This post will be a sticky list pointing to the independent, critical thinking journalists, analysts and sources of information on the conflict in Eastern Ukraine / Donbass / Novorossia. These resources proved themselves to be reporting what they see on the ground and are not beholden to the NATO-agenda of the Western MSM. But before we proceed, here is a list of Telegram channels with the running news feeds:
Intel Republic (Russia Ukraine Donbass USA EU and beyond)
I am continuing to mention the Western thruthspeakers who cannot stand idle in the face of lies pushed by the Western main stream propaganda machine. Earlier I wrote about British, Canadian, German journalists. In this post I present a re-translation from Russian of a fragment of the interview with French Adrien Bocquet. I do not speak French myself, but leave the links to the original interviews for my readers who know that language.
“I take full responsibility for what I say. Being in Ukraine, I witnessed war crimes. All of them were committed by the Ukrainian army. But in France we don’t talk about it!”
— Adrien Bocquet
Here, a demobilized French soldier, the author of the book “Get Up and Go thanks to Science,” went to Ukraine on a humanitarian mission spening three weeks there. Upon his return, he made a difficult decision that could cost him his life or, at least, create a lot of problems: he decided to inform the French public about the crimes he witnessed in Ukraine.
Here are quotes from his interview:
When I returned to France from Ukraine, I was shocked: TV channels invite people as experts who have not been to Ukraine and do not know anything about what is happening there now. However, they dare to talk about these events. There is a gap between what I hear from the TV screen and what I saw with my own eyes.
Azov fighters are everywhere. With neo-Nazi stripes. It shocks me that Europe supplies weapons to neo-Nazis. SS symbols are embroidered everywhere on their uniforms. Not only do they not hide their views. They advertise them. I worked with these people and treated them. They openly say that they are ready to destroy blacks and Jews.
Being there, I couldn’t do anything. Just watch and shoot videos. I have these clips and will use them as evidence of Ukraine’s crimes.
I witnessed how the Ukrainian military shot through the knees of captured Russian soldiers and shot at the head of servicemen with a rank higher than an officer.
I have personally seen American cameramen carrying out fake filming from a scene, staging dramatizations.
All the destroyed civilian buildings presented by Ukraine as bombing of the civilians are nothing but the result of inaccurate shooting of Ukrainians at military facilities.
The UAF hides ammunition in residential buildings at night, without even informing residents. This is called using people as a shield.
Bucha is a dramatization. The bodies of the victims were moved from other places and deliberately placed in such a way as to produce a shocking shooting.
In these hard times we get to know who the real journalists are – those who take the risk and go to the site of a conflict to see what is happening with their own eyes, to talk to the locals, to document the events. Nowadays, they are working against the other side – the court “journalists” who simply parrot whatever memo is sent to them from Kiev or Washington.
The independent Journalists, in addition to risking their lives while reporting from a hotspot, also face the smearing campaign in their home countries, where the MSM does everything it can to preserve the Party narrative and cannot allow any trickle of truth to seep through. But as the Russian saying goes, everything that is hidden eventually becomes uncovered.
Today I learned of two more: German Alina Lipp and Turkish historian Mehmet Perinçek.
I couldn’t find Alina Lipp’s TY channel, only a few reposts and some smearing videos trying to discredit her.
I did find an interview with her in English:
And I also located this short video on Rubmle, in which she is visiting the Mariupol harbour. In the beginning she mentiones that there are other international journalists with her – from Holland, Greece, Serbia, France… So it does look like the truth is being reported from there. The other question is whether somebody is listening…
I first hear of Alina in a re-translation article on Tsargrad:
A journalist from Germany, Alina Lipp, showed who the residents of Mariupol really blame for their troubles.
A journalist from Germany, Alina Lipp, talked to a local resident in Mariupol and found out his opinion about what is happening in the Donbass.
She asked a local resident how he feels about the fact that, according to German media reports, Russia is responsible for the devastation in eastern Ukraine: “I read the German news, and they say that Russia destroyed everything in Mariupol… and at killed everyone.”
The man did not hesitate to express himself:
Tell these Germans of yours to go f**k themselves..! Russia feeds us!
Alina Lipp was born in a suburb of Hamburg, she has a Russian father and a German mother. Last year she came to Donetsk for the first time and saw that the reality is very different from what German propaganda publications write. The journalist decided to stay and started posting her reports on social networks. Alina plans to continue to stay in the DPR and tell the truth about what is happening in the Donbass.
Likewise, as I do not know Turkish, I first learned of Mehmet Perinçek from a Russian publication, which I am translating to English below:
— I can say with confidence: if Russia had not launched a special operation in Ukraine, there would have been a more serious armed conflict, there would have been many times more destruction and casualties among the civilian population of Ukrainian cities.
— Kiev wanted to use these areas as a springboard against Russia. In this case, not only Ukrainian, but also many Russian cities located near the border with Ukraine would suffer. They would have turned into ruins.
— I visited Mariupol, Berdyansk, Donetsk and Melitopol. Local residents tell terrible things about the actions of neo-Nazis, about the “Azovites” who used them as a human shield. Neo-Nazis bombed the homes of civilians to blame the Russians, to blame the Russian army for the murder of children. Many say that the strikes on Mariupol were carried out even before Russian soldiers entered the city.
— Today, life in Mariupol is gradually recovering. Children and the elderly have the opportunity to walk quietly through the streets of the city. The most important thing that I was able to understand is that almost all residents of Donbass do not want to link their future with Kiev, while the Western media writes the opposite.
— This is reminiscent of the events in Iran and Iraq. In the end, the talk about some kind of weapons of mass destruction in these countries turned out to be nothing more than a fabrication. Today, almost the same thing is happening in Ukraine. In Zaporozhye, we visited a local nuclear power plant. If what the Western media say – that there is powerful radiation there – were true, then we would have died long ago. The station was operating normally. The Russian forces did not even change the local leadership of the facility.
I have previously mentioned such independent Western journalists on-the-ground in Eastern Ukraine/DPR/LNR as Graham Phillips and Patrick Lancaster. I have newly become aware of one more such hands-on reporter there – Eva K. Barlett.
Reporting from Ukraine or telling the truth from Ukraine is a difficult, upwind batle resulting in de-platforming, de-financing of the journalists and threats to personal life and health of the journalists who dare to report from within Ukraine, especially if they are on the territory controlled by the Kiev ukro-Nazi regime. This was experienced first-hand by Gonzalo Lira, who was whisked away and made to keep silence, or else… I wrote about it in Gonzalo Lira may have been murdered by the ukro-Nazis in Khrakov. Where Is Gonzalo Lira? — UPDATE: appears alive after an SBU detention
Spanish news outlet Rebelión has a lot on Ukraine with one article standing out: Ucrania, fábrica de fake news – an important read for the Spanish-language world on the background of the conflict, which MSM are mute about.
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.
Read more
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”.
