Gonzalo Lira said he had been taken by the Ukrainian Security Service last Friday
Chilean-American blogger Gonzalo Lira, who went missing in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov a week ago, has appeared online on Friday, revealing that he had been held by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU).
“I’m in Kharkov. I’m OK. I just want to say that I’m back online.” Lira said in short video chat with journalist Alex Christoforou on The Duran’s YouTube channel.
“I was picked up by the SBU on Friday, April 15,” the blogger revealed.
Speaking about his condition, the 54-year-old said that he was “fine physically,” but “a little rattled” and “a little bit discombobulated.” Lira made it clear that he was forbidden from revealing any details about what had happened to him in detention.
“I’m still in Kharkov and for the time being I cannot leave. The authorities here told me that I cannot leave the city,” he said, adding that his computer and phone were taken away and that he didn’t have access to his accounts on social media.
“There seems to have been like a lot of interest in my case, which is wonderful. Thank you. But there are a lot of other people, who are frankly more deserving of the attention,” the blogger said. Lira was referring to his tweet from March 26, in which he listed the names of Ukrainian opposition figures, who are thought to have died or disappeared since the outbreak of the conflict, adding then that “if you haven’t heard from me in 12 hours or more, put my name on this list.”
The number of honest, independent Western journalists who report from Donbass can be counted on the fingers of one hand. While I think it was only Graham Phillips who was there from the very start of the resistance to the neo-Nazi coup d’etat in 2014 and still reporting to this day (correction: Patrick Lancaster is another Western journalist who is still there from the very start). Graham is a completely independent, crowdfunded, British journalist, who has been reporting what he sees without bias or need for conformism and self-censorship expected from the Western journalists. Graham is back in the Eastern Ukraine – Malorossia and Novorossia – reporting what he sees. This unbiased, unembellished reporting has earned him respect among the free-thinking audience both in the West and in Russia alike, and the hate of the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, who are trying to hunt him down and kill him for the crime of honest reporting.
Here are a few of his recent videos, including the one with a very level-headed interview with the captured British mercenary Aiden Aslin. Reading people’s comments on various resources, I can say that the Russian world does not see any reason to show mercy and exchange Aiden for anybody, that he should be tried by a court for coming to the Russian lands to kill Slavs for money, and that he should serve whatever sentence the court finds appropriate in full.
It is not often that I ask for repost, but in this case if you are on any social platform and is politically active there, please, spread the word about Graham Phillip’s work!
UPDATE 2: Graham now has a dedicated Rumble channel for the materials censored on YouTube. The interview is now published there:
UPDATE: Youtube has removed the interview, but it was salvaged on Odysee (keeping it as a backup to the official Rumble upload above):
I have a sense of deja-vu, yet on a whole different level.
In 1984 I, a Soviet schoolboy, got my first transistor radio with a short wave receiver. Not long after I stumbled upon the “enemy voices” – “The Voice of America” and “Radio Liberty”. Well, the lure of the unknown and the desire to get an alternative view kept me tuning in to the oft-barely discernable audio of these stations. They were blocked and often-times it was almost impossible to get a good signal. Their programs were interesting – some music, some historic programs, some incomprehensible to the mind of a youngster, going right over the top of my head. The historic programs were probably of most interest to me, and a second opinion was important to form a complete view, but I always had a nagging feeling of a hidden agenda. Only many years later, thinking back on those early mornings (the best reception time), I came to realise that they were trying to form a nationalist world-view in the Russians. In today’s world, a nationalist Russian is known as a Ukrainian…
But despite all that, it was important to have a second point of view, and it is my firm belief that the greatest mistake the Soviet government did, was to try to block these “voices”, instead of making them a part of the official newsfront, with explanatory commentary. Take today’s Russia. On today’s “Vesti” (the News at 20:00) they devoted almost 1/3 of the air time to re-transmission of what was aired on the American TV – CNN, FoxNews, official statements from the US President, commentary of the American analysts. This way a Russian person knows exactly what is happening on the other side of the border, what is being said and though about Russia.
Such splendid news on the eve of the New Year of 2020!
The 100-year-old Russian dream has come to fruition and the bridge to Crimea is now complete. It was during the reign of tzar Nikolai II that the first plans to build the bridge to Crimea appeared. The technological know-how was not, however, in place and the first actual attempt to build the bridge happened right after WWII. The bridge was constructed between the two nearest shore points and could not withstands the pressure of the ice, so it collapsed shortly after its construction. And now this third attempt is a resounding success, started shortly after Crimea’s reunification with Russia and necessitated by the hostile attitude from the Russian break-away Borderland area. The bridge now carries both cars and trains.
Watch the exclusive reportage of the first passenger train passage by the British independent journalist Graham Phillips:
Well, it increasingly looks like the Western “freedom of speech” and “democracy” are the two sham concepts that the West is shedding off.
A new aggregator has been launched by RT, in the wake of a flurry of censorship, banning and criminal prosecution (as proposed in Denmark) of alternative media and people holding alternative views, that is those not towing the US government line.
The name has a historical reference to the once strict censorship of news in the USSR. “Samizdat” literally means “self-publishing”, and was a phenomenon in USSR, where dissenting books and articles would go underground and be “published” by way of spreading hand-written or machine-copied copies of the prohibited works.
And the “New” in New Samizdat indicates that the West has completely committed to the path of censorship, just like USSR once did (with the consequences that we all know about), and that a similar, now digital, phenomena arises in the West as a response to the censorship and banning.
Aleksandr Zaharchenko, head of the Dontsk People’s Republic, has died in what appears to be an act of state terrorism by Ukraine. Another party, that benefits from his death, is USA, who would thus attempt to reignite the civil war in Eastern Ukraine and tie up Russi’s resources there, as Russia would not be in a position to leave a hot war raging right on its border.
In any case, with his death, the last hope for a diplomatic settlement, for the end to the civil war, and for the salvation of Ukraine as a state is gone, and it seems that this time, just like in 1945, Nazism will have to be defeated with the use of the force of arms.
Aleksander Zaharchenko was a true statesmen, who in the short span of time built up the statehood of the Donetsk People’s Republic, just as Ukraine was losing the last vestages of its statehood and sanity. He was a brave man, taking up the banner of fight against the McCainsian breed of neo-Nazism. He was a patriot, who could not stand idle and indifferent to the fate of his compatriots. He was a good man, one of those people who keep the darkness at bay and stand guard over this world. Rest in peace, you shall be remembered!
Rest in peace, brave statesman and patriot, Aleksandr Zaharchenko.
Tragic news today, as it was announced that one of the victims, wounded in the 3rd April Metro attack in St Petersburg had passed away in hospital, taking the death toll to 14 now, with it only yesterday having been announced that all 13 victims of the blast had been laid to rest.
However, little attention in the western media has been given to any of the victims, those killed by the terror metro blast. So, here is who they were.
ADDED! Independent British journalist Graham Philips published at his blog The Truth Speaker a series of videos that he filmed in Crimea prior and during the referendum: Crimea: March 16th, 2014 – As It Really Was. Highly recommended!
Percentages of the turnout per region. Total electorate: 1.543.815 people.
Percentages show the number who voted for the reunification with Russia. Background colour is the turnout from the total electorate. Orange (Lenin region) did not have the opportunity to participate in the referendum.
Following the coup d’etat in Kiev and preceding the referendum, people were already on the streets, as can be seen from the image below from the 23rd of February from Sevastopol. People were forming militia to stand up to the nazi thugs, who were heading towards Crimea. Luckily, the worst case scenario was avoided, though several Crimeans – who were in Kiev protesting against the coup d’etat – were accosted on their way back to the peninsular and killed.
So when reunification happened, the relief and joy were palpable. Crimeans were and are happy to be back home. And for all Russians, despite the demonstration and sanctions that followed, that was the most important, the brightest event of this century so far.
And for all the neigh-sayers, I have it from a reliable source that Russian Crimeans are willing to fight if someone tries to deprive them of this victory. It won’t be the first time. Here is a photo from my photo album, which I took in 2010, while Crimea was still under Ukraine. Ask yourself, would the people who were so meticulously taking care of their history, of they heroism against the German nazi occupation, take kindly to a nazi regime that took over Ukraine, a regime, that banned and criminalised all the symbols of the 1945 victory?
Steam Engine of the legendary armoured train “Zheleznjakov”, which took part in the heroic defence of Sevastopol in 1941-1942. Inscription on the side of the engine: “Death to Fascism”.
I’ve been meaning to post the above caricature for quite some time, but as it is usual with many of my posts, it’s been sitting in draft until I felt it “matured” enough. Now, I saw a convergence of two seemingly insignificant events, that made it feel like a good time to post this image.
It is not a secret that anything published in the Western main-stream media about Russia (as well as China, or Syria, or any other state that the Western elites feel is in need of some “democratic bombings”), is presented through a certain prism, where either partial truths or outright lies are given to the audience to form an image of an enemy.
This can be seen in the materials, published both…
… in Peace …
Seemingly such an innocent thing, a report by one of the many Russian TV channels on a vegetable shortage in Europe… But look how it got blown out of proportions both by the 5th column inside and the agents of influence outside of Russia.
When I first heard of the crash, the tragic loss of almost the compete Red Army Choir – Alexandrov Ensemble, death of 9 journalists from three Russian channels, what tugged most at my heart, was mentioning of the Elizaveta Glinka’s name on the list of the people lost. She was know among the people by her endearing name Doctor Liza.
Throughout these past 2 years I have been reading about her valiant work, helping the children of the civil war-ravaged Donbass, where civilians, including many children, were (and still are) wounded, maimed and killed by the Ukro-Nazi artillery shellings.
Film: Doctor Liza, an Amazing Life (full English subs) – Доктор Лиза фильм
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC5–zWRqCY
UPDATE 2023: The two short interviews below are no longer available on YouTube.
Grapham Philips, I think the only Western (UK) freelance reporter, who documented the civil war in Donbass, share this fragment of interview with Doctor Liza, that he filmed in April 2016, telling her that “Many people think that you are an angel”:
She replied:
Let them say, Grisha (a kindly russification of Graham), it is funny, it is pleasant, but it’s funny. What kind of angel am I? I am just a common woman. Let them say it. As for work. I am working a lot. This is very hard, and there is nothing angelic in this work, you see. It entails long negotiations with bureaucrats, which are not always successful. See, for example, I just got a list. This is the new list for admissions to hospital. 2 wounded children. 2 blind children. Children born in 2014, that is already during the war. We are going to transport them, they are going to St.Peterburg, as hospitals in Moscow do not have places for such patients – and I want to draw the journalistic attention to this fact. And there are the documents for the children that have already been transported out – we work on each child case individually.
And in this April 2016 interview fragment to Graham, she tells that “Everything is possible”:
There was a girl, who was given a terrible outlook, and Vika (kindly shortening of Victoria), she became well, and was coming up to the guard and would dance – a little swan or some other part, she was making such a show – a child that could not even SIT before, she lay on the arms. So, you see… Everything is possible, Grisha (a kindly russification of Graham).
Doctor Liza, you will be remembered and stay in our hearts. Always.
These two RT articles, aptly capture the mood of this loss:
Renowned Russian humanitarian and charity activist Elizaveta Glinka, widely known as Dr. Liza, is feared dead after boarding the plane bound for Syria that crashed Sunday morning off the Sochi coast.
The 54-year-old head of the ‘Fair Help’ fund was supposed to travel to Latakia to deliver medical supplies to a hospital, according to the Human Rights Council.
Her fund also said that Glinka was “taking humanitarian supplies for the Tishreen university hospital in Latakia,” while the Defense Ministry confirmed the passenger list included her name.
There was some confusion regarding Glinka’s fate after the plane stopped over in Sochi for refueling. Several news outlets reported that she failed to board the flight after a security check.
As time passed, however, her mobile phone remained hopelessly switched off.
Eventually, Elena Pogrebizhskaya, author of a documentary film on Doctor Liza, wrote on her Facebook page: “Liza’s phone is out of coverage. She has not been in touch with anyone for 11 hours. This includes her family. Gleb [Glinka’s husband] says he wants to be alone… This is a nightmare.”
This was an additional shock to Russians on top of the death of the 64 members of the Alexandrov army choir.
“We were hoping for a miracle until the very last moment. And she was a miracle herself, a heaven-sent message of virtue,” head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights Mikhail Fedotov told Interfax.
“Dr. Lisa was the darling of all hearts for one simple reason. For many years, almost every day, she provided palliative medical care, feeding the homeless, giving them shelter and clothes. She took the sick and injured children from Donbass under a hail of bullets, so that they could get help in the best hospitals in Moscow and St Petersburg. She organized a shelter for children with amputated limbs, where they can undergo rehabilitation after treatment in hospital.
“To save the lives of others – this was her mission everywhere: in Russia, Donbass, Syria…” Fedotov added.
Born into a military family, which also includes a famous dietitian, Glinka graduated from the Russian National Research Medical Institute in Moscow to become a pediatric anesthesiologist. In 1986, she and her husband emigrated to the US, where she studied palliative care and graduated from Dartmouth. In America, she became involved with the work of hospices. Glinka later participated in the work of the First Moscow Hospice, after which the family moved to Ukraine for two years. In 1999, she founded the first hospice in Kiev.
In 2007, Glinka founded the ‘Fair Help’ fund in Moscow, which provides financial support and medical care to cancer patients, underprivileged families, the homeless, and others in need.
Last year, Dr. Liza organized an evacuation of children with heart conditions who were in need of urgent medical help, from Donbass to Russian hospitals. Parents and doctors told RT that due to the humanitarian crisis, it was impossible to treat them locally.
Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave out state awards for outstanding achievements in charity and human rights activities. Glinka was the winner of the first award, saying she would soon travel to Syria.
“We never know whether we come back alive, because the war – is hell on earth, and I know what I’m talking about. But we are confident that goodness, compassion and mercy are stronger than any weapon,” Glinka said, receiving the award.
Human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, said Glinka’s death was a huge loss.
“She was a saint, had enough strength for everyone, and was ready to help both the homeless and children,” Alexeyeva told TASS.
“It’s hard to speak about her, this is a huge loss, people like Dr. Liza are born once in a thousand years,” the human rights activist added. According to Alekseeva, Glinka was carrying a large amount of humanitarian aid to Syria.
Former human rights envoy Vladimir Lukin told TASS he was shocked by the tragedy.
“I am shocked. She was a wonderful person, she has done a lot of good things,” he said.
Those who never met Dr. Liza have also been deeply saddened by the tragic news.
“Eternal Memory # doktorLiza! Thank you for helping our children,” Aleksey Dyatlov wrote on Twitter.
“A human with a capital H, and a woman of action! Will never forget! Everlasting memory!” Aleksey Chenskykh wrote.
“Why is it that the best are the first to leave,” Nikita Kuznetsov asked.
People have been bringing flowers and candles to the office of the ‘Fair Help’ fund in Moscow.
“She was a miracle. She did things that most people thought were impossible to do. But that’s exactly what Elizaveta was all about. She worried about her colleagues to the point where she preferred to travel to hot spots herself,” Lana Zhurkina, Dr. Liza’s former colleague, told Life.ru.
A young mother in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, whose child Elizaveta Glinka helped when it suffered a serious disease, shared her sorrow with journalists.
“My daughter was diagnosed with congenital heart defect, she had to be urgently operated on. We met her [Glinka] in Donetsk – she sent us to St. Petersburg, where the child was successfully operated on, on the second day of [its] life.”
“This is a terrible tragedy, she has helped so many children, so many adults, and provided hope and faith,” the woman said.
A Russian Defense Ministry medical facility is to be named after the renowned humanitarian activist, Deputy Minister of Defense Ruslan Tsalikov told journalists.
“The humanitarian cargo of the ‘Fair Help’ fund was sent by another aircraft. It is already in the airport of Khmeimim, and of course we will finish Elizaveta Glinka’s job,” Tsalikov added.
Meanwhile the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, said that a children’s clinic in Grozny has been named after humanitarian activist Elizaveta Glinka.
“Dr. Liza devoted herself to the most noble cause – saving children,” Kadyrov wrote on Instagram. “She had a brilliant medical training and could have worked in some clinic, but she chose the hard path of helping those, who could not get help from elsewhere.”
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has given an order to rename the republic’s main children’s hospital after famous Russian doctor and charity activist Elizaveta Glinka, also known as Doctor Liza, who died in the plane crash off Sochi’s coast on Sunday.
“I have decided to name the republic’s Children’s Clinical Hospital in Grozny after Elizaveta Petrovna [Glinka]. [Head of the Alexandrov Ensemble] Valery Mikhailovich [Khalilov] has been posthumously awarded the Chechen Republic’s medal for merit. I am confident that the names of these great people will forever remain in Russia’s history,” Kadyrov wrote on his Instagram page.
He wrote that Elizaveta Glinka had dedicated herself to the most noble of all causes – saving children in places of war and conflict – and will forever remain in people’s memory because of that. He added that the death of the members of the Aleksandrov Ensemble was a tragic loss, as they have inspired Russia’s military to heroic deeds for many years.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has ordered that one of Russia’s military hospitals be named after Elizaveta Glinka, the Defense Ministry’s press service reported on Monday. In the same statement, the Russian military promised to complete the philanthropist’s mission and pass on the aid that she had wanted to personally deliver to the hospital in Latakia, Syria. In fact, the aid has already arrived at the Russian Air Force base in Khmeimim on another flight.
The minister also ordered that the Moscow School of Music be named Valery Khalilov, the press service reported.
The Tu-154 airliner belonging to the Russian Defense Ministry crashed into sea off the coast near Sochi in the early hours of Sunday morning, killing 84 passengers and eight crew members. The passengers included 68 performers from the AleksandrovEnsemble, a famous Russian military orchestra and choir, including its director and conductor Valery Khalilov and nine journalists from three Russian TV channels.
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Elizaveta Glinka, often known in Russia by her nickname ‘Doctor Liza’, also died in the crash. Glinka was known as a selfless philanthropist, the founder of the first hospices in Russia and Ukraine, and the head of the NGO ‘Fair Help,’ which provides financial support and medical care to cancer patients, underprivileged families, the homeless, and others in need.
In 2015, Glinka organized the evacuation of many sick children to Russian hospitals from the unrecognized republics in Donbass.
Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented Glinka with the state’s top award for the year for her outstanding achievements in charity and human rights activities. At the ceremony, she promised that she would soon travel to Syria.
The picture of what happens in Novorossia – or Donbass – that the Western audience gets, is formed in the imagination of the paied-for MSM, based on falsifications and outright lies voiced from the Kiev junta and their lap-media. No Western MSM reporters went personally to Donbass to see what they are all writing about. A few Western reporters don’t want to put up with this state of affairs in MSM and go there – risking their lives – to tell the truth. One such reporter is the British journalist Graham Philips. The other is Pepe Escobar, who newly published an article of his impressions from Donbass. Styled as a simple list of what he saw and what he didn’t see, it is a clean and sobering documentary, at odds with the rosy picture of the Western MSM.
Asia Times’ roving correspondent Pepe Escobar just returned from a reporting trip to the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the pro-Russian enclave in the Donetsk Oblast province of eastern Ukraine. The area’s been the scene of heavy fighting between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian military. Escobar traveled to Donetsk at the invitation of Europa Objektiv, a German-based non-governmental media project. He traveled at his own expense.
I’ve just been to the struggling Donetsk People’s Republic. Now I’m back in the splendid arrogance and insolence of NATOstan.
Quite a few people – in Donbass, in Moscow, and now in Europe – have asked me what struck me most about this visit.
I could start by paraphrasing Allen Ginsberg in Howl – “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.”
But these were the Cold War mid-1950s. Now we’re in early 21st century Cold War 2.0 .
Thus what I saw were the ghastly side effects of the worst minds of my – and a subsequent – generation corroded by (war) madness.
I saw refugees on the Russian side of the border, mostly your average middle-class European family whose kids, when they first came to the shelter, would duck under tables when they heard a plane in the sky.
I saw the Dylan of Donetsk holed up in his lonely room in a veterans’ home turned refugee shelter fighting the blues and the hopelessness by singing songs of love and heroism.
I saw whole families holed up in fully decorated Soviet-era bomb shelters too afraid to go out even by daylight, traumatized by the bombings orchestrated by Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operations”.
Dutch journalist Olaf Koons, visited many times the hot spot in the east of Ukraine, and shared with the “AiF” his opinion about what he saw.
The western journalist has an opportunity to cover the conflict from both warring sides.
Vladimir Polupanov, “AiF”: Olaf, you recently returned from another trip to the Donbass. I know that you were in Lugansk, Donetsk, Ilovajsk, Mariupol. What did you, a foreigner, understand about this war?
Olaf Koons: That it is completely pointless, unnecessary and fratricidal.
– In your opinion, who is fighting whom there?
– First of all, the state propaganda wages war from both sides. This is a very powerful thing. The truth in this war plays a small role. The most important role is played by the desire of people to win at any cost. This is what kills them …
Certainly, there is a big geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West, but in the Donbass local people are fighting. 90% of the militias are locals. And in Kiev, they stubbornly do not want to believe it. Two weeks ago I was in destroyed to the foundation Lugansk airport, where there were positions of Ukrainian security forces. In the basement, where the soldiers, they left a lot of books – Andersen’s fairy tales, for example, some men’s magazines. Guess what is the language of these books? Correct – they are in Russian.
– The picture that you saw with your own eyes, is very different from that shown on television?
– The picture is not different. It is one and the same. The question is – how it is all explained and interpreted. You probably read “Life and Fate” by Vasily Grossman. It’s the first time I saw first-hand how it looks in reality. Under Lugansk I saw a village with such level of destruction that is beyond words, – the remains of huts, the church with a fallen dome, tanks and burnt bodies.
Fact:
About 30 destroyer battalions are fighting on the side of Kiev against the militia of the self-proclaimed republics.
– And a strong hatred on both sides?
– Yes, hatred is very strong. And it’s terrible. To understand where the virtual front line is, it is enough to see which search engine is used by the parties. If Yandex – it east, if Google – then west.
– Is a real peace possible there?
– I think that this war is there a long time. Everything’s destroyed, nothing works there. At best, these self-proclaimed republics will be similar to Transnistria. Among the militia they are in a mood to go if not to Kiev, then at least to Slavjansk. The National Guard and Ukrainian battalions (of which there are about 30) also have a desire to continue to fight. Moreover, the elections are coming soon in the Ukraine. So in the near future I think peace will not come to the Donbass.
– What difficulties are faced by the foreign journalists in this hot spot?
– It is difficult place to work. But what’s interesting – you can cover the conflict from both sides and give a more or less objective picture. Because in Syria or Iraq one can only work on one side. In Donbass, after every half kilometre there are roadblocks, where there are all kinds of people, among them there are inadequate. One of the features of this war – everyone resembles each other. Battalions and militia are sometimes completely indistinguishable from each other. Last time I was present at the prisoner exchange on neutral territory, where representatives of the Ukrainian army and militias met. At some point I ceased to understand where is the Ukrainian army, and where are militias. They are all in camouflage, all rough, all swear with Russian obscenities.
But the prisoners, by the way, are very different. They are quite different from each other. The prisoners who were captured by militia are the people of about the same age – young privates. Prisoners captured by Kiev party are usually ordinary people, farmers who only yesterday were digging potatoes. We see that it is certainly not the military.
And another interesting point: in places where the prisoners were exchanged, the reporters of, for example, the First and Perche channels come face to face. And they look at each other with the same hatred as front-line soldiers.
A lot of nonsense
– How is this conflict covered in the Dutch media? You surely have your own propaganda.
– You know, there’s a big difference between propaganda and stupidity (bad journalism). In the Netherlands, a lot of the bad, stupid, journalism. Most Dutch journalists writing about the conflict in the Donbass, have never been there and do not understand what they write about. After the fall of the “Boeing”, the country was awash hatred of Russia, and the people (not at the behest of the state) just splashed out their emotions. But it did not last long. In our embassy here if there are three people speaking Russian, then it’s counted for a lot. In Dutch universities if there are three departments, where they teach the Russian language, Russian literature and Russian politics, then it’s considered as much. There are at most 5 Dutch journalists working in Russia.
If at the university and diplomatic levels there are not many experts, if there are so few journalists, we can understand what the picture of Russia consists of in Dutch society.
– Why do the Dutch not show sufficient initiative to investigate the disaster of “Boeing” at the Donbass?
– A large investigation is under way in the Netherlands, but very slowly. You know, the Dutch have a problem – we all want to make the Dutch way. If in some faraway country where there is war, a plane falls with Dutch citizens on board, then in the Dutch view the crash site should immediately be cordoned off, closed from outsiders and investigated in the Dutch way: very clearly, prolonged, surveying everything meter by meter. It didn’t happen here. I can not say that everyone is happy with how the process goes. For example, I do not understand why I got to the site a day after the fall, while the Dutch experts came there a week later. Spent there a couple of days and left. Because they were afraid. I do not understand why I could work there, but they could not.
– What conclusions could you make while at the crash site?
– I do not know who shot down the plane. If I had my own version, I would have published it on the front pages of all Dutch newspapers. I also do not know what happened on September 11th in America. I was not there. But we have some consensus about what happened there. I think that after some time we’ll get a consensus also in the case of the crash of the Malaysian “Boeing” in the Donbass.
This letter was printed in the #10/2014 international paper edition of Argumenty i Facty in Russian at the time when the Second Maidan was about to turn violent. It presents an interesting background view on the situation from a perspective of a person living in Kiev. Here is an English translation of the letter:
If someone says Ukraine nowadays, a word combination “West-East” is always attached to it.
I’ve lived in Kiev centre for 22 years. When I was 6, I for the first time went to the “west” with my parents – to Lvov, and asked in a shop there to sell me a bun. The female seller demonstratively didn’t hear me, as if I was speaking Chinese. A granny from the queue called me for “little moskal” (translator note: the term “moskal” is used by Western Ukrainian about all Easter Ukrainians and Russians and has the same connotation as British “Frogs” with regards to French of Mexican “Greengos” with regard to Americans). My mother, blushing brokenly translated my request to Ukrainian, and I got my bun after all, while at the same time taking away the feeling of a united and friendly Motherland.
