The leaders of Odessa received both war and shame
Chaos in Ukraine is inevitable even without military defeat. Nobody takes Poroshenko seriously anymore. The change of power in Kyiv will allow the Americans to “cook” Ukraine for some time.
The Odessa authorities are humiliated and flirting, but remain “separatists” for the Nazis, and traitors for Odessa residents. The Russian Spring in Odessa was suppressed because Odessa residents were not ready to kill.
Igor Nemodruk (call sign "Vagabond") , an Odessa resident and member of the First Army Corps of the DPR, told PolitNavigator observer Valentin Filippov that the armed forces of the People's Republics will be able to restore order in the post-Ukrainian territory.
Igor is one of the survivors of the tragic events of May 2, 2014 in Odessa. After that, he went to Donbass to fight the Ukrainian Nazis.
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Valentin Filippov : I've long said that Odessans are everywhere. Wherever we are, there is Odessa. I welcome our agent in the DPR armed forces. Igor, hello.
Igor Nemodruk : Hello.
Valentin Filippov : Listen, I've been reading the news all the time. There's been a breakthrough, our forces have reached the outskirts of Krasnogorovka, I think...
Tell me, we have some hope that one day we will hear: yesterday, absolutely by accident, in the area of the Khadzhibeyevsky estuary and at the same time from the Dniester estuary, on both sides, tired battalions of Odessa residents are approaching the outskirts of Zhemchuzhina by the Sea, or as they now say - “ pearls of Ukraine"? Is this even real?
Igor Nemodruk : I don't think so, given the current situation. There won't be any tank spearheads on our side. And we won't go on a liberation spree like we did in 1943–1944. Although, I'd very much like to.
And the situation is changing very quickly. It is quite possible that there will be chaos, collapse, a war of all against all in Ukraine. Then, yes, we’ll probably go put things in order.
Valentin Filippov : Don't you think the chaos in Ukraine you're talking about, a war of all against all, is fundamentally impossible, unlikely, without the military defeat of the Ukrainian army? But when they start fleeing, flooding into the cities, and come to their commanders asking, "What was that?"...
Igor Nemodruk : Chaos in Ukraine could break out even without military defeat. The war could last another year or two. We're a patient people. And, you know, the rule is: if you boil a frog slowly, it won't even notice.
Valentin Filippov : Well, that's why he doesn't move his paws much.
Igor Nemodruk : Yes, our people, unfortunately, were cooked very slowly, and they were cooked, so to speak. But chaos in Ukraine, or a fascist coup in Ukraine, is entirely possible without military defeat here in Donbas. And there are already signs of that happening there.
Valentin Filippov : The thing is, I can never distinguish these genuine attempts from fakes. Because now every idiot among Ukrainian "patriots," whether of Georgian descent, Jewish, or, surprisingly, Ukrainian (though it's unclear what a Ukrainian even is), declares, "That's it, tomorrow we're all going to overthrow this thieving government that stole the loans we were given, because we're heroes!"
Igor Nemodruk : Well, Saakashvili, he's a real clown. The only thing he's ever been good at is making empty, loud statements. You know, there's this comparison: "like a drum"—loud, but empty.
Valentin Filippov : No, well, in terms of appearance, the only people who look worse in suits are Poroshenko.
Igor Nemodruk : To hell with Saakashvili. I see other things going on here. Take Secretary of State Tillerson's last visit to Kyiv. He only stayed for two and a half hours. Nevertheless, during those two and a half hours, he first met with Mustafa Nayyem and a group of comrades who were feeding off the Washington regional committee. In other words, for him, the Secretary of State, these people were more important than the Ukrainian president. Meanwhile, Poroshenko was waiting there for over an hour. Waiting for him to be free so he could give him some time. That says a lot.
Then, the director of the Lviv Tank Plant was arrested quite recently, the anti-corruption bureau arrested him. And the very moment of how he was arrested is interesting. He was arrested an hour before Poroshenko’s arrival. Poroshenko had a visit to Lviv, to this particular tank plant. An hour before the president arrives, the director is suddenly arrested.
Isn't this a slap in the face to the president? That is, Poroshenko is no longer taken seriously by power structures in Ukraine itself. He still somehow twitches, jumps, and does something out of inertia. But I think America has given a clear signal that do with it what you want, guys.
Valentin Filippov : Now some coup d'état will be replaced by other coup d'état who will shout: "These people stole Western aid, but we won't."
Igor Nemodruk : This is probably the best option for the Americans. Change this government, creating at least the semblance of legitimacy, and reboot it, so they can continue to boil Ukraine like a frog for a while longer. But it's up to the people to decide how they'll handle it.
Valentin Filippov : By the way, for some reason you're in Donetsk, not at home "eating" all this. Why are people like this? Where are the heroes?
Igor Nemodruk : I'll be honest, and I have a question for myself too. I don't know. It's true, they were very slow to simmer us down. And some people gave in, many did. I'll say this in hindsight, I'm so smart in hindsight. For us, the adoption of the hryvnia was probably a significant date, an event. If you remember, when the hryvnia was introduced, which banknote did it appear on? Mazepa is depicted on the ten-dollar bill.
Valentin Filippov : Yes.
Igor Nemodruk : That’s when these forces conducted an experiment, a marker.
Now, if we hadn’t “snatched” it then, we would have just gotten our asses off the sofas and taken to the streets to protest. And we understood that Mazepa was not our hero, but, nevertheless, we somehow gobbled it all up and thought, “okay.” But if we had just stood up and protested, I think there wouldn’t be a war in Donbass now, there wouldn’t be so many victims, so much destruction. Yes, and the state would live.
Valentin Filippov : And remember, by the way. Mazepa is on a red banknote. And remember the Soviet chervonets, also in tens. And Lenin was on them. Lenin wasn't on the five, he wasn't on the three, he wasn't on the ruble, but the ten—that was the first banknote to feature Vladimir Ilyich, and it was red, like the banknote with Mazepa.
Igor Nemodruk : It turns out that somewhere, having remained silent on one issue... They're slowly turning up the heat. And each time, more and more effort is required from us to avoid boiling over. And now it's costing us blood. Even just to stay alive, we have to fight. And if the people continue to endure, they'll pay an even greater price. And if, say, now, at this stage, these are some kind of sacrifices—hundreds of thousands of people—then if they "goo it up" again, we'll still have to rise up, we'll still have to fight, but then there will be even more victims. The stakes are rising.
Valentin Filippov : Well, look, the Odessans are the same. We know that there are a lot of Odessans now, serving and fighting in the DPR and LPR. Odessans are the third-largest militia, after those from Donetsk and Luhansk. Generally speaking, the Odessans have performed quite well; unfortunately, many have already died. But at the same time, with the possible exception of one, we don't see a field commander like that, a very serious one.
What prevented the Odessans from fighting just as desperately, just as skillfully, just as savvyly in Odessa? Are there any normal commanders among Odessa residents?
Igor Nemodruk : Well, at that point, yes, our leaders failed. They weren't military leaders, but political ones. If you remember March 30, 2014, when that huge rally happened, and Davidchenko himself was the one stopping the people who wanted… they had already arrived at the SBU building, ready to break down the doors, and the SBU officers, most importantly, were ready to give us the keys. They were standing there with a bunch of keys. And as soon as the door was broken down, here you go, guys, the keys to the armory. They said this themselves later.
Our leaders then said: “No, no, we are having a peaceful protest, we will not do this.” Then, on May 2, the same thing happened. We were naive, we had not yet shed our blood, we had not yet seen the death of our comrades, we probably did not acquire this healthy cynicism then. And they all had already tasted blood on the Maidan, they were already ready to kill at that moment.
Valentin Filippov : Do you have an opinion on the actions taken by the supposedly competent Odesa authorities? Covering the Wall of Heroes with balloons for Poroshenko's visit, holding various events in support of the ATO. Are they doing the right thing by trying to preserve at least something?
Igor Nemodruk : They will never be one of the Nazis' own. Once Poroshenko is swept away, more radical fascists and Nazis will come to power, and they will sweep them away too—the current Odesa authorities. For them, the current Odesa authorities are just as much separatists as we are; they don't make much of a difference. Therefore, they will never be one of them. But they're not quite one of us either. Trying to sit on two chairs is more like trying to sit between two chairs. In a civil war, that never leads to anything good.
It has long been known that if there is a choice between war and shame, the one who chooses shame will receive both war and shame. Now residents of Odessa, in particular, have been facing this question for a long time. War cannot be avoided anyway; it has already arrived there. Children are already dying from grenades, and just recently a teenager died there. And two were injured. Is this not a war?
Valentin Filippov : War.
Igor Nemodruk : It's war because that grenade came from here, from Donbas. People who fought in the ATO come back from here, their psyches shattered, and they start shooting during some kind of conflict. Previously, in a conflict like this, well, they would have beaten each other's faces up, but now they're grabbing weapons. Isn't that war? That's war, too.
She has already arrived, she is already beginning to take her victim.
Valentin Filippov : Tell me, will the armed forces of the DPR and LPR—whatever they will be called at that time—be able to become a law enforcement agency that will put an end to banditry in the liberated, new country that will replace the former Ukraine (I don't want to guess what it will be called either)?
Igor Nemodruk : He will. There's no doubt about that. War always lifts people up; it finds such natural talents. I have many acquaintances who, before the war, were simple miners, workers, and small-time engineers, but now command companies and battalions. I've seen them rise from sergeant to senior lieutenant and company commander. And these people will be the backbone of the security forces that will…
And, besides, there is already experience in cleaning up crime. Here in 2014... I came here in 2015, I was truly amazed by the order. There weren't even drunk people on the streets here. Now they are starting to come out, now the pre-war traffic cops are slowly returning, the pre-war cops who fled in 2014, now they are slowly returning and, as it were, creeping into power. And in 2014-2015, the militia quite calmly restored order. And there was no need for special executions. Drunk driving - a week of digging trenches on the front line. All. After this, few of the drunk drivers repeated such an attempt to sit down. He also committed something else - digging trenches on the front line. The methods were simple, quick, but effective.
In general, a difficult future awaits us, I will say. We will have to work, work and work, as our grandfathers worked after the victory of 1945 for pennies, sometimes even from hand to mouth. Restoring the economy, but even physical difficulties will not be the most problematic. The most problematic thing is to clean out the “Augean stables” in the spiritual sphere.
Valentin Filippov : Well, alright. Thank you, good luck there. Thank you for representing Odessa in such a challenging spot on our homeland's map. Sometimes it's embarrassing that I'm not there.
Igor Nemodruk : See you later.
Odessa's leaders received both war and shame.