Face to Face with the Srebrenica War Criminals (464)

0:00Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War. Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage solutions. Put heavy-duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid, impact-resistant design prevents cracking, and the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select shelving and tote storage up to 15 % off at the Home Depot to organize every room in your home, from your garage to your attic. Visit homedebo.com. How doers get more done. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling?

0:41Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. She sees I'm filming, and she shouts to Mladic.

1:07Richard Lyntton:She shouts, I'm proposed filming you. And everyone, like, stops. And before I know it, Ratko Mladic, one of the notorious war criminals of all time, he points to the camera, he says, Mladic, which is young man, over some years in Jevot, you only have one life. Richard Linton's life has taken him from Cold War Moscow to the deserts of the Gulf War and the shattered streets of Sarajevo. In this powerful episode, he recalls studying in the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev years and later serving as a tank commander during the Cold War. However, the heart of this conversation is Bosnia, where Richard witnessed the siege of Sarajevo, came face-to-face with Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadic, and narrowly escaped trouble after secretly filming General Ratko Mladic.

2:01Richard also describes documenting the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, filming evidence of war crimes and later testifying at The Hague. This is an episode you won't want to miss, as he shares his extraordinary journey from North London schoolboy to British Army officer, UN observer, filmmaker, actor and thriller writer. His new book, Crown Deception, is out now. I'm delighted to welcome Richard Linton to our Cold War conversation. I was born in Highgate, London, at the Whittington Hospital. My mother called me Richard because of Dick Whittington and there was a little black stone cat in a cage just outside Whittington Hospital.

2:43That's why she called me Richard. I only met my father twice in my lifetime, although he did live close by in North London. I was basically brought up by my mum, who was a single mother, in Kentish Town in London. And then when I was a little bit older, we moved to Primrose Hill in London. Primrose Hill, very nice part of London and Kentish Town as well for all my listeners from Kentish Town. But it's good to hear you're a North London boy, same as me. What was schooling like? I was born in 66, went to Kentish Town Primary School, and then went to William Ellis School on Highgate Road, just up the road there.

3:19So that was, yeah, when I was 11 or 12. The 70s we're talking now. What were your favourite subjects at school? Oh my God, that's easy. So I loved languages and I studied French and I went off to when at age 16, had amazing exchange programs in France. And then I tried Spanish, but I didn't like Spanish. So they told me to switch to German. So my two favorite subjects were definitely French and German. And then I ended up going to Exeter University and I studied beginners Russian. which again pretty much changed my life i would say so yeah those were my two favorite subjects even in high school and thankfully to the good old ilia in the london education authority they sent me on not one but two exchange programs which miraculously and especially as me i live in america now like it was free i remember going to to the the great what was it the town hall the big on the embankment anyway they gave me an award to go and study in france and germany yeah county I remember going down there and getting this sort of mini award.

4:28So languages was definitely my thing. Brilliant. Yeah, because at my comprehensive, they did offer Russian, which was… Really? Wow. Which comprehensive was that? It was in Southgate in North London. So it was Ashmole Comprehensive. I went to that. They offered Russian. That was beyond my language skills. I struggled with German and French enough rather than a completely different Cyrillic alphabet. Yeah. And what were your career aspirations when you said you went to University of Exeter? Where did you think you were going to go in life? So at that stage, I was what they called a cadet to go into the household cavalry, the lifeguards in the British Army.

5:08And in other words, I got paid to go to university. I got about£5 ,000 a year, I remember. And so I always knew I was going to Sandhurst after university. and even though I spent a year in Moscow, which they were happy but not happy about because they thought I might be compromised. And I was actually a serving officer in the British Army technically while I spent a year in Moscow, which was interesting. And I knew that I might want to go into the foreign office one day, but I was going to start in the British Army as a tank commander in the lifeguards. So this was the time of Paris Stryker and Gorbachev?

5:43Absolutely. It was a summit between Reagan and Gorbachev. And it was just a spectacular time to be there because the Afghanistan war had just ended. So the Russians were keen to start making friends with the West again. And we happened to be in Moscow during that time. And I remember there were many stories, but I ended up doing interpreter work for Ian Glover-James from ITN during that Reagan-Gorbachev summit. And everyone was so happy because it was like East and West making friends again. It was really a fantastic and wonderful time to be there. So what was that year? Was that 88 or something like that?

6:23So 87, 88, yeah. Yeah. The Moscow population that you conversed with, were they were excited about Gorbachev then, or were the wheels coming off the reforms already at that point? Oh, no, this was the sort of, no, this was the heyday. They loved Gorbachev, and they just loved foreigners. It was like being a billionaire, being a student in Moscow, because you would exchange the rubles. Officially, it was one to one, one dollar for one ruble. where we literally had people, certain students would go to the objizitie, the hall of residence at the end of the tube line. And we would take a hundred dollars or$500 and literally come back with a carrier bag full of rubles as a student.

7:10And then we would go and spend these rubles in Soviet restaurants and live like Kings basically. So the, and the people were wonderful. I remember I was determined to learn Russian and I purposefully avoided any or as much contact with other British students as I could. And I would just go off and explore. And for example, I went to this opera house, this little sort of opera house right in the center near the Arbat. And I just walked in, could just walk into places in those days because they had security everywhere. And if you were foreigner, they just didn't really, they didn't stop you. And I remember just sitting in this empty auditorium of this opera house watching this rehearsal thinking this is so cool it's so cool and then i actually met one of the guys who sang in the opera and ended up being great friends and i would go to his house that he was like one of my best moscow family friends and every weekend i would go out on the the tube line to the end of the tube line gorod balashikha it was like a closed part of moscow so technically i shouldn't have even been there and then i wanted to get on what they call the trolley bus a little local bus and i would go into this basically this concrete jungle and again my friend told me listen this is closed city you're not allowed here as a foreigner so just wear a russian fur hat and a coat and just pretend to be russian and this was like exciting for me as a sort of 20 19 20 year old i guess i was but anyway i was determined to get into the russian psyche the russian sort of way of life and i would just spend the day the night actually with this lovely family and a little daughter and and the mother and father would just cook and we'd drink vodka and play he'd play the guitar so yeah it was a really special time i was there in the snow so again it was even more atmospheric and i remember they had a little kino theater a little cinema just close by and i always remember it was they were showing gary potter gary potter harry potter was on in the movie theater this this con in this concrete jungle i just was very privileged and just the fact that they would sing and play songs and they read books it was just amazing and it was before i went back a few years later and it had just been sport by all the western influences so yeah it was a fantastic time to be there and i wasn't even thinking about writing at that stage but definitely all these experiences like mounted up and many years later i was able to yeah so i guess a time full of hope as to the future of the soviet union it wasn't necessarily thought it was going to implode but then shortly after when the Soviet Union does disappear and Yeltsin comes to power there's massive inflation did you take many photos when you were there I did yeah unfortunately I actually lost a lot of them they disappeared one day and I always wondered whether it was like the KGB coming broke into my house and took them but this whole box of photographs that I had because I would you would keep the roll of film in those days and you have to send either send them back with someone or develop them later but yeah i took some wonderful pictures even though you weren't supposed to in those days and i got into quite a few scrapes just trying to take pictures of russians in in various places when you say scrapes can you elaborate as to what happens there oh gosh like mini scrapes really going into len film studio like we went to len film studio one time and i i wanted to go right into the studio and i wanted to see some filmmaking and I had my camera and I tried to take pictures and so they this the provodnice the old barbershop and they called the policeman outside said there's a foreigner here taking pictures you know and so they kicked me out but as soon as you show them your British passport they didn't want to be troubled to do anything and then another time I guess when we went to Khabarovsk we went on a six-day journey to Khabarovsk in the snow because I told our KGB minder at the Institut for Mores Tereza, the Mores Torres, which is now the Moscow State University, I think.

11:07But anyway, I told him we wanted to go to Khabarovsk. We wanted to go on a six-day journey across Russia in the snow. And he was like, oh, Richard. And he said, no pictures, no pictures. Because we couldn't go to, Vladivostok was a closed city, so we couldn't go there. So the next best was Khabarovsk, which is close by. but anyway so we got there and it was like river amork was covered in snow this tundra this frozen tundra and then our in tourist guide was clad in mink coat and mink hat and i fell in love with her really i've had a crush on her immediately and i was always trying to take photos and they were saying no no photos no photos and then i always remember one during that stay in in the russian far east our minder and his assistant they were drinking in their room because all they took on the train was a holdall like a big holdall and i said to sasha this minder what's in there and he went like that and it was just full of vodka bottles and so they literally spent five days just drinking on the train and then they had more for the for when we got there but anyway when we were in the hotel one night they invited me to their rooms and they were pretty drunk they were pretty far gone and i and i went into the room and they were they were joking no cameras no no photography i said sure it's in my room it's in my room but anyway so then they started doing something rather strange they said richard we play a game and we give you one star and they took out a real russian officer's epaulette and they had these little brass well they're probably goldy metal buttons and they said we give you button you become colonel but you have to drink vodka for every star so then spend the next hour and they're like hey and so i wanted to get the two epaulettes which had about eight stars i think it was and so they were we were drinking and i was getting the stars and i really wanted these military epaulettes because i was going into the army but they didn't know that i was going into the army because i always said i was going to be a foreign diplomat to these guys.

13:14And then they said, what are you going to do when you leave? And I said, I'm going to be a diplomat. I'm going to be a British diplomat. Are you sure? Are you sure? And so they kept pressing me and I was like, oh my God, they probably know that I'm actually going into the British army. They probably somehow found out because I was technically a British army officer. Anyway, I digress. I'm babbling on a bit, but those are some of the fun things. It's a great detail. This is what we love on Congo Conversations is stories like that. And in fact, one of my questions was going to be, did the Soviets know you were going into the army?

13:48Was that part of the application for you to work? So I must just say the best story. I miss the best story. I don't know whether they knew. All my research later in subsequent years leads me to believe that surely they must have known, but they didn't care because I wasn't even an officer at that stage. I was technically an officer, but I was a cadet and I was going to Sandhurst. But another story just similar that I wanted to tell you, because it's fun, was we went to Odessa one time on an institute trip and to the Potomkinska Lesnica, the 39 Steps. And I knew that because of the book. And I thought, oh, wow.

14:27And in fact, I'm thinking about using that in my next book, the Potomkinska Lesnica. Anyway, so we were in Odessa. me and my friend Simon we find a group of young Russians and we go out for a sort of dinner and we're having a lot of fun and there was a girl who I quite liked I guess I you could say I fancied her and at the end of the dinner she said I'm going home now I'm going I said I'll walk you to the port I have to get a taxi so we're somewhere near I don't remember exactly where but we're somewhere near the 39 steps the famous steps and we walk down the steps and she's going to get a taxi home.

15:03And suddenly we hit halfway down and she says, come on, come in, let's go and sit down. I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe she wants to have a smooch or something. So we go in and suddenly these two Russians appear. One has a knife and basically she disappears. They say, give me your money, give me your money. And I realized I'm getting robbed and I'm going like the Bertie Worcester sort of thing, but I'm a British diplomat. I'm going to be a British diplomat. So they took some money and they, they let me have my passport, which was great. But long story short, we went to the police station and they weren't interested.

15:46They said, oh, sorry, but it's sorry. And then we went back to, but we reported it. Then we go back to Moscow and two weeks later this detective arrives in moscow at our institute for me and they say we found we think we found the man who robbed you and and he said but we want you to come to odessa i'm like what i'm not getting odessa to identify this guy and but then we thought i said can i can my mate simon come with me and i said yeah sure i said are you gonna are you gonna fly us there And they said, yes, of course we fly. And so I asked the embassy permission. I said, I want to go and identify this guy.

16:26I think they found who robbed me. Because basically we thought it would be an adventure. And so then there was really bad weather, so we couldn't fly. So then we had to get on a train with this detective. So it's like a whole day to get back to Odessa. And then when we get there, I'm like, are you going to put us up in a hotel? and the guy says no we have very little money no no funds and i said where are we supposed to go

16:53Richard Lyntton:so we we basically went to the friend's house some of the friends who we'd met because we as students we couldn't afford to stay in the posh odessa hotel because the next morning there would be an ID parade at the police station. So next morning we go to the police station and I'm a bit nervous because I have no idea if it's him, this guy, if I'm going to remember him. And there's this little tin pot police station with an internal courtyard and I'm in the detective's office and I see the guys being lined up outside and I'm looking out and then I definitely recognize one of them, but the other wasn't quite sure and he says we're gonna go out we're going we'll go outside i'm like what we're gonna go right outside i'm gonna stand in front of these guys who rubbed me really and he goes richard on on most of the brookie he goes richard the second one's the one we want is wearing black trousers i'm like okay so basically like i say i definitely recognized the one but the other one wearing the black trousers it was 50 50 and so we i go out and i'm face to face with these guys i'm like oh my god do i really want to be here and i thought and as soon as it was over i thought oh shoot i can get away from these guys one of them might jump me or something and then we go back into the police sergeants the police detective's office and then the two criminals walk right into the same tiny little office and they sit down beside me i'm like oh my god and the guy's going, hey, you robbed the wrong guy.

18:30You robbed a future British diplomat. And these guys are sitting there head down. I think they're in handcuffs. But anyway, that's just one of the examples of the adventures we got up to in my year abroad in Moscow. Wow. And during that journey, you got quite far into the Soviet Union. Did you get as far as like the Chinese-Korean border? Yeah. So the amazing thing about Khabarovsk is you could see the Chinese mountains in the distance. And you knew that North Korea was like 50 miles away. And there's this area called, it's the Amurga River. And there's this sort of, there's a place, it's a known area for development, for the UN was kind of development.

19:15So when we went there, that's the farthest you could go. You couldn't go to Vladivostok because that was a closed city, but you could go to Khabarovsk. And that was so magical and incredible. And just being, going around with this intorist guide, this beautiful girl called Julia, whom I'm still in touch with. I still, we've kept in touch over the years. She lives in Paris now. But anyway, I just thought I got to, if I ever write a novel, it's going to start here. And so I thought many years later, I thought great place to start a Jack Steele novel would be at the corner, this section of North Korea, China, Russia.

19:56Hardly anyone ever goes there, but talk about potential for political intrigue, spying intrigue. And even though I never got across the border into North Korea, I did decide to use that as the style of North Korea Deception. And does Yulia feature in that one? She does. Yeah, she does. She's one of the main protagonists. And I won't tell you what happens to her. But yeah, I had to use her. And then I think when I first published it, I think either she sent me, I think she sent me a very old picture of her black and white. I said, have you got an old picture of Mink for a coat and hat with the snow in the background?

20:33So yeah, she's definitely one of the people I based the story on. Brilliant. So you graduate from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. What year is that? Is it 1990 or something like that? Yeah, so 89-90, and then Gulf War I is on the horizon, looming. And as we are finishing at the Royal Armoured Corps Centre in Bovington as our tank training to be tank commanders, they're literally calling people forward on my course to go and join their regiment in the Gulf. So that was 89-90. and then I got to Germany. The Berlin Wall came down in 89. And so at that time, it was really interesting and exciting because not only did the Berlin Wall was just coming down and we were in Germany, but we knew that we're going to be called up to go to Gulf War One, me as a tank commander.

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22:34tomorrow morning is knocking stock your fridge now how about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe or white chocolate mocha whichever you choose delicious coffee awaits find starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries and just to quit another quick fun story so when the wall came down i just thought i've got to go i've got to get across that border and i thought i'll take my soldiers and we had an adventure training weekend planned and I asked my soldiers in my troop as a cavalry officer you got basically got 11 guys plus you a troop and I said do you want to go to East Germany do you want to go the war I go yes sir yes sir so I asked permission from my commanding officers instead of going walking in the Bavarian Alps which most of the other regiment were doing and they would we'd all go off in private cars to get there and it was a thing adventure training and so I said to I asked permission, you know, can we go into Leipzig?

23:31I think that was the nearest place to get to, getting across the wall to Leipzig. And we went in three cars and everyone was excited because even though my soldiers didn't speak German or Russian, they obviously knew it was a big deal that the Berlin Wall just came down and we were all going off there. And I just remember arriving in Leipzig. And I think I was walking around with maybe one or two of them, of my soldiers, and I saw a Russian barracks. And I'd been in Russia, I'd spent a year in Russia, I felt very comfortable with Russians. Not sure I would now these days, unfortunately, but I literally went up to the sentry on duty at this Russian barracks.

24:14And I said, can I speak to your commanding officer? And I said, I'm a British captain, can you get your commanding officer? So because I spoke Russian, he did what he was told sort of thing. And then when I said I was an officer, he definitely did what he was told. Anyway, and again, so long story short is this officer came out. I'd said who I was. I said, I spent a year in Moscow. Could we come in and have tea? Because I knew the Russians did that. That's their culture. They always have tea. They like to have tea with people. So I took me and two or three other soldiers. We went in, we went to the officer's mess.

24:45They gave us tea. We chatted in Russian. I did a little bit of translating for my soldiers. and so we were probably one of the first English soldiers to have tea in a Soviet barracks I would say in about 1989. That's a brilliant story so was this like just literally just after the wall had opened you went the other way absolutely with your troop and you were in civilian clothing yeah yeah yeah we were yeah wow yeah that's yeah but I couldn't resist I couldn't resist. That's a great story um you would have been trained for fighting on the the northern plains of europe and suddenly you're told that you're going to the desert did you manage to get any different training or what happened there yeah it was terrifying to be honest because they suddenly started issuing desert combats they said we got training two weeks training and we started doing the old NBC nuclear biological chemical warfare training with the hoods and the hazmats and all this stuff.

25:46But no one really knew what they were doing, I would say in retrospect. So yes, we literally, so when we found out that we were definitely going to the Gulf and we were going to be what they call battle casualty reserves, which was unsettling because we knew what that meant was we wouldn't be fighting or going into battle as a regiment or even a squadron. we were basically spare parts. And so if someone lost a tank in the main assault, then that meant that they would call one of our tanks. Or if someone lost the whole troop, and again, we didn't know at this stage how bad the war was going to be, it would mean that we would be called forward and have to go into battle with another regiment who we did not know.

26:31We did some training in Germany and pretty scary time, really, especially as a young tank commander i had no clue what i was doing i was out of university so i was about 24 and i just remember flew to bryers norton had to wait there for two or three days finally got a plane c-130 is it i think transporter plane started flying towards the gulf turned around four or five inches of the journey came back to bryers norton waited there in this big aircraft hangar with your sleeping bag and your camp bed for two or three more days then we finally got the call we're going out again so we arrived in i think it was al jubal and we were in this tent city there and this was one of the first few nights we hadn't even got our tanks yet we our tanks had been taken out and transporter trucks to the middle of the desert and we were going to go and get them in the middle of the desert so we were in this sort of tent city in like i said i think it was al jubal and i just remember it was the middle of the night and suddenly there was this massive explosion in the near distance it wasn't an attack or us it was just some weird stuff going on it wasn't we were pretty sure it wasn't anyone attacking us because we were miles from kuwait but anyway i just remember exhausted from all this pre-training

27:53Richard Lyntton:and travel out there and being in the desert and not knowing what's going to happen and everyone just goes someone goes gas gas gas so everyone's like getting their suits on and then the gas mask and then you have to seal it around that mask. And I just remember lying on the bed because basically you were supposed to sleep in it. And I just thought, if I die, because I can't breathe, and if I wake up, then great. But I have this eternal image of these soldiers in their sort of tighty-whities getting out of their sleeping bags, getting their NBC kit on, everyone putting the hoods on, and then just being so exhausted that I just lay there thinking, oh my God, I just, I can't keep myself awake any longer.

28:38So if I suffocate and don't wake up, I just don't care anymore. But anyway, yeah, so that was the Gulf. It was pretty, it was pretty crazy, crazy time. Because joining the British army during that period, the Berlin Walls come down. So you think, great, but the enemy's got the worst thing that's going to happen to you is you're going to get sent to Northern Ireland. Then you get sent out to the Gulf and it's going to be a hot war without any doubt. Oh, I wanted to tell you, sorry, I just, the other image was just such a bizarre image. So we did finally get taken on a bus, an old school bus out into the desert.

29:15And they told us during training that the Challenger 2, or maybe it was the Challenger 1 in those days, but they told us it was, had all this up-armoring and that it was almost impossible for even an armored piercing shell, if it hit it, it would actually not be able to penetrate. So we were always very excited about our tank. And what I was going to tell you is that when we get there to this literally basin of tanks, just dumped in the middle of the desert, there's these Vickers defense guys there. And we're like, what are they doing here? And there were these big panels, these big metal panels.

29:52and they were literally bolting extra up what they call up armoring onto the side of the tank and we're like if it's that good why do we need the extra up armoring so i always remember that stands out in my mind as making me even more nervous about the gulf but sorry go ahead i think no no it's great hearing your stories did you advance into iraq or kuwait or were you behind the lines so what happened was we were into we're in the desert basically waiting to be called forward i did not go into kuwait some of my regiment did some of my colleagues who who were at the royal the royal armor corps center who trained and graduated sanders did actually machine gun iraqi soldiers for real i was in the desert and as you probably remember it was only literally thank god only lasted three or four days this war so luckily i did not have to go into battle at that stage and probably best because i wasn't i don't think i was the best tank commander in the world either if i'm honest if i'm honest we never know now will we while i was researching your story i found something about you also being a european community task force humanitarian liaison in moscow where does that fit in the timeline yeah is that after yes so that was 90 i think that was 93 so basically it was the european community as opposed to european union in the old days it was european community so they had this food aid program and we were sent to moscow and leningrad in civilian clothes with an armband and our job actually that was i must just tell you how that happened so i was supposed to be i was in germany it was after the war i was not having the best time like stuck in germany it wasn't really my thing so then i don't know god russia whatever it was this bowl from the blue came and suddenly there was a signal saying they needed russian speakers for this unit this european community task force and i'm like oh that sounds interesting and my adjutant called me in said yeah

32:10Richard Lyntton:Dickie, they want you to go up to headquarters interview for this. Because I was a Russian speaker, I was a young officer. And he said, but the trouble is the commanding officer doesn't want you to go. He wants you to be unit employment officer. He said, I'll see what I can do. So somehow a senior colonel vetoed my colonel and said, no, we need him. We want to interview him. Went up there to this, I think it was Paderborn, interviewed with an intelligence corps officer. and the next day i was on a plane back to rf north just outside london in civilian clothes there was one army officer one naval officer one royal marines one air force just four officers for the entire british services who were going to be part of the european community task force and somehow i'd landed this spot and i just remember going into whitehall if you ever read my books by the way a lot of these scenes will you'll remember this you'll remember them as you read the books but anyway i remember going into white hall the old clocks all around the world on the floor for this briefing given a ton of cash deutsch marks again almost in a plastic bag because there were so many that were giving us expenses and then we went out to russia for i think it was one or one month maybe two months So yeah, it was a really fascinating job.

33:36And we stayed in the hotel, a hotel, and then we would have a private car and we were in civilian clothes. And we would just go and investigate and check all the shops. It was the food aid arriving, the bags of rice, the bags of flour. We'd go to warehouses. It was really quite fascinating. So that was the 93, 94. Did you look up your friends from your previous visit when you were there? Yes, I did meet up with some old friends, which was great. I took them some gifts because they were still shorter things. We were in Leningrad, we were in Moscow. I didn't have that much time for socializing, but it was a really fascinating time.

34:12And as I left, I heard that James Bond, Golden Eye, was going to be filmed in Leningrad. And this must have been just after I left the army. I heard about this movie. I thought, oh my God, I've got to see if that's still happening. so i contacted eon productions the seven people and i said to my russian speaker x army could i

34:38Richard Lyntton:come because i wanted to go into the film industry eventually could i maybe get a job on this movie so i ended up going back to leningrad for the tank chase sequence in golden eye which if you remember a lot of it is filmed in the studio in england but there's some there's a lot of wide shops where the tank is cruising down the street and they were shot in St. Petersburg. And I was a third assistant director on that movie. And I use some of these experiences in Leningrad Deception. But the best story from that was that we were filming, filming, filming the tank chase sequence. There was a stunt double for Pierce Brosnan.

35:18Richard Lyntton:And there was one scene set on the embankment of the canal in Leningrad. And it's a chase that they're chasing the tank or the tank is chasing the jeeps. I forget which. But anyway, the tank is cruising down the embankment. Some of you, if you've seen Golden Eye, you'll remember this. And then the jeeps, the Soviet soldiers are chasing the tank. And there's a scene where the jeeps come out of this tunnel. They crash into the sort of balustrade of the canal and they fly into the water. So the day before we shot this, the entire production was shut down by the mayor of i think her name was subchakova subject subject the wife's the wife of the mayor of saint petersburg's leningrad shut the entire entire production down and they were asking astronomical sums of money for us to be allowed to film and they said we were destroying the tank was destroying all the sewage around the city which was of course rubbish because this tank was on wheels basically it wasn't a it wasn't an actual tank with tracks so they so they shut us down and we were waiting around and then i guess they came to some kind of agreement because the wife of the mayor heard that we were going to crash through this balustrade into the canal and she didn't want any more of the city destroyed that was the reasoning anyway they eventually allowed us and we had this great scene they replaced the metal balustrade with of course balsa wood painted like metal there's this incredible scene where the jeeps come through that they crash through there's an explosion in the jeep as the jeep is crashing through the railing the stuntmen fly into the water it was just amazing scene to film and watch and i was just in heaven basically as a third ad because i were blocking off streets and then i do use that scene in a mini chase sequence in leningrad deception if you because i think i found a still that you'd taken of it on either your facebook or instagram that's right the jeep exploding exactly yeah that's where it's from yeah that wasn't my shot that was just taken from the internet but that was the scene that i'm talking about yeah excellent Excellent.