pregnant so ultimately Damo came to myself after Id given him the offer of doing it.

Rowing as a means of getting from one side of the Atlantic to the other would be appealing to scarcely few, but Fergus saw the benefits above all else.

Having something like this in front of me keeps me focused and keeps me mentally and physically strong. When I dont have anything in the head, I kind of lose focus and lose track.

The prospect of danger at sea is something very real, and the Atlantic Ocean does not operate on a give respect, get respect type of quid pro quo. However, Fergus and Damian are equipped with a good background on the causes of unsuccessful ocean rows and possess an awareness of where things could go wrong.

Damian explained: Theres a 34% success rate. Ocean rowing is at its most dangerous when youre close to land because when youre in the middle of the ocean, the percentages of what you can hit are drastically reduced.

An ocean rowing boat is highly susceptible to wind. Any time youre near the coastline and the wind gets up, that boat really isnt within your control. So thats actually the biggest factor in ocean rows going wrong; when they go wrong, more often than not they go wrong near the start and near land.

He also outlined that fatalities are thankfully a rarity on such trips.

On this route, a lot of the failures wouldve happened between 0-9 days. There are things that can go wrong and when they do, theyre involved in a rescue attempt. By maritime law, the nearest boat must aid in a rescue attempt.

Its very, very rarely a fatal ending it has happened, but its really rare. An ocean rowing boat is a very safe craft; you could cut it in half and both halves would float because its all compartmentalized. Youve got everything on that boat to survive.

As long as you dont lose contact with the boat, everything should be fine. Thats the big, big risk out there because if you do [lose contact], the chances are you will not get back unless its a very calm day.

Fergus and Damian will haul themselves across the Atlantic Ocean aboard their 6.2 metre-long ocean rowing boat, Cushlamachree. One end of the boat contains the pairs sleeping quarters while the other stores food, ropes and other equipment needed on board. Most of the storage lies underneath the deck level so that the weight lies beneath the gravity line in the event of the boat capsizing.

The world record crossing time is 55 days and 13 hours, a time which the pair are bidding to beat. They have, however, brought along 60 days worth of food as a precaution. Needless to say, the culinary inventory will be a maritime smorgasbord.

Fergus outlined the menu: We estimate theres going to be 14,000 calories burnt a day each so we plan on bringing 60 days worth of food. Were going to be consuming roughly 10,000 calories a day. Well have Radix, a dried food which has all the really important nutrients. Well have four a day, thatd be around 3,000-3,500 calories.

After that, a lot of high protein, calorific foods like peanuts, peanut butters, flapjacks, millionaire squares, loads of that type of stuff. Shakes that are very calorific as well.

Every opportunity that we get for rest well be eating something because we need that energy. In terms of water, well have a machine which takes as much salt as possible out of the ocean water; it does five litres of water an hour and well be using an awful lot when were out there.

Fergus and Damian arent lacking in the line of gadgets and gizmos, either. As well as GPS which will help them plot their way across, their boat has an Automatic Identification System [AIS] which will act as a radar when other boats come into their vicinity. Communications between they and other ships will be transmitted through a very high frequency radio, Damian says, because were basically invisible to them.

A special phone will help them to get online to provide updates, but there wont be any lengthy surfing of the web as the real waves take precedence.

Damian said: We have a SAT phone, another unit thats capable of getting us online to send pictures and videos from the ocean.

Were pretty well connected and theres a lot of safety beacons that go off if you fall overboard, SOS and all that. In terms of being tooled up, we have plenty.

And the objective is not only to get across the Atlantic Ocean from the Hudson River and into Galway Bay; Damian and Fergus will chase the horizon as they look to set a new world record for the quickest time across the Atlantic.

Damian explained that the best approach is one where the pair at least go hammer and tongs in pursuit of the world record and see how they fare.

He said: When you set these things up, the baseline goal is to get across. That in itself is extremely difficult.

Last time, I had unbelievable intentions around it [the world record] but there was no clear marker, and this time I wanted to set out that stall from the start that every decision would be made around that. The clear marker is that 55 days and 13 hours. It has been attempted 18 times and only six of those boats actually got across while only one boat came anywhere near beating it.

It gives us great direction every day in terms of training and preparation but also when were on the ocean to have those daily targets to hit as individuals and as a team.

The flippant nature of the elements at sea will have a fair say in how their plans pan out, however.

Its totally dependent on weather; if the monster that is the Atlantic Ocean decides that were going to have two, three or four storms then its out of our control. If we get the right conditions, well be ready to give it as good a go as anyone can give it.

Fergus echoed the same sentiment while explaining that the blunt reality is that being at sea for a prolonged period is not a prospect that warms the soul.

The world record is something thatll really focus the mind when were out there and help us keep fighting day in, day out. I believe if we dont have the intention to try and break the world record, wed probably get lazy and itd take longer.

At the end of the day, we dont want to be out at sea too long. Im not there for the luxury or the enjoyment of it, Im there to go for that record. Every extra day at sea makes things harder and we only have 60 days food ultimately wed have to start rationing that if were not going for the record.

Damians penchant for ocean rowing stemmed initially from the physical training required for a front five rugby player. Exposure to watt bikes and rowers led to many coaches and fitness instructors at various clubs pointing out to him that he had both the knack and the raw power for rowing. Following the end of his rugby career, he had a strong foundation from which to turn rowing from a prescribed element of training into a passion.

Both men were heavily involved in rugby in their earlier years. For many sportspeople, the all-consuming and visceral nature of competitive sport can be an essential outlet and once retirement looms, there remains a lot of energy to expend but no arena to expend it in. Both Fergus and Damian agree that rugby became its own grand platform away from regular day-to-day life.

Fergus said: Any sport where youre part of a team and that camaraderie and then you step outside of that, I think that can be an unusual place.

I was lucky when I stepped away, I had a business and employees. I almost classed that as my new team. I was lucky that way.

There were things you would miss massively; I probably used rugby as a good way of venting my anger. I definitely found myself being a little more volatile after rugby in a day-to-day situation because I didnt have that place to do it on a pitch or a training ground.

For Damian, the void was considerable and the escapades on the water have certainly helped in supplementing his life with competition and chaos in the absence of rugby.

It's a big hole to fill. I had plans in place post-rugby, and even with them being purposeful, I had to accept its a hole that will probably never be filled.

Because of the primal nature of the sport, theres almost a savage warrior that comes out when youre on the pitch. That doesnt get any access or airing in daily life - its not welcome - but on a rugby pitch it is.

When youve touched that side of you, unless you get into something like MMA, that probably can never be truly expressed once again and thats a hard pill to swallow.

These adventures really help to alleviate any angst over the loss of a warrior sport like rugby.

Both are working to a strict timeline now as the departure date draws ever closer. The main focus in these latter stages is directed more towards ensuring everything is packed onto the boat, which will itself be shipped to New York before Fergus and Damian convene in the Big Apple ahead of setting off.

Damian noted that the toughest physical work has been taken care of in the last 12 months, and that the focus will now shift more towards the mental preparation.

Weve got through the really hard stuff physically. Weve done the really hard stuff and now its just about sharpening that and peaking that before shifting to the mental and technical side.

For both, visualisation is a priceless part of the mental approach.

Fergus said: For me, visualisation is big. Having key things along the way to focus on keeps me on the right path mentally.

The long-term goal is to row into Galway Bay but Ive parked that for now because theres a lot to do between here and there.

The next thing is meeting up in New York so Im visualising what happens there; getting that boat out onto the Hudson River.

Visualisation is huge for me, to continue to focus on the different aspects of the challenge. When I do that, I almost get goosebumps.

Damians views on visualisation run concurrent and he explained that painting a colourful picture in his mind and repeatedly seeing the steps that need to be taken for a certain task essentially makes that a lived experience and something that is of second nature when it comes to doing it in reality.

Additionally, he has a strong belief in a body first method whereby psychology is trained through physiology.

He said: The mind always works the same way; when its put into a state of fragility it will react the same way so if youre able to recreate that fragility, that window of exposure to your weakened self, and then work through it with some psychological organisations then it doesnt matter what happens when.

If you get punched in the face by Mike Tyson, youre going to be able to deal with it because youve gone through that and youve practised that process, that mental organization again and again. We use our training to put ourselves into those positions.

We create training sessions where we want out and were pressurised; that means your mind is going to be put into those places and you can practice those processes.

As well as the body first method and visualisation, affirmations are used as a cast-iron method of positive reinforcement.

Damian continued: [Affirmations] are a way to almost rewire your subconscious by saying certain mantras or sentences to yourself.

Its a three step process; a concise choice of positive words, clear visualisation around that concise choice and a correspondent feeling.

Youre trying to build an emotional defiance of strength and power into that and connect with that.

You build the emotion you want into that affirmation. Im saying to myself: Nothing will stop me rowing the Atlantic.

Needless to say, Fergus and Damian will be far from home while on the water, and the considerable trip length means Fergus will miss some family events.

He said: Ill be away for my daughter's birthday, my sons birthday and my sons Communion. On those days, obviously itll be very important for me to be able to communicate with them in some way.

Its not actually something Id thought of outside of those three dates, so Im going to have to really think about that. Possibly [a phone call] once a week.

The families will be able to log onto Facebook or Instagram and theyll see all the posts that were uploading there as a way of checking up on us.

With the Southern North Atlantic experience under his belt, Damian noted the importance of phone calls home back then even if the news of the town was the juiciest gossip at the other end of the phone.

Last time, I was making a phone call home every three nights and it became a really important part of the expedition. Its your link back to home.

You just want to hear someone elses voice and its nice to listen to the neighbourhood news. Its personally something Id never have any interest in but all of a sudden, its day 39 and Im bored out of it and I want to listen to that stuff.

Last time I asked people close to me to write me a letter. When I was having a tough day, they were very meaningful and important to me. It was a serious, serious emotional lift for me.

For Fergus, the why behind daring trips like this was not always apparent but now he is fully on board, so to speak, as he looks to mark off another hugely significant challenge.

When Damo did his first ocean row challenge, without a shadow of a doubt Id have said What the hell is he doing that for? Totally crazy, I dont understand it, whatever else.

Roll on four years and Im doing it and I now buy into why hes doing it. You do these things because circumstances in life change. You learn from your past and try and make yourself better going forward.

He also explained that completing a challenge like this would hopefully act as a bold and undeniable example to his children that anything is possible.

I want to set an example for my kids and for others. We can talk and talk and talk but theres no better word than action.

Im doing it to show that you should never give up on yourself. Setting challenges helps you keep focused and mentally strong.

I want to leave something there for my kids that they hopefully take on board and develop more, and hopefully that becomes part of their character. Never give up, keep fighting and know that theres nothing they cant do if they apply themselves correctly.

Individually, Fergus and Damian have summitted the mountains, walked the winding roads and crashed the seas with some incredible feats of mental resilience and physical fortitude to their names already.

This June, however, with a world record in their sights, they are in the same boat.

Damian Browne and Fergus Farrell will row 3,000 nautical miles across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Galway this June as part of Project Empower. You can stay updated on their progress by following the Project Empower Instagram and Project Empower Facebook pages.

Read more from the original source:

Riding the waves: Meet the two Irish men rowing across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Galway this June - Irish Mirror