Ukrainian brewery turns from beer to Molotov cocktail

A volunteer demonstrates the preparation of the Molotov cocktail at the Pravda – (Truth) brewery in Lviv

Lviv:

In an industrial part of western Ukraine’s main city of Lviv, employees of the Pravda brewery have responded to the Russian invasion by switching from beer production to Molotov cocktails.

Lviv – a bastion of Ukrainian identity – is located near the Polish border and there are fears that Russian tanks will roll into the historic city at some point.

A smiling employee said, “You have to wait for the clothes to soak thoroughly. When it’s done, it means the Molotov cocktail is ready.”

Putting a cap on his head, he pushed the cloth deeply into a beer bottle filled with a mixture of oil and petrol.

The two other barmen next to him, all in good humour, do the same.

They already have a few dozen Molotov cocktails ready for use, they are placed neatly on the table to protect them from light snowfall.

While these Molotov cocktails may look ridiculous in front of the tank and rocket, the switch couldn’t be more serious for brewery owner Yuri Zastavny.

“We do it because someone has to. We have the skills, we went through a street revolution in 2014,” Zastavny said, referring to Kiev’s pro-Western uprising that toppled the Kremlin-backed regime .

“We then had to make and use Molotov cocktails,” he said.

He said the idea came from one of his employees, many of whom participated in the 2014 revolution.

This is not the first time that Pravda has become a one-of-a-kind institution in Lviv.

One of his favorite beers is called “Putin Khuylo” – an insult directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The brewery on Saturday began producing cocktails for the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces – made from reservists that responded to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to take up arms.

At 720,000 checkpoints built on the outskirts of the city, the police and the soldiers controlling each vehicle are already equipped with them.

Pravda owner Zastavani vowed to “do everything we can to help win this war”.

(This story has not been edited by UttarPradeshLive.Com staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)