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Speaker 1: All eight episodes of The Die For are available now

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Speaker 1: to bitch absolutely free, but for ad free listening and

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Speaker 1: exclusive bonuses, subscribe to tenorfoot plus at tendorfootplus dot com

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Speaker 1: or on Apple Podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Warning, the following contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual

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Speaker 2: assault that may be too intense or triggering to some listeners.

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Speaker 2: Discretion is advised.

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Speaker 3: He was the son of a high ranking Soviet Army

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Speaker 3: officer and he had an outstanding career with Novesty, which

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Speaker 3: was also up front for the KGB.

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Speaker 4: Ideological subversion is the slow process which we call either

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Speaker 4: ideological subversion or active measures actively miriapriatia in the language

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Speaker 4: of the KGB.

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Speaker 5: Or psychological warfare.

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Speaker 4: What it basically means is to change the perception of reality.

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Speaker 4: Exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person

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Speaker 4: who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The

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Speaker 4: facts tell nothing to him.

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Speaker 1: Adamir Putin's former chief economic advisor, who had extensive access to.

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Speaker 6: The Prussian president over the years, goes one on one

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Speaker 6: with our Joe Khalil.

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Speaker 1: How much of the population actually is exposed to what's

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Speaker 1: really happening in your career?

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Speaker 3: I would say up to seventy percent of the Russian

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Speaker 3: population have been brainwashed, brainwashed completely.

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Speaker 7: A few seventy percent, you think it's that high, it

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Speaker 7: would be I would say conservativefest to.

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Speaker 8: Make Jana Agaalakova was one of the stars of Russia's

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Speaker 8: Channel one.

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Speaker 9: Even now, when you're watching news in raw shirt, it's

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Speaker 9: like two different planets. In one planet there is ruins

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Speaker 9: and total disaster, death and tragedy. In another world it's

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Speaker 9: Russian militaries that was cheered by local population with flowers,

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Speaker 9: and this is only victories in these two worlds don't

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Speaker 9: mix up. And it's blown my mind how they do it,

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Speaker 9: how they brainwashed their population.

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Speaker 1: To kill.

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Speaker 8: Am really sorry, and how the.

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Speaker 1: Guts knows.

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Speaker 5: Busus Episode three, chapter six, the selection.

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Speaker 8: There are not so many schools in Russia. It's like

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Speaker 8: maybe only three. One were put and studied and sunk

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Speaker 8: by the Petersburg another one in Moscow they would call

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Speaker 8: it like former KIGB school FSB was basically like they

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Speaker 8: renamed it. But my school, my academy, would be called

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Speaker 8: the Academy of Military Investigation.

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Speaker 5: How do you said in Russia, Oh, it's.

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Speaker 8: Some academia or Probvilinian ministers of Nutrin deal recipe.

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Speaker 5: What happens once you walk in.

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Speaker 8: When I saw that huge gray color building, looking like

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Speaker 8: all the Soviet Union buildings, where you cannot say a word,

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Speaker 8: and you understand there is no chance you could leave

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Speaker 8: a free life and have a free word, I just

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Speaker 8: wanted to run away, but I couldn't say no, and

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Speaker 8: I couldn't run away, and I had to go there.

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Speaker 8: And I just kept myself together, and I stayed silent

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Speaker 8: and just walked into that walls.

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Speaker 5: Lea Rosa Is described ivan her first day of formal

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Speaker 5: military training after her tragic internship. She was just eighteen

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Speaker 5: at the time.

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Speaker 8: When I saw these thick, gray, cold walls with portraits

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Speaker 8: of that former officers or KGB agents, and I saw

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Speaker 8: that cold faces of all my teachers and my classmates.

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Speaker 8: There were no fun or there were no desire or

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Speaker 8: like ambitions or dreams. There were really cold blooded machines

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Speaker 8: or like zombie people.

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Speaker 5: That first day at the academy would change the course

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Speaker 5: of Eleah's life. But before we get to that, here's

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Speaker 5: a little bit about the training of new recruits at

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Speaker 5: a Russian military academy.

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Speaker 8: First, of my whole lifestyle has been changed. I would

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Speaker 8: wake up at four am because at six am you

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Speaker 8: had to have a morning report that would give you

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Speaker 8: a gender schedule, and you have to do marshing. From

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Speaker 8: six am in the morning, we would listen this big

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Speaker 8: words lecture about our country, that we have to protect

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Speaker 8: the country. We have to be real patriot. V fought Nazi.

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Speaker 8: We are the strongest country in the world. We have

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Speaker 8: the strongest nationality. We are the.

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Speaker 2: Purest.

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Speaker 8: Nothing can be more powerful than us. You have to

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Speaker 8: do exercises, you have to do jogging, you have to

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Speaker 8: do shooting. They also had to do like cleaning and

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Speaker 8: cooking four hundreds of people, and six pm it's again

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Speaker 8: the report time, and again you have to do marching.

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Speaker 8: And then sometimes homework would be so much so it

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Speaker 8: would take till like two am or like one am.

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Speaker 8: It was really off and it was always cold. I

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Speaker 8: was so tired and exhausted because I slept only four hours.

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Speaker 5: I ask Leah if she thinks that all the marching,

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Speaker 5: the work, the lack of sleep, or not just about

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Speaker 5: training but also about brainwashing.

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Speaker 8: Well, yes, of course the whole system is like that, right.

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Speaker 8: It's one of the important technique of manipulation. Where if

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Speaker 8: you want to train someone, you have to exhaust this

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Speaker 8: person with the physical activities so the brain becomes weak.

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Speaker 8: And when the brain becomes weak, there you can plant

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Speaker 8: seats built on patriotic romantic feeling like together we can

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Speaker 8: fight the whole world.

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Speaker 5: In case patriotism wasn't enough to inspire someone to die

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Speaker 5: for their country, they were also financial incentives.

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Speaker 8: So for example, if they would say, okay, so there

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Speaker 8: is a war in Chichen, second campaign, So who wants

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Speaker 8: to go there? Because if you go to the war,

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Speaker 8: first of all, you have salary much higher than usual,

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Speaker 8: you have better insurance, better benefits. If you will die,

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Speaker 8: then your family will get so and so much money,

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Speaker 8: which was higher than usual salary. People would risk their

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Speaker 8: life because it was beneficial for their families and they

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Speaker 8: would go to the war.

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Speaker 6: It's still the same.

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Speaker 5: As for leaving the military. Once you were there, you

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Speaker 5: had to fulfill your duties.

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Speaker 8: Once you're there, you cannot go back. You cannot just

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Speaker 8: become civilian and said, Okay, I don't want to work

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Speaker 8: in military anymore. I want just to be a human

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Speaker 8: resource recruiter. You cannot do that. You know that once

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Speaker 8: you're there, you have to be there till the rest

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Speaker 8: of your life.

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Speaker 5: In this toxic environment, the Leah's classmates competed with each

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Speaker 5: other for favor, sometimes cruelly and savagely.

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Speaker 8: I try to make friends, but after a few months

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Speaker 8: I understood that wherever I would say to my girlfriends,

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Speaker 8: they would talk to our teachers. So you couldn't even

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Speaker 8: tell anyone's secrets or the way you think or.

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Speaker 6: The way you feel. I had.

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Speaker 8: Even my male classmates, they would call me bad names.

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Speaker 8: Some of them try to put me down. You understand

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Speaker 8: that you're there by yourself. You cannot have friends, You

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Speaker 8: cannot rely on anyone. You know that every single one

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Speaker 8: is your enemy. We say, if you live with wolves,

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Speaker 8: you have to become one of wolves.

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Speaker 5: So with this context, we now returned to Elia's first

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Speaker 5: day at the academy. She was lined up for inspection

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Speaker 5: with the rest of the new students, and that's when

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Speaker 5: it all began.

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Speaker 8: All of us we had to be outside, and I

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Speaker 8: remember there was one of the most powerful teacher at

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Speaker 8: that time, with the highest rank, and he particularly looked

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Speaker 8: at every single girl there. And I was the only

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Speaker 8: one who was eighteen years old. At the girls the

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Speaker 8: la starting from twenty to twenty three, twenty five thirty.

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Speaker 5: Even this high ranking commander, a Russian colonel, began whispering

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Speaker 5: to a female officer and motioning to Aliyah.

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Speaker 8: But I understood the talk about me because they looked

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Speaker 8: at me and they discussed something I didn't know.

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Speaker 6: Is it like bad or good? I didn't know anything.

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Speaker 8: And then they also looked at some other girls.

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Speaker 5: Soon after, Aliyah was pulled aside and told that she'd

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Speaker 5: been selected to participate in a special program. This, of course,

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Speaker 5: was not an optional program.

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Speaker 8: I will be studying additional subjects together with other four

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Speaker 8: girls every day after our main program.

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Speaker 5: This additional coursework, as I'm sure you figured out, would

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Speaker 5: train Aliyah in the art of seduction, the exchange of

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Speaker 5: sexuality for secrets or lives. But what does it take

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Speaker 5: for a woman raised conservatively with no dating experience to

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Speaker 5: be willing to let this date use your body like this?

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Speaker 5: It would take a lot more fear and a lot

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Speaker 5: more brainwashing. Chapter seven, The Sacrifice.

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Speaker 3: There are lots of things that are involved in persuasion

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Speaker 3: every day. But when things become very stressful, and when

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Speaker 3: the stimuli are controlled and there are very few other stimuli,

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Speaker 3: other than what the perpetrator is trying to impose on you,

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Speaker 3: and when you are sleep deprived, these are settings that

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Speaker 3: make people very malleable, and you can see this in

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Speaker 3: many of the brainwashing events in twentieth century.

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Speaker 5: This is doctor Joel Dimsdale, a professor emeritus of psychology

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Speaker 5: at the University of California, San Diego and the author

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Speaker 5: of the book Dark Persuasion, A History of Brainwashing from

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Speaker 5: Pavlov to Social Media. I tell doctor Dimsdale, what you

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Speaker 5: just heard about Aliah's training regimen at the military academy

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Speaker 5: meant to do this and sort of getting the party

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Speaker 5: line fed to her every waking moment. Is that a

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Speaker 5: form of what you're talking about.

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Speaker 3: So when she has been isolated from her family and

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Speaker 3: friends and only exposed to people who are constantly HARKing

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Speaker 3: on this one view of what the world is like

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Speaker 3: and what her task is, this begins to be a

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Speaker 3: setup for coercive persuasion, even if it's against her best interest.

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Speaker 3: Everything goes back to Pavlov at the.

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Speaker 5: Doctor Dimsdale says, the modern history of brainwashing back to Russia,

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Speaker 5: specifically the fact that the work of doctor Ivan Pavlov

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Speaker 5: was taking place at the same time as the Russian Revolution.

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Speaker 3: The odd thing in history is that, by virtue of

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Speaker 3: his prominence, Lenin visited Pavlov and spent hours talking with Pavlov,

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Speaker 3: asking him could Pavlov help Lenin remake the people of

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Speaker 3: the Soviet Union so that they would be better communists.

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Speaker 3: So the Soviets were always interested in behavior change, in

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Speaker 3: trying to be as scientific as possible about it, and

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Speaker 3: Pavlov was a perfect vehicle for exploring that.

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Speaker 5: I asked doctor Dimsdale about the science of this behavioral change.

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Speaker 5: What are the conditions that make this possible, not just

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Speaker 5: for Aleah, but for anyone who's being reprogrammed to lay

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Speaker 5: down their lives and their ethics for their country.

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Speaker 3: If you had a checklist of how do you persuade

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Speaker 3: people so that you can guarantee behaviors that there would

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Speaker 3: be resistance to otherwise, that checklist would include number one.

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Speaker 3: Isolate them away from contrary influences. Number two. Put them

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Speaker 3: under a lot of stress. Number three. Deprive them of

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Speaker 3: sleep so they're not thinking clearly. Number four, involve them

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Speaker 3: in a group that hammers home certain messages repeatedly.

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Speaker 5: We now know the steps that lead to brainwashing or

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Speaker 5: course of persuasion, as doctor Ginsdale prefers to put it,

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Speaker 5: but brainwashing for what Let's move forward to Russia in

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Speaker 5: the twenty first century.

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Speaker 7: War was central to the Putin regime.

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Speaker 5: This is Ian Garner, a Russian historian and author of

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Speaker 5: the book z Generation Into the Heart of Russia's Fascist youth.

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Speaker 7: Right. We've seen that from the very first action Putin

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Speaker 7: takes when he's in power, and where we start to

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Speaker 7: see a real change is in what children are taught

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Speaker 7: in the school. Children learn war poems, children start to

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Speaker 7: dress up in military uniforms, so they start to be

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Speaker 7: taught that war is a good thing. War is something

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Speaker 7: we need to grow our society and become better people.

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Speaker 7: Joining the army, becoming a part of this military machine

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Speaker 7: in Russia is just a hugely respectable path.

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Speaker 5: The propaganda that helps make this possible, Garner says, is

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Speaker 5: history lessons, revised history lessons, just like the ones that

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Speaker 5: Leah received during her training.

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Speaker 7: This is not going to be lessons about real history.

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Speaker 7: This is going to be the Russian version of history

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Speaker 7: in which Russia is surrounded by enemies who are looking

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Speaker 7: to destroy it, and Russia has saved the world, and

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Speaker 7: you're going to be a hero if you sacrifice yourself

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Speaker 7: just like those folks Stalingrads eighty years ago.

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Speaker 5: Stalingrad, as he may recall, is the deadly World War

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Speaker 5: two battle that Leah's grandfather served in, and the monument

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Speaker 5: there with his name on it is practically a shrine

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Speaker 5: for Leah's family.

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Speaker 7: There is this phrase by Siedel's up and Russian thank

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Speaker 7: you granddad for bringing us victory. And what they're talking

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Speaker 7: about is World War two. And all of this comes

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Speaker 7: down the myth of the Second World War as the

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Speaker 7: moment when a generation of grandfathers sacrificed themselves to save

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Speaker 7: the world and to save Russia, to save humanity from

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Speaker 7: the Nazi threat. Thus we respect them. It's a kind

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Speaker 7: of ancestor worship. The sacrifice is coded that the sacrifice,

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Speaker 7: the death, has to happen. It's a bit like the

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Speaker 7: Christian myth right it's Jesus. Jesus has to die to

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Speaker 7: save humanity. Russian soldiers have to die, the country has

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Speaker 7: to suffer so that it can be birth than you.

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Speaker 10: Russia's President Vladimir Putin is in Volga Grat formerly known

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Speaker 10: as Stalingrad, to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Soviet

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Speaker 10: victory over German forces at the Battle of Stalingrad. He

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Speaker 10: later spoke at an event where he criticized Germany for

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Speaker 10: helping to arm Ukraine. He said, Russia is once again

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Speaker 10: threatened by Germany. This is his latest attempt to compare

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Speaker 10: Russia's war against Ukraine to the Soviet victory over Nazi

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Speaker 10: Germany in World War Two.

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Speaker 5: Russian news, Russian education, and especially Russian social media, Gardner explains,

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Speaker 5: have turned into an actual indoctrination program, teaching not just

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Speaker 5: a warlike way of thinking, but actual military skills to

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Speaker 5: the youth.

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Speaker 7: Because they're so desperately rushed to get them to the front.

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Speaker 7: It is giving that training to children today and they

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Speaker 7: will be ready tomorrow.

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Speaker 5: To fund And at what age does that training start?

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Speaker 7: Six years old?

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Speaker 5: Wow, it's interesting again because her trains are from her

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Speaker 5: dad at I think age six or seven.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, So her experience then was exceptional and unusual. But

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Speaker 7: now that experience is being not just institutionalized and formalized

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Speaker 7: by this state, it's also being held up as the

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Speaker 7: ideal of what a young child can be.

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Speaker 5: Chapter eight, Death of a Patriot. We return now to

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Speaker 5: Eliah's first day at the military academy. Selected out of

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Speaker 5: the lineup along with four other women, she was told

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Speaker 5: she'd been chosen to participate in a special, top secret

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Speaker 5: program to serve her country. A few hours later, the

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Speaker 5: top commander at the academy, the colonel who'd chosen her

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Speaker 5: from the lineup, called her into his office.

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Speaker 8: After a few hours, I was called to my teacher office.

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Speaker 6: So I came there and he closed the door.

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Speaker 8: And I did respect him a lot, because he was

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Speaker 8: much older than me that time. He was forty eight

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Speaker 8: and I was eighteen, and I was very innocent, as

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Speaker 8: I said, like I never kissed any man.

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Speaker 5: As a Leah tells the story, you may hear some

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Speaker 5: laughter here and there, but note that there's nothing funny

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Speaker 5: about this. There are topics that bring up so much

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Speaker 5: trauma and are so uncomfortable to discuss that sometimes we

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Speaker 5: laugh in order to avoid the deep pain that these

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Speaker 5: events bring up. In an often cited research paper, if

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Speaker 5: I didn't laugh, I'd cry, doctor Kathleen Hand further explains

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Speaker 5: that quote laughter creates a sense of relief, usually from

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Speaker 5: stress both mentally and physically. That's giving way to a

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Speaker 5: sense of hope listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 8: And I looked at him and I asked him like hello,

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Speaker 8: like you know, like, yes, sir, you were calling for me,

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Speaker 8: so I'm here. And he was wearing his uniform, bit

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Speaker 8: medals and everything, looking so sophisticated and so powerful like

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Speaker 8: my dad when he was wearing uniform who was respected that.

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Speaker 8: He asked me, like, what do you really expect from

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Speaker 8: this education? And I said, well, you know my story.

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Speaker 8: You know whose daughter am I and I am here

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Speaker 8: to follow my dad's path and I'm ready to study

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Speaker 8: and learn anything. And he asked me, are you ready

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Speaker 8: to do everything for your country? I said yes, sir,

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Speaker 8: are you real patriot? And I said yes, sir. I

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Speaker 8: was raised by my dad to protect my country, my people,

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Speaker 8: and I'm ready to give, like to do everything for

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Speaker 8: my country. And he asked me like, are you ready

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Speaker 8: to do everything? Are you ready to give your life

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Speaker 8: for your country? And I said yes, sir, certainly, of course.

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Speaker 8: I was trained by my dad and I love my

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Speaker 8: country and I love my people. And then he came

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Speaker 8: closer to me and he said, then suck my cock.

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Speaker 8: I was like sorry, what I just couldn't even understand

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Speaker 8: what did he ask me? And I was sitting at

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Speaker 8: the chair and he came closer to me, and I

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Speaker 8: was my heart was right in front of his.

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Speaker 6: That part, so I was.

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Speaker 8: I didn't know what to do, and he came so

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Speaker 8: close that I couldn't really just stand up and leave.

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Speaker 8: I just had like one thing in my head that

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Speaker 8: wait a minute, he knows that who is my dad,

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Speaker 8: and yet he just asked me to suck his cock, Like,

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Speaker 8: how is that possible? I thought that the name of

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Speaker 8: my dad will protect me from this kind of stuff,

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Speaker 8: and he kind of like he almost like he read

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Speaker 8: my mind, and he said, yes, I know who is

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Speaker 8: your father, and you know that I have much higher

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Speaker 8: ring than your dad. So everything depends from my word.

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Speaker 8: And if you want to study here and graduate with

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Speaker 8: no problem and have a good job, then you have

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Speaker 8: to do what I say. And if you want, I'll

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Speaker 8: make sure your life will become hell here and you

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Speaker 8: cannot just drop off because of your dad. And I'll

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Speaker 8: make sure you will have a lot of the mirrits

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Speaker 8: with a lot of duty and hard work outside cleaning

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Speaker 8: toilets and cleaning garden and just be a bully here.

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Speaker 8: What do you prefer.

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Speaker 6: And he opened his.

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Speaker 8: Zip and he took his spinnis off just in front

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Speaker 8: of my mouth, and he said, like, suck it.

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Speaker 6: What are you waiting for.

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Speaker 8: At the moment, I were thinking, all right, so I

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Speaker 8: cannot do anything bad to him right now. I cannot

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Speaker 8: bite it right even though I'm on greenside from this

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Speaker 8: man for doing this to me right now, to disrespect

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Speaker 8: my father, who disrespect my principles, my beliefs, in my country,

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Speaker 8: in my people, who came here to basically sacrifice my life,

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Speaker 8: not for sucking his cock, but for protecting people and

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Speaker 8: doing really good for this country. But I told myself,

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Speaker 8: you know what, I'll make sure that one day he

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Speaker 8: will pay for it. And when he did come, I

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Speaker 8: had that I made this decision. I stand up from

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Speaker 8: the chair and he asked me, I want you to

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Speaker 8: swallow it, and I pretended that I did. Is like,

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Speaker 8: go to your lesson. So I took my back and

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Speaker 8: I left. But then when I left, I went to

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Speaker 8: the toilet and I washed my mouth and I looked

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Speaker 8: at the mirror and I started to cry because it

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Speaker 8: was just so I was disgusted, but I was.

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Speaker 6: You know, like that.

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Speaker 8: Feeling when you know you like your dreams and everything

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Speaker 8: is just like everything's just gone in one second. And

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Speaker 8: then I said to myself, okay, so so now what

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Speaker 8: I obviously couldn't tell anyone about this act because I mean,

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Speaker 8: come on, who am I supposed to tell it to,

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Speaker 8: like to move to my dad?

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Speaker 6: Oh you know that, Like, I mean, I know my dad.

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Speaker 8: He would go crazy and then it would be all

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Speaker 8: I don't know, like he might he would might kill

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Speaker 8: him and then go to jail or like it would

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Speaker 8: be such a drama. So I know my dad, and

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Speaker 8: I was like, no, this is definitely I cannot tell him.

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Speaker 6: So who do I say?

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Speaker 8: So this colonial teacher, he is the highest level. So

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Speaker 8: whom do I go? There is no one to go to,

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Speaker 8: there is no one to complain to, Like whom do

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Speaker 8: I go to?

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Speaker 4: Police?

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Speaker 6: I mean he is like this is the power. I mean,

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Speaker 6: whom do I go? Whom do I say?

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Speaker 8: And it's already was the second time when I was

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Speaker 8: actually abused in the military by the people who supports

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Speaker 8: to be like, you know, to stand for justice. How

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Speaker 8: I mean, like all my romantic feelings, all my dreams,

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Speaker 8: all my you know, like these words by my dad

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Speaker 8: telling me from early age that I should be the

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Speaker 8: one who protect people and love my my my country,

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Speaker 8: love love government, you know, love police, and love military.

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Speaker 8: My dad who was worrying this military uniform every single day,

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Speaker 8: and I would look at him and then exactly the

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Speaker 8: same military person just abused me.

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Speaker 6: How is that possible? I mean how.

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Speaker 5: In the days that Eliah learned that her special training

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Speaker 5: was about learning the art of sex fionage, she also

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Speaker 5: learned that the exploitation of the academy would continue indefinitely,

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Speaker 5: and that the male officers expected the female seduction students

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Speaker 5: to have sex with them for what they claimed was

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Speaker 5: training and desensitization purposes. So Eliah thought, if these techniques

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Speaker 5: work on enemies of the state, then perhaps they will

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Speaker 5: also work on the state as well.

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Speaker 8: And that moment I created a plan. I thought, what

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Speaker 8: if I will seduce this colonel. What if I will

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Speaker 8: seduce him the way that he would fall in love

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Speaker 8: and then he can do what I want him to do,

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Speaker 8: and he will protect me from things which I don't

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Speaker 8: want to do, like, for example, sleeping with all of

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Speaker 8: those teachers. So that if I would manipulate him the

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Speaker 8: way he would feel that I'm his girl and nobody

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Speaker 8: is allowed to touch me, then it will help me

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Speaker 8: to go through that education.

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Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 8: I thought it's better I would have sex only with

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Speaker 8: one teacher rather than.

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Speaker 6: With all of them.

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Speaker 8: And he had the strongest position among all of them,

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Speaker 8: so for me, it was easier to become his lover

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Speaker 8: rather than just being a whore for everyone.

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Speaker 5: And that's when, with nowhere else to turn, Aliah took

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Speaker 5: justice into her own hands.

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Speaker 8: And I'll be fucking so good. I'll learn so much.

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Speaker 8: I'll make sure that I'll become the best. It's funny

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Speaker 8: how these seation techniques work, because eventually he've told me

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Speaker 8: that he wants to do worse his wife in order

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Speaker 8: to marry me.

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Speaker 5: Leah's story continues in episode four, where she takes us

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Speaker 5: inside the classroom to experience Russian seductions by training. The

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Speaker 5: episode is available now. Keep listening for free on Apple Podcasts.

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Speaker 5: For full credits, check out our show notes. If you

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Speaker 5: or a loved one are a survivor of sexual assault,

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00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 5: you can visit rain dot org that's r AI n

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Speaker 5: N dot org, or call one eight hundred sixty five

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Speaker 5: six four six seven three for free confidential twenty four

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Speaker 5: to seven support