Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Word of mouth

There are many little groups of soldiers in Lviv — a troop rotation. A narrative I’ve been hearing for a while seems to have more evidence supporting it.

In recent weeks I heard both Donbas Battalion Commander Semon Semchenko, and maidan hero turned volunteer fighter Volodymyr Parasiuk talk about the reluctance of the Russian soldiers & mercenaries to fight. Semchenko in particular talked about the cognitive dissonance they face when they go from the venomous incessant propaganda of Russian news about all Ukrainians being rabid Nazis and then see the reality of a population that supports Ukraine and an army led by dedicated, professional officers. I had assumed this was propaganda, but the stories circulating around Lviv seem to confirm this.

1. “When we shoot at them, they run away,” one soldier said. They don’t stand and fight.

2. There’s a story about a poor Ukrainian block post that had one old T-64 tank and some number of dismounts. They were attacked by four modern T-72B tanks, who were, perhaps, confident the Ukrainians wouldn’t hold their ground. They were wrong. The first shot from the T-64 destroyed the lead Russian tank. The others turned and fled. One sunk in a swamp, its crew barely escaping. The other got stuck in a swamp and was abandoned then captured by the Ukrainians.

It seems the only thing the Ukrainians lack are better weapons. They are still outgunned, but that’s it.

3. All of eastern Ukraine is painted blue and yellow. Not just municipal buildings, but private fences, displays in stores, everything.

4. The roads in eastern Ukraine are crowded with private cars, mini buses, and military vehicles, all transporting supplies, soldiers and volunteers to the front.

5. A gruesome story: I heard this rumor independently from two separate sources. A Ukrainian “deversina hrupa” operating behind enemy lines murdered an entire Russian artillery unit one night . . . . with knives. 50-60 of them.

From here on in, every step the Russians take eastward will be into territory even more pro-Ukrainian than Donbass.

These rumors and stories which come from the groups of soldiers returned from the front are much more optimistic than the headlines. I assumed they were Ukrainian propaganda when I only heard them from the military leaders, but the message is persistent. I hope it’s true. It’s understandable that Russia would be better at controlling the message in the media. Demoralization has always been the central strategy of their propaganda.

That’s why journalists who attempt to investigate Russian KIA get assaulted. The result is that Russian soldiers get treated like cannon fodder. They get lied to about going to war, and their burials are closely guarded secrets.

Curt: Bring your invading conquering, corrupt, low-trust, lie-believing, pseudoscientific Russian speakers home to the poverty of your militarism.

Russia just replays hitlers strategy. Media make opinion. Any justification.

If Russia is right then Hitler was right and Mexicans invading america are right.

For my part, I am not sure I disagree with tribalism. I agree with it. However, in the choice between corruption, or against corruption, in favor of pervasive lying and against pervasive lying, in favor of prosperity or in favor of poverty, in favor of high trust or in favor of low trust, I choose to be against corruption and against pervasive lying, in favor of prosperity, in favor of high trust, and against everything that Russia stands for and does.

This is just how it is. Bring your invading conquering, corrupt, low-trust, lie-believing, pseudoscientific Russian speakers home to the poverty of your militarism.

Yuri Bezmenov Interview — (Judge Russia only by its actions, never by its words)

Starting with the Kremlin’s promise to respect Ukraine’s border in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons, the words of Russia’s leaders are almost meaningless. They should be judged only by their actions.

You probably understand how the US is largely run by banking interests, and how some S. American and Arab countries are military dictatorships. Russia is a dictatorship of the intelligence service. I realized this only recently. The KGB-turned-FSB. Deception, demoralization, intimidation, bribery, assassination, infiltration of bureaucracies / media. This is Russia.

There is no organization in Russia — political, cultural, business over which they don’t have leverage. According to wikipedia statistics, there is an FSB employee for every 500 Russians. I’ve read elsewhere that there’s one for every 300 Russians.

Most of what they do is no fancy James Bond stuff. They just control the message.

See the famous Yuri Bezmenov interview below.

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You can look back earlier in history too — the Treaty of Pereyaslav’s promise to respect sovereignty, Catherine the Great’s promise to Ukraine’s Kozaks that feudalism wouldn’t be imposed.

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Yuri was a propaganda agent with Novosti (journalism branch of KGB).

20:00 – Importance of not being scared of KGB Agents.

32:30 – disdain for the useful idiots who supported the Soviet Union.

42:00 – reluctance of journalists to believe the truth, deviate from party line.

46:00 – Staged wedding full of agents.

49:30 – More on useful idiots.

50:00 – On Maharishi’s movement.

53:00 – demoralization.

54:30 – Long lists of opinion makers . . . . how Viet Cong so quickly knew who to kill.

57:40 – Focus on conservatives and crooks. Leftists will become betrayed enemies.

1:01:00 – India was not a grass roots Muslim revolution, but a KGB orchestration.

1:07:30 – Changing Reality so that even when confronted with evidence they maintain their beliefs. Four stages:
1. Demoralization (one generation)
2. Destabilization (2-5 years)
3. Crisis (6 weeks or less)
4. Normalization (indefinite)

1:17:30 – Ideological subversion & active measures.

1:18:20 – US must stop supporting communists. Grain deals.

Russia keeping its propagandists on message. Amazing, actually.

Young/old/civilian/military/woman/man. Amazed how #Russia keeps propagandists on message. Exact same words: “Why did kyiv attack us?”

I’ve watched a lot of raw footage — a lot of it from VICE. Whenever there’s a camera, the DNR/LNR/Russians control it very tightly, and everybody says almost the exact same thing. It’s pretty damn impressive actually.

It breaks down, of course, as soon as you get to the towns liberated by Ukraine. There you get a variety of opinions, most of which seem to be pro-Ukrainian.

Colonel Evgeniy Sidorenko remembers Ilovays’k

As a conclusion of the Ilovays‘k battle I’ll say that: I have fought with real heroes and thank to everyone, who showed courage and valor. Under Ilovays‘k I haven’t seen a single coward. I watched how we fired at Russian troops and them running away. We can defend our nation from Russian aggression. But this requires professionalism – at all levels, at the command level, at the level of mobilization, at the level of equipment, intelligence, interaction, technical equipment and logistics. We must fight in the blessed memory of our heroes, for those who survived Ilovays‘k and for those who stayed there forever…

http://burkonews.info/story-colonel-evgeniy-sidorenko-broke-ilovaisk-russian-t-72-tank/