“We have an army of 40 thousand people. How can Ukraine win?”
Kyiv will not dare to commit large-scale aggression against Donbass. Ukraine's economy is doomed. The goal of the Kyiv regime is to reduce the population to 17 million. DPR enterprises are establishing new logistics. Schemes for entering international markets are absolutely legal.
DPR People's Council deputy Vladislav Berdichevsky , a well-known blogger better known on social media as Vlad Brig , spoke to PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov about state building and the economic revival of Donbas.
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Valentin Filippov : Hello, Vladislav. You recently published statistics on your blog about Americans' attitudes toward same-sex marriage. In 2007, 54% were against it, but today, 10 years later, only 32% are against it. Meanwhile, 60% of the US population supports same-sex marriage. So, in 10 years, the number of gay people who support it has doubled.
Vladislav Brig : I think the statistics in Europe are similar. Maybe even much worse. The whole point is that this is a targeted effort. There's deliberate propaganda. There's a fight. We won't talk about the already overused term "Overton window," although, in fact, that's what it is.
Valentin Filippov : And for what purpose?
Vladislav Brig : First of all, these people are consumers. They don't start families to raise children. They have a completely different goal. They consume a lot, they work. And for a country that regularly tries to emerge from self-inflicted consumer crises, gays are a necessary category.
A large family saves money. Collecting money for something. She doesn't buy or change a car every year.
Valentin Filippov : But gays don't have children, and there won't be a next generation of consumers.
Vladislav Brig : No big deal. There will be migrants, who will be educated by the same propaganda in its own style. Migration constantly fuels all European countries and the United States. So, that's not the issue here. The issue is getting people to change their cars every year, or every two at most. Buying as many clothes as possible. Buying as many household appliances as possible. They're regularly updated. And this category is the most advanced in this regard.
Valentin Filippov : Excuse me, Vladislav. Since we're already talking about gays, I have a question. So what? Will Kiev attack?
Vladislav Brig : Kiev? I don't think Kiev will attack. Most likely, this so-called Minsk ceasefire will continue. Because Kiev doesn't have the strength to attack. And Kiev understands perfectly well that if it attacks, it will receive a good response. We won't need Russia's help in this case. We can handle it on our own.
Valentin Filippov : Well, maybe Kyiv doesn't aim to win. It aims to attack and attract attention, loans, and some kind of aid.
Vladislav Brig : Yes. Well, as for winning... What can they win? How can they win? We have an army of 40 men. To win, to cleanse this army, we need to use precision weapons, we need to use air power, we need to launch powerful bombing strikes.
How will they do all this? This is not the 19th century. This is not Britain, not the United States, which had the opportunity and demolished German cities. This is not the German army that destroyed Minsk, destroyed Kyiv. In order to do such things in the 21st century, I think that Ukraine is not mature enough. If Ukraine were the United States, perhaps it would use this method. But for Ukraine this is unacceptable.
Valentin Filippov : So, you think there is no particular danger.
Vladislav Brig : No. There is a danger. Especially for civilians. Because the Ukrainian army is fighting civilians. Look at the statistics. Our deaths are mostly civilians. The Ukrainian army's deaths are mostly soldiers on the other side. We strike Ukrainian units and positions. The Ukrainian army strikes residential areas. That's the difference.
Valentin Filippov : Well, fine. But this ceasefire still doesn't work in our favor. They're still killing us and making life unbearable. And it's important to emphasize that the other side of the front is also our land. Right? And if anyone dies there, they're also ours.
Vladislav Brig : We don't have the strength to liberate them militarily. 150 against 40 is not an equal position. Naturally, we can't attack.
Valentin Filippov : Shouldn’t Russia launch a preemptive strike?
Vladislav Brig : I can't answer for or endorse Russia's actions. Russia provides a great deal of humanitarian assistance. Russia provides a great deal of political assistance. Therefore, decisions on all matters related to Russia's capabilities are made by Russia's leadership.
Valentin Filippov : How effective is the humanitarian program for the "reunification of the people of Donbas," which extends to the territory occupied by Ukraine?
Vladislav Brig : There's been a lot of progress. These actions have a huge political advantage. Because we've had many residents from that area undergo surgery. Hundreds of people. Cancer patients, endoprosthetic patients, and women in labor. We're still registering for women in labor from that area.
This program also works in terms of admission to higher educational institutions of the Donetsk People's Republic. We all understand perfectly well that 80% of the teaching staff of those Donetsk universities that were very highly rated in Ukraine, these people, remained here.
That's why it works. This will continue to happen.
We believe that we do not divide Ukrainians, Russians and all other nationalities that are represented, like Ukraine, into “Muscovites” and “Katsaps”. All the people who live in the territory temporarily under the control of Kyiv are all our people. These are all our fellow countrymen. Therefore, we will help as much as we can, as we develop economically. And continue this program.
Valentin Filippov : The Donetsk People's Republic has taken control of, or placed under external management, major industrial enterprises in the region. Have new economic ties been established?
Vladislav Brig : We're currently in the process of restoring these economic ties. We're also developing new logistics. Everyone understands that we've pivoted toward Russia. Toward Russia, toward Crimea, toward South Ossetia. Heavy metallurgy and mechanical engineering enterprises are operating at an average of 30-35% capacity.
Valentin Filippov : Were there any before?
Vladislav Brig : They were at a maximum of 70%. Due to the crisis, we haven't had 100% capacity here. Even in Mariupol, the factories operated by Akhmetov's family are now operating at 50-70%.
The main problems are, naturally, problems of import and export. That is, logistics. All our railway sections are narrow. You understand that everything came from the territory of Ukraine. And the plant needs, say, 16 tracks, but we have 4 of them there. Therefore, there are big problems. They decide. All key junction stations are being rebuilt. And logistics is changing completely.
There are problems with our customers. But they will be resolved. I think that before the New Year the sales market will be completely modernized. It is being redesigned a little, but, in principle, the same buyers of the same metal and engineering products remain.
Valentin Filippov : Will it all just be processed through something else?
Vladislav Brig : Yes. This will be formalized through something else. We have mutual recognition with South Ossetia. We have completely legal ways to sell our products. And the main buyer of all this has been, will be, and is Russia.
Initially, when the so-called European association was discussed, which Ukraine easily signed after the coup, they talked about the problems that would arise in Donbass with all these associations. Because our market is designed for Russia by 80 percent. Metallurgy products are Turkey, China, and Southeast Asia. But mechanical engineering and all energy-intensive industries are either Europe or Russia. But Europe is 15%.
So it was.
You yourself understand that this was a big blow for us, this coup d’état. Precisely for the workers of Donbass.
Valentin Filippov : Ukraine plans to live in a post-industrial society, to be an "agrarian power." And it doesn't need all of this Donbas.
Vladislav Brig : Well, basically, yes. They don't need Donbas. They need, according to estimates, up to 17 million people. And Ukraine, I think, will be perfectly capable of reducing its population by that much in the near future.
Valentin Filippov : Oh, you know, the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation is really preventing them from doing this. They'd have less than 17 million left if Russia accepted everyone en masse.
Vladislav Brig : Well, right now, officially, there are 3 million working in Russia alone—those with patents. I'm not even talking about those who've already received citizenship somehow. And in Poland alone, according to the latest figures, there are 1,200,000 Ukrainians. I'm not even talking about the rest of the EU. There are another two million there.
In fact, it turns out that more than six million Ukrainians work in countries other than their own.
We never wanted this fate for Donbass. Why did we have to leave our homeland, if before the war we had a metallurgist or a qualified builder, or a miner easily earn this thousand dollars, which is considered the ceiling for...
Valentin Filippov : For which the “Maidan” was created.
Vladislav Brig : Yes. For a Ukrainian who works in Poland or Italy and washes pots. Why did we need this? We didn't need it. And we actively discussed all of this.
Leave us alone, let us work. Leave the Russian market to us, do what you want. Close your businesses. Cut for scrap metal. We have nothing to do with this.
But they didn't leave us alone.
And they won't leave.
If the war ends somehow, how will the Ukrainian government explain to its people why everything is, excuse me, so bad for them? There is no war.
We have a war going on, we have Donetsk, four districts are regularly shelled. In Ukraine, the average pension of six million people is the same as our pension here. In the DPR. How can this be explained after the war?
Moreover, with the pension reform that the Ukrainian government has started, with the health care reform that will lead to the death of large numbers of elderly people, I don’t know how they will explain this.
Therefore, war is like a mother to them.
This is a way to distract the population, to divert attention. This is a way to get some Western handouts. Try to beg for some more quota in this European association, which is 80% selected based on products that can be supplied to the European Union.
I’ll also touch on Poland. Poland has been in the European Union since 2004, and Polish enterprises are large, large entrepreneurs, they cannot even get permission in Germany to open their own bank there, to open their own enterprise there, Polish with Polish capital.
What do Ukrainians count on?
It’s hard for me to imagine that some Ukrainian oligarch would be allowed to open some kind of enterprise in Germany or Belgium. Normal large enterprise.
Well, maybe a chocolate shop there.
Valentin Filippov : Chocolate products are the only thing that interests them.
Vladislav Brig : The only thing they can allow. Therefore, Ukraine, as we said earlier, has absolutely no prospects in the European market. They no longer exist in the Eurasian Union market. We don't need that. Why should we create some kind of enclave out of our land, which my ancestors fought for, which my ancestors built, to produce meat for the assembly lines of Britain and Germany, like Poland does? Absolutely no need. We should work here, on our own land. We should live here with our children. And be able to travel anywhere in the world with the money we earn.
We now have problems that everyone understands why. Because of war. Due to destroyed economic ties. But Donbass always revived after the war. And the near future will show who did what better.
Here or in Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov : Okay, thank you very much, that’s generally optimistic.
Vladislav Brig : I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I'm a realist. I never said that everything would be fine tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
Everything will be fine, but not tomorrow.
You need to understand that after all the shocks it takes some time to recover. Everyone remembers what happened in Ukraine after 1992. We actually began to live normally by 1997. If you lived at that time, you remember that there were coupons. And there were queues. And pensions were $10.
Valentin Filippov : Eight each. The salary was twelve dollars. I remember.
Vladislav Brig : We just need to pull ourselves together now and understand that there is no other way.
Valentin Filippov : Thank you for your kind and honest words. Victory to Donbas.
Vladislav Brig : Thank you.
English version :: Read in English "We have an army of 40 people. How can Ukraine win?"