Speaker 1: Welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things
Speaker 1: falling apart and even occasionally about trying to put them
Speaker 1: back together. Uh. Today, as is too often the case,
Speaker 1: we're going to be focused more on the falling apart
Speaker 1: thing because today we are talking about the situation in Ukraine. UM.
Speaker 1: It is as I I type or not type because
Speaker 1: I'm not writing, but you know, you get how I'm
Speaker 1: used to thinking. As I say this. Russian troops have
Speaker 1: just moved in to two regions in eastern Ukraine that
Speaker 1: have been occupied by what are generally called Russian backed
Speaker 1: separatists since two thousand and fourteen. Vladimir Putin gave a
Speaker 1: speech that I will be we'll be talking about a
Speaker 1: bit with our guest um and announced his intention to
Speaker 1: recognize those breakaway sections of the country as independent republics. UH.
Speaker 1: And the area that he has chosen to recognized includes
Speaker 1: about s territory that is currently occupied and held by
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian government. So it's a big mess. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is some have said like a soft version of the
Speaker 1: invasion that people were expecting. I think it's probably more
Speaker 1: accurate to say it's a slow start, um. Compared to
Speaker 1: what is potentially possible and very likely coming in the
Speaker 1: future to talk more about this and about being an
Speaker 1: anarchist kind of trapped in between you know, NATO and
Speaker 1: Russia and everything that's flinging around right now. Is Ukrainian
Speaker 1: journalist Romeo Kokratski, Romeo, welcome to the show. Thanks a lot,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, been a big fan of yours.
Speaker 1: So it's an honor to be here. And you are
Speaker 1: in your in Kiev right now, right? Yeah? Correct? And
Speaker 1: and how is everybody keeps asking this all around? But
Speaker 1: how is the mood? Um? As you know, to the
Speaker 1: extent that there's a way of saying that, like I've
Speaker 1: i've you know, have things kind of take gonna turn
Speaker 1: since Putin actually made his first big play. I mean,
Speaker 1: as much as journalists like to say, there is no
Speaker 1: magic mutometer to check to instantly bull every resident in
Speaker 1: the city to find out walk around and talk to everybody,
Speaker 1: just like all the four million or whatever citizens of
Speaker 1: the city. Let me just let me just ask him. Um.
Speaker 1: But like there definitely has been a turning point. Um.
Speaker 1: Like one of the big refrains that I've seen, like
Speaker 1: personally and everyone has been saying, right, is that Ukrainians
Speaker 1: are so calm. Look at these pictures of them, like
Speaker 1: shopping in malls and like going to school? What else
Speaker 1: are you supposed to do? What else are we supposed
Speaker 1: to do? But I mean that this true. People have
Speaker 1: been calmed. But since yesterday evening there definitely has been
Speaker 1: a shift. Um. And even casual conversation uh in key
Speaker 1: of like I was sitting to paraphrase a famous columnists
Speaker 1: usual framing, I was sitting in a cafe and overhearing
Speaker 1: the wait staff chat amongst themselves. Um, and obviously the
Speaker 1: the the whole conversation is oh is Putin going to
Speaker 1: push into Kiev? And anecdotally we're semi anecdotally, I guess um,
Speaker 1: apartment prices in the western cities like in Leviv and
Speaker 1: nus Worod have really spiked up, like incredibly, um, so
Speaker 1: that people are I wouldn't call that. That's a depressing
Speaker 1: way to pay attention to, that a reason to pay
Speaker 1: attention to that, Like, I wouldn't call it a mass panic. Um.
Speaker 1: They're no like bank runs, No, like all the stores
Speaker 1: are stocked. No, one's like hoarding. Um. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, there is a study trickle of people going
Speaker 1: west and kind of making plans at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and UM, so this to kind of give people a
Speaker 1: little bit more context before we get into some of
Speaker 1: the more citical dimensions of this. UM. Right now, there
Speaker 1: has not been a massive escalation um of violence outside
Speaker 1: of the areas where there have been fighting for several years.
Speaker 1: You know, there has been an escalation on the front
Speaker 1: line that's existed since UM, but there has not been like,
Speaker 1: you know, troops pouring across the border in other areas
Speaker 1: and stuff. And that's obviously probably the number one worry. UM.
Speaker 1: It looks like what's about to happen is or at
Speaker 1: least it's hard to say, because Putin has recognized the
Speaker 1: borders of this breakaway part of Ukraine as significantly larger
Speaker 1: than the area they actually control, and he has moved troops,
Speaker 1: Russian active duty troops into that area. Now, Russian troops,
Speaker 1: I'm from what I've heard about three thousand have been
Speaker 1: in the breakaway areas for years now, UM, but a
Speaker 1: significant yeah, a significant number have been added now. And
Speaker 1: obviously the fear is that because he has recognize the
Speaker 1: territory of these these quote unquote in his terms, breakaway
Speaker 1: republics is being much larger than what they control, that
Speaker 1: Russian troops are going to participate with the separatists, um
Speaker 1: in attacking and taking those territories from the Ukrainian government. Um,
Speaker 1: that's one concern, obviously. The the concern attached to that
Speaker 1: is that it would be not at all inconceivable for
Speaker 1: a conflict that started that way to spread to a
Speaker 1: much wider part of Ukraine. Um. This is all coming
Speaker 1: alongside a speech Putin gave that, unfortunately, is going to
Speaker 1: be one of those things people here about in history books. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: out of its god damn mind. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those things. We will talk some more about how the
Speaker 1: Western left sometimes I don't want to be like because
Speaker 1: this is also largely the the online left, but how
Speaker 1: the online left talks about Putin sometimes. This was not
Speaker 1: a I want to return to the Soviet Union at speech.
Speaker 1: This was I want to return to Czarist Russia's borders
Speaker 1: type speech. Like the guy has the Czarist imperial crest
Speaker 1: emblazoned on the gates to his palace. So I'm really
Speaker 1: not sure what people would have expected. And unfortunately he's
Speaker 1: better at his job than any of the last Tsars
Speaker 1: were because he's he's achieved a notable amount of success
Speaker 1: towards that goal already. Um, and yeah, he he a
Speaker 1: number of things that were It's one of those, Like
Speaker 1: one of the things he said, which is a line
Speaker 1: that folks like him in Russia have been saying for
Speaker 1: a while, is that Ukraine, the existence of Ukraine as
Speaker 1: an independent polity is a mistake. And as an anarchist,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this like, well, yeah, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't like the Ukrainian state. I don't like any state
Speaker 1: in particular. But if you're if your only disagreement is
Speaker 1: with the statehood of Ukraine and you're fine with the
Speaker 1: statehood of Russia, you know, then then perhaps what you
Speaker 1: actually think is that people in Ukraine should not have
Speaker 1: any autonomy to disagree with the government and moss scal um,
Speaker 1: and I think that's the case here. Um. There's a
Speaker 1: there's similarities between how Putin and those like him in
Speaker 1: Russia treat Ukrainians, um with how, for example, the Turks
Speaker 1: treat Kurds in the southern part of the country. There's
Speaker 1: this this thing you'll hear a lot from Turkey, where
Speaker 1: like there's no Kurds in Turkey. They're they're mountain Turks
Speaker 1: who have lost their their language. And there's this denial
Speaker 1: from Putin and the Russians that Ukrainians are a people,
Speaker 1: that they exist, and there this this is something that
Speaker 1: has translated. Most people have heard versions of this, and
Speaker 1: just any of the coverage you've heard of Ukraine, if
Speaker 1: you've ever heard of it referred to as the Ukraine,
Speaker 1: what that is is part of a very old um
Speaker 1: line that kind of exists to allow Russians to deny
Speaker 1: the existence of Ukrainians as a people and make it
Speaker 1: make it seem more like it's just kind of a
Speaker 1: geographic region, which is not the case. And why you
Speaker 1: wouldn't refer to you wouldn't call it the Ukraine anymore
Speaker 1: than you would call it the Canada. Um. It just
Speaker 1: isn't the way you you say, should say that. But
Speaker 1: um yeah, So I think that's at least enough of
Speaker 1: a background to get into the real media what we
Speaker 1: want to talk about. So and I'm just gonna kind
Speaker 1: of open this up to you to chat about what
Speaker 1: you'd like to say and what you think needs to
Speaker 1: be gotten across to the international left, because internationalism is
Speaker 1: something we value a lot here and it has been
Speaker 1: hard to find in this conflict. Yeah, Like growing up
Speaker 1: in New York in the nineties, one of the core
Speaker 1: values I kind of absorbed, I guess through cosmosis is
Speaker 1: the value that every single person I met, regardless of
Speaker 1: whatever corner of the world they came from, is the
Speaker 1: exact scene beings me UM. And it wasn't. And and
Speaker 1: that kind of realization was one of the things that
Speaker 1: I guess, I wouldn't say pushed, but UM conspired to
Speaker 1: to turn me into a leftist, a socialist, Marxist UM.
Speaker 1: And part of that, especially when I was learning about
Speaker 1: what the hell all these isms were UM, was internationalism,
Speaker 1: the idea that well, our struggle isn't within the the
Speaker 1: fabricated borders of whatever UM polity has has decided to
Speaker 1: impose their their authority UM. But internationally, every single workers
Speaker 1: the same as every other worker. We're all struggling with
Speaker 1: the same issues, We're all fighting the same forces UM,
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, we have the same enemies. A. Now
Speaker 1: fast forward to h I go online and what do
Speaker 1: I see? Well, ukraineans are all Nazis or Ukraine shouldn't exist,
Speaker 1: or how can we support either of those. It's two
Speaker 1: fascist states fighting each other. And I'm sorry, Ukraine has
Speaker 1: got a population of forty four million. You want to
Speaker 1: tell mean that every single one of those forty four
Speaker 1: million or Nazis. Like, people didn't even say that about Germany.
Speaker 1: They were literally the Nazi state. I mean the United States,
Speaker 1: um for that man, Like, we had four years of Trump,
Speaker 1: an openly fascist, authoritarian leader, and no one seems to say, well,
Speaker 1: I guess the US should be bombed. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: there are some. I mean, there's definitely there's definitely people
Speaker 1: who say that, but yeah, but generally speaking, that's not
Speaker 1: exactly the view that people take, right. Um, So it's
Speaker 1: it's been a long process of disappointment. Well, I say, long, Um,
Speaker 1: there's always been the kind of well what are these
Speaker 1: people really think about Ukraine? But breaft of such a
Speaker 1: strong impetus to take a side, I guess, um that
Speaker 1: hasn't been in the forefront. And now every day I
Speaker 1: see people that I would have considered comrades, that I
Speaker 1: would have considered um friends and brothers, just kind of
Speaker 1: turned their back on me because I live here, right,
Speaker 1: Any any aggression, any action that's taken will literally affect
Speaker 1: me physically sitting here and you UM. So it's been
Speaker 1: it's been really really immensely disheartening to see that every
Speaker 1: single value UM that I thought the Left was supposed
Speaker 1: to value, that that I thought the left was built
Speaker 1: on um bet by people with throws emojis or hammer
Speaker 1: and sickles in their user names or whatever the hell
Speaker 1: it is. And we should probably talk about some of
Speaker 1: why this is and what the what the history is here.
Speaker 1: So the most kind of direct thing that people can
Speaker 1: point to when they when they call Ukraine a fascist
Speaker 1: state or when they talk about this is the existence
Speaker 1: of the ass Off Battalion, the as Off Battalion as
Speaker 1: a paramilitary organization. That means it's it's not officially a
Speaker 1: part of the gun a mental military structure, but it
Speaker 1: it does receive, has received arms from the government and
Speaker 1: it UH functions as part of Ukraine's defense forces UM
Speaker 1: for the for the purposes of of fighting off the
Speaker 1: Russian back separatists UM and the as Off, Italian and Nazis.
Speaker 1: There's there's you know, the you can there's been a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of reporting on that on that matter, it's
Speaker 1: a big problem in the Ukrainian government deserves a significant
Speaker 1: amount of criticism for the degree to which as off
Speaker 1: has been allowed to continue existing. UM. But there's also
Speaker 1: a lot that gets left out when people focus on that,
Speaker 1: including the fact that, for example, the political wing of
Speaker 1: as off right sector, which is kind of the that
Speaker 1: it would be fair to call it the umbrella term
Speaker 1: for like the far right parties in the Ukraini Ukrainian
Speaker 1: government have been pretty effectively siloed away from political power
Speaker 1: through very active measures to about like what is one
Speaker 1: percent of um like representation, and so it didn't actually
Speaker 1: pass the threshold tantor the new parliament. Yeah, they're they're
Speaker 1: nonentity politically, they're just non popular there. UM campaigns failed,
Speaker 1: their models failed, their agitation fails. Ukrainians do not want
Speaker 1: to vote for Nazis. Yeah, and it's it is. It
Speaker 1: is a an ugly situation. And I remember talking with
Speaker 1: when I was reporting on the might On uprisings, which
Speaker 1: is when, again for people who aren't up on recent
Speaker 1: Ukrainian history, they had a president who tried to do
Speaker 1: a dictatorship UM, and people rose up and fought him
Speaker 1: in the streets. UM. It was a very gnarly time,
Speaker 1: about two hundred people were shot by government forces. Um.
Speaker 1: And eventually the president was forced to flee the country,
Speaker 1: which is what precipitated everything that's happening now, because that
Speaker 1: president was pretty closely tied with Putin and the people
Speaker 1: fighting him. UM. We're not all they were not pro
Speaker 1: NATO rebels, but they were more definitely more supportive of
Speaker 1: closer ties with Western Europe than they were with Russia. UM.
Speaker 1: And that again, those are kind of the precipitating events
Speaker 1: for everything that happened that's happening now. Um. And some
Speaker 1: of the people who were fighting the president's forces were fascists. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things. I remember talking with
Speaker 1: protesters at the time who were like, well, am I
Speaker 1: supposed to get in fight with them at the same
Speaker 1: time as I'm trying not to get shot by riot police,
Speaker 1: Like what what do you expect me to do? And
Speaker 1: it is a nasty situation, and it's one of those things. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I don't know what to tell
Speaker 1: people about that because it's it's it's ugly, and it's
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and it's messy. And that's also Ukrainian history. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of ugly, uncomfortable, messy things here is there's
Speaker 1: with every country's history. It doesn't mean people in Kiev
Speaker 1: deserve to have their housing blocks pounded by Russian artillery.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that people in Nevdivka deserve to have their
Speaker 1: homes pounded by artillery. Um. And whatever criticisms you want
Speaker 1: to make about how the Russian or had the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: government has handled as Off, and there are many criticisms
Speaker 1: to make, that's not really relevant to the people living
Speaker 1: in these areas having their homes destroyed on a daily
Speaker 1: basis by mortar fire. I just want to make like
Speaker 1: a couple of things really clear. The as Off Battallion
Speaker 1: is like a thousand guys like Max. And the reason,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons at least that they rose to
Speaker 1: such prominence in the beginning wasn't only there um ability
Speaker 1: to to mobilize in the early stages of the Russian
Speaker 1: war against Ukraine. It was also because they had very
Speaker 1: strong financial backing um from the former Interior minister m
Speaker 1: Arsenivakov and Ivankov is no longer in power, uh. And
Speaker 1: one of the things you can see immediately was the
Speaker 1: like almost Noah eying of fascist street marshes and fascist
Speaker 1: demonstrations UM in Kiav outside the president's office. That all
Speaker 1: vanished because more like in Ukraine, ideology is not very strong.
Speaker 1: And this is something UM that I've noticed a lot
Speaker 1: of people, uh from the US in your have trouble
Speaker 1: understanding about Ukrainian politics. People here are not really ideological.
Speaker 1: Our parties don't map UM. Aside from a couple of
Speaker 1: outliers like rights actor UM, it doesn't really map to
Speaker 1: any left right access UM. People typically will always want
Speaker 1: the same policies, like they always want a pension, they
Speaker 1: always want UM universal health care to be better, they
Speaker 1: always want the roads fixed. UM generally policy something most
Speaker 1: Ukrainians actually agree on UM. As a result, most of
Speaker 1: our elections are purely personality based. That's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons Zelenski Voladaimur's Lenski, our current president, one was because
Speaker 1: he was a well known comedian. Yeah, and people liked
Speaker 1: his personality, and he put out a whole TV show
Speaker 1: as a PR stunt before launching his campaign, and people
Speaker 1: voted for that personality these on screen h and so
Speaker 1: when there was far right activity, and again I wonder
Speaker 1: stress that that activity, even the street activity, has almost disappear.
Speaker 1: It's because the far right is typically used in Ukraine
Speaker 1: as a political tool by one oligarc were one interest
Speaker 1: group against another. That's why when the money disappeared, they disappeared.
Speaker 1: Because the leaderships, the leadership of these batist groups typically speaking,
Speaker 1: we're not um that ideological themselves. But they did like
Speaker 1: having usuvs, and they did like buying guns and um,
Speaker 1: hiring hookers and doing drugs. Like they liked the money
Speaker 1: and that's why they did it. And they would convince
Speaker 1: a bunch of teenagers to go out and wave a
Speaker 1: couple of torture is in march or chance. But these
Speaker 1: guys were really purely for the money. Um. And again
Speaker 1: you can tell that because when their financial backward disappeared,
Speaker 1: then in order to be found. Yeah, and it's one
Speaker 1: of those one of the things that is very frustrating
Speaker 1: to me. I can't remember one of the earliest projects
Speaker 1: that I did that was like a four belling cat.
Speaker 1: As we were there was a Pride march in Kiev
Speaker 1: that got attacked by Nazis. This was a couple of
Speaker 1: years back, and we were kind of trying to identify
Speaker 1: the individual fascists who are like beating people in the street,
Speaker 1: and it's spending hours pouring over that footage. It makes
Speaker 1: it incredibly frustrating that there are people outside of the
Speaker 1: country boiling it down to while all of those people
Speaker 1: are fascists, all of those people are part of a
Speaker 1: fascist state. It's like, no, a lot of those people,
Speaker 1: quite a few Ukrainians have fought Nazis in the streets,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, that's a reality of the situation. And
Speaker 1: it's it's um and it it's it's ugly in heart
Speaker 1: because if you actually want to look at what's been happening,
Speaker 1: uh with the Russian back separatists, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: fascists over there. Um, there's a lot of paramilitary organizations
Speaker 1: and like far right groups that have been used by
Speaker 1: the Russian government. Yeah yeah, literally literally named because they're
Speaker 1: fascist leader yeah Liken like many Nazis. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to to understand, honestly from my perspective, um, because
Speaker 1: not only is Russian fascism have far more influence on
Speaker 1: Russian policy than any Ukrainian fascists has ever had Ukrainian policy. Um,
Speaker 1: it's also that the Russian project and the narrative they use. Um,
Speaker 1: there there's this joke they call are not really joke,
Speaker 1: a slurred they call they call Ukrainians Nazis. Been derrists
Speaker 1: um for those who don't open Darrow was a Ukrainian
Speaker 1: national leader of partisan fought against the Soviets UH and
Speaker 1: he his organization was implicated in quite a few war crimes,
Speaker 1: significant number of war crimes, war crimes. UH. So clearly
Speaker 1: been near himself, probably not a great guy, yeah, but
Speaker 1: to delegitimize all Ukrainian kind of independence movements that I've
Speaker 1: propped up over the years, the Soviet government and now
Speaker 1: the Russian government has always always insisted that there is
Speaker 1: no legitimate way for Ukraine to be independent where all
Speaker 1: Natzi been Darists no matter what. And that's why you
Speaker 1: had Um. There's a picture a couple of days ago
Speaker 1: of a solidarity marshan Kiev um with UH some of
Speaker 1: Kiev's LGBT community holding up Bandaris flags. Not because they're
Speaker 1: gay Nazis, because it's a way of yeah, retaking this
Speaker 1: slur back from the Russians. And it's all part of
Speaker 1: the complicating factor here is that because of how geo
Speaker 1: politics worked out, in that period of time, there are
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable but kind of inextricable ties between uh Ukrainian
Speaker 1: the basic idea of Ukraine being a nation independent from
Speaker 1: Russia and anti communism, And because of what was going
Speaker 1: on in anti communism in that period of time we're
Speaker 1: talking the thirties and forties, it means that a decent
Speaker 1: number of those early Ukrainian nationalists were either directly implicated
Speaker 1: with the Nazis like Bandera, or at least had uncomfortable ties.
Speaker 1: And that's a messy part of history that shouldn't be
Speaker 1: shied away from. But for example, the same thing is
Speaker 1: true of Finland. Like you can say the exact same
Speaker 1: thing about sucking Finnish nationalism, Finnish sovereignty and whatnot, um,
Speaker 1: And people don't call Finland a Nazi nation um even
Speaker 1: though Yeah, the fact that they were stuck between the
Speaker 1: U s SR and Nazi Germany means that there were
Speaker 1: a lot of Fins in that period of time who
Speaker 1: made some real fucked up choices um like. But also
Speaker 1: there's a lot that has to be like, you can't
Speaker 1: adequately discuss why those choices were made if you don't
Speaker 1: talk about, for example, the holodomor you know, which was
Speaker 1: the starvation genocide of several million Ukrainians by the Soviet government.
Speaker 1: Like and honestly, to go back even further, um and
Speaker 1: to I don't know, burnished my left its promountion a
Speaker 1: little bit if you go back to the civil war itself,
Speaker 1: where UM a lot of this started. Most of the
Speaker 1: nationalist groups, I would say nearly all of them. There
Speaker 1: were one or two monarchists minor monarchist groups in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: The grand majority of them were in fact socialism or socialist.
Speaker 1: They had like the hammer and sickle and wheats on
Speaker 1: their currency and everything, because at the time that was
Speaker 1: what one votes uh from the basm tree. But when
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks crushed every independent Ukrainian social movement in exchange
Speaker 1: for bureaucrats that they imported from the Empire and just
Speaker 1: shoved into Ukrainian cities, well then you had Ukrainians that
Speaker 1: wanted to be independent and wanted to have a better
Speaker 1: life than under the Tsar. Well now suddenly they don't
Speaker 1: even have that support, um from the Bolsheviks. Uh. And
Speaker 1: obviously as a Ukrainian, UM, I can't talk about this
Speaker 1: without bringing up Nestro Macnu who was a anarchist leader,
Speaker 1: the leader of the Ukrainian Black Army UM during the
Speaker 1: Civil war, and what happened to them, Well, the Bolsheviks
Speaker 1: betrayed them and killed all of them and curus the
Speaker 1: movement UH and then smeared them all as um how
Speaker 1: to file rapist cannibals if I remember correctly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of of of disinformation you can find
Speaker 1: about that time, just like today, you know, only the
Speaker 1: names have changed exactly. So if there is no other
Speaker 1: outlet for Ukrainian nationalism and the group that you thought
Speaker 1: maybe an ally in UH destroying the empire in granting
Speaker 1: you self determination turns out to be a continuation of
Speaker 1: that exact empire, well it's pretty logical. Maybe not right,
Speaker 1: but it is pretty logical for people go to the
Speaker 1: for people to go to the other extream. And it's
Speaker 1: one of those One of the things I think that
Speaker 1: should be noted more, as we talked about earlier, is
Speaker 1: that one of these stories of Ukrainian politics, particularly in
Speaker 1: the last got close to a decade since the Maidan,
Speaker 1: is that mainstream Ukrainian political leaders and Ukrainian voters have
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly rejected that sort of nationalism this time around, UM
Speaker 1: and have gone out of their way to silo it
Speaker 1: out of active political power. UM in a way that
Speaker 1: one could argue is more successful than has been done
Speaker 1: in the United States. UM. And absolutely we didn't get Trump. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you get you guys basically elected John Stewart. UM pretty much.
Speaker 1: I mean that was his UM. Yea, it was his
Speaker 1: whole thing. He put on satirical political sketches, that was
Speaker 1: the entire show. Um. We did basically elect John Stewart.
Speaker 1: And you know, I have my criticisms of Zelenski, um
Speaker 1: as a lot of people do. Uh. And one of
Speaker 1: the things we love saying in Ukraine whenever people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at all the look at all the Nazis there,
Speaker 1: We're so not We're so anti semitic that we elected
Speaker 1: a Jewish comedian. That's how. That's how anti semitic we are.
Speaker 1: That we have huge minoures standing in the middle of
Speaker 1: Kiev during the high holidays, that's how. That's how anti
Speaker 1: semitic we are. Yeah. And and Zelenski's uh Prime Minister
Speaker 1: is also a Jewish Man, which makes ukrain in the
Speaker 1: second country in the world to have a Jewish President
Speaker 1: and Prime Minister. Um. Yeah, like we don't care because
Speaker 1: it's not it doesn't even come up in campaigns like
Speaker 1: what even when Romney was running unc democratic campaigns painting
Speaker 1: is a scary Mormon or the ads implying and you
Speaker 1: don't even have that level of religious antipathy in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's just a much more complicated We're actually
Speaker 1: talking about the problems of the far right and and
Speaker 1: a fascism, you know, in Ukraine. It's a much more
Speaker 1: complicated story than a lot of people on you know,
Speaker 1: social media or whatnot want to give it credit to
Speaker 1: because it's just easy to some things up in one
Speaker 1: sentence and not have to care about a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
Speaker 1: But that is what we are looking at. If this invasion,
Speaker 1: it will be bad. If Russia uses active forces in
Speaker 1: order to take the remainder of those two provinces from
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian government, it will be a nightmare of almost
Speaker 1: unimaginable consequence. If the invasion proceeds on the wider scale
Speaker 1: that is possible at this point. Um Um. I've been
Speaker 1: a dummer on this basically since I first heard about
Speaker 1: the build up, um because Putin has made it very
Speaker 1: clear over the years what he considers Ukraine to be.
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned, he doesn't think that Ukraine should exist
Speaker 1: as like a polity. UM. And as a result, I
Speaker 1: have pretty much this whole time been pretty sure that
Speaker 1: he's gonna attack you. UM. And now we're coming to
Speaker 1: a very definite tipping point. Um. Just today, Putin's made
Speaker 1: a lot of moves UM. Like you mentioned, he authorized
Speaker 1: military force to be used um in the Damas and
Speaker 1: actually he's gone further. He's authorized military forced to be
Speaker 1: used abroad, UH, which I mean obviously that means Ukraine
Speaker 1: where else that's where is like the about I think
Speaker 1: seventy of the entire Russian army is currently around Ukraine
Speaker 1: or close enough that they can reinforce um without a
Speaker 1: lot Yeah, at least of the active duty, because the
Speaker 1: Russian military there's a smaller actually competent right yeah yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: but the professional the contract soldiers yes, um. And especially
Speaker 1: on the northern border, Uh, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: battalion tact groups that are basically sitting and waiting, I
Speaker 1: guess for whatever the order will be eventually um. And
Speaker 1: in Belarus, and since Putin has given this authorization to
Speaker 1: operate abroad, and he stated that he recognizes these puppet
Speaker 1: authorities as I qual him um that he recognizes their
Speaker 1: borders as the entirety of the Donetsk lukonsk o BLUs,
Speaker 1: which again only a third of those territories are under
Speaker 1: the de facto control of public authorities. Two thirds of
Speaker 1: both provinces are still um andre Ukrainian government control, including
Speaker 1: the the critical port city of Marieuple. And now that
Speaker 1: Putin has authorized forced to be used abroad, well it's
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, at least it is incredibly obvious
Speaker 1: to me what the next steps are from the Russian perspective,
Speaker 1: if I want to subjectate you right, um, And I
Speaker 1: think a big failing here is people in the West,
Speaker 1: especially the western left. Um no very little of for example,
Speaker 1: the Chechen wars, especially the Second War, and what happened
Speaker 1: to Rosnie yeah after during that war, and what the
Speaker 1: Russians did the subjects that population. And if anyone thinks
Speaker 1: that Putin treasures Ukrainian lives any more than he did
Speaker 1: Chechen lives, then I've got a bridge of the rod
Speaker 1: to sell them. Though you should act now because the
Speaker 1: valley's gonna drop real fast. Yeah. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those if you, as a good leftist, have spent a
Speaker 1: significant amount of time reading about the horrific crimes of
Speaker 1: imperialist nations in Africa and Southeast Asia in the America's UM,
Speaker 1: what the Russian Federation did there is on that scale.
Speaker 1: It's it's absolutely on that scale. It was. It was
Speaker 1: a titanically ugly war. UM, and any modernly we can
Speaker 1: look at what they did in Syria or what they
Speaker 1: are doing in Syria, what they continue to do in Syria. UM.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, UM, Syrians learned this lesson
Speaker 1: that I am learning now about big portions of the
Speaker 1: um Western left a long time ago, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: that if you can find, for example, some Syrian rebels
Speaker 1: who are shitty and Islamists or whatever, you can tar
Speaker 1: every single person whoever stood up against Bashar al Assa
Speaker 1: as a as a terrorist UM, which is really easy,
Speaker 1: especially if you're getting paid Kremlin money to advance that
Speaker 1: line and you your name is Ben Norton. This brings
Speaker 1: us to the place where there really aren't clear answers,
Speaker 1: which is like what can be done? And it is
Speaker 1: one of those things where it's like, well, uh, that's
Speaker 1: not an easy question because you do have to when
Speaker 1: you start grappling with like all right, well, like should
Speaker 1: what should NATO do? What should other European non NATO
Speaker 1: nations do? Like what what? What is actually capable of
Speaker 1: like potentially altering or disrupting the courses of action here
Speaker 1: while we're talking about the Russian state which has a
Speaker 1: lot of nukes, Um, we're talking about a situation that
Speaker 1: could spiral out of control in a way that very
Speaker 1: few sitch c Asians globally are capable of potentially spiring
Speaker 1: spiraling out of control. And so it is a not
Speaker 1: a situation where anyone who tells you this is clearly
Speaker 1: the thing to do that will work, is I think
Speaker 1: trying to is probably full of ship and a little
Speaker 1: unhinged um because this is a real fucking ugly one. Um.
Speaker 1: But some of what has been done, Um, we just
Speaker 1: got the news today that I think we both found surprising,
Speaker 1: but it is very positive that the Germans have canceled
Speaker 1: construction of the Nord Stream to pipeline, which is a
Speaker 1: gas pipeline from Russia into the EU. Um that a
Speaker 1: lot of folks were saying Germany was not going to
Speaker 1: take any sort of stances, solid stances on Ukraine's behalf
Speaker 1: because of that pipeline, because of how Germany, along with
Speaker 1: a lot of Western Europe, is tremendously reliant upon Russian
Speaker 1: gas exports, um for just like keeping themselves heated in
Speaker 1: the winter. UM. So that's a positive move. I I
Speaker 1: tend to be critical of the ability of sanctions to
Speaker 1: do much um. And if we're looking historically at sanctions,
Speaker 1: particularly how they're most often implied, they have a tendency
Speaker 1: to just harm regular people more than they have to
Speaker 1: do it. Like we can look at the sanctions in
Speaker 1: Iraq right which which we're part of why something like
Speaker 1: a million people starved. UM. We are talking about different
Speaker 1: kinds of sanctions in general, and we're talking about the
Speaker 1: sanctions being imposed by NATO countries against the Russian state
Speaker 1: right now. They're largely sanctions against members of the Duma. UM.
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot. It's not the same as looking
Speaker 1: at like what was being done to Saddam's Iraq. That said,
Speaker 1: I'm still very hesitant to say I think that sanctions
Speaker 1: are going to disrupt Putin's course of action. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you think can and should be done here. You know,
Speaker 1: like what is do you have any kind of clear
Speaker 1: idea in your own head about what might have a
Speaker 1: disruptive effect on on what Putin is doing? Learn a
Speaker 1: tele important shoot Putin in the head with a nimillionator.
Speaker 1: I mean that would be that'd be great. There's can
Speaker 1: we that had we that teleportation capacity, there would be
Speaker 1: a list, you know, put my skill points into that. UM.
Speaker 1: But realistically speaking, the Russian state is authoritarian. It doesn't
Speaker 1: really care what its own citizens think. It definitely doesn't
Speaker 1: care what other people think. However, UM, Russia has been,
Speaker 1: at least in um the modern realm, relatively image conscious. UM.
Speaker 1: Which is why I think one thing that could work,
Speaker 1: for example or not, could work, but would perhaps force
Speaker 1: the Russian state to consider its actions a little bit
Speaker 1: more carefully. And I want to be very clear when
Speaker 1: I talk about the Russian state, I'm talking about Putin himself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the government, he has no there's no like other decision
Speaker 1: makers in Russia. And that was actually perfectly encapsulated um
Speaker 1: during his speech the other day where he just outright,
Speaker 1: um like eviscerated the head of his foreign intelligence service.
Speaker 1: I'm live TV for the whole world to see, just
Speaker 1: utterly humiliated the guy for no real reason, just because
Speaker 1: he can and you could see that. And we're talking
Speaker 1: about Russia's top spy. I mean beyond Puttin himself stammering
Speaker 1: like a frightened school child when Puttin addressed him, just
Speaker 1: with just a hint of sharpness. Um. So when I
Speaker 1: say to the Russians, say, I'm referring literally to the
Speaker 1: body in person of of of Vladiman Puttin. Um, And like, honestly, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would love to see people pick itt Russian embassies
Speaker 1: and make demonstrations and marches and so on. Um. Do
Speaker 1: I think that will have a practical real effect, to
Speaker 1: be honest, No, saying with the sanctions, Um, I'm sure
Speaker 1: Putin's pet oligarchs and members of his party and the
Speaker 1: uh the people that in theory keep him in power. Um,
Speaker 1: the oligarchs, the the Polmentarians, the mafia lords and so on,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're gonna be pretty mift if their yachts
Speaker 1: and their multimillion dollar properties in Miami and New York,
Speaker 1: in London and the villainism the French riviera. When when
Speaker 1: all that gets taken, I'm sure, they'll they'll be pretty annoyed. Um,
Speaker 1: But I don't think Putin cares. I think that he
Speaker 1: has a really irrational um desire to subjugate Kiev. Specifically, Um,
Speaker 1: he sees Kiev as um what we call in Russian
Speaker 1: the mother of all Russian cities. Yeah, it's the um
Speaker 1: the place of the Kivan Ruce. Yeah, the word Russian
Speaker 1: comes from Kievan Ruce, you know, exactly exactly. And I
Speaker 1: just don't think that Putin is going to turn away
Speaker 1: from that goal because a couple of his buddies are
Speaker 1: complaining that they're mega yotts got taken in by the
Speaker 1: British authorities or whatever. Nor do I think they're gonna
Speaker 1: care that. You know, there are a couple of marchers
Speaker 1: outside of embassies in New Yorker or something. Um, but
Speaker 1: that may help spur the world as a whole, the
Speaker 1: international community into taking a harder line stance against because
Speaker 1: timey con time and again, Um, like the guy's a gangster,
Speaker 1: he's he's like a security service thug. If you've ever
Speaker 1: like interacted with like a petty like sergeant, police sergeant
Speaker 1: or something that has just a bit of authority and
Speaker 1: pretty much shown comunity that that's put into a te um.
Speaker 1: The dude thinks he's over educated. Uh and the cleverest
Speaker 1: manble Yeah, I think. But really, the way he talks,
Speaker 1: in the way he's acts, he's just a bullief. He's
Speaker 1: he's he's got the same basic personality as like Villan Weather,
Speaker 1: you know, the fucking head of the Los Angeles sheriff Department.
Speaker 1: He's like, not like a beat cop, but like one
Speaker 1: of the cops who rises to run a union or
Speaker 1: run a city police department. Yeah, he's good at consolidating power.
Speaker 1: He's good at at exercising organizing others to exercise violence
Speaker 1: on his behalf. But yeah, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: he is primarily a bully. And it's one of those um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Like when it comes to arms shipments,
Speaker 1: that is a historically Again, if you look at the
Speaker 1: history of partic like let's just say specifically NATO shipping
Speaker 1: arms places most of the time that does not improve
Speaker 1: the situation for people in that country. That that has
Speaker 1: been a historical reality of arms shipment. It's not just
Speaker 1: with NATO as a general rule, everywhere, when you ship
Speaker 1: more guns into an area that that rarely improves quality
Speaker 1: of life. Um. But we are not talking about a
Speaker 1: country that has had any kind of centralized political legitimacy
Speaker 1: or what not collapse. You when not talking about a
Speaker 1: country that is in the middle of tearing itself apart
Speaker 1: between thirty or forty different sides. Um, it's not the
Speaker 1: same situation as well. Let ship a bunch of guns
Speaker 1: to Libya, you know. Um, it just isn't there different histories,
Speaker 1: different political realities on the ground. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I actually think any amount of arms shipments would dissuade
Speaker 1: Putin from advancing either. Um, But I I don't know
Speaker 1: what else to do. I certainly am not against the
Speaker 1: idea of like, Okay, guys have some a G T
Speaker 1: M s, you know, have some wire guided missiles, have
Speaker 1: some javelins, um, Because like what else are you gonna do? Um?
Speaker 1: I mean we're not going to and I'm certainly not
Speaker 1: saying we should send US troops in um, because again
Speaker 1: we have to consider the nuclear situation too. Um. What
Speaker 1: do you think is where? Where are your thoughts there? Um?
Speaker 1: Because this is something that I'm very I'm very mixed on,
Speaker 1: although and I'm broadly fine with Yeah, I mean at
Speaker 1: least give people the ability to fight back. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a difficult one, especially like you noted, the military industrial
Speaker 1: complex has very rarely improved any situation in the world anywhere. Yep.
Speaker 1: This might be one of the few exceptions, um, because
Speaker 1: the fact is that Ukraine doesn't really have the tools
Speaker 1: to defend these to defend ourselves we have, um, or
Speaker 1: at least our government claims that we have the strongest
Speaker 1: army in Europe, which, to be honest, with all the
Speaker 1: defense cuts that Europe can come in made years, that
Speaker 1: may be true, um, at least on the ground sense.
Speaker 1: Certainly the most combat experienced army in here. Yeah, absolutely, UM.
Speaker 1: But what we lack entirely is air power and air
Speaker 1: defense UM. And what Russia has in spades is air
Speaker 1: power and air defense. And as we saw UM when
Speaker 1: the US invaded Rock Well, you can destroy conventional army
Speaker 1: in a couple of days by just bombing the ship
Speaker 1: out of it uh. And the Russians have quite a
Speaker 1: few missiles UM aimed straight at Kiev UH and quite
Speaker 1: a view planes waiting on standby. I presume to bomb
Speaker 1: the ship out of Kiev UH. And it would be
Speaker 1: nice to have some way to to defend ourselves against that. Um.
Speaker 1: But again there's there's not much that can be said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course stingers and javelins and so on, Um, that
Speaker 1: will all help raise the costs of the occupation that
Speaker 1: follows the initial bombardment. But if Putin goes for the
Speaker 1: strategy that ASSAD has used in Syria, which is bomb
Speaker 1: the living ship out of every civilian residential area in
Speaker 1: the city until the people just submit or are all dead, um, well,
Speaker 1: there's not really too much we can do about that.
Speaker 1: And that is like, there is a lot that individual
Speaker 1: that that trained and motivated soldiers with small arms and
Speaker 1: munitions like javelins can do, even to resist a country
Speaker 1: with with overwhelming air power. The corollary to that is
Speaker 1: that in doing that a lot of stuff, everyone around
Speaker 1: them dies. The city has turned into a graveyard. Um.
Speaker 1: I've I've seen that with my own eyes. And that's
Speaker 1: that's I mean, got to be the thing if you're
Speaker 1: looking at this with any kind of reasonable lies and
Speaker 1: not just like trying to find a political angle to support,
Speaker 1: that has to be your main concern is that the
Speaker 1: potential here is for a tremendous loss of life and
Speaker 1: also for the creation of millions of refugees. Um. And
Speaker 1: this is something in another of audio clip that you
Speaker 1: published a bit earlier on Twitter, you say, which is
Speaker 1: that like, if this goes as badly as it can,
Speaker 1: no matter what your politics are, this will become your
Speaker 1: problem one to present. Yeah. I stand behind that absolutely,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of Ukrainians and while most
Speaker 1: of us have no desire to live under the Russian yoke,
Speaker 1: the majority of us are not trained fighters. Were just people,
Speaker 1: just regular people. And I know, especially in the US, um,
Speaker 1: with our like out of control gun culture, imagining like
Speaker 1: they're the singular guy, you know, they're they're the macho man, uh,
Speaker 1: with with all the guns, they take down the government
Speaker 1: all by themselves. I'm sorry, it's a fantasy. It's a fiction. Um,
Speaker 1: that is not how things work. Uh. And quite frankly,
Speaker 1: most people are not psychologically suited to combat. That's why
Speaker 1: armies take so long to break soldiers down to teach
Speaker 1: them to murder people, because that is not something humans
Speaker 1: do naturally. And the majority of people subjected to that
Speaker 1: kind of violence will run. And again they're forty million
Speaker 1: of us, and they will run and run and run.
Speaker 1: Pretty much everyone in the world. You saw this with Syria,
Speaker 1: all this with Libya. Um, you've seen this pretty much
Speaker 1: with every single place that has experienced massive violence in
Speaker 1: the modern world. Um, that's the reaction. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: when we run. We bring all of our biases and
Speaker 1: problems and cultural predilections to you m hm. And it's yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's really the note to end on.
Speaker 1: And it is you get a lot of folks you
Speaker 1: know who who rightly you know, focus on and think
Speaker 1: a lot about revolutionary struggles in places like Vietnam and
Speaker 1: um in an Afghanistan and will point out that like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't need to have as advanced to military as
Speaker 1: your opponent to win. And again, just the corollary to that, all, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the corollary to that is that, like, yeah, but millions
Speaker 1: of people die. Millions of people die in Afghanistan, millions
Speaker 1: of people died in Vietnam. Um, that's that. That is
Speaker 1: the reality. Yeah, you can resist an imperial power with
Speaker 1: minimal technology, but you're not going to leave that fight
Speaker 1: with a family alive still, you know, Like that's that's
Speaker 1: how it goes. Um, So let's all say a little
Speaker 1: prayer for I don't know, peace. Uh, I hope the
Speaker 1: worst doesn't happen. Um. What has there been kind of
Speaker 1: mobilization that you've seen within the the activist the anarchist
Speaker 1: community in in Kiev, Um to you know, any kind
Speaker 1: of mutual aid stuff like or is it just one
Speaker 1: of those situations where it hasn't started happening yet and
Speaker 1: nobody really knows what would even be useful to do
Speaker 1: if it does. I'll say this, Um, it may come
Speaker 1: as a little bit of a shock, but anarchies not
Speaker 1: typically the best of organis yeah. Um. Specifically, like a
Speaker 1: lot of my uh, the friends who are active in
Speaker 1: the interchist Um movement in Ukraine have simply joined the
Speaker 1: territorial defense battalions or the regular army and will simply
Speaker 1: fight as soldiers. Um. There has been a very strong
Speaker 1: I don't know if you called denial. Um. A colleague
Speaker 1: of mine used the term doomed optimism, and I really
Speaker 1: like the sound of that, so let's go with that.
Speaker 1: There's been this really strong doomed optimism amongst Ukrainians that
Speaker 1: the worst will not happen and there's no real reason
Speaker 1: to prepare for anything because well, things are going to
Speaker 1: be fine. Um. And that's what our government tells us
Speaker 1: as well. Things are going to be fine. They don't
Speaker 1: see any massive attack groups or I mean I feel
Speaker 1: like that's contradicted by the the open source intelligence that
Speaker 1: I've been looking at. But I I am just one guy.
Speaker 1: I obviously don't have intelligence apparatus of the nations eight Um.
Speaker 1: So I mean maybe they're right, um, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: people have just been joining the army, going to um
Speaker 1: tactical trainings. Um. But this is all very basic stuff
Speaker 1: like go in the woods, learn how to set up
Speaker 1: camp and you know, clean a rifle kind of kind
Speaker 1: of things. UM. Nothing like combat training, because where would
Speaker 1: you get that except by joining the army and going
Speaker 1: to the front. Yeah, it's the kind of training that
Speaker 1: might keep in the event of a full conflict when
Speaker 1: out of ten of those people alive long enough to
Speaker 1: learn how to fight, and and that might be worth it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, if you're talking about like, yes, not
Speaker 1: not to say people shouldn't be doing that, because people
Speaker 1: should do whatever they can. Um, how are you kind
Speaker 1: of a close out like as this like doom scrolling
Speaker 1: is the thing we all talk about, and there's there's
Speaker 1: plenty image sitting here in Portland. We just had a
Speaker 1: mass shooting in a protest this week again, and so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of doom scrolling going on in my community.
Speaker 1: But we're not staring down the barrel of a hundred
Speaker 1: and nine soldiers, you know, potentially uh, hitting us from
Speaker 1: the air and ground simultaneously. How do you How are
Speaker 1: you like focusing on the stuff that you can do
Speaker 1: anything about and the stuff that you can productively handle
Speaker 1: without losing yourself in that opious amounts of cannabis. That's good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you guys have decent pod access. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: actually don't know what I'll do if, um, if my
Speaker 1: current supplies got out to be quite honest, um, But
Speaker 1: I mean it's been definitely a struggle. Um. And the
Speaker 1: past couple of days, especially my mental health has not
Speaker 1: been especially great. Um. But again, I'm one dude. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not in very good shape, i have or vision,
Speaker 1: one of my eyes don't work, I'm diabetic. Like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go out and grab a rifle and start
Speaker 1: killing every rooskie I see you know, um. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I've got a job to do. I
Speaker 1: as an English language journalist, in Ukraine. Um, I have
Speaker 1: this is your busy season. Yeah, it's my busies. Like
Speaker 1: one of my jobs is to counter Russian distant information
Speaker 1: and too like tell people the truth of what is
Speaker 1: going on here um, and that role will only get
Speaker 1: more important if the the conflict expands, um from from
Speaker 1: the scope that it is now. Uh So how am
Speaker 1: I doing? Well? I'm still alive, um, having off myself
Speaker 1: and uh I'm still I'm still working. So I think
Speaker 1: as as good as I can be under the circumstances. Yeah. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: well I hope your weeds supply stays stable um at
Speaker 1: the very fun fingers yeah. Um, all right, well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on the show, Romeo. Do
Speaker 1: you have anything you want to plug kind of as
Speaker 1: we as we go out here, um, just if you
Speaker 1: really want to know about what's going down in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: I am co host of the podcast called You Bring
Speaker 1: Without Hype and find it on any podcast platform um.
Speaker 1: And if you really want to get a look out
Speaker 1: what's going on in English um with only a tinge
Speaker 1: of leftist bias, um, then tune in. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Hype ukrane um and again on any
Speaker 1: podcast platform that you you so desire awesome, Well, check
Speaker 1: out Romeo there, check out this podcast, and you know,
Speaker 1: just try to keep your eyes on the situation and
Speaker 1: don't let yourself be uh overwhelmed by what's Some random
Speaker 1: person on Twitter tries to sum it up, as you know,
Speaker 1: people are more complicated than that. It could Happen here
Speaker 1: as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
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Speaker 1: for listening.