WEBVTT

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[ Robin ] I'm from good old Germany and I'm here,
in Rojava 
[ Syrian Kurdistan ], fighting ISIS

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Can you hear that?

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Oh, f*ck!

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Germans didn’t have any
problems coming back from Syria

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But some things changed

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And they were saying to me,
“yeah, you’re on the terrorist list now”

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What is actually a big problem are
the drones with the grenades under it

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[ GEO ] RAQQA, SYRIA
2017

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And if you hear «bzzzz»,
you look up and you just run

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[ Subtitle ] 'ISLAMIC STATE' VIDEO

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[ Soldier ] What? What!

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[ Title ] SNIPER IN THE SAND

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[ Robin ] In here it’s fine, in here it’s fine

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Should be gone

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I'm here, in Rojava, fighting ISIS

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I have 10 years of military experience

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[ Subtitles ] ROBIN 31 YEARS OLD YPG
VOLUNTEER FROM GERMANY

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[ Robin ] I was trained as a professional sniper

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I've been here for 3 months now

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[ Subtitle ] ROBIN IS WITH THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE OF THE KURDISH PEOPLE'S PROTECTION UNITS (YPG), WHICH IS FIGHTING 'ISLAMIC STATE' IN THE TERRORIST GROUP'S CAPITAL, RAQQA

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[ Robin ] Every time a terrorist attack happens,

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all these people are out there,
screaming, "ISIS is so bad,

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someone needs to do
something against them!”

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And for me, it was like, “yeah, why
don’t we do something against them?”

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The whole command structure
comes together in Raqqa

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So if we liberate Raqqa, it’ s the
main thing for stopping ISIS in general

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[ Graphics ] IF WE LIBERATE RAQQA, IT’S THE MAIN
THING FOR STOPPING ISIS IN GENERAL

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[ Robin ] And at one point I found this
book in Germany at a train station,

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as if fate just placed it there for me

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And it said something like,
"this guy joined the YPG"

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And I was like, “YPG”,
OK, I have to Google that

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They’re Kurds, they believe in
women rights, in human rights

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and they have a huge sacrifice,

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they're losing so many
people and making this, this…

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sacrifice for the whole world

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They have a Facebook page
called «YPG International»

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and I tried to apply, and it worked out

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I didn’t tell my family,
I didn't told my friends

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The only one I told was my girlfriend

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and she was like, “yeah,
OK, if you go there, it's over”

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And I said, “yeah, OK. I have to do this.”

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Why?

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I think sometimes in life you have
to figure out what your purpose is

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For me, there always
was this big hole inside

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And whatever I did, it was always there

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And since I'm here, it's gone

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[ Agit ] My grenade is also better than your grenade
[ Dixwar ] Oh, your NATO grenade?

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[ Subtitles ] YPG VOLUNTEERS FROM
THE UK, US, AND SWEDEN

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[ Agit ] No, this is the Russian.
This is the new Russian

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[ Shea ] You know what's a really good
idea? Stop playing with the grenade

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[ Robin ] Wait, wait!

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[ AGIT ] Hold on, it's endorsed...

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[ Robin ] No, no, do it again!

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[ AGIT ] This grenade...

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This…

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good grenade

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Bomba? Bash

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[ Robin ] Germans didn’t have any
problems coming back from Syria

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But some things changed
in the last few months

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There even have been Germans
sent to prison for 10 years

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So, I asked some friends in the police

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and they were saying to me,
"yeah, you're on the terrorist list now"

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[ Subtitles ] ‘YOU’RE ON THE TERRORIST LIST NOW’

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[ Robin ] The whole world is watching,

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terrorist attacks everywhere

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and there are a few people
who actually come here

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and fight and the thought of punishing
people when they go back home,

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that makes me really pissed, actually

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I will stay…

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maybe for the next
10, 20 years, if I have to

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[ ANASTASIA ] How did you feel about your job?

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Being successful at your
job, let’s put it that way

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[ ROBIN ] Um, yeah

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Normally...

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I hate killing people. And I think
it's a bad thing to do, but after all,

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I've seen ISIS doing so many bad
things to people, especially to women

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that I was so happy
when I had my first shot

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Call for prayer and you
hear the boom-boom-boom

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hese are all suicide bombers

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Oh!

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[ Agit ] Is it ISIS?
[ Robin ] Yes!

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[ DIXWAR ] Oh, that was close!

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[ ROBIN ] Yeah?

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[ DIXWAR ] You might want to come over here

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[ BRUSK ] Cekdar, 01829

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[ Robin ] Oh, fuck!

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[ ypg1 ] Comrades, we’ve got wounded!

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[ ypg2 ] I have shards in my arm and leg 
[ ypg3 ] The armoured
car was blown to pieces, so we walked

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[ Agit ] Hold his head, hold his head

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[ Robin ] I cried a few days ago

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when I told my comrades
that when I'm losing the legs,

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just (give me) morphine,

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and let me die

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The day before that I saw
someone on our team, actually,

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both of his feet from the knees down

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just got blown off

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And I was like, OK,

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I cannot live with this. I
cannot live in a wheelchair

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Some day in the future I want to have kids

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Boy, girl, I don't care

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And if I cannot go out with them,

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like showing them nature and stuff,

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no, there's no reason for me to live

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[ GEO ] RAQQA, SYRIA 
2017

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[ Robin ] Hi! I’m good, how are you?

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[ Subtitles ] ANASTASIA TROFIMOVA
DIRECTOR, THE ROAD TO RAQQA

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[ ANASTASIA ] I’m good! How've you
been, where've you been?

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Basically, we saw each other last time...

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[ Robin ] It was 2017

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[ ANASTASIA ] And then what happened with you?

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[ Robin ] So, we formed a 4-man sniper
team, the 223 Sniper Team

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So, we could choose our own missions,

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[ GEO ] BRAZIL, 2020

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[ Robin ] the commanders were trusting us

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I was with Jac Holmes,
with Ardesh and with Jon

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We became quite famous
in the battle of Raqqa

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[ Subtitles ] Robin's Raqqa footage

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[ Robin ] And then yeah, a couple of weeks later

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the war was over because
ISIS released a couple of civilians

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and in exchange they get
free travel to Deir ez-Zor,

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the last stronghold of ISIS

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Which was quite surprising

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 And it was such a weird feeling,

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walking the streets that
you were fighting before

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This is Raqqa. This is how it looks like

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The stadium had like
underneath a tunnel system

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We’re walking down the Daesh
tunnel. It’s going way down

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[ Subtitles ] ROBIN'S RAQQA FOOTAGE

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[ Robin ] This is amazing

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You see shooting targets, you
see blood, you see holding cells

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So,

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we were waiting for
transportation back to the academy

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to decide what we want to
do. But unfortunately, Jac

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decided to, because, you know,
Jac loved to take these suicide vests

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ust in case we need them
and we needed them on

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2 occasions and they
saved our lives actually

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[ ANASTASIA ] How?

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[ Robin ] There was one event. It
was very quiet in the afternoon

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And all of a sudden, our translator

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says, "there's a car coming,

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is there a car supposed to come?"
All of a sudden, this car explodes,

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and ISIS starts a huge counter attack

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We were on the 4th floor, and we were
surrounded by maybe 60 ISIS fighters

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[ Subtitles ] WE WERE SURROUNDED BY MAYBE 60 ISIS FIGHTERS

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[ Robin ] So, I was on my last magazine…
like this… pointing at the stairs,

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and yeah, we’re probably gonna die now

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And then all of a sudden,
our translator came in and said,

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"hey, heval, what about the suicide vests?"

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Jac and I looked at each
other and we were like,

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 "oh yeah, that's an amazing idea!”

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Jac pulls the pin,

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throws it down, comes
back, just normally walking

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and behind him, just
huge explosion goes off

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that almost blows my ears out

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And all of a sudden, it was
quiet. There was nobody left

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Everything was red, a lot of shit
you don't wanna see in your life

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[ GEO ] 'VICTORY DAY', RAQQA

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[ ypg ] Raqqa – finished!

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Yes, exactly, just what I was about to say
– Raqqa is done. What about you, Mr. Dixwar?

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[ DIXWAR ] Allahu Akbar!

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[ Robin ] No, no, no, no, no, there’s
no Daesh anymore in Raqqa!

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So, all of a sudden, the war was over

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and Jac said, “hey, we have one suicide
vest left, I'm gonna go dispose of it”

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He just, he just placed it somewhere
on...maybe on something sharp,

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we have no idea, we have
no clue, and it just exploded

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And yeah

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And Jac was dead immediately. That
was the end of the 223 Sniper Team

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We were all devastated,
we were all really sad

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And we said, “OK, let’s just go home.
It doesn’t make sense without Jac.”

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But, as you know, I have no home

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because Germany wants to prosecute
me and they did, in my absence, actually

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So if I ever return to Europe or
Germany, I will go to prison for 3 years

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[ Subtitles ] if I ever return to Europe or Germany, I will go to prison for 3 years

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[ Robin ] So, I don’t know where I wanna go,
let me think about it for a couple of days,

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but I had a friend in Brazil

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they don't have extradition
treaty with Germany,

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especially not for something
that Brazil don't consider a crime

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I travelled to Brazil. It was pretty
hard at the beginning, to be fair,

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because of the finances, I couldn't
work here, I was on a tourist visa

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And yeah, now I'm back
here, I'm happily married

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And now my wife is coming

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[ Robin ] This is Eline, this is my wife
[ Eline ] Hi!

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[ ANASTASIA ] Nice to meet you
[ Eline ] Nice to meet you too

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[ ANASTASIA ] Tell me now how you guys met?

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[ Robin ] We met on Tinder

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[ Eline ] I thought it was a lie

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[ Robin ] Yes!

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[ Eline ] He started to talk to me
about the whole story...

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[ Robin ] Yeah, the war in Syria. And
she didn't believe me at first

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[ Eline ] And I said, “why he's
lying to me on the first date!”

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[ Subtitles ] ‘Why is he lying to me on the first date?’

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[ Robin ] And then I showed her "Road to Raqqa"

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[ Eline ] For me it was really interesting
because it's so far from my universe here,

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in Brazil, we don't
have this kind of (thing)...

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I respect a lot his story and I was
trying to understand the conflict itself

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And what was his position and how I could

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handle it with my moral values
because it's important to me also

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So, it’s something that some
countries should be glad,

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should be proud to have
someone doing this service to them

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[ Robin ] So, “Road to Raqqa”
gave me the credibility here

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[ Eline ] Yeah, we had 2 months
dating and, in a relationship,

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but really nice relationship, I think

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[ Robin ] Yes
[ Eline ] It's like

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[ Eline ] I met my best friend in life.
It was fast, I didn't expect that

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[ Robin ] Actually, I didn't expect it myself

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Germany tried to extradite
me from Brazil two times

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They tried. But Brazil said,
Brazilian government said "no"

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Because fighting with YPG
is not considered to be a crime

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Oh, big news, also
there's going to be a movie,

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a Hollywood movie about
the 223 Sniper Team.

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[ Subtitles ] THERE'S GOING TO BE A HOLLYWOOD
MOVIE ABOUT THE 223 SNIPER TEAM

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And at the end, it will say this message,
“Robin still cannot return to Germany”

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[ Eline ] We cannot go to Germany;
we cannot meet everyone

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and have our family together

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[ ANASTASIA ] Are you guys going to try to appeal it?

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[ Robin ] I will. We are about to get
some government contracts

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I started to work with the
Brazilian special forces now,

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teaching some of the
stuff that I learned in Syria

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and with that money
we’re going to try again

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to appeal with a really good lawyer