Lviv:
In an industrial part of Lviv, the capital of western Ukraine, Pravda brewery workers have responded to the Russian invasion by switching from producing beer to Molotov cocktails.
Lviv – a bastion of Ukrainian identity – is near the Polish border and fears that Russian tanks will roll into the historic city at some point.
“You have to wait until the cloth is well soaked. If so, that means the Molotov cocktail is ready,” said a smiling employee.
With a cap on his head, he pushed the cloth deep into a beer bottle filled with a mixture of oil and gasoline.
Two other bartenders next to him, all in good humor, do the same.
They already have a few dozen Molotov cocktails ready to use, neatly placed on tables to protect them from the light snowfall.
While these Molotov cocktails may seem ridiculous in the face of tanks and missiles, the switch couldn’t be more serious for Yuriy Zastavny, the brewery owner.
“We’re doing this because someone has to. We have the skills, we experienced a street revolution in 2014,” Zastavny said, referring to the pro-Western uprising in Kiev that ousted a Kremlin-backed regime.
“Then we had to make and use Molotov cocktails,” he said.
He said the idea came from one of his collaborators, many of whom took part in the 2014 revolution.
It is not the first time that Pravda has become an institution of sorts in Lviv.
One of their favorite beers is called “Putin khuylo” – an insult to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The brewery began producing cocktails for the Ukrainian Territorial Forces on Saturday, made up of reservists who responded to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to take up arms.
At checkpoints set up on the outskirts of the city of 720,000 inhabitants, police and soldiers who check every vehicle are already equipped with them.
Zastavny, owner of Pravda, promised “to do everything to help win this war”.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)