Fighting For Ukraine

April 22nd 2024 Yuriy gives an account of survival in the war-torn Ukrainian cities occupied by Russia for a decade, unveiling the struggles, atrocities, and resilience of the locals in the "Women's People's Republics." You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)   It's April 22.  Several people serving with me come from the part of Donbass that was occupied by Russia back in 2014.  Back then, they seized Donetsk, Luhansk, and several smaller towns. Thousands fled the occupation immediately. Some stayed, trying to adapt somehow, but later had to flee. The Russians did not admit at that time that it was their occupation of Ukrainian cities. Their official stance was that it was rebellion by local pro Russian residents who formed their own states, the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.  In reality, these pseudo- republics were just a cover for the occupiers. Russian military and officials ran everything there, quickly seized local businesses from the residents, throwing wealthy inhabitants out onto the streets and settling in their homes. Those who resisted were either killed or fled to the free part of Ukraine after beatings and abuse. My comrade, who is from Luhansk, told me he had spent several weeks in a basement where Russian FSB agents beat him daily just because he served in the Ukrainian army in the early '90s, which seemed suspicious to the occupiers. He was released only because the Russians brought in a new batch of Ukrainian prisoners and there was not enough space and some of the old ones were just thrown out. He immediately left the occupied city and joined the Ukrainian army. He's been at war for 10 years. 10! And he dreams every day of going home. Home which is still occupied by the Russians.  What's happening now with the Ukrainian cities occupied for a whole decade is a complete horror. Russians don't really care much about their own cities. Except maybe Moscow and a couple of wealthy regional capitals and the occupied Ukrainian cities have turned into garbage dumps. Literally. Trash hasn't been collected for years, sewage systems aren't repaired, roads aren't built, and they've mostly engaged in looting and plundering. And human trafficking. Russians always have a shortage of cannon fodder, they put all reasonable healthy prisoners in their prisons into uniform, lured all the greedy fools with high salaries, but still they lack people. So, local gangs catch men on the streets of occupied Ukrainian cities and sell them to military unit commanders, who then drive these unfortunate souls in human waves toward Ukrainian positions.  There are constant problem with electricity in the occupied territories because all the electricians were stolen from the streets and sent to war. Public transport hardly operates because drivers and mechanics are killed in human waves, and there are hardly any man on the streets who have not been caught by the patrols of human traffickers hide in their homes behind closed doors. Locals sarcastically call these fake Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics the Women's People's Republics, because there are no men left there. Just imagine a town with only women and really old men in it. It's unbelievable, but it's true. No man's land in a very specific sense. Specific and horrible. 

April 19th 2024 Yuriy reveals the harsh reality of war in Ukraine, highlighting the grim consequences of every dollar that can buy bullets to kill Ukrainians, emphasizing the urgent need to strip Russia of its means for war. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)   It is April 19.  One bullet for Kalashnikov costs about 50 cents. You can buy two bullets for a dollar, theoretically, with two lives. $1 equals minus two lives. It's simple math. It can't get any simpler. The point of sanctions imposed against Russia is precisely to leave Russians with as little money as possible, so we don't have the means repair weapons, build tanks, or buy bullets.  When the so-called Russian opposition starts complaining that the average people are suffering because of the sanctions, and that's why they should be lifted, they are playing into the kremlin's hands. You can't take money only from the state and leave the money for the people. That's not how it works. The state's money is the taxes people pay and the less money they have, the fewer taxes they pay, and the less where state can buy tanks and bullets. Those who call for the lifting or easing of sanctions are either fools who don't understand whether state's money comes from or they're working for Putin, pretending to be his enemies.  Russians who fled to the West, love to talk about how Russian people are not to blame for the war, how people don't support the occupation of Ukrainian lands and the killing of Ukrainians, but they are lying. Just read what Russians writes about the war- by the way, I've counted about  30 insulting names for Ukrainians. With this supposedly entire war, people have come up with. Just watch videos from the first days of a full scale invasion when thousands of people in Russia, were celebrating. They were genuinely celebrating dancing on the streets, having picnics near the border with Ukraine to see missiles flying towards our cities, and they were very, very happy about each of these missiles.  The so-called Russian opposition is a bunch of fools Putin's agents and people living in a fantasy world where the war can end without Putin's defeat, without destroying his army and without returning the occupied territories. Let me remind you once again that for a dollar you can buy two bullets for an AK that can kill two Ukrainians, and we need to make sure that Russia does not have that dollar so it cannot even buy war to bullets, because if Russia has even one less dollar, it'll spend it not on bread for the old person, not on the school notebook for a child, but on war. Because killing the Ukrainians rather than caring for its citizens, it's the only purpose of Russia's existence now. There's nothing else. 

April 16th 2024 Tasked with writing for an American media outlet, Yuriy delves into the complex ties between Ukrainians and the Russian opposition during the ongoing conflict, aiming to shed light on the nuanced perceptions in a turbulent landscape. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)   It is April 16.  A couple of weeks ago a major American media outlet- one that is truly democratic and reputable- asked me to write an article about how Ukrainians perceive the Russian opposition now and how much this opposition can help Ukrainians in their fight against the aggressor. I gladly accepted the task. I wrote about how out of tens of millions of Russians, only a few stood against the first stage of the war, the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The vast majority, including those now considered opposition figures were not opposed to the occupation of part of another country.  I wrote that most of most Russians who now live peacefully abroad and talk about suffering under Putin's regime lived comfortably in Russia when, starting from 2014, this regime was killing Ukrainians daily in Donbas and was almost openly preparing to occupy the entire Ukraine. These people fled Russia only when Putin announced mobilization and they faced the risk of becoming cannon fodder in this war. Before that, they were not particularly concerned about the war.  I wrote about how the luminaries of Russian culture- contemporary writers, poets, composers -who fled to the West and supposedly opposed Putin have still not determined their position on the war. They even dare to publicly declare that they are not ready to support the Ukrainian army. In other words, they still cannot fully understand that supporting the Ukrainian army is a truly noble cause, that this army is the only force that is currently saving Europe from the genocidal horde of Russian military criminals.  I wrote all this, sent it to the editorial office, and the editor, who was supposed to publish this text, replied to me. She said she was expecting a completely different text, that she needed a text about how Ukrainians see Russians as friends, that the war is all about Putin and maybe a few people around him.  According to the editor, it would be painful and uncomfortable to the readers of her outlet to read about how even opposition Russians are perceived by Ukrainians as enemies. She is convinced that what is happening in Russia now is something unusual, some deviation, that Russians are actually against war and killings, against occupation and concentration camps and she expected me to write exactly about it.  But such a text would be a science fiction, moreover less scientific and more fictional. You can't live in illusions in the third year of the war, thinking that only Putin wants this war. That Russians are his hostages who are simply forced to kill, rape, loot and destroy entire cities against their will. There are no two Russias, bad and good, there is only one, which lives by war, dreams of destroying Ukraine and is committing genocide against an entire nation. And even if you don't read about it in a reputable liberal outlet, it does not change the situation. Ignoring the problem does not solve it; it only makes it worse. 

April 12th 2024 Yuriy shares the importance of carrying Ukrainian flags with him wherever he goes, spreading hope and unity in the midst of chaos and destruction. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)   It's April 12,  Friends, I'm very grateful to you for your help. You can't even imagine how important it is. Thanks to you, I have opportunity sometimes to forget about our constant horror, to distract myself from the war. Without your help, I could not buy books for my daughter, which she needs for studying, set aside money for a trip to see my parents, whom I still dream of seeing alive, support my family, and not fall into complete despair. All this is possible because of you. If I could, I would hug each and everyone of you tightly.  I want to tell you about one thing that I always carry with me. Of course, I always have my gear, combat boots, body armor and weapons. And also a first aid kit, power banks, and e-reader. But that's not all. I always carry a Ukrainian flag with me. It's always in my bag. And not just one. I try to have several. From time to time, I replenish my supply of flags, which quickly run out.  They run out because I give them away. I give them to soldiers who have moved to new positions, leaving their flags behind at the old ones. I give them to civilians in liberated territories where the Russians have destroyed everything even remotely connected to Ukraine. I once gave a flag to an old woman in a liberated village. When the Russians came, she took down her flag, which had been flying over her house, wrapped it in a plastic bag and buried it somewhere in her garden. She didn't want the occupiers to destroy it. And then she forgot where she buried it, so she took mine, but she promised to give it back to me as soon as she found hers. She's a wonderful person. I hope she's doing well.  Children in frontline cities also eagerly take the flags. They wave them when convoys of military vehicles pass by their cities on their way to the front, when helicopters fly over their homes, when funeral processions with a coffin or those killed by occupiers, pass through where streets. Maybe some over flags are distributed are now flying over the cemeteries. I've already told you about the tradition of placing flags over the graves of fallen soldiers. So our flags are important both for living and for the dead.  That's why they run out so quickly and need to be bought again. Such a simple flag- blue on top and yellow on the bottom- but it contains so much meaning, so much sense. Now, it's a true symbol of a free world, of freedom itself, and I'm happy and proud to give my flags to people. For me, it's an honor to be one who can share such an important symbol. By the way, I share this honor with you. Because I replenish my stock of flags thanks to your help too. So, thank you once again.   

April 10th 2024 In one of his many roles in the army, Yuriy has become a documentary a military filmmaker, documenting the challenges of filming a documentary about a fallen young soldier amidst the destruction and despair of war in Ukraine.  You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)   It's April 10.  Right now I have a pretty strange specialty. I'm a military filmmaker. I shoot and edit a documentary about a fallen young soldier. When I was working in television before joining the Army, I saw how many people typically worked on documentaries. There was always a producer, director, editor, several cameramen, a sound person, composer, location scouts and character scouts. Usually it's a whole team of 15 to 20 people.  We are doing it as a team of two. I'm the director, cameraman, sound guy; I wrote most of the script and even became one of the characters in this film. It's likely that I'll have to compose some of the music for the future film too. Honestly- I'm already prepared for that. I have never made a real film before, and now I am. And it's something I'm not ashamed of. I did not know how to edit videos before the Army, but now I'm helping other people with it. So I think I will manage with music somehow.  But what I can't manage with is depression. I thought shooting would distract me from dark thoughts, but I could focus on the film and forget about the constant nightmare around me for a while. But it does not work like that. We arrived to shoot in my hometown of Kharkiv, just when the Russians decided to completely destroy it and began bombing it with double hatred. It's very hard to watch the enemy destroy a city that is dear to you.  And the story of a person we are filming about isn't cheerful either. The guy was 35 when he died. He was a volunteer living behind a wife and two children. He was a person living his life, raising children, being happy, and then -bam- his gone, children are orphans, the wife is a widow, their world is gone, a void in its place. And that's just one story, one family. There are thousands of such stories, such families, endless thousands and there will be even more. Every day of the war, it's a few dozen, maybe even hundreds of obituaries, dozens of hundreds of shattered worlds, orphaned families, and endless pain.  And it's very hard to come to terms with effect that this will go on for years. That the war will continue for a very long time, that it will take countless lives, destroy new cities, leave behind many more scars. It's for years, for long years. I'll have time to shoot a movie, return to the trenches, serve in the trenches for as long as my health allows, and the war will still go on. And people will die every day. Every.  Perhaps it's because of this depression, that I'm recording new episodes much less frequently than before. Or maybe it's because I feel that listeners are losing interest in the podcast. Maybe it's just my imagination that they are tired of me, but I see that the last time help came to my go fund me was a month ago, and since when nothing, I'll try to put myself together and start recording more often again. But please don't forget about me either. 

April 2nd 2024 Yuriy delves into the historical context of Ukraine's struggle for freedom and emphasizes the human cost of political decisions. He also advocates for standing against tyranny and supporting conscious democratic principles. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)   It is April 2nd.  The world fears Ukraine because it doesn't fully understand who we are. Due to this lack of understanding, during the collapse of USSR, US President George Bush Senior flew to Kyiv to persuade Ukrainians not to attempt to create an independent country, to remain subordinate. To Moscow to agree to the continuation of occupation. In 1994, the US, UK and Russia persuaded Ukraine to give up all its nuclear weapons. By the way, it was the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In exchange Ukraine was promised respect for its serenity and inviolability of its borders. And you know what this guarantor countries should do? If someone threatens this inviolability and serenity? They should hold consultations. Consultations, damn it. And when one of guarantor countries went to war against Ukraine 10 years ago, the other two started consultations. And we've been consulting for 10 years. While people are being killed and tortured while cities are being bombed.  The world fears Ukraine's victory because it does not know what will happen with Russia after this victory. Maybe it'll disintegrate into dozens of states, each of which will receive part of a nuclear weapons arsenal. Maybe a new Putin will come- more insane and anti-Western than the one we have now. They've already gotten used to this; they continue doing business as usual with him. The west seems to think we can still find a compromise with him.  The ancestors of war who seek compromise with Putin, I'm sure are crying bitter tears in the after life because way too could have compromised with Hitler, with Hirohito, not die somewhere on Guadalcanal, not drawn off Omaha Beach but just come to an agreement. But they did not agree to that. Not because they weren't afraid- I'm sure we were scared to death- but because there are things you have to do even when your hands are shaken with fear.  And they overcame their fear and did what they still grateful for, and will be grateful for the centuries- they defended freedom, destroyed tyrants, and gave hope for the future. Their descendants are now carefully counting the bullets they sent to Ukraine to make sure there won't be enough to destroy the entire Russian army, so that 100% won't pose a threat to Putin's regime. They belittle the memory of those who fought against evil, those who did not compromise, those who knew the price of freedom. And this price is not measured in dollars per gallon of gasoline, not in Euros per cubic meter of gas. It is measured in human lives.  And anyone who says it's better to compromise with Putin so that gasoline and gas prices don't rise, so that business can continue as usual is actually saying "let the Russians kill and torture Ukrainians, as long as I have money." Such a person is a criminal and accomplice of occupiers and enemy of freedom. The world must stop seeking understanding with Putin and start seeking understanding with conscious and democratic principles. And they both say the same thing. Death to tyrants. 

March 27th 2024 Yuriy delivers a raw and intense account of Putin's relentless addiction to war, showcasing the lengths he is willing to go to fuel hatred and violence. He sheds light on the destructive path of a leader consumed by power and dominance, painting a grim picture of the consequences faced by nations caught in his path. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)   It is March 27th.   About 150 Russians died after a terrorist attack, most likely orchestrated by Isis. In Moscow, however, the Russian authorities stab link the attack to Ukraine, even directly blaming Ukrainians for deaths of Russians. Do you know why this is happening? Why do we insist on a nonsensical version of Ukrainian involvement? Because they care about nothing more than fueling hatred towards Ukraine among Russians. Putin and his cronies will dance on the corpses of their compratiots, spit on them, do anything if it serves to stoke hatred towards Ukraine.   Russia is a rotten terrorist state led by true degenerates who don't give a shit about everyone and everything. They have stolen so many billions for themselves that they don't even know what else to desire; they've tried every drug in existence, every possible sexual perversion, nothing affects them anymore. Only war. It's Putin main drug, his main lover. If he needs to kill 20,000 Russians to take the ruins of a small village, he will do it. If he needs to take money from hospitals and schools and spend it on tanks and concentration camps, he will do it. If he needs to be a blunt, cynical scum bag who lies while standing on the bones of his citizens killed by isis, he will do it.  Junkie is not controlled by their head or heart. It's controlled by the dose and for it, it is willing to do anything. Putin is a vile junkie, completely dependent on war. And for it, he's ready to do anything. There is nothing he would not do no red lines he would not cross. Don't delude yourself into thinking, but he's only interested in Ukraine. He's interested in war; he's addicted to murder, torture, occupation, executions, and mass graves stretching to the horizon. If he can lie while standing on the graves of his own voters- he'll do anything in a heartbeat. After Bucha, after Mariupol, after thousands of abducted Ukrainian children, do you think he has anything he will stop at? I bet he won't. He will wage war as long as he's alive and free. And it could be decades. At some point, this stupid junkie will decide to increase the dose when the war against Ukraine alone no longer provides the usual high. And he will start bombing United States, Europe, Japan invading Germany, and avenging the French for what Napoleon did two centuries ago by burning Moscow. He's a stupid ruthless junkie, a miserable cretin who would be better off destroyed by the entire world now than to have this entire world later dragged into a war on terms of that junkie. 

March 19th 2024 Yuriy describes a morning routine in Ukraine that's similar and also very different to how people in peaceful countries start their day. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is 18th of March.  What does the morning of residents of peaceful countries begin with? I allow myself to assume that it starts with scrolling through the phone- news, weather notifications from friends and colleagues. In Ukraine, it's almost the same, but with specifics of war in country. The first thing we do is check which cities the Russians bombed last night, we message our friends and relatives there, asking if we need help, and we also have thousands of people who start each morning by checking Telegram channels of the occupiers where they boast about killing the Ukrainians.  There are dozens of such channels where they post photos and videos of the people they have killed and tortured. And those Ukrainians whose relatives have disappeared without a trace start their morning by checking these channels, carefully examining the photos of Ukrainians killed by the occupiers. Because among these victims there maybe their loved ones. I know a young woman whose husband was missing in action on the front lines and there was no information about him for several weeks. She search for him everywhere in hospitals, in lists of prisoners of war, but she found him on the one of these Terrible telegram channels.  The Russians simply killed him, it seems when he tried to surrender to them, they shot him after he had already laid down his arms, and then they posted photos of his dead body on the internet with dirty, racist comments and calls for killing of all Ukrainians. That's how his wife found out what happened to her husband. She unsubscribed from all these cannibalistic channels her mission to study their content ended as soon as she found a photo of her dead husband.   But you know what? Every day, hundreds of other Ukrainians whose loved ones have disappeared without a trace, subscribe to these channels. They flip through occupiers chats with horror in their hearts, carefully scrutinizing every blooded face of the people with Russians killed. In Ukraine, thousands of people are searching for their loved ones among the dead because they have lost hope of finding them among the living. I could once again remind you now what we would be far fewer dead, widow orphans, and parents who have lost children if they were given even a thousandth part of the weapons rusting in the warehouses of Western countries. But I won't- you know about it yourselves. You also know that only vile and amoral people build political careers on the bodies of Ukrainian defenders and the broken fates of their loved ones. We all know this, but knowing it changes nothing. 

March 15th 2024 Yuriy reflects on his daughter's birthday celebration, concerns about the war, physical challenges, and the importance of fighting tyranny while young. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It's March 15.  Today is my daughter's birthday. She turned 19. It's a wonderful family celebration, which I will finally be able to celebrate at home. Although, I have some concerns because I'm currently at home. I have been transferred to Kyiv to serve in the public relations department of a Territorial Defense Forces. I'm once again hosting a radio program with same one I worked on before joining the military. But now, this program is entirely dedicated to the war. And I'm also filming and editing a movie about journalists who joined the army and perished. It's very challenging psychologically, but I'm gradually getting through it.  My anxiety is related to the fact that many of my friends are currently in the trenches in mortal danger, while I am in the relatively peaceful city of Kyiv. I understand that the war will last a long time, and what I will most likely find myself in the trenches again, right on the front lines, but I still have a sense that something is wrong with me. It's completely irrational, but it's unavoidable.  The only thing that causes me more harm than this feeling is the pain in my back. Two years of running in the bulletproof vest with heavy backpack take their toll. It's hard for me to walk, I struggle to get out of bed in the morning, and I am forced to constantly take painkillers. I am afraid to go to the doctor- what if they find something serious? So I just endure it for now. I want to be honest with you. It's better to fight tyrants when you are 20 to 25 years old, young and strong. After 40, it's much harder. Keep that in mind and do everything to ensure that when you get older, all the tyrants around are destroyed.  Let me tell you a bit more about the radio. It turns out that in these two years I've almost forgotten how to host programs. I forgot how to communicate with people who are not my comrades or superiors. Forgot many words that are irrelevant in the army, but are actually necessary during hosting a show. So now I'm hosting a program and I'm very nervous. I think the listeners can hear it, but I hope that with time I'll get back to normal, if I even remember what normal is.   I'm very grateful to all of you for staying with me all this time, supporting me, helping me, and my loved ones. Thanks to you I bought my daughter a gift, a wonderful big book about the history of car racing. It's her hobby- she knows everything about Formula One and other races. She wants to write about it when she finishes university and starts working as a journalist. It's a good dream. I really hope that by when we will indeed be more interested in the results of car races than in the number of casualties from another missile strike on our cities. God willing, it'll be so. 

March 11th 2024 Amidst the bustling streets and apparent normalcy of Kyiv, Yuriy shares a harrowing tale from the heart of a city under siege. He notices a small, yet profound emblem of the war's devastating impact: a child's UNICEF backpack. This symbol of loss and distress, previously seen in the refugee camps of Iraq, now marks the innocent lives upturned by conflict in Ukraine. Yuriy offers a poignant reminder of the unnoticed battles and unseen victims caught in the crossfire of war. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is March 11.  Right now I'm stationed in Kyiv. I'll tell you more about what I'm doing later. Today's conversation isn't about we, despite constant rocket shelling, it's almost a peaceful city. Shops are open, cars are stuck in traffic for hours, and the subway is crowded. Compared to the east like kiv, where even during rush hour, the subway has plenty of empty seats and most businesses more complicated when selling hot dogs have long closed. Kyiv looks like a fairytale city.  But that's a false illusion. The city is full of ruins from shelling, strong fortifications are being built around it around the clock in case of a new Russian advance on the capital. Patrols walk with streets and air raid sirens blare daily. But for me, the main sign that war is very close to Kyiv is not all this but a simple school backpack on a little child. Let me explain.  I arrived in Kyiv, walked down the street to the headquarters, and accidentally noticed and ate year old boy with a UNICEF blue backpack. Most of you fortunately don't know what it is, but for me it's a sign of terrible distress. UNICEF is a United Nation foundation that helps children. I don't really know how well or poorly they do it, but they exist. I've never spoken to employees of this foundation, but I've seen this back packs before it was in Iraq and the heat of the war against ISIS in a huge refugee camp.  In the middle of wet camp stood a huge tent in the army. They set up filled barracks like that, but there it was, a school. Before the classes started, hundreds of children from the entire camp ran to the stand and many of them had these blue backpacks. One of the school teachers then told me that these backpacks are given to walls who have nothing left, to children whose parents have lost everything and have no savings even to buy a bag, a couple of pencils and notebooks for their child. And also to those who have been left without parents altogether.  I look at the children with these backpacks and almost cried ordinary girls and boys who, because of some savages from ISIS, were left without a home, without their usual environments, often even without parents. And now the same children with the same backpacks are in my country, in my city. Because the savages have come to us too. 

March 6th 2024 Yuriy shares his firsthand account of the devastation caused by Russian missile attacks in Ukraine. Discussing the destruction of residential buildings and the loss of civilian lives in recent shellings, he highlights the suffering and calls for justice for the Russian invaders. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is March 6th.  When a multi-story residential building is hit by a missile, the explosion can be heard several miles away. The sound accompanies the blessed wave. When comes The audible ringing over shattered glass windows, shatter, broken into thousands of teeny shards by the impact of a missile. The cries of the people living in the building are not heard. Although, I'm sure that the pain and fear experienced it by wars who survive, canel them to scream as they never have before in their lives. But the concrete and brick of where building muffled these cries, preventing them from escaping outside.  Rescuers working to clear the rubble of buildings destroyed by Russians arrange moments of complete silence at regular intervals. They switch off all machinery, fall silent themselves, stand still, trying to hear the voices of the living from under the rebel. You know what the Russians are doing during this time? They are improving their missiles so that Ukrainian rescuers hear these voices as rarely as possible so that every salvo kills as many civilians as possible.  It seems to me that in the military, I'm in greater safety when civilian people. When children and the elderly, I have weapons, everyone around me has weapons, we have shelters, and overall the Russians are not fighting so much against the army as against peaceful people bombarding Ukrainian cities and towns with rockets and bumps. A few days ago, I was in my hometown of Kharkiv. Back in the summer, people began to return there, who fled in the first days of the great war from the threat of city's occupation. Now, Kharkiv is empty again, and all because of daily missile attacks in which adults and children constantly die. The same goes for Odessa and other cities. The Russians simply destroy residential buildings along with the people inside. This is we strategy make the lives of the Ukrainians a daily hell. The Russians call this fraternal assistance. Their fraternal assistance kills babies with their mothers, makes children orphans and leaves thousands of widows. We lack air defense systems to cover the sky over the entire Ukraine. We lack modern weapons to drive the occupiers out of our land, but I swear these monsters will answer for everything. I really want everything in Russia to explode and burn as Ukrainian cities explode and burn. I want them to go to bed every evening and not know if they will wake up in the morning. Somewhere in the country of killers, and maurauders lives my brother, my nephews, girls I once loved, men who will once my friends. But I don't p any of them anymore. The rockets and bombs coming from Russia kill not only people, they kill in those who survive the feeling that Russians are also human beings. Right now, Russians are turning Ukrainians into a whole nation of people who hate them and who will actually destroy Russia and Russians out of first for revenge, because the Russians have turned out to be cannibals. And they will get everything they deserve. 

March 2nd 2024 Yuriy talks about the friend he lost at the start of the war, and how he feels his fate is down to luck. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is 2nd of March.  Two years ago, I learned about the death of my first friend in this great war, a young, vibrant guy with a wheat colored hair and a mustache. He resembled a hero from an American movie about the Vietnam War or the second World war, you know the type of young Robert Redford. He proposed to his girlfriend on the eve of a full scale invasion where you are supposed to get married in the summer of 2022. He had so many plans for that summer, he was convinced that the war would be over before the warmth arrived.  We all thought so. We all desperately wanted to believe that it wouldn't last long, but it was almost an adventure, a bit dangerous, but noble and interesting. And then, bam, one of us was gone and another one died a few days later. And by summer, news about friends who went missing, we were killed or captured, came in dozens. It's just an endless stream of funerals. Endless.   A journalist I once worked with recently wrote a piece that includes the words "Our cemeteries are now bigger than some of our towns." Of course, it's artistic exaggeration, but there are indeed so many new graves that I feel sick near cemeteries. Thousands of the best sons and daughters of Ukraine have fallen into the ground forever because of a savage stupidity and cruelty of our enemies. We have a tradition of placing  the pole with a national flag on the grave of a fallen soldier, and our cemeteries are just a sea of these flags.   War is such a wild thing, where often your fate depends not on how trained, motivated, and brave you are, but on a pure chance. Once a Russian shell landed a few meters from the car I was in. It would have been certain death, but it just didn't explode. Sank into the dirt and that's it. It's just luck and nothing more, and for some reason not everyone is that lucky. Why? It's a big mystery to me.  Honestly, I envy people who believe in God. We can somehow explain, or at least peacefully accept this unfairness of life, this randomness of death. Nonbelievers don't have that. We see no logic, no heavenly purpose in this horror. We just know we have to keep fighting, even when there is nothing, not even hope left. 

February 26th 2024 Today marks the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion or Ukraine and two years since Yuriy signed up to the army. He tells a story of a European reporter who managed to escape a checkpoint... You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is February 25.  One European journalist of Russian origin worked in the occupied part of Donbas since the beginning of occupation, from the summer of 2014. He was fluent in Russian, obtained all permits from the occupiers to stay in the territory they controlled and negotiated with almost all warlords. They highly valued this reporter because they believed that with his help, they could legitimize the occupation of part of Ukrainian territory in the eyes of Western readers.  The reporter had problems only once. During a routine document check at the checkpoint the occupiers found a photo under the cover of his passport, showing the reporter completely naked, embracing another naked man, his boyfriend. This European was gay, and in the eyes of a drunken occupier at the checkpoint, this was the most terrible crime. And these occupiers faced a dilemma: on one hand, they had a gay man in front of them whom they had already declared illegal, on the other hand, they needed this guy very much for propaganda work. And he found a way out. "He's my brother. My brother and I were fooling around and someone took a photo of it." The reporters told the occupiers, "Oh brother? Great brotherhood is sacred." The invaders rejoiced because the reporter found an excuse that gave him justification to let him go.  Everyone knew it was a lie. Everyone understood everything. But it was convenient for everyone to pretend that these were indeed naked brothers in the photo. This lie was beneficial to everyone. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, when these checkpoints with drunken occupiers appeared in Crimea, in Donbas, moscow told everyone that these were some local insurgents who bought machine guns, cannons, and even tanks somewhere in a military equipment store. The world knew Moscow was lying, but it pretended to believe it because it was more convenient, it was more profitable for everyone.  This lie led to a great war that started two years ago the World continued to trade with Russia, sending it billions of dollars, which went to armaments, propaganda, preparation for a full scale invasion and the destruction of Ukraine. The voices of reason crying out that one cannot cooperate with murders, cannot give them the opportunity to strengthen and enrich themselves were ignored. Moreover, everything was done not to alienate the Russians. The Ukrainians were not given weapons, forced to negotiate with occupiers, and told that the main thing was not to anger the Russians.  Today marks exactly two years since I joined the Army, yesterday marked exactly two years since the start of a full scale invasion- an invasion that would not have happened at all if the world had the courage to acknowledge that Crimea was occupied, and not voluntarily joined Russia, that the Donbas is not controlled by local insurgents, but by units of Russian army forces. Lies unwillingness to see reality, readiness to believe blatant lies, to avoid facing the unpleasant truth. All of this has led to a nightmarish war.  Unpunished evil always comes back. That's the rule. Russia, a country of maniacs, a country of murders seized, Donbas, and Crimea, tortured thousands of Ukrainians, but the world preferred not to see it, forgave everything and Russia went further. It was allowed to do so.    

February 22nd 2024 Yuriy narrates the tragic life of Alexei Navalny, a prominent Russian opposition figure with Ukrainian roots. He delves into Navalny's controversial stance on Crimea, his unwavering hope in the Russian people, and the bleak political landscape that led to his imprisonment and untimely death. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is February 22.  It takes about three hours to drive from Kyiv to Chernobyl, the site of the most horrific nuclear tragedy in human history. The last hour of the journey passes through the so-called Exclusion Zone, the area most affected by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion. Prolonged exposure where is deadly, and therefore it is forbidden to live where on both sides of the road, one can see half-ruined villages. Their inhabitants were resettled to other parts of Ukraine in 1986, the year of the catastrophe. Among those evacuated was the Navalny family- the grandmother of the future Russian politician, his uncles and aunts and cousins. Most of which Chernobyl Navalnys were settled near the beautiful and quiet town of Bucha. At that time, Alexei Navalny was attending school in Moscow. His father has left his homeland for Russia and remained where his son Alexei was born in Moscow.  In 2022, Russian invaders came to Bucha and the surrounding villages among the many local residents they killed, there was at least one Navalny. The body of a murdered man was later found with his passport in his hands. It seems that the invaders, checking his documents, saw the oppositionist last name, and killed an innocent person solely for that reason. Alexei himself wrote about this incident from prison where a smartphone had been smuggled to him. Despite his Ukrainian origin and family in Ukraine, Alexei hardly felt close to our country. On the contrary, he managed to become almost an enemy of Ukraine. He did not condemn the occupation of Crimea, welcomed the creation of his support centers there, and once even openly stated that he would not return Crimea to Ukraine if he became president of Russia. He wouldn't return it because, to quote him, "Crimea is not a sandwich to be passed back and forth." Since then, Ukrainians have called him "not a sandwich."  Navalny's attitude towards Crimea and his unwillingness to recognize the illegality of the occupation of part of Ukraine can be explained by the fact, but he genuinely believed that he could be elected to power in Russia. And Russians, the majority of whom were very happy about the seizure of foreign lands, would never have voted for a person who told them that they were rejoicing in a crime. Alexei Navalny believed too much in Russians, he had too much and completely unfounded hope for them and their support, and they betrayed him. First, they let him be sent to prison in the Arctic Circle and then they allowed him to be killed in that prison. Neither his justification of the occupation no other dubious but attractive statement for the Russian voter helped him.  I used to think that his life could have been very different if he had gone to Ukraine in 2014, when Russia was just beginning its invasion. He had the right to Ukrainian citizenship because of his roots, and it seemed to me, that here he could have used his political talents to fight against the occupation, not support it. But now I understand that fate had prepared a completely different mission for him. By his imprisonment and his death, he showed the world that there can be no honest change of power in Russia, that a candidate, even one who covers up the crimes of the region, but otherwise an opposition figure is doomed to torture and death. Russia is like a cursed kingdom from a terrible fairy tale where there can be no happy ending, where the main good hero does not mind seizing part of neighboring kingdom, and when this hero is captured and sent to certain death by the ugly and evil king, there is no one who could even try to save him.   

February 20th 2024 Yuriy recounts of the intense and tragic events during the beginning of the Ukrainian revolution, where unarmed protestors faced violent suppression by authorities, leading to the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war. He tells the story of courageous and resilient Ukrainians who fought for independence against corrupt regimes and foreign interference. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)    It is February 20  From the metallic pole, bullets ricochet with a soft musical ring. You managed to hear a "ding" on a high note and the quiet whistle of a bullet rapidly losing speed after hitting the steel. This sound is deceptively pleasant, almost calming. It was from this sound exactly 10 years ago when the war began. I remember this day very well, February 20th, 2014. For several months a huge tent camp had been set up in the center of Kyiv- unafraid of winter colds and other inconveniences, thousands of people stood gut there demanding the resignation of the thieving pro-Russian President, Victor Yanukovych.   The riot police he sent kidnapped and killed the most active protestors since the first weeks of revolution, set ambushes and raid on the revolutionaries for weeks. But it was on February 20 that were authorities decided on an armed assault on the camp. Snipers settled on the rooftops, riflemen and riot police with shotguns occupied the streets around with square, with the protestors. The police force advanced, broke several barricades, burned tents, but then something incredible happened- tired freezing people with sticks and stones drove the regime's dogs away. They retreated, hiding behind the backs of conscript soldiers whom they used as a living shield and shot at unarmed people. Blood flowed down the hills of Kyiv. Terrified police officers sprayed the crowd with wallet of bullets.  At some point, a man next to me fell like a thrown sack. A bullet hit him in the head and went through. He didn't even have time to scream. They loaded him onto makeshift stretchers, made of boards, and tried to carry him out of the firing zone. But the police hit the leg of one of walls carrying the corpse. He fell, but didn't scream or cry, just cursed those who had caused this bloody turmoil. And although it was Ukrainian Riot police shooting at the protestors brought to Kyiv from all over the country, it was the first battle of Russo-Ukrainian war. And here's why. Protests in Ukraine began after Yanukovych refused to sign the long awaited agreement on cooperation with the European Union. He refused because Putin really did not want that, who approved and vetoed all important decisions over Ukrainian government. Having nominally gained independence from Moscow in 1991, in 2014 Ukraine had to reckon with what Russian rulers would want.  And people got tired of it. We were tired of Yanukovych corrupt rule, tired of Russian managers sitting in all major enterprises and even government departments, Ukrainians were tired of being a colony and decided to truly become independent, so we went against the government. The riot police shooting at them, were not only defending Yanukovych, they were defending the order under which Russians could dictate their terms to Ukraine.  And when this order fell along with Yanukovych fleeing to Russia with tracks of gold, the Russians started an open war. They entered Crimea, then the Donbas and in 2022 decided to finish off Ukraine once and for all.  But Ukraine stood then, when people had nothing but faith in themselves and pieces of broken cobble stones. It'll stand now when instead of cobble stones, Ukrainians have guns in their hands. 

February 13th 2024 Yuriy discusses the interview that Putin gave to Carlson, delves into the disturbing mind of Putin, highlighting his delusional beliefs and dangerous obsession with destroying Ukraine. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)  It is February 13.  I don't know if you watched the interview of Putin with this weird, so-called journalist Tucker Carlson. I really hope not, because a sane person  wouldn't willingly subject themselves to such a spectacle of idiocy. However, as I'm currently working with information, including hostile ones, I had to familiarize myself with these deaths of darkest stupidity. And you know what? Nothing new. Absolutely nothing new from Carlson. He showed a delusional old man who believes in wild conspiracy theists and tailors his life around them.  You probably know plenty of conspiracy theorists who believe in the danger of vaccines, that airplanes are spraying dangerous chemicals or any other nonsense. Well, Putin has a slightly different mental disorder: he believes that Ukraine never existed and will never exist. And he wouldn't be any different from other lunatics if he didn't have an army, millions of obedient people and foreign servants like Carlson. He has all of wet, so he's not just a funny fool, he's a dangerous maniac. In his hours-long conversations, he expresses only one thought: "Let me destroy Ukraine. Let me make reality completely aligned with what I've imagined with a world where Ukraine does not exist."  Searching for rationality in this is pointless. Maniacs kill and rape not because of reason, but because of mania, and Putin is just a slave to his own mania. Look, he's ready to do anything for the sake of destroying Ukraine, once considered an equal in the world's capitals, with kings and presidents flying to Moscow to meet him, but now only a madman from North Korea and the murky Iranian ayatollahs consider him equal. He gave up everything and turned into a criminal just because he's a maniac, just because everything else except destroying Ukraine, does not interest  him.  And he's an exhibitionist maniac. He wants the world to see how he tortures Ukraine, how brutally his army deals with Ukrainians. It's important for him that everyone sees it. It's no coincidence that soldiers of Russian army are not just allowed, but ordered to behave as cruelly as possible towards Ukrainians. He's killing, raping and cutting down Ukraine, and through people like Carlson, he's telling the world: "I have the right to do this because I want to. Don't help Ukraine. It'll only get worse, if you don't help. I'll kill here quickly, eat here and when I'll calm down and I won't torment anyone else." And the strange thing is that there are people in the world who say, "Maybe it's true, it'll be better. Let him destroy all Ukrainians and then he'll calm down." Hello fools. Don't you see that he's a serial maniac who enjoys killing and destroying? I can understand if you have no conscience and want to save yourself at the expense of destroying an entire nation, but you also lack brains because you won't save yourselves from him. Soon, the third year of a great war will begin, and I can't even convey to you how terrible and bloody this war is. There are simply no words, but the fact that I lack words to describe the truth does not mean we should listen to Carlson's who always have thousands of different words for lies and justifications for murderers. 

February 9th 2024 Yuriy expresses thanks for a thoughtful gift from Thomas, a Vietnam veteran, highlighting how such gestures serve as a reminder of support and companionship. He expresses frustration with individuals and media outlets who, unlike Thomas, lack deep understanding of military realities and the dangers of war, sharing instances where he was asked to perform menial tasks at risk to his own safety. And he notes the need for victory to ensure the survival of the Ukrainian culture and its people You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is February 9th. I'd like to start this episode by thanking my listener Thomas from the United States. I received a package from him with snacks and a letter with very warm words. Thomas is a veteran who fought in Vietnam and he understands perfectly how important such things are. It's not just a package of snacks, it's a real holiday, a sign that you are not alone, you are supported and cared for. Thank you very much, Thomas. I'm delighted we have a package.  And today I want to talk about people who are complete opposite of Thomas. People who simply don't understand what war is, don't see the tragic events that are happening here. I met such people in the very first days in the army. I remember one phone conversation during which I was telling an editor of one of Western media outlets about what was happening in Kyiv, which was surrounded by the occupation army. She listened to me and went, said, "okay, I need you to go and shoot on your phone camera, abandoned houses, checkpoints, maybe someone forgot to close the door in the apartment- go in and film what's going on there."  It just infuriated me. I told her: "Listen lady, why did you decide what I work for you and you can give me tasks? Do you know what awaits someone with Knik who films checkpoints. And what about someone who goes around houses looking for open apartments? What do you think, armed people who are a mile away from the enemy, will they ask why I am doing this? Am I not a spy or a marauder, or will they just shoot me right away?"  She was offended and didn't call me again. For her war is something but can be quickly and beautifully filmed by someone else's hands, and if it did not work out then there is no need to know anything about this war.   A few months ago, another crew of Western journalists asked me to be via translator and assistant while they were filming stories in Ukraine. They knew, I'm in the Army and it did not even occur to them, that I could not just leave my unit on my own. That the Army is not a holiday camp where you can come and go whenever you want.  And recently a European filmmaker asked me to help him prepare a film about the war. He wanted to record conversation with me about the things he was interested in, but I refused. Because I simply not interested in what he's interested in. The list of questions included, for example, "What kind of weapons do you have? What do you usually eat for lunch? Why did you decide to join the Army?" This would have been great questions. If we had been asked at the beginning of the war when the world simply didn't understand who Ukrainians are and why we are fighting so stubbornly with a much stronger enemy, but now everyone understands everything. You know, excessive attention to small details is only harmful. In the talks about the calibers of weapons, about what the cook is preparing, what we are wearing and where we sleep, it is very easy to lose the main thing, that we are fighting against those who decided to eliminate us. Who have taken a course toward the complete liquidation of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that this is what we need to talk about now, not about some trifles. These trifles will then be in museums and history textbooks, and everyone will be able to see them there, and our task now is completely clear -to make sure that this museums are filled with Ukrainians and these textbooks are written by Ukrainians and not by the Russians. And for this, we need to win.  This is why I don't record new episodes as often as I used to. I really don't want main thing to be lost in a pile of small details, that we will all simply disappear if we lose. And we will be no one to be offended by, no one to ask about the food in the soldiers canteen, no one to ask to work as a translator. None of us will exist. 

February 2nd 2024 Yuriy tells the story of one of the recently exchanged Ukrainian prisoners who returns home from Russia and learns of his country's ongoing fight for freedom, only to discover that his wife and one of his daughters died in an attack. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is February 2nd.  Recently, a new exchange of prisoners with Russians took place. 207 Ukrainians returned home from the Russian prisons. All of them endured torture, humiliation, and inhuman treatment. And among them was a man for whom even the liberation did not end the horror. He fought in Mariupol where his wife also served. Both of them fell into captivity when Russians occupied the nearly destroyed city. After a few months, his wife was exchanged and returned to Ukraine.  Living in Dnipro with her two daughters she awaited liberation of her husband. However, last year, a Russian missile hit their home. It was a large apartment building and the missile almost completely destroyed it. Dozens of people died a horrifying and terrible death. Among them were the former prisoner of war, and one of her daughters, the elder child survived but before her eyes, two of her closest family members perished.  The third closest person, her father, remained in captivity and had no idea what was happening beyond the walls of his cell. This is a widespread Russian practice -they do not allow prisoners not only to contact the relatives, but also to receive any news. Many captives often do not know that Ukraine still exists and is still fighting that Russian plans to capture and fully subjugate the country have failed. Most find out about this just hours before the exchange when they are taken out of where cells and brought to the exchange point. And now, imagine a person who spent a year and a half in captivity suddenly learning that Ukraine exists, that it is fighting, and moreover, that this person is returning home and will be free. This was probably the happiest day in the soldier's life. However, after arriving in Ukraine, he is told that his wife and one of his daughters died from a Russian missile. And his happiest day turns into the saddest.  I simply cannot imagine what this person is feeling right now, what storms are tear his soul apart, what cures his hurling at the heads of Russian criminals.   By the way, I vividly remember that when we bombed the house in Dnipro, the Russians claimed that there were no civilians there, only a foreign NATO mercenary headquarters. Russians always do this- everyone killed by way bullets, shells, and missiles is declared a terrorist and Nazi and a NATO mercenary. This is a rule if you hear Russians boasting about destroying a NATO headquarters know what it means that we have killed women and children again. There are no exceptions. Just as there are no NATO headquarters in Ukraine. Friends, as our country still realize on the support of foreign partners, I still very much need your support. I remind you that you can help me and my family with details provided in this episode description. Thank you. 

January 29th 2024 Yuriy reflects on the war and shares his experiences as one of the younger soldiers in a unit of parents and grandparents. Join us as he explores the sacrifices and determination of older generations in protecting the younger ones during wartime. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It is January 29.  Many years ago, before the war, I used to read fiction books. Then I switched to nonfiction and almost stopped reading anything fictional. Because here since 2014, from the beginning of Russian invasion, we have been so many tragedies, so much pain and despair that there was no point in sympathizing with book characters. How can one take fiction seriously? When thousands of real life King Lears are abandoned on the streets, scores of Odysseuses are left far away from where homes and countless Ophelias are driven mad by despair.  I stopped reading fiction a long time ago, but some of those books still live in my memory. For example, I vividly remember Kurt Vonnegut's book, 'Slaughterer House Five' or 'The Children's Crusade'. Vonnegut a US Army soldier during Second World War was captured by the Germans and sent to Dresden where he survived with the allied bombing of the city. He escaped death by hiding in one of a deep underground meat lockers an experience that inspired him to write the book about his war experiences. Hence the first part of the book title- Slaughterer House five.  The second part about the Children's Crusade is a quote from  Vonnegut's wife. She described her husband and his comrades' participation in the war emphasizing where youthfulness when they went to the front. Most of them barely reached adulthood with they were in fact, children sent into real bloody war against the monstrous evil. In our army too, there are very young girls and boys, but they are minority compared to the older soldiers. Men under 27 years old are not conscripted for war, those younger when that age come to the Army only as volunteers. However, even among the volunteers, the majority are people over thirty or even forty. At 43. I am one of the youngest in my unit, we have people aged 50 and even 55, and all of us volunteered.  We have been at war for over 700 days and no one knows how much longer it will last. In our free time conversations about what each person will do after the victory used to be common. However, these discussions now contain fewer concrete plans and more abstract dreams. People no longer talk about finding specific jobs or taking certain positions. They just express a desire to live, to see victory, and finally rest.  In ordinary life, I did not feel my age. There was no occasion to. But in the Army you immediately realize that you are not 20 anymore. Your back, legs and neck constantly remind you that they are not very happy with the burden of body armor, helmet, and heavy backpack. You can't run as fast as the young ones, you can't jump as high, and you have to stop more often for a break. But you still do your job. Hundreds of thousands of adults and even almost old people do everything for the sake of victory, despite bad knees, joint pain, high blood pressure, and other unpleasant things that come with age. It's a crusade, not of children, but of their parents and grandparents. And I think that's how it should be. We must protect the younger generation, ensure their safe future. They should not die under shell and freeze in trenches or yearn far from home and familiar things. All of this is our responsibility now. 

January 24th 2024 Yuriy describes an encounter hitchhiking with a driver who shares his criminal past and explains the phenomenon of people justifying themselves to soldiers. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Podbean app users can enjoy closed captions)   It's January 24.  Recently I was given a ride by an unfamiliar driver. It happens sometimes -people give lifts to soldiers if they're heading in the same direction, and I occasionally take advantage of that. But this ride was entirely different from all the others. I had not even closed the car door. When the driver started a very strange monologue, he began telling me that he had spent almost half his life in prison engaged in robberies and had almost killed someone once. That he was convicted of whole bunch of serious crimes.  You know, such conversations make sense to intimidate someone who seems dangerous. Just like a red panda stands on its hind legs or a cat arcs its back to appear larger and scarier. People sometimes, in danger, start presenting themself as real monsters, but for the driver, there was no danger at all. He was a huge guy, almost twice my size with hands that barely fit on the steering wheel. So, scaring me for self-defense purposes made no sense. I could not do anything to him.  And here we are driving and I'm listening to his stories about his criminal adventures, trying to understand why he's sharing all this with a stranger. Honestly, I never understood it until the driver revealed all the cards himself.   "I wanted to join the military right after the full scale invasion began just like you, but they did not take me. They said, with such a criminal past, the army won't accept me." The driver told me, of course, he lied a bit. In the first days of the invasion they took everyone into the military, only releasing those prohibited from serving later, including criminals. But that's not the point. The real phenomenon is the relationship between people in uniform and those without. I constantly encounter this- men who did not go to the army start explaining to soldiers why we stayed behind. No one asks them, no one condemns them. But anyway, they need to justify themselves to those in uniform.  This phenomenon is widespread. I've heard from many military personal, but strangers on the street or in transportation would start telling them why they didn't join the army. Describing where illnesses, talking about small children, elderly relatives, and so on. Once I encountered a very strange reaction to my uniform.  A year ago after some very tough weeks in Bakhmut, I came to Kyiv and took the metro to the headquarters without changing out the clothes I wore on the front. And then a man of my approximate age attacked me in the metro. Telling me that my dirty clothes were disrespectful to people around me and that I could not ride public transport in such a state. I almost immediately understood that it was his defense reaction. By degrading me for my appearance, he simply wanted to justify his existence in a peaceful city. As if being a soldier meant being dirty and scary.  But, that was a singular incident. No one else has ever tried to berate me. However, I heard a lot of real and imagined story about why someone did not join the Army, and I think I'll hear more.