Hudson River Radio dot com. It beats listening to nothing. Be Frank. We're the only way to be is Frankly. Hello everyone, and welcome to Being Frank. We're the only way to be is Frank. I'm your host, Frank Lebono, and we'd like to thank you for joining us here on
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information about the podcast. We bring our audience a new topical program every week, beginning on Fridays. Listen at your convenience, and every program is archived, so you can listen to any Being Frank virtually any time that you want. It's the intelligent thing to do. We are recording this program on the sixteenth of February. Speaking of dates, February twenty fourth will mark one year
since Russia's brutal an illegal assault began on the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Since that time, the Ukrainians have offered a fierce resistance, vowing that the Russians will never succeed in conquering their country. However, the cost is been considerable, with tens of thousands of dead on both sides. Many of those dead have been Ukrainian citizens, deliberately targeted by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cabal of thugs to bring Ukraine to its knees. Needless to say, it's not
working. The struggle continues, but one still must contemplate how many more must die in their fight for freedom. We are now enjoyed once again lie from Ukraine by two of the most intrepid men that I've ever known. First, Yuri Matarski has transformed himself, like many Ukrainians, from a normal life as a radio broadcaster to a warrior fighting for his country's freedom on the front lines. He joins us from the fierce fighting in the Don Boss region. Our
second guest is a man I'm proud to call colleague. He has covered most of the world's major conflicts and has dedicated his latest mission to tell of the Ukrainian struggle for freedom. He has been there since the beginning. Mister Philtner, gentleman, thank you so much for joining us to be here. I
want to begin with Urie because Uri has limited time. He can only spend about fifteen minutes with us, so I would like to begin with him, and then we'll take a quick break, and then Phil will join us full time, but of course he can jump in at any time and add his perspective to what Yuri has to say. You again, you've been with us once before, early on in the conflict, and we're grateful that you join us once again. If you would please tell us your current condition. Where
are you now. I'm now serving in the army. As I joined the army on the second day of the war. I'm still serving in the army almost a year now. I'm my unity is located in Dunbus region. This is region. Most part of it, or a large part of it, is under Russian occupation. The fiercest battle of this war is now waging in Hearing dun Bust around a town of Bahmut, which is greatly partly destroyed and a lot of seages. A lot of towns around Bahmut are also destroyed by
artillery and rocket fire. So I am now here near near the hottest spot of this period of war. Urieu. As we mentioned, and as you has mentioned, you joined on the second day of the war, and you were a radio broadcast or journalist as Phil and myself or and it's not a try question because obviously your life has changed, but you describe it for us? How How has it changed from an everyday existence to one of literally fighting for your life on a daily basis. I think that's something most of us
find almost inconceivable. Can can you possibly put us there? Yeah? I'll try to to to describe it, but I'll, you know, I'll start to if something really, really sort things from home, things from ordinary life. I was talking to my daughter a few days ago via Internet, of course, and she asked me, also, what is going on in my how my life changed for from the beginning of from the third days of war.
And I don't know why, but I suddenly understood that for a year, or almost for a year, I didn't buy any piece of of civilian clothes. You know, I don't buy any piece of I don't buy any shorts, any T shirts civilian I mean, I don't buy any any boots or civilian civilian sneakers. So I'm always wearing the military uniform. I'm always doing the military job. I have a small connection with my pre war life because I'm doing the English language podcast Fighting for Ukraine. You can find it,
find it on a pot being page and on all other platforms. I'm trying to do it on the I mean I was. I was at the beginning of the war. I was making it on the daily basis. Now it's really really hard to meet to do to to do it on the daily basis because we are always moving, We are always on the move, and it's not always possible because of you know, you know, of my nervous condition. Sometimes I'm really on the virtue of a nervous breakdown because I see
a lot of really really bad things all around me. I see a lot of towns and cities really really really badly destroyed or damaged by Russian fire. For example, of the city of Issume, near my native heartif is destroyed, almost eighty eighty persons of all buildings are destroyed or partly damaged. Where and when you saw the people, saw people living in the basements, so living in the in the houses without the wall or even without two walls,
in the cold, freezing web. It's it's really really so for me, it's really hard to see and really hard to understand that, you know, only year ago it was a nice, beautiful, rich city and the people we were happy living their ordinary lives in their apartments, in their houses,
and now they're just for understanding. A lot of people in the down pass region in uh in surrounded areas can it see even can it see um uh coot food for a four months for a week, so we only have some kind of can't foods from volunteers or from soldiers who are always ready to share their meals with the local population and it really really hurts me. So always understanding my latest podcast, I think it it's it published right now while we
are talking. It should be published. I'm talking in this podcast about about my really bead scenervous condition after I stumbled upon a straight doc was the female dog who was really really really hungry and looking for some kind of food and warm and protection, and I couldn't do I couldn't do anything for for this
creature. And so yeah, my life completely changed completely and I really want to to to to to to come back, to return to my to my previous life, to my work as a journalist, to my work as a radio host. Very it's extraordinary. We can we can only imagine if here I'm choking up too, and I know you are, the imagery is Can it ever be the same? I mean with theoretically the war can't last forever. I know the Ukrainians are prepared to fight forever. I know you are.
I know Phil will reiterate that that the Ukrainians will never give up. I know that. But at some point there has to be an end to the war. Can there be a return to normalcy? Can you ever go back to being what you once were you were. You know a lot of places which we are not occupied, or which they're free from the occupation,
or which or from each the frontline we are moved. For example, give the place the place where I was living before, before we were oh, my native which was you know, in the circle of Russian forces for a lot of months and was sharing on daily basis with thousands and thousands of rockets and projectiles, and were almost I can I can say that vis cities or
Vise towns are almost completely returned to the pre world life. We have some exception, of course, because because we're are still a curve few uh in in almost all the Ukraine Ukrainian cities and towns, of course we're mostly in Karkie. We're a lot of damage to or destroyed buildings. But you can find the people. You're not just walking around where you can find people going to dates. You can find the open pops, restaurants, theaters, cinemas.
Frank, Frank, there's there's something and your he probably won't say this, Your he probably won't say this without jump in here and just say something about argued. I was out in Herkie about six weeks ago, and if you didn't know that Arkieve was at the center of one of the most fierce battles in Ukraine. It's it's almost it's very difficult to recognize it because vic pride in Herkie is enormous and they're very proud of the fact that they didn't
waste any time at all in cleaning up the city and starting repairs. So the spirit of the Ukrainian people to recover is happening now. They're not waiting until after the war. They're already, especially in a place like Harkie, starting to rebuild. And it's it's a real testament to the strength of the Ukrainian people that they will not let their cities, their lives, their homes
be damaged, and certainly not their spirit. So I'm sure Yuri knows this, but they're they're very modest, proud people in Ukraine, and maybe they wouldn't say it, so allow me to say it. I am always impressed
with the strength of spirit of the Ukrainian people. And Harky will return, Kramatours will return, Mariopal will return, all of the places they will return, because Ukraine is a very proud, strong country and I am humbled constantly how the strength of what they're living through so that I can attest them personally. Well, that's that's a perfect leading. And I'm watching the clock here and I want to be on top of it so that Uri is not putting
any danger. And he gave us fifteen minutes so quickly with that in mind. And we all believe that. We all see it here regularly with reports like yours and Phils who also does a YouTube channel, etc. And the nightly news reports. But you're you're facing a spring offensive. I think it's inevitable. And many people said it's already begun, which means more fighting, more hardship. How is the overall morale of the troops where you are?
Could you share that with us? I can tell you, oh, you know all the things which is which is going around me, But I for sure I can tell you that people, all the people I talk with, all the all the my comrades, all the commanders of all this uh Ukrainian army, all the civilian defenders are ready to fight till the end. There is no some kind of you know, hesitations, There is not some kind of covert dis Yeah, it's it's really brutal and it's really bloody war.
And people who are here, people who are joined the army, people who are still joining the army, most of them were they really understand what is going on and they can see that there are a lot of a lot of blood. We can see where are a lot of dead, people are injured people, a lot of seriously injured people. But we're ready to defend our
homeland. We're ready to do an if even sacrifice our lives to for a victory because we have we have a lot of things where we have a lot of values, what we need to protect, what we need to defend. We don't want to be a part of this, you know, this evil of this evil, ungodly empire of Putting and his people. We don't want it. It's just just better to die fight and went to leave and under like, I gotta asked this question YOURII, how are you shorted for artillery
shelves? I know there's a lot of talk about a lack of artillery and secondly, you could you talk about the inhumane tactics that Russian Russia is using with their own troops, like just sending poorly equipped and poorly trained soldiers to just die on your defensive positions. I can't tell you anything about art because in my in my units, there is not any huge artilly or only mortars and we have uh as I see, and as I know, we have
enough for shells for mortars. We have enough mortar shills. And yeah, I'm so hurt about the meat waves or Russian are using trying to to get Ukrainian positions. We're really sending wave after wave of um poorly equipped or sometimes even not at all trained people in Russian uniform, but very often it's we're armed only with rifles, with assault rifles, with no real protection from any
kind of of our fire. Uh, we've you know, we're the first wave or the main mission of the first wave of the first couple of waves needs to unmask Ukrainian positions. So we are it's suicide missions for mission for them. We need to only to to discover where Ukrainian artillery or where Ukrainian fighters are. We're dining completely or almost completely, and the next waves are trying to storm the Ukrainian positions which you're discovered unmarked by these first meat waves.
It's, you know, it looks like it looks like we're done. I think First of World War something like this, and they have a lot of you know, miles and miles and miles of trenches. We have miles of trenches, we have we have meat waves of Russian soldiers. Sometimes it really reminds me of what I know about the First of World War. Interesting, Eury. We could continue, but we've we've already given us a little
bit of overtime. And I don't want to put you in jeopardy. But please, first and foremost always I say the same thing the film, and we mean it with all our hearts. Please be safe. We support you, We your your your lust for freedom is felt throughout the world. Fill you, thank you, thank you so much. Hit on Slava and I hope i'll see you and hear you so very so goodbye. Thank you for
that's our fervorent hope. Uri Matarski on the front lines in uh in, Ukraine, in the don Boss region, Urie, thank you so much, and we'll see you again. I'm sure of it. Guys. We're gonna take a quick break here where live in Ukraine. We just heard from Urie Matzarsky. Up next, our Intrepid Reporter live also from Ukraine, Philittner here on Being Frank. We're the Only Way to be is Frank. It's certainly intelligent conversation and we'll be right back after these brief commercial messages. This is
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We just heard from Uri Matsarski's a freedom fighter on the front lines and in Ukraine, literally in the trenches. And now we'll be joined by a regular guest who again puts himself in jeopardy to join us here to let us know what's going on in Ukraine. Phil Atner. Phil, Welcome once again, Thank you for taking the time. Yeah, Frank, again, I asked the question of Uri, and I think it's a good question for you as
well. How has your life changed? He's a Ukrainian directly are not you are doing British American citizen, but you've decided to spend the last year in Ukraine. How has your life changed? Well? I actually kind of like you, Frank. I was on the road to retirement. I had kind of I was going to transition to doing, um, stepping away from hard news and kind of doing other things like documentary's or you know, short videos, factual videos, that kind of stuff. And then the war broke out.
And I had been on my Don Square in twenty fourteen, and I had promised the people there, who oftentimes would plead with me not to let Ukraine fall from the front pages. They pleaded with me, you know, don't, don't let us be forgotten. They knew this war was going to come. They know the Russians better than anybody. They know their character, they know their their instincts, their their desire to maintain their empire and their colony. And so they begged me not to forget Ukraine. Uh. And
I said, diameete promises that I would not. And so when the war stuck out, instead of you know, completing my transition to a semi retirement or to kind of pursue interests of a different nature than hard news, um, I came here uh and have been here except for a short break that I had to do when I to go back to the States. I've been here for the entirety of it. And it's exhausting. Uh it is, it's depressing, it's sad, it's uh, it's angering, it's it's infuriating.
Um it's uh, it's it's also something that I feel very strongly about doing because this country deserves to be free. Uh. There's there's I mean, I have covered wars uh in you know, I've covered wars in a variety of their different locations, and nine times out of ten, for the most part, they're pretty murky. But this, this war is pretty clear
cut. It is it is an aggressive colonial imperial state utilizing terror tactics and brutality not limited to UH, but including rape squads and mass you know, mass murder and um violations of international codes of conducts. Uh, not to mention the fact that the basic premise of the war is seizure of territory that does not belong to them. Um, this is clear cut, it's binary. It's it's black and white. The Russians are at their their at falls
here, They're they're conducting a just susting war. Well, and Phil might if I if I might jump in, And I think it's something important there because we as journalists and everybody talks about impartiality. Well, well, sometimes it's it's there's there's a thing about raining outside. You don't debate whether it's raining outside. You you stick your head out and you find out whether it's
raining outside or it's not. It's that black or white. There is no nuance sometimes in part of telling the story is this is the story, and in this particular case, it's Russian aggression. But how is that? How has it changed you, Phil? Has it changed you from the beginning and how? If so? How? Well, I don't know if it's changed me so much because I've I've seen war. I've seen the face of war, you know, over a period of twenty five years in my career.
Um, what it has, what it's reinforced in me, is the help that I never see another war ever again in my life. Um, that this is the last war and the last environment in which people are suffering in which I make a living or you know, which I cover as a journalist, because I'm not really making the living here. I'm doing this exactly. You're totally depended in every sense of the word. That's right, Um, And I hope that I never seen another war. If there's anything that it
is, Yeah, it has changed me. It's just reinforced the idea that I've done. I'm done covering and spending time. I'm it's human suffering. And I joke with my friends and they tease me back about it. Um is that you know my intention is to go and do documentaries about the migratory pattern of the monarch butterfly and the Pacific Coast Highway. You know that's being a good Californian. Um, it's I'm done. I'm done with surrounding myself
with suffering. And I wouldn't be here if it wasn't Ukraine. I would not go to another war, I would not go to another natural disaster or anything. I've seen enough pain and suffering in my life and I really don't need anymore. But it's Ukraine and I love this country. And also the cause is dust and so it's you know, when this is done, no more, no more for me, I'm done. Well you know it as an aside too. In addition to the story, there's the personal toll,
and we talked about it with Urie and those people. But you know, as journalists, I think and I've I've had this conversation with my girlfriend in time you're not immune, you're not beyond and you do get PTSD and you have seen certainly much more in terms of conflict than I have, but certainly my share, even as do. I say to this day, the worst story I covered was the Sandy Hook massacre. Of those those kids. You
couldn't help but feel it. So even in a practical so you have to stay connected, but you have to stay a little bit detached at the same time. How do you work that out in your life and your mind? Phil I try not to let it. I try not to suppress it. You have to put it aside sometimes because you have work to do and you and you want to do right by the people that you're covering. UM, But you can't suppress it, and you can't push it down because UM,
I've seen that happen. I've seen what that's done to other colleagues. And if you try to pretend that you aren't feeling pain, if you're if you if you try to pretend that this isn't really powerfully upsetting you know, then you try to bottle it up and eventually it explodes, and that's unhealthy. I've seen that out to a lot of people who succumb to drug addiction or alcoholism or um or just you know, a real serious cases of PTSC which
erupt oftentimes in violent behavior or anger management issues. So I try not to suppress it. And I I am always skeptical of the people who come to
these kind of situations and pretend that they can just brush it off. I find those people actually to be the most at risk and the guys that I try to stay away from or at least give a good distance too, Because if you don't have empathy, if you if you if you don't acknowledge that this is this is deeply painful and very upsetting to to witness, to bear witness too, then you're then then you're kidding yourself. And Frank I can get a long with and I recognize. Then let me just wrap up with
this. One of the frustrations I find with people who are hyper critical of the media is that you don't It is very easy to be an arm chair general. Is very easy to sit back and criticize the media. Now I am not. I have my criticisms in the meeting. Again, working from inside the media, I recognize where those fault lines lie. I have criticisms but those of us who come here and cover these stories do so at a cost so that you, the audience, have a better understanding of what is
happening to me in the world. All human beings are capable of fault and of not living up to you know, maybe a better model or but we try our best, and it is we are limited by our human natures. But what frustrates me is the is the concept that I see growing in the West and in particular in America, this lack of trust in institutions, and
this ease with which people criticize the media. The media in quotation mark and you know, I have a dear friend of mine who I will miss for the rest of my life Pierre Zakuchevski, an Irish cameraman working for Fox News, who I knew for over a decade and who I considered a very, very close friend. And he was killed the very beginning of this war. And so I just urge people when they are hypercritical or distrustful of the media.
There are people on the front lines here putting their lives at risk, not for any cynical reason, but genuinely from a desire to inform an audience of what is happening on this planet, and so I urge you. As Uri said, today is the day. It's the national holiday commemorating war correspondent,
specifically correspondence within the armed forces. But it still stands true that on a day where we recognize this sacrifices that war journalists make, just consider that it's not so easy to come to a war zone and try to relate what's actually happening here, because we are all subject to our own perceptions and our own limitations. But there are people out here putting their lives at risks,
and it hurts me that we have lost the trust of the public. But it also angers me that people would think that a band like Pierre Zakcheski would pay the ultimate price, that his beloved wife is now going to be a widow. And to say that that is done for some sort of cynical manipulation
of an audience, I find not only depressing but inferior. I'm so with you there, brother, and I don't don't don't spare it with people sometimes when they challenge you with that, and I try to maybe soften it somewhat with a little bit of humor, and I, oh, yeah, I've risked my life many times just so I can lie to you. I mean, what's the think about, what's the motivation? And I have what motivation could I possibly have to put my well being at risk just to tell you
a lie does make any sense? But something, well, it's an unfortunate social medium. All of that has contributed it, but it's it's a conversation. And the and the corporations that run the media networks is the middle management guys. Uh, you know, the guys who sit back and kind of dictate from their ivory towers. I have issue with um, but the people who are out here doing the hard work of covering the news. They are
not perfect, none of us are. But I just think it is so easy to be dismissive or critical when you know you are and also you're you should be a willing participant in the information that you consume. So it is not a one way road learn how to consume medium better. It is not a passive are important? Yes, especially today, Let's let's go back anyway, Yeah, yes, let's go And to go back to the business at hand. You mentioned and it was it was on my list here to ask.
Also, you mentioned the armaments and and and ammunition. How important is that? And is that foreign age package that we hear about the tanks. But for us it can be just numbers in a very practical sense, because you're there and you see it. How important is it for them to have these so called tools, the armor, the artillery and all the other necessarily wage war. There's there's two things, um in the in the short well
in the medium term, getting the weapon systems uh. And by that I do mean like tanks, infantry, fighting vehicles, drones, anti aircraft, defensive systems. Those need to get here as quickly as possible. But there's an old saying in the in the US military, and I'll see if I can get it right here. First off, is it is slow as steady. Steady is fast, if you follow me. So let's let's make sure that those armored systems get here and are implemented properly, people are trained properly.
We'll do we'll do it. We'll do it, you know, steadily, we'll do it competently. And in so doing, we'll get them online as quickly as we can, but also to the greatest effectiveness. The secondary issue is more pressing, and that is artillery shelves. As your mentioned there,
the Russian military doctrine is very different than NATO military doctrine. They have two primary points of focus for the Russian military, and that is um and this is not you know, exclusive, but I'm painting with a broad brush. Um there. They will say otherwise, but their tactics tend to be soften things up with artillery, in which they called the god of war, and then follow it up with one resource that the Russians have that very few
countries can compare with, and that is bodies. Human beings. They have. They have a lot of human beings that they can press gang for a variety of reasons which I won't go into because it goes into cultural stuff. But they can conscript an awful lot of people. And what they do is just throw numbers at the at the at the opposing lot. So you heard
you're talking and I've heard this before as well. They will send a wave of soldiers to crash upon positions so that they can then find out where the strengths and weaknesses are, and then they will push their other conscripts in subsequent
ways upon those more fortified positions. Now, what that means is that you have mass numbers of men poorly trained because they don't need to be heavily trained, poorly equipped because you just give them an AK forty seven and at any more complex than that, you know, you really have to do some more training. Of course, there's anti tank weaponry, and there's all sorts of other stuff. Fin and large, we're talking about waves of men, which
in Russian they don't even call cannon funter. They call it cannon meat. That's why Urae kept saying waves of meat beat. That's the way the Russians look at it, and it's it's deeply cynical. It's deeply depressing. Now why do I mention that I mentioned that, because how do you address that? When you have waves of men coming at you? You call in an
artillery because that's what you got to use. You got to use something that's going to blow up enormous swaths of land, and sadly, a bunch of young men, middle aged men included, who have been grabbed out of their villages in Russia and thrust of the front line is there's no good side to
this. It's depressing as hell, but that's what you need. You you know one one hundred and fIF about milimeter shelves fired from how itzers provided by UH you know, NATO's countries using even other Soviet or other systems, but
it's artillery. Until those weapons systems, the tax and the infantry finding vehicles get here, and then the Ukrainians can can transition from holding defensive lines and they can actually start to get him a sense of maneuver ultimately, Frank, I am hopeful, cautiously optimistic, um, but maybe that's my fault that this will transition quickly from a position of static lines and defensive lines and sending waves and waves of conscripts against them to a war maneuver where Ukraine can can
sweep around UH and and counter offenses and hopefully regain territory in large kind of seizures of open ground and whatnot and cut out supply lines, but ultimately hoping to get to the nineteen ninety one borders, which will include Crimea, which is very troubling to me, but I come around to the Ukrainian side and
I think that they have to they have to take Crimea back. There's a whole bunch of questions about that, because then is it really liberation or are you occupying because there are people in Crimea that are ethnically Russian that do support the Russian Federation, but how much we don't know because every referendum has been held under the under the gun from Russia. But at the end of the
day, I think they should take corect Crimea. Certainly, they should take back the bombast and re established the internationally recognized lines that were that were guaranteed by us in the book Arrest Memorandum, you know, and uh, and then we will see what happened in Ukraine. Does not want to invade Russia, but they should restore their lines and all of that right now in the immediate term, as the Russians throw these waves of the Ukrainians means supplying them
with artillery shelves. From what we heard from Eurie just now and what I've been hearing from other sources on the front lines, they are not in any kind of imminent position where they're going to suddenly run out of AMMO. Then not down to their last box of AMMO. They've got a little bit of latitude, but until they've got a supply line backing that up, they're they're
gonna have to start limiting what they do on fire mission fire mission. So I spoke to a friend of mine who is a defense reporter here Jeb today and he said that they have transitioned their tactics to basically saying anything ten minute or less, don't call in artillery. That's that will. We're going to save our shelves to concern the larger man, start the startington concern it. So um, I am still optimistic. I do not think the Ukrainians are
going to lose. In fact, I know the Ukrainians are not going to lose this floor, but we have to stand with them. I've heard that the US is pulling out something like three million shells from their stockpiles in Israel, which of course might have a ramification there. But this is the war we're fighting now, the mistake about it, and that's what they're the stockpiles are there for. So I think I still think Ukraine ultimately will win. And again I get along with and I know, but let me wrap it
up with this. What's the alternative, Frank, What's the alternative if we if the support for Ukraine is lost by some people who are playing domestic politics, and I won't go into details, but we know who they are right on Capitol Hill, and they're playing games. If they six and we withdraw our support for Ukraine, the consequences of that is we will have to sit
by and watch as bystanders, as Russic in its atrocity. As for atrocity, and I am not being hyperbolic here, given their history, given their mentality when it comes to war fighting, we will we if we well, if we remove our support for Ukraine, we will be complicit and we will watch as a genocide. And I'm not I am not overstating that a genocide will happen in this country. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people will be rounded
up, marched through tangaroo courts and slaughtered. It will be, if not hundreds of thousands, millions of people will be killed, and we will be We will be bystanders by removing our support. Are we do we have the stomach? I know it's difficult to support a war, but do we have the summit the stomach to watch that happen? Because man's almost think about morning, that's what will happen. It was what could be interpreted as good news
today. I was catching earlier and as I said, we're taping on the sixteenth of February from Belarus and their president Yukashenko said said that Belarus would not attack Ukraine with its own forces unless attacked. Is that a hollow statement? Can they be trusted? Does it have any significance or meaning? One of your feelings fail you, you, lukink I don't. I don't trust Lucasenko anymore, and I can throw him underhead. He's a he's a deathbot.
He's a he kills his own people with a little abandoned um. He two years ago now, if my recollection is correct, he conducted a false election and when there was an uprising he put it down violently. Um, Luca THINKO is not someone we should be putting in our trust in having said that, because there is a groundswell of anti Luksenko rebels basically internal with the he can't engage because most of his military sending he spends on suppressing his own people.
If he were to transition that military power to attack Ukraine, he would find himself in real troub because the uprising would happen again. So I don't I think he may be honest when he says he Belarusian troops will not be used directly, but for cynical reasons, not for any kind of brand you
know, digester Georgie Brank. But we are aware of various reports of aircraft being transitioned to Belarus, and it's a short flight from Belarus to the capital kids, so there's every chance that on the twenty fourth, the anniversary or
the commemoration of the beginning of this war, the year commemoration. Because Russia likes to do symbolic attacks are based on dates on the calendar, which is part of the reason why I say they are a terror outlet, because their intention is to use violence and warfare in terms of messaging, not strategically.
We are here in the capital kind of feeling like we're waiting for the other shoot to drop, because we do anticipate that launching from Fellovision airfields, we could have you know, attack strike the aircraft and bombers getting here in such quick fashion that maybe our air defense might be overwhelmed us. That's the greater
fear from Bellar rops, not that there would be a direct invasion. There's another shadowy organism or shadow organization that we hear quite a bit about and certainly relates to the so called meat assaults, the Wagner Group group, as it's also some cap Wagner named Can you tell us about the organization about them? What do you know? What do you know about the brutal? They're brutal,
They're they're where they they're headed up. They're headed up by a buddy of Vladimir Prutins from Saint Petersburg progosion, and he is ofttimes referred to as the as Prutent Chef because he started in the post Soviet space with a bunch of hospitality and catering locations that he turned into a vast fortune. And he's part of Putin's inner circle, and he created a mercenary group called, as
you mentioned, the Wagner Group, named after Hitler's favorite composers. So you know, all the arguments that Ukraine's filled with Nazis, maybe somebody should be looking at Russia's fascists and Nazi tendencies. And they are well known around the world as being ruthless, as being a true ulus, as as being uh
criminals, not soldiers, but criminals. Um. There are reports out of say the Central African Republic of the murdering pregnant women in manner in ways that I don't want to go in the year because it's too disturbing to relate. Um. They have an open tactic that they they revel in. Not only do they try and hide it, but they revel in it um by um uh as disturbing as this his apologies. Uh. They they if anybody is seen to be retreating or not fighting or you know, it's not obeying orders.
Uh, they will use a sledgehammer and a pile of bricks that they wrap the head of the victim. There's no other words for a victim around a pile of bricks and they they they kill them using a sledge brutally, actually in a brutal manner. The videotape it. And now there's some talk that maybe some of this is performative and it is actually theater to strike fear
in their enemies and things like this. Although even the fact that they would revel in this kind of act and then they'll go to other people supporting them and give them chroned um sledge hammers with their emblem audit even if they aren't really doing it. And I actually do believe that they do it, maybe not all the time, maybe some of it is performative, but at least one instance I am I'm convinced was real. For them to revel in that
kind of brutality gives you an impression of the mentality of our troops. Would never ever do that, even even as loathsome an organization of mercenaries as say Blackwater, who I saw it in the Iraq War, even they would not be much less advertising um, they would know the limitations of that. Uh. It just gives you an insight into the mentality of these guys. So they have not been as successful as Progosion would have liked them to be.
They were they were slated to actually take the town to buck Moot, and they weren't able to do it. It's well, it's it's well known that Progosian wanted to present that to Vladimir Putin on a platter so that he could get more funding for his for his group, and probably had a good chunk of it off for himself. He wasn't able to do that. But the Wargner guys are are certainly not superman uh, and they're not taken from the
best ranks of Russian society. It's well known that the Bogner's recruit from inside prisons because those men have nothing left to lose, and there's a criminal underclass that can be ordered to sign up. So that is depressing and distressing as well. And you know, just the last note on on Wardner and They're kind of make up is that not only are they doing things like going to prisons, but they make contracts where they they're the rest of the prison term
will be commuted. So they're taking psychopaths, rapists, and murderers out of their prisons, giving their weapons and having them fight a new prank and should they survive for these six or nine months, depending on the contract, they
will be returned to their villages. So in essence, they're taking criminals out of prisons, putting them in a war zone, which will increasingly, you know, will will only make their trauma and their psychopaths ssarchompathy or their you know, we know, it will feed, it will feed the more you know, vile signs of their age, and then they're going to send them home. Yeah, I mean, this is just after after all that blood, after all the bloods. It's just the Russians are there is this deep
sickness in Russia. And I sadly, because I lived in Russia for five years and I have met a great deal of Russian prince, a great many Russian prince the family, I have to say there's a there's a sickness at the heart of Russian society, and it is festered there for a long time. I'm talking centuries, I'm talking Czaris, Russia, talking Soviet Union,
and I'm talking to Putin era. And unfortunately, as depressing as it is for me to say, maybe this is the wake up call that they need to finally look in the mirror and do some really hard work in constructing civic society and healing the trauma that the Czars, the Soviets and now Putin have inflicted on that society. So but until that time, Ukraine has to defend itself from a country that has an illness, a really sick illness, a mental illness. In the future, Phil, is it possible at this point
to predict a future for Ukraine? Is it possible even now a realistic future for Ukraine? Yeah? Is it too early to speculate in the middle of this brutal No, no, no, no, no, I look, I live amongst the Ukrainian people. I have been coming here for twenty two years. When this country is released from the shackles of a despotic moscow, which they have been trying to release themselves for the better part of three centuries, this is going to be a powerhouse. Now they have trauma, they're
going to have to deal with that. I was out when I was out in Leviv recently, I spoke to an educator who was saying, we have to deal with the trauma of the children, because we don't want them growing up twenty years from now with that trauma and resorting to anger management issues or alcoholism or you know, the trauma as a sore. They are going to be proactive about that. But by and large, I have complete faith in
this country. It is going to be an absolute powerhouse. This is one of the largest year This is actually excluding Russia, which is not strictly speaking solely European. This is the largest European nation on the continent. It will it will at some point be its competitor to France and Germany, and there's a lot of talk about that. Actually that's there's some speculation that there's concerned within the EU that this might shift the balance to a more easterly based power
structure within Europe. We'll have to wait and see about that. That's years in the future. There's going to be in a reconstruction period. There's going to have to be healing and a lot of work needs to be done. But this country has a massive aggrib business industry, it has intellectual property that is astounding. This is a well educated, modern nation state. There's a
military industrial complex. There's all sorts of reasons to believe that Ukraine is going to be one of the most powerful countries in Europe and in so doing being one of the most powerful countries on the planet. I believe that I think this GDP is going to be enormous. There will be lad leafs that will be paying us back for that which we have lent to them in this critical time of need. But you know, it's a price they're willing to pay.
But I have every belief that once the period of recovery, which could take you know, five years, ten years, maybe more, I hope not, this is going to be This will be an amazing country. And not only that I mentioned agribusiness. I mentioned all these other things, tourism. This is a beautiful country, Frank, it's I mean and lovely culture, music, art, food, you'll sally not cynically, but it's funny.
You talk to a lot of Ukrainians to talk about like Russian culture, and they say, most of that was imperial Russia, and it was the Ukrainians that they they stole our best artists to go to their imperial courts. So with a bit of pride they say, actually, you know, all of the best Russian artists really Rainians. So I find that funny, but I'm true with that. That But I urge anybody who who watches this or here's this um, when this war is over come with it, you will
find a people who are accommodating. They are friendly, They will be so grateful for all the effort and support that we have given them. You will find h beautiful women stunning stunning. The beautiful women um for very sad reasons because many of the men die and so they they you know, the prettiest
of the women kind of are the ones they get married. You will find food that heartening, music, artistry, and the landscape from the Carpathian Mountains to the historic beauty of Leviv or Harkiev and then of course the coastline in Odessa. This is a wonderful country and I urge everybody, what's the source over to come here and see what it was all about, and you'll know. You'll know instantly for the second you step foot in this country in a
post war Ukraine. Why it is that that this country deserved our support and what a beautiful, wonderful place this is. Well, we remain helpful. We'd like to thank our guests for being frank and their intelligent conversation. YOU'REI metsartsky earlier and fill it or feel always a pleasure to see you, my brother. We'll see you again. Please be safe, okay. Always Our most important command if you will for you is be safe out there. Okay
we'll do. Thank you, and of course especially my first roadio, but not my first rodeo, but hopefully my last. Hopefully you're last in a very good sense of the word. I hear your brother, dude. Of course, special thanks to our listeners who take the time to give us a voice in their lives. And remember we offer a fresh topic every week and you can catch us wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcasts in places like Apple, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Speaker, and more. You can also
check us out on the Being Frank Facebook page. I'd like to leave you with two last little nuggets, and I think you'll appreciate this. Most of all, Phil comes from Malcolm X. If you're not ready to die for it, put the word freedom out of your vocabulary. Pretty straightforward. I happen to agree. I've got some great closing music from Christopher Shaeffer. I really like it, and it's called Sound This. We'll be back with another Being Frank next week. I'm your host, Frank Lebono. Let's see you
next time. Thanks for joining me. When you the moment, when you you you pot, when you when you put your point, when you Hudson River radio dot com