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A Tale of Two Monuments
A Tale of Two Monuments
Not all War Memorials are the same
Nov 11, 2025
The Memorial to the Soviet Soldier in Rzhev
Sometimes it seems to me that the soldiers,
Which haven’t returned from blood’s fields,
Haven’t layed in our land,
But have turned into white cranes.
War is the ultimate form of human tragedy, the organized act of humans slaughtering humans. While war is logically to be avoided, often the conflict between humankind manifests itself violently. Rarely, however, do such conflicts allow for a clear delineation between right versus wrong, good versus evil.
The Soviet fight against Nazi Germany during the Second World War is one of these historical rarities. It should come as no surprise that the people who suffered so greatly in such a horrible yet just cause would seek to memorialize this suffering, and the victory born of it, with monuments that enable future generations to never forget the sacrifices made so that future generations might live free of the same tyranny which once stalked the soil of Mother Russia.
The battle for Stalingrad has been carved into the Pantheon of history’s most epic battles. This titanic struggle on the shores of the Volga River caused some 1.37 million Red Army casualties and claimed the lives of another 235,000 civilians. It has been called ‘the most brutal clash of arms in the most terrible of twentieth-century wars”, and the “the most important military-political event of World War II”. Germany would never recover from this defeat, and for this reason the battle for Stalingrad has been described by many as the turning point in the war against fascist Germany.
From those distant times
They fly and we hear their voices.
Is it because so often and so sadly
We are falling silent and looking into heaven?
The Motherland Calls, Mamayev Kurgan, Volgograd (Stalingrad)
Conceived and designed in the 1950’s, built in the 1960’s, and unveiled in 1967, the giant state mounted atop the Mamayev Kurgan hill in the city of Volgograd stands 285 feet tall. “The Motherland Calls” is but one of scores of statues that, together, make up the memorial to the Battle of Stalingrad. But this one dominates all others, a soaring tribute to a nation and the spirit of its people. Standing on a hill which—literally—serves as the final resting place of tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers and Soviet civilians alike, “The Motherland Calls” is a powerful manifestation of a nation willing and able to sacrifice its individual citizens by the millions in defense of the greater good.
“The Motherland Calls” confronts Europe and the lands that gave birth to the fascist enemy that met its fate in and around the city that bore Stalin’s name (in addition to the German soldiers who fell or were captured, hundreds of thousands of Italian, Hungarian, and Romanian troops perished at the hands of the Red Army.) But she beckons the strength of Russia that stretches back through Siberia and the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The strength and determination of a nation and its people is manifest in this glorious monument, evoking powerful emotions to those who have looked upon it.
The symbolism of a mother beckoning to her sons to go forth to defend the motherland is juxtaposed by another monument, “Mother’s Sorrow”, which depicts a Soviet mother cradling the slain body of her son, surrounded by a lake of tears. Here the harsh truth or war is laid bare for all to see, the reality of the consequences of conflict and the horrible cost paid by those who are called upon to participate.
“Mother’s Sorrow”, Mamayev Kurgan, Volgograd (Stalingrad)
The tired crane flock flies, flies through the sky,
Flies in the mist at the end of the day.
And it is a small gap in this order –
Perhaps this place is for me.
The Mamayev Kurgan Memorial was built to honor the Soviet dead of Stalingrad, to ensure that their sacrifice would never be forgotten, and their deeds forever remembered.
It is a memorial to victory.
Outside the City of Rzhev, located in the Rzhevsky District of the Tver Oblast, about two hours travel by car west of Moscow, is another memorial to the fallen of the Great Patriotic War. “The Memorial to the Soviet Soldier” commemorates sacrifices made by the Red Army at the same time the Battle of Stalingrad raged. From January 1942 to March 1943 a series of battles were fought in and around Rzhev which, according to official Soviet sources, killed 392,554 Red Army soldiers and wounded another 768,233. Yet in 2007, Russian historians began publishing a different account, which listed the total killed as being in excess of 2 million. It is not without justification that these battles have collectively become known as the “Rzhev meatgrinder”, and the leadership behind the decisions that led so many men to their deaths being openly criticized. Moreover, the Rzhev battles were, at best, a stalemate, and at worst a Soviet defeat.
Soviet authorities, for cause, did not wish to shine a light on such battles. For them, the Great Patriotic War should be celebrated as a decisive victory over fascism.
There would be no memorial to the fallen at Rzhev.
That is, until a revitalized Russia decided that the sacrifice of all who fell in battle should be recognized.
The Memorial to the Soviet Soldier was opened in 2020. Its design is brutally effective, drawing from the old Russian belief that when a soul dies it is taken to the heavens by a white crane.
The base of the monument consists of a swirl of bronze cranes, emerging from the soul, representing the souls of soldiers long forgotten, and only now remembered
The base of the Memorial to the Soviet Soldier, showing the cranes
The day will come, and in such crane flock
I’ll swim in the same blue-gray haze.
Calling out like a bird from the heavens
All of you who are left on earth.
It is difficult to understand the strength of the symbolism in this statue, knowing that one is standing on the ground which covered the bodies of so many Soviet fallen that had, for decades, been forgotten and forsaken by a nation which is grounded in preserving the memory of those who fell defeating Nazi Germany.
The cranes swirl, coming together to form the body of a single Soviet Soldier, weapon in hand, looking back down on the ground from which he came. No mother beckons for her sone to come to his defense, and no mother cradles his dead body in her arms. Instead, this soldier stands, strong but forlorn, a symbol of abject sorrow and unspeakable pain.
The Soviet soldiers who died in and around Rzhev helped shape the events that governed the Soviet victory at Stalingrad. The meatgrinder attacks against dug-in German defenders served two primary purposes—to convince the Germans that the main Russia offensive in the winter of 1942-43 would be at Rzhev, and to pin down German divisions that would have otherwise been released to relieve the surrounded German soldiers in Stalingrad.
If it weren’t for the Soviet soldiers who gave their lives in Rzhev, there would have been no victory at Stalingrad, and as such no “The Motherland Calls” statue.
Standing in the shadow of the statue of the Soviet Soldier, one can’t help but feel the ground move as these long-forgotten souls surge forth, freed by the refreshed memory of a nation. The souls move through your body, their energy moving to the statue. Your eyes cannot help but meet the gaze of the soldier staring down at you in a strong yet pained expression, silently asking the question, “Why have you forsaken me for so long?”
It is a question nobody can adequately answer, a reflection of the reality that a nation that forsakes its fallen will never truly learn the costs and consequences of war.
Today Russia remembers.
“Monument to the Soviet Soldier”, Rzhev
Sometimes it seems to me that the soldiers,
Which haven’t returned from blood’s fields,
Haven’t layed in our land,
But have turned into white cranes.
“Zhuravili (Cranes)”, Rasul Gamzatov
I am currently travelling in Russia, conducting interviews of prominent Russians in order to help capture the Russian reality and bring it to an American audience. This article was motivated by a visit to the Memorial to the Soviet Solder on November 8, 2025. I
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Peace in Ukraine is a victory for Russia / Why Lithuania closed its borders / “Trump’s Way” https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritter/p/peace-in-ukraine-is-a-victory-for?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Transkripzioa:
Hello, Scott. Hello, Garland. It’s a great honor to see you here with us today. Hello, Dmitry.
To visit Belarus? I think it was, what, three years ago that I appeared on your program. I did an interview. And at that time, you kindly extended an invitation. And I’ve been looking for an opportunity to come to Belarus ever since. because first of all, I’ve never been here. And second of all, I think today,
Belarus is taking center stage in some of the biggest problems that face Europe and the world. And it’s important to come and experience the people, the place, the history, to put things in a better perspective. When you look at things long distance, you don’t necessarily see the details, the things that make something real.
So coming to Belarus for me is an opportunity to make theory reality. And what are your impressions?
I’m very impressed by Belarus. I’m impressed by the country, the people, the organization, the cleanliness of the country and the success, economic success of the country. And additionally, you know, I still have a radio show in Washington, D.C., and I’m involved in online journalism. And in an era where there’s intense propaganda in the West,
I feel as though it’s in the best interest of people in the West if I can learn as much as I can about Belarus, and then I can transmit that information to people in our country.
I have to ask you, are you afraid? Because our neighbors… Lithuania, for example, has closed the borders with us, with scary Belarusians. Are you afraid?
No, I have no fear. I feel as though I have a duty to attempt to clarify the reality of the situations going on here to my listeners. So I feel as though I’m carrying out a duty. I don’t have any fear. And in the United States, we do have some protections.
I am, with great interest. What do you think about it? Well, first of all, it’s not between Minsk and Washington necessarily. I mean, it’s between President Lukashenko and President Trump. After all, it was President Trump who made a phone call to President Lukashenko on the eve of the Alaska summit. Why? Why would the American president,
getting ready to meet the Russian president, reach out to make a phone call to the Belarusian president? And the answer is simple. President Trump respects President Lukashenko, respects his strength, his integrity, and he recognizes that President Lukashenko has an ability to gain access to President Putin, to not only describe his feelings about Putin,
but also to relay to President Putin what Donald Trump is trying to say. So President Lukashenko has become, I think, one of the most important intermediaries between Russia and the United States with the potential to help create the conditions for peace.
We talked to you a couple of years ago, and at that time it was impossible to imagine the negotiations between the presidents of Russia and the United States, between Belarus and the United States, but now we can’t see them. Why is it possible now?
Because America had an election. You know, I understand that America doesn’t have the best reputation in the world today. And we’ve earned the reputation that we do have. But what I would ask people is to respect the American people. We have a functioning democracy in America. And the will of the people is manifested through their vote.
And the American people made a decision in November of last year that they wanted to change. And they voted for a president who was promising things that they desired. A better life, a prioritization of America over non-American interests, and peace. And peace is perhaps the biggest thing.
President Trump promised that he would seek to improve relations with Russia. I think he’s trying very hard to deliver on that promise. But what makes this all possible isn’t President Trump. Because without the American people, there wouldn’t be a President Trump. So it’s the American people and the will of the people. People need to understand that.
Oh, I think that we are moving in a positive direction. All of us were, you know, quite afraid. We were concerned under the Biden administration that we were going in a very, very dangerous direction. I do think that it’s a difficult period for the Trump administration simply because there are people in the European political leadership class and,
of course, there are some of the Atlanticists in the foreign policy leadership group in Washington, D.C., who still lean towards the Biden, Macron, Starmer way of viewing the world. So I think it’s difficult for President Trump, but I think the support of the people and, of course, having intermediaries such as President Lukashenko creates an opportunity for him
Do you agree that Trump’s call to Alexander Lukashenko on his way to Alaska was a serious sign or even symbol in our politics?
I think it was both a sign and a symbol, but I think it was a very serious and concrete action. I think another thing you have to understand is there has been malevolent rhetoric to discredit the Russian leadership and to, you know, demonize the Russian leadership.
But that action hasn’t been taken as much and the propaganda hasn’t been focused on the Belarusian leadership as much. So that gives him the opportunity to talk to the Belarusian leadership and to kind of go around those who have been more demonizing President Putin, to go and get around that and to work with President Putin.
Donald Trump has publicly expressed his respect for Alexander Lukashenko several times, and we know that there are no useless details in big politics. So these were not just words.
I understand that because when you focus on who President Trump tends to respect, he tends to respect leaders that are independent, leaders that focus on the needs of the people in their country. He, Viktor Orban, President Xi, President Putin, President Trump shows great respect for those people mainly because I believe that in his heart of hearts,
President Trump wants to do the best for the American people, and he respects leaders that he believes focuses on doing the best for their people. I think that gives him a certain level of respect for a leader.
Did I imagine it, or is it true that Trump, if he could, he would choose to communicate with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko, and stay away from Zelensky and Macron? He even says that he likes to deal with strong guys.
I think if it was the world according to Donald Trump, that would be the only people he communicated with. But we live in the real world, and Donald Trump is a president who has inherited precedent, political policy precedent, NATO, our relationship with Europe. We can’t just throw that away. It’s been intertwined into the fabric of America.
and America’s relationship with the world. And so the president has to deal with the situation that he’s inherited. And that means sometimes he has to not talk to the people he wants to and focus on ensuring that when he does talk to them, that he doesn’t get ambushed from behind.
So he has to deal with the European issue, the NATO issue, domestic American politics, Congress, the neoconservatives in his administration. He needs to make peace with these people so that the conversations he has, there’s no reason for me to call you just because I like you. I need to call you because I want action.
Very often we want to ask, why can’t Trump and his team choose a course where China and Russia are no longer enemies? Because there are a lot of things that we can do together. High technology, psychology, space, but not war.
Yes. I think we have to understand that Donald Trump is not fighting with Russia or China. He’s fighting with entities within his own circle. He’s fighting with entities within the political class and leadership of Europe, that a lot of the problems that Donald Trump is facing, he was faced with when he came into office.
I think that also relates to the types of leaders that he tends to find in. that he tends to respect the most, because we talk about their strength, but I think another word that’s more important is stable. He tends to be attracted to stable leadership,
and I think it’s mainly because of the political instability in the United States. Sometimes he has to take one forward, one step forward, and he gets pushed two steps back, and it appears that he’s inconsistent, but it’s inconsistent because he’s fighting the instability around him, and I think that’s why he
I’d like to explain my previous question to you, Scott. After the murder of Charlie Kirk, we saw again that Trump and his team are under fire. Who’s targeting them?
The deep state. Now, that’s a throwaway term. People say, oh, it’s a conspiracy theory. The deep state isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s a reality. The deep state is a permanent, unelected establishment that exists in America today. It is a bureaucracy of government, career officials in the government. Presidents come and go, presidential administrations come and go,
but the permanent bureaucracy remains, and there needs to be consistency between transitions. The permanent bureaucracy is supported by academia, the institutions of higher learning. It’s supported by the media. It’s supported by business interests, moneyed interests, the military industrial complex. And it all feeds in. Dwight Eisenhower warned us about this in his farewell address in 1961.
Beware of the military industrial congressional complex, the link between the money of defense industry or the money of Congress and the production capacity of defense industry will radically transform democracy in the wrong direction. We will no longer be a democracy but an oligarchy. This is what the deep state is.
And what Donald Trump and his team are trying to do is say, no, we represent not the deep state. We represent the American people. But you can’t erase the deep state in one fell swoop. You asked about policy. Yes. You know, in the 60s and 70s, we tried to drive the Soviet Union and China apart,
not because we wanted to be friends with them, but because we feared what would happen if they came together. Our policy to China was to open it up to capitalism. Not because we love China, but because we’d hoped that by transitioning to capitalism, communism would be destroyed. That didn’t happen.
So that’s why today we are singularly focused on the Chinese Communist Party as the enemy of the United States. China is not doing what we wanted from China. Russia, or Soviet Union, we always wanted to break it up. That was our policy back then. It’s our policy today. We want Russia to fail. We want Russia to collapse,
and we want to be able to break Russia up into smaller entities so that you don’t have this large nation with all of these resources. The deep state, these are their policies. And so when Donald Trump comes in and says, I want to be friends with China, I want to be friends with Russia,
I can imagine a world where I could be friends with both and accept them being friends together, the deep state says, that’s not what we’re about.
Donald Trump is a businessman. Businessmen need stability. Find me a businessman who says, I want to invest my money in an unstable environment. They’ll say no. A businessman wants stability, wants predictability. You invest money, you can make this money over this period of time. He views relationships with both China and Russia from a business perspective.
Well, I think that one of the things that we’re talking about now is a change in the balance of power worldwide. And now that there are three great powers that the United States, China and Russia operate on a different level than all the other countries.
And we have these malevolent deep state forces that they believe that they should break China and Russia down so that they can remain the king of the hill, but it is a fever dream. It is absurd. It’s never going to happen. They’re trying to fight against modernity. The world is changing. All empires have risen in decline,
and they won’t accept that the United States’ domination can decline, but it can happen in a way in which everyone still prospers. The danger, of course, as we know, is that we have the decline of an empire, which has happened repeatedly in history, but there are nuclear weapons involved.
And so we have to ensure that the world works together, particularly Russia and China, to manage what is a normal decline in power of an empire, which is the U.S. empire.
A few minutes ago, we were talking about negotiations, new negotiations between Russia and the United States, Belarus and the United States. But on the other hand, we can see that Zelensky, Macron, Mertz are trying to disrupt peace process and put pressure on Trump. Why would they do this when ordinary people in Europe don’t want to fight?
Because they represent a political and economic elite that have captured Europe since the end of the Second World War. Their ability to capture Europe is empowered by the United States backing them up. But what they’re seeing in this world that’s transitioning, they’re afraid. Because if Europe transitions away from the transatlantic relationship, away from NATO,
recognizing the inevitability of the demise of the European Union, these empowered elites will lose their influence. So this is a struggle not for France or for Germany or for Italy or for England. This is a struggle for Macron, Mertz, Starmer and others. Elites. This is about the elites holding on to power. And that’s why they’re opposing this.
They understand full well what it will lead to, their personal demise. They don’t care. If these politicians cared about their country, they wouldn’t be taking the policies they did. Why would Germany allow the Nord Stream pipeline to be blown up and have their economy collapse? Because they love Germany?
No, they did it because they want to stay in power. Why would Macron carry out the policies he’s carrying out, knowing that he’s at 11% popularity, the economy’s collapsing? They’re doing it because of personal selfish reasons. These are spoiled, rotten political elites that refuse to accept the reality of history.
Zelensky, Macron, Merz are trying to disrupt peace process, put pressure on Trump. Will the US president be able to prevent a new world war? How do you think?
I definitely think they will, because one of the interesting dynamics now is that there’s a significant separation between these, and I use this word, regrettably, leaders and the people. They can’t drag the people along with them. They’re barely able to clutch onto power. In fact, they have to use extrajudicial, excuse me,
extrademocratic means to prevent Moldova or Romania or other countries from exercising democracy. So the fact that they don’t have their people will prevent them from that. I’ve said this. And I’ve talked to many people and interviewed many people in the U.K. and in other countries who have basically said the young people in our country,
if they were to try to start a war and start drafting our people and say, you’re going to have to go fight Russia, they would burn their own country down. They wouldn’t be able to do it. And in fact, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs said… that he talked to a number of European leaders and leaders in European countries
and said, well, if you had to send troops to Ukraine, how many would you actually send? And they said to him behind closed doors, none, because my government would fall instantly. So I think you have a lot of bluffing because the people of these countries are not on board with this,
and that would cause a complete revolution where they attempt to go over the top and start some kind of a conflict.
But let me just, yes, please, go ahead. I mean, I agree with everything that Garland said, but the nuclear war isn’t going to be started because of Europe or anything Europe does. The nuclear war is going to be started because the United States and Russia both
have nuclear arsenals that are on a hair-trigger alert to launch weapons against one another. This system exists independent of the policies that we’re discussing. You know, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy said that there was a 30 to 50 percent chance that that crisis would have ended in a nuclear conflict.
And he said that that was the most dangerous period in world history. No, the most dangerous period in world history was one year ago today when the CIA briefed the United States Congress that there was a 51 percent chance of a nuclear war between Russia and the United States before the end of the year. 51 percent.
And what’s even more scary is that the Biden administration said, we’re ready for this. We’re ready for this nuclear war. That was a nuclear war driven by the deep state, by institutions that have viewed Russia as the enemy and the need for nuclear weapons to deter the Russian threat. Now, even though Trump is talking peace,
you have Vladimir Putin bragging about the testing of the Burevestnik missile, the Poseidon system, the Sarmat, the Yars, the Oreshnik. We can go on and on and on. And President Trump sees this. And he feels intimidated. So we move submarines closer to the Russian shore. We test our own cruise missiles.
We talk about building a golden dome, deploying our own Dark Eagle missiles. This is a system out of control. And unless we inject control, arms control, treaties, this system… will get us right to the edge of the abyss in one mistake, one miscalculation, one misjudgment, and it’s over.
No matter what Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin want, it’s on full automatic. And it can’t be stopped. There’s a movie called House of Dynamite. It’s based upon a book written by Anne Jacobson about nuclear war. And what you see in this is that nobody believes, everybody’s like talking tough. Yes, we’ve moved our submarines. Yes, we’ve done this.
But they all believe… Nothing’s going to happen because nothing ever happens. And then something happens. And they’re watching in disbelief as the system takes over. And next thing they know, the president has to break the biscuit, read the code, and the missiles have to be launched, and we’re all dead. And they’re all asking, how did this happen?
They don’t know how it happened, but it will happen. We are living in the single most dangerous time in world history today because we have systems in place geared for nuclear war and we have to disenfranchise those systems or it’s going to be all over for us.
A very important question for us is what is the most important condition for peace between Russia and Ukraine?
Total Russian victory in Ukraine. Anything else is a joke. The Ukraine conflict is driven by a long-standing American-driven desire to use Ukraine as a vehicle to weaken Russia. And the only way to resolve this problem is to solve the Ukraine problem once and for all. Because if you leave the Ukrainian problem intact through negotiations, through compromise,
all that will happen is the deep state will continue to be pushing for reviving Ukraine as a tool to be used against Russia. The only way to solve this problem is to defeat Ukraine totally and therefore disenfranchise Ukraine from Europe, from the deep state.
I’m sorry to say that because I tried to be a man of peace, but Russia didn’t start this war. This is a war that was thrust upon Russia by the West. And the only way to solve this problem is for Russia to have total victory. That means every single objective that Russia has set out must be accomplished.
I agree with Scott 100 percent. And the other important factor here is that the West, the NATO leadership has been able to maintain some level of support for the war through propaganda that’s absolutely untrue. And part of the propaganda is that they must stop, they must, the Russians must be defeated because if they get victory here,
they will move on to Poland and then on to the English Channel, then, you know, points north, which is patently absurd. But a victory in Ukraine will then set the stage for the discussion of what happens next. And when the people of the West, and this is a great fear of the political leadership in Europe,
when the people of the West come to the realization, we were told that the Russians were going to keep going. And the Russians have achieved their goals, and they didn’t keep going. We were told we had to make sacrifices to stop the Russians from overrunning Berlin. But the Russians don’t want to overrun Berlin.
So it will expose the lies and propaganda, I believe, and it will expose to people that the Russians have no desire to attack Europe. So I think it’s critical that that victory happens and it exposes the propaganda that’s been used to frighten the people of Europe.
I understand you very well because when we see how Lithuania are closing the borders, it’s a stupid step. I don’t understand why.
It’s a provocation. It’s 100% provocation. It’s an act of desperation. You see, right now, the status quo is in favor of Russia because Russia cannot be sanctioned into submission. Russia has garnered diplomatic approval around the world, and Russia is prevailing on the battlefield.
And so they have to change the status quo, so they’re looking for ways to provoke this conflict. I would just ask people to look at a map. How does Russia get to Poland? Through Belarus. Is Belarus looking for a war with Poland? No. Study the history of Belarus, the recent history.
There’s two things that come to my mind. One is that Belarus, more than any other nation, understands the consequences of war. Yes. The Germans advanced through you and were pushed back, and three million Belarus citizens died. One out of every four Belarusians died in the great patriotic war. Katyn. You know what Katyn is. The world doesn’t, unfortunately.
But you know what the danger of fascism is, what the horrors of that is. And two, it wasn’t the Belarusians that invaded anybody. But ask the Germans what it felt like to fight the partisans of Belarus. You see, you don’t want to go to war with Belarus because you will lose that war,
just like the Nazis lost that war. But it won’t be a war that started because Belarus invaded you. it’ll be a war started because you invaded Belarus. But this time, Belarus is backed by the full strength of Russia. I think the relationship between Belarus and Russia is stronger today than it has
been since the collapse of the Soviet Union. You have Oreshnik. So I just think people… need to put on their thinking caps. There’s no Russian divisions waiting to march on Poland. So maybe Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland need to calm down because they don’t want to start something that they can’t finish.
My final question is, there are very difficult times. Has there ever been anything like this in history?
Now, this is something that’s quite natural, and that is powers rise and powers decline. However, the technology that is available now makes that very different because of, of course, nuclear weapons and, of course, because of the ability of online journalists such as us and journalists such as you to communicate information.
You can do this, and this can travel around the world on the Internet in seconds. frightening part is the nuclear weapons. I think the promising thing that’s going on now is that alternative journalism is rising, that people’s access to information is rising, and that people like us are able to bring information very quickly,
accurate information that people can then research for themselves to find out if it’s accurate. So I think we have to also look at this in a positive way right now. It’s a difficult time, but there are opportunities for us to mitigate these problems. And I think things such as we’re doing now
This is the mitigation that has to happen and will provide the political cover for President Lukashenko, President Trump and for those who are trying to resolve these issues amicably.
Yeah. I mean, Barbara Tuchman wrote a book called August 1914. It was about the lead up to the First World War. And when you read that book, you see nations talking about alliances and mobilization and, you know, we’re going to move this way and move this way to, you know, intimidate and to pressure.
But all nations believed in July of 1914 that there wouldn’t be a war because war was crazy. It couldn’t be fought. But once you start moving pieces, war becomes inevitable. It takes on its own momentum. We need to learn from that in the past. Today, things are happening.
People are talking about moving troops, moving this, changing alliances, shifting alliances. It’s the same thing that’s happening over and over again. What we need to learn from that is we have to stop the processes. There are processes in place of powered elites who, if left unchecked, will take us to war. And this time,
the difference is it’s not just going to be a world war that consumes millions of lives. It’ll be a nuclear war that consumes all of humanity. So the urgency now to find a different path. And this, again, is why I applaud President Trump for making the phone call to President Lukashenko
to find an alternative method of engaging Vladimir Putin away from systems that the deep state controls. Yes, we have a Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Yes, he can meet with Sergei Lavrov. But those meetings will be influenced by the deep state. The deep state doesn’t influence President Lukashenko. So calling President Lukashenko,
getting his advice and seeking an effort to work with Vladimir Putin, that’s one of the things we can do to stop this mad march to war.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
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@tobararbulu # mmt@tobararbulu
Say His Name https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritte
Say His Name
To Remember, One Must First Learn
Nov 15, 2025
You see it in the distance as you enter the sprawling complex of monuments and carefully manicured open space that comprises the half-million square foot expanse that is the Khatyn memorial to the victims of the Nazi genocide in Belarus—a black figure standing at the termination point of a pathway made of concrete slabs.
As you draw closer the form of the object becomes discernable—an man, his body battered and his clothing torn, cradling the body of a boy in his arms, his face a mask of unspeakable anguish.
Designed by sculptor Sergei Selikhanov, the statue depicts Yuzif Kaminsky, the only adult villager who survived the Nazi massacre in the Belorussian village of Khatyn on March 22, 1943, cradling the corpse of his dead son, Adam. Kaminskiy’s grief is meant to be representative of all the suffering inflicted on the Belorussian people by the German Nazis and their proxies.
Sergey Selikhanov was no ordinary sculptor. Born in 1917 in the city of Petrograd later renamed Leningrad, and today known as Saint Petersburgh, the same name it bore when it was first built by Peter the Great in the later 17th century), Sergey studied the fine arts, graduating in 1937 from the Vitebsk Art College. During the Great Patriotic War, Sergei served in the Red Army. He fought in the horrible battles outside Moscow and Rzhev, on the Kalinin and Voronezh fronts, and at the Kursk Bulge. He helped force the crossing of the Dnieper River, fought in Silesia and ended the war helping liberate Prague. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st and 2nd degrees, the Badge of Honor, and the Medal “For Courage”.
Sergei knew the reality of war, and the face of suffering. And when called upon to design a statue for the Khatyn Memorial, he opted not to produce something from the school of socialist realism that defined most Soviet-era war memorials, but rather something more ragged, rough, that captured the raw emotion of a man who had watched an entire village be burned to death, including his family, and to find his son—his legacy, his future—amongst the slain.
The name of the statue Sergei produced was “The Unbowed Man.”
But for those who know, it is the statue of Yusik Kaminsky and his son, Adam.
The remains of the Kaminsky home in Khatyn
The Khatyn Memorial is built on the land where the village bearing the same name once stood. On the morning of March 22, 1943, soldiers from the 118th Police Battalion and the SS-Sonderbattalion, led by Oskar Dirlewanger. The 118th Police Battalion was stood up in Kiev in 1942. Commanded by German officers, including Erich Korner and Hans Woelke, a famed German athlete who won a gold medal in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the rank and file of the 118th Battalion was drawn from western Ukrainian nationalists who were members of the faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) led by Stepan Bandera. The Banderists were used by the Germans to carry out the most brutal repressions of the Russian and Belorussian people, actions that fit well with their ideology, founded as it was on the murderous advancement of Western Ukraine over all other regional peoples.
Dirlewanger’s SS-Sonderbattalion was created specifically for the purpose of implementing the policies associated with “Plan Ost”, the systemic annihilation of the non-Germanic population of the Soviet territory, including Belorussia, that was occupied by Nazi forces. Dirlewanger recruited rapists, murdered and psychopaths selected for their unquestioning willingness to engage in the systematic slaughter of targeted populations. Under Plan Ost, fully 75% of Belorussians were considered by the Germans as “unfit” for “Germanization” and targeted for liquidation.
According to Adolf Heusinger, a senior German General in the Operations Department of the German Army High Command, responsible for conceiving and implementing military operations against the Soviet Union, “The treatment of the civilian population and the methods of anti-partisan warfare in operational areas presented the highest political and military leaders with a welcome opportunity to carry out their plans, namely the systemic extermination of Slavism and Jewry.”
(Despite his direct knowledge and active role in the implementation of Plan Ost, Heusinger escaped prosecution after the end of the Second World War, and in 1955 returned to military service as a general officer in the new German Bundeswehr, eventually serving as the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr and the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee.)
Between the Banderist extremists and the psychopaths of the Dirlewanger SS-Sonderbattalion, the population of Khatyn never stood a chance.
The 22nd of March 1943 marked the Spring Equinox, a time when the sun is directly over the equator and day and night are of equal length. In Belorussia, the days leading up to the equinox are known as Maslenitsa, or “Butter Week”, a time of feasting and merrymaking before the start of Lent. In the homes of the village of Khatyn, wives and mothers were up early, preparing the dough for the various breads, cookies and cakes they would bake to celebrate this event. The children of the village either remained in their beds, or were scampering about, excited for the holiday to come.
In the Kaminsky home, Yuzif sat around a table while his wife and Mother conducted the preparations for baking. Yuzif was joined by Anton Kunkevitch, who lived in a neighboring village and who had come to Khatyn to talk to Yuzif, who worked as a blacksmith, about helping craft several items he needed for his work. His three sons—Adam, Misha and Vilya—sat nearby, listening as the men talked.
The names of Yusif Kaminsky’s family, and his frind, Anton, who were murdered on March 22, 1943
Several kilometers away, the fate of Yuzif and his family, together with the rest of the occupants of Khatyn, was decided by others. Two companies of Belorussian partisans from the “Avenger” brigade positioned themselves along the road connecting Pleshchenitsy and Lahoisk. The partisans had cut the telephone wires, and looking to ambush any German vehicles that might arrive to conduct repairs.
Around noon on March 22, they got their wish. A small convoy consisting of three vehicles—an armored car and two trucks—approached the partisan positions. In the armored car was none other than Hans Woelke, the commander of the 1st Company of the 118th Police Battalion. Wolke was killed by the partisan fire, along with three of his Ukrainian auxiliaries. The partisans then fled from their ambush toward Khatyn.
Korner, the commander of the 118th Battalion, was incensed when he heard about Woelke’s death. Informed that the tracks of the partisans, which were visible in the snow that still lay on the ground, led to Khatyn, Korner ordered the 1st Company, together with reinforcements from the Dirlewanger SS-Sonderbattalion, to exterminate the village and all its occupants.
By the time the Germans had assembled the punitive force, the partisans had fled from the vicinity of Khatyn. Only a single female partisan was discovered in the forests outside Khatyn. She was executed on the spot.
According to the report of the partisans, “[Khatyn] was destroyed and all its inhabitants burned in the barn. In total 140 people were burned, among them seventy children between the ages of 1 and 14.”
Eight-year-old Viktor Andreevich Zhelobkovich was one of three survivors to emerge from the barn. In 1986, he provided this account of that horrible day:
That day before dinner my father and I went to the barn, to prepare hay for the cow. Suddenly we heard gunshots. We ran into the house, told all the people … to hide in the basement. After some time the members of the punitive squad broke through the door to the basement and ordered us all out on the street. As we got out we saw that they were chasing people out of the other houses as well. They brought us to the barn, which stood a little bit outside the village.
I saw half-dressed and barefoot children. The Germans did not allow anybody to get dressed. The barn was 10 by 12 meters. The people calmed each other, told themselves ‘They are just trying to scare us and will let us go.’
We sat for about an hour. When someone climbed up under the ceiling to see what was going on, the punitive battalion noticed it and opened fire. The bullet passed me by.
Through the cracks I could see how they gathered hay and were pouring gasoline. People went out of their minds from fear, realizing that they were to be burned.”
My mother and I stood right by the locked barn doors, and I could see between the planks of the barn wall how they piled up hay against the wall, which they then set on fire. When the burning roof caved in the people and people’s clothes caught on fire, everybody threw themselves against the doors, which broke open.
The punitive squad stood around the barn and opened fire on the people, who were
running in all directions. We made it five or six meters from the doors of the barn,
then my mom pushed me to the ground, and we both lay there. I wanted to get up,
but she pressed my head down: “Don’t move, son, lie still.”
Something hit me hard in my arm. I was bleeding. I told my mom, but she didn’t answer—she was already dead.
How long I was lying there, I don’t know. Everything around me was burning,
even my mother’s clothes had begun to glow. Afterwards I realized that the punitive
squad had left and the shooting had ended, but still I waited awhile before I got up.
The barn had burned down, burned corpses lay all around. Someone moaned: “drink… ”
I ran, brought water, but to no avail, in front of my eyes the Khatyn villagers died one
after another. Terrible, painful deaths…
Yusif Kaminsky and his family, together with Anton Kunkevitch, were likewise herded into the barn. When the barn roof collapsed, Yusif and a number of other villagers were pressed into the door of the barn, which then burst open. Yusif stumbled forward, his clothes on fire. The Germans and their Ukrainian proxies opened fire on Yusif and the others. Yusif was hit in the leg and fell to the ground, unconscious. The others were killed. Yusif’s wounds and his burned body and smoldering clothes led the Germans and Ukrainians to believe he was dead.
Yusif regained consciousness after the Nazis had left. He searched the still smoldering bodies of his fellow villagers that surrounded him, looking for his family. Finally, he came upon the body of his 15-year-old son, Adam. Badly burned and shot in the stomach, Adam was still alive when Yusif found him. The father picked up his son and started to carry him to safety, but the boy died in his arms.
Yusif stumbled through the forest before reaching the neighboring village of Mokred. “I saw how the entire village was burned”, he said to the shocked villagers. The next day they and villagers from other surrounding villages made their way to Khatyn.
The village and its occupants were no more.
Yusif Kaminsky survived the war, and lived to see the memorial to Khatyn constructed, together with the statue of him carrying the body of his son. Kaminsky retired to a neighboring village some seven kilometers away. But for a decade after the memorial was built, Kaminsky would make the walk to the memorial, where he would stand by the ruins of his former home, in the shadow of the statue marking the most horrific moment of his life and share his thoughts and memories with visitors. “I owe it to the memory of my family,” he explained.
Yusif Kaminsky passed away in 1979.
Some 627 Belorussian villages were subjected to the “Khatyn treatment” by the Nazis, their entire populations herded into barns and burned to death. In total, more than 3.1 million Belarussians were killed by the Nazis—one in every three of its citizens. More than 12,000 villages were destroyed. Many of the perpetrators of this crime, including members of the 118th Polic Battalion, escaped justice by taking refuge in Canada, whose Ukrainian diaspora is marked by its pro-Bandera ideology. And today many Ukrainian soldiers proudly wear patches depicting the crossed stick grenade emblem of the Dirlewanger SS-Sonderbattalion.
If there was ever a justification for a memorial such as the one that exists in Khatyn, it is this disgusting refusal by the West to condemn the criminal ideology of those who today openly resurrect the murderous legacy of Nazi Germany’s genocide of the Belarussian people.
“The Unbowed Man” statue
Stare long and hard at this statue.
Look at the slain body of his son.
Examine the pain and grief etched into the face of this man.
Say his name:
Yusif Kaminsky.
And never forget the crimes man can commit against his fellow man.
I want to give special thanks to my guide, Anna Papko, who brought the horrible memories of Khatyn to life for me. She has an unenviable job which she conducts with grace and humanity. She views it as necessary work.
She is right.
The Author with Anna Papko, his Khatyn tour guide
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@tobararbulu # mmt@tobararbulu
There’s a Topic
https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritter/p/theres-a-topic?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
I had the opportunity to be interviewed by the Editor-in-Chief of Match TV, Fyodor Ivanitsa, for their program “There’s a Topic.” We had a fascinating discussion that covered a wide-range of topics, including my impressions of Russia, the prospects for peace between the US and Russia, and the danger of nuclear war.
Transkripzioa:
Mr. Rita, we’re here in Russia, in Moscow. We have many meetings, interviews, so thank you for your time. And my first question is, I wonder to hear about how all these events around Ukraine and et cetera looks being inside Russia, you like a foreigner, and how the situation inside the country differs from
Well, first of all, to be inside Russia is to be able to observe the reality of Russia. In the West, away from Russia, we are prisoners of propaganda, prisoners of how the media will explain Russia to us. And so the media will try to emphasize certain things, de-emphasize other things, invent certain facts, manipulate other facts,
so that you get a very slanted impression of Russian reality. When you come into Russia, the first thing I noticed is that in Moscow, other than the billboards and maybe watching the news, the people of Moscow are living their lives. It’s almost as if there isn’t a war. I was looking for the gas lines.
I couldn’t find them. I was told there’s long lines for gas. I was looking for the hungry people because there’s no food in Russia according to the West. The Russian economy is ruined. I was looking for unemployed people wandering the streets. What I see is a thriving city. I’m not a superficial person, so I dig deeper.
I have conversations with people. And then you realize that the war is a reality. Many people have friends. Many people have relatives who are fighting in the SMO. Everybody is worried about it. Everybody is concerned about it. But they live their lives. And that’s the important thing to realize, is that Russia is not
an artificial construct, Russia is reality. Russia is populated by real people who live their lives just like everybody else lives their lives. The war is a major issue, yes, but so is living life, so is working, so is raising a family, so is living to your fullest, going out with your friends.
i i haven’t sought it out but my understanding is that the party culture of the night of the 2005 period no longer exists because people are serious there’s a war it’s not a time to party but it is a time to live your life and i see happy
russians i see russians with their families with their friends going out to restaurants uh living their life and I think that’s the difference, is that by being in Russia, you experience the reality of Russia. And the reality of Russia is so much different than the artificial environment created by Western media.
You said you speak with people whose relatives fight in Ukraine. What did they tell you? Maybe what’s their opinion, what they try to…
Well, first of all, we need to understand I am a foreigner. Yeah. And so I don’t imagine… People are going to be complaining about Russia to me. But they were all very honest. They’re very worried. Of course, their loved ones are in harm way. I’ve talked to some people whose loved ones have died,
whose loved ones are wounded, invalids who are recovering from their wounds. It’s very serious. It’s very sad. But without exception, without exception, they all want peace, but first victory. Meaning they’re not willing to sacrifice victory to get peace. They understand why they’re at war. They understand why their loved ones have to sacrifice, why they have to sacrifice.
I would like to speak about current agenda. German Defense Minister Pistorius said a couple of days ago that this was the last peaceful summer in response to the question about when Russia would be able to attack NATO. my question is do you uh why do they say this now and do you believe in a war
in the smo nato is providing ukraine with training with equipment with money They advised the Ukrainians on how to fight. The Kursk invasion was a NATO operation conceived by NATO who trained the Ukrainian forces, equipped them and directed their operations. NATO was driving much of the strategy that Ukraine is using.
They want peace. They don’t want to send their troops to Ukraine. And at the same time, they armed Ukraine just yesterday or day before in France. They had an agreement to Macron and Zelensky about to send 100 military planes Rafale to Ukraine. What is it? Fiction.
It’s posturing. Look, NATO has never wanted peace with Russia. When NATO was created, it was created to confront the Soviet Union. when the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO should have gone away. But instead of going away, NATO expanded all the way up to Russia’s borders.
To justify the expense of NATO, NATO needs an enemy, and that enemy is Russia. Russia doesn’t want to be an enemy of NATO. Russia isn’t posturing itself to be an enemy of NATO, but NATO needs to invent the Russian enemy. Because it’s not just about justifying their expense, but NATO is an extension of American
national security and foreign policy imperatives. The United States, since the end of the Second World War, has been seeking the destruction of Russia. We’ve been seeking to break Russia up, to weaken Russia, to keep Russia down. And until recently, that’s been our strategy. And Ukraine, as an issue, is used to weaken Russia.
The whole objective of the Ukrainian conflict is to get Russia engaged in a military operation that drags on. It saps the resources of Russia, their manpower, their material. It leads to economic collapse. Then it will lead to societal disruption. they hope will lead to the collapse of Vladimir Putin’s government. That’s the goal. That’s the objective.
So this is what we’re seeing is the West using Ukraine for this purpose. They’ve never wanted peace. They’ve never wanted peace. It’s just a lie. But they can’t afford to go to war directly with Russia. They need the Ukrainian proxy. Back in 1993, George Soros, who heads up a foundation that has funded various color revolutions around Europe
and even funded operations inside Russia to undermine the Russian government. He wrote a paper in which he said that NATO needs to prepare for a conflict with Russia, but it can’t be a direct conflict because no NATO country will accept body bags coming home. They need an Eastern European proxy who’s willing to sacrifice their people for the
cause of NATO. Ukraine is that proxy. Ukraine has sacrificed over a million of its men, continues to sacrifice its men, not because they’re defending Ukraine, but because they’re carrying out the objective of NATO in the collective West
But the most dangerous statements we hear from Germany politics, Pistorius and Chancellor, is it message from the past? Why do they so strong with Russia right now? They use the moment.
Yeah. Well, first of all, let’s talk about two realities. The first reality is Germany is not strong. Their economy is collapsing. Their defense industry is nearly non-existent. The value of Ryan Mittal, who produces the leopard tank, by the way, has dropped 20% in the last weeks. It’s an economy in free fall. Chancellor Mertz is very unpopular.
He wouldn’t win an election today if there was an election. And so we’re looking at acts of desperation by political and economic elites who need to create external distractions to make up for their internal failures. So Ukraine is an external distraction. The other thing we have to realize is something the former Soviet Union,
I believe the Russian government today realizes, that denazification in the western part of Germany was never completed. Indeed, when NATO brought the Bundeswehr into being, they brought in Wehrmacht officers. They brought in general officers who should have been tried for war crimes, who committed massive war crimes, but they were forgiven. They never subjected to the Nuremberg process.
They were whitewashed and then brought in as the new German army. Germany was never denazified. So within German society, there continue to be elements who have a direct ideological link to their Nazi past. And what we see today is they are emerging as politically relevant. You hear in the rhetoric of Merz, you hear Hitler.
It’s the same rhetoric. You hear in the rhetoric of the German generals who point at maps, the same words you would hear for German generals pointing at the maps in 1943 to explain the Battle of Kursk. Why does Germany need an armored brigade in Lithuania? Do they not know their history?
Do they not know what it means to have a German brigade in Lithuania? The Lithuanians forgotten their history.
But the only good news is that it’s a red flag being weighed by a child. Germany has no capabilities today. None whatsoever. Pistorius can talk and talk and talk and talk. Where is the German army? What can the German army do? There is no German army. It can do nothing. It can’t get out of the barracks.
Germany cannot push power into Ukraine. Even when they talk about, for instance, Macron now is talking about creating a coalition of the willing that will send peacekeeper troops into Ukraine. But they can only do that when there’s a ceasefire. Russia said there will be no ceasefire till the war is over.
And even if there’s a ceasefire, they will only do that if the United States backs them up. And the United States will not back them up. So it’s a lot of talk. And if I were a Russian, I’d be concerned about the talk. But when you look deeper, the reality is NATO possesses no significant military capability.
And they can’t afford to build their military up to the size that Pistorius and the other defense ministers say NATO should have.
Zelensky today is in a very weak position because we know about the corruption scandal. And there are rumors that he can fire his second man in the government, the head of his office, Andrei Yermak. We don’t know yet, but maybe it will happen soon. What does it mean?
It means that he cannot control everything in his country, not only on the front line. What’s the conclusion we can make?
Well, I think it’s common knowledge that Ukraine is an extraordinarily corrupt country and that it doesn’t matter if the president’s name is Zelensky or Poroshenko or whatever name you want to give the president. You can’t be the president of Ukraine as it currently exists without being corrupt. There are power elites, the oligarchs, who control everything.
They make the decisions on who will be president, who will be in other positions. And then you also factor into this the fact that Zelensky, since the SMO started, is a tool of the British government. He is 100 percent controlled by the British government, by British intelligence.
And so we have a president who is in control of nothing. He’s a front. He’s an actor reading a script. And the script is written by other people. And right now the entire TV series is falling apart because Because he’s not a leader, he’s reliant upon a system that is corrupt. There is corruption everywhere in Ukraine, everywhere.
There’s not a single part of Ukraine that isn’t corrupt. The money we send to Ukraine goes into people’s pockets, goes offshore. It doesn’t do what it’s intended to do. And what we see now is the war starts to unravel. You know, the system that disguised this corruption from the world is unraveling.
And now it’s so corrupt, even the West has to acknowledge that corruption exists. I don’t think Zelensky’s wrong.
But they ignored it. They ignored it. Zelensky visited all these European countries and they shake his hands and they say that, well, it’s OK.
Well, who’s going to replace him? Zeluzny, a banderist? Yermak, who’s going to be fired? Who can replace Zelensky?
Well, because they have nobody else. Plus, understand, Europe is part of the corruption. They know Ukraine is corrupt and they feed the money into Ukraine. Some of that money comes back to Europe. They’re part of the corruption. So it’s in their interests to disguise the corruption of Ukraine that protects them.
Donald Trump, on the one hand, he said that he wanted to stop this eight or nine war. I don’t remember. But on the other, he made some new sanctions on Russia and announced preparations for nuclear tests. Speaking of new nuclear race, by the way, it’s already started. And how far can it go?
I’m scared of what everybody says. I’m scared of what Putin says. Because we… Me too? Everybody is speaking the language of war, nuclear war. We all die in a nuclear war. That’s the end of the world. For a long time, we believed because there was arms control and because we had rational leaders who
said nuclear wars cannot be won, therefore they should never be fought, we collectively said, whew, Our governments will never be stupid enough to take us down the path of nuclear war. But today, it’s primarily the fault of the United States. But Russia is part of this problem, too. I’ll give you an example. Russian President Vladimir Putin
in 2016, warned American journalists that if the United States withdraws from treaties and begins to build missile defenses, Russia will have no choice but to build weapons to defeat that. In 2018, because nobody took any action, President Putin announced that Russia is creating these new weapons. And today, these new weapons are being tested and fielded.
I don’t blame Vladimir Putin for that. Vladimir Putin announces that Russia has successfully tested the Bir Vesnik and the Poseidon nuclear-powered nuclear delivery systems. Donald Trump, who’s surrounded by people who A, hate Russia, B, don’t understand Russia, C, don’t understand arms control, he hears nuclear and nuclear and tests. And so Donald Trump immediately says,
if Russia’s testing nuclear, then we will carry out nuclear tests too. And everybody said, well, wait a minute, does he mean nuclear weapons tests? What does he mean? And it wasn’t explained.
It’s a problem of communication. They’re not communicating directly. So now the Russian government hears Donald Trump say, I’m going to test weapons too. And they think, well, what does he mean? If he means real nuclear weapons testing, then we need to prepare to test nuclear weapons too. So Vladimir Putin makes the announcement.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump says, wait a minute, they’re getting ready to test nuclear weapons. So we need to get ready to test nuclear weapons, too. And you see how a miscommunication, a misjudgment, a miscalculation creates a situation that could rapidly spin out of control? And this is just nuclear testing. What happens if they have a similar misstatement, miscalculation,
misjudgment about actual nuclear weapons, delivery systems? Once a mistake is made, you can’t undo it. It begins a process that’s irreversible, and we will find ourselves in nuclear war. The last remaining treaty controlling nuclear weapons, the new START treaty, expires in February of next year. There is no treaty to replace it. And our governments aren’t talking.
They’re not only not negotiating a new treaty, they’re just not talking. I’m very scared that people are going to say things that are interpreted improperly. There is no communication, and it spins out of control, and there’s no trust. So they don’t trust one another. They assume the worst on each side. Then it’s too late. We’re at war.
Yeah, it’s strange. You know, I work at partly sport TV channel, so I use my possibility to ask questions. I don’t know if you answer or not, but the symbols of any country is a flag and anthem. And Russian athletes have been banned from international competitions under their national flag and anthem.
And the situation is in comparison with Israel. This country ruined Gaza and the sportsmen, used their flag, anthem, they are not banned, everything is okay. Is it fair?
no look i’m an american what’s the difference well the difference is that uh well first of all let’s talk about national symbols yeah as an american my flag is the living symbol of my nation so you understand what i’m talking about i understand exactly what you’re talking about because i assume that russians love their flag as
much as i love my flag when i hear my national anthem i get tears in my eyes because it means so much to me. So I imagine when Russians hear their national anthem, it’s the same emotion, the same feeling. So if you attach these symbols to your nation and your nation’s in your heart,
you then have to say, if they’re trying to strip these symbols away to ban them, why? Why? Israel, I understand why. Genocide, Gaza, disregard for international law, murder, you name it, Israel’s done it. But even then, I am somewhat opposed to the banning of national symbols because Not all Israelis are bad. Not all Israelis are evil.
And some Israelis love their country as much as you love your country and as much as I love my country. And these are the symbols of their nations. It’s symbolic to do these symbols. It’s meaningless. It punishes people. For what reason? Banning the Israeli flag, banning the Israeli anthem, does this change Gaza in reality? No.
banning the Russian flag, does it change the situation in Ukraine? No. And there is no comparison of Ukraine and Gaza. Russia didn’t start the war in Ukraine. The West started the war in Ukraine. It goes back a long time. But in the West, we are infected with Russophobia.
We are taught from an early age to hate Russia, to fear Russia, not to trust Russia. So it’s very easy when you have such simplistic mindset to do things that are symbolic, take the flag away, take the national anthem away. But when I travel to Russia and I meet the Russian people, I realize that they’re human beings,
just like I am. They love their country as much as I love my country, and I understand how much pain and suffering this causes the Russian people. I think it’s unjustifiable. I think there’s different ways to deal with policy disputes than collectively punish the Russian people.
As a foreigner in Russia, how could you describe what Russia’s strength in what? How could you formulate it for you?
I first came to Russia when it was the Soviet Union. Back in 1988, I was a weapons inspector who came to inspect Russian missile factories, Russian missiles as part of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. And when I first arrived, the way I would describe Russian strength, Russian power, was through their military, through their nuclear weapons.
But I lived in the city of Vodkinsk for two years. And I lived amongst the people of Vodkinsk. And I learned about their humanity. I learned that they’re human beings just like we are. And at that time, I decided that the strength of Russia is its people. Its people are their strength.
Now, at that time, the people were imbued with Soviet ideology. The decade of the 1990s came after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and what I saw was a Russia that was in disarray, a Russia that was in chaos, a tragic reality of Russia.
And I saw many Russians flee to the West, or worse, turn to the West to redefine who they were. They forgot who they were. They forgot that they were Russians. They fell out of love with Russia. They abandoned Russia and embraced something else. In 2000, you got a new leader, Vladimir Putin. And Vladimir Putin reversed this trend.
And for the last 25 years, he has brought Russia off its knees, stood Russia up, cleaned Russia off, and reimbued them with a spirit of Russian pride. And I see Russians today who love their country. They know who they are. They know about their faith. They know about their soul. They know their history, their culture.
And they are Russia. Yes, Russia has nuclear weapons, but that doesn’t define Russia. Yes, Russia has an army that can fight. That doesn’t define Russia. Russia has people, the Russian people. That’s Russia’s greatest strength.
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Taking the “Highway to Hell” to Russia
On November 9 I had the honor and privilege of being able to present the Russian language edition of my book, Highway to Hell, in a forum hosted by the prestigious Central House of Writers, in downtown Moscow.
I was joined onstage by Konstatin Antipin, the Editor at Konzeptual Press, the publisher of my book, and Garland Nixon, the popular American radio host and political podcaster, who introduced me and the book to a packed reception hall.
My presentation was designed to introduce the book and its foundational themes of the danger of nuclear war and the necessity of arms control to a Russian audience, kickstarting my 18-day visit to Russia where I sought to engage in a broader discussion of these and other topics with the Russian people. After my remarks, we opened the floor to questions from the audience, before signing books.
So let’s start. My name is Antipin Константин Валерьевич. I am the founder and main editor of the Conceptual editing house, which has the honor of publishing the book by Scott Reader Highway to Hell.
I’m not going to take much of your time anymore. And with this, I have the honor of presenting you our first speaker, a journalist, and Scott Ritter’s friend, Holland Nixon.
I think one of the things that Scott and I have in common, one of the reasons we became friends, he has twin daughters, and I have a daughter, and we’re both very men, fathers who are very, very close to our daughters. Both of us see our work to stop wars,
В 1987, Ronald Reagan signed a treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. And we eliminated these weapons. We didn’t slow their growth. We didn’t reduce their numbers. We got rid of them altogether. It was one of the greatest moments in my life to be a part of that treaty.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that we signed in 1972, the United States withdrew from this treaty in 2002. And in 2019, the United States withdrew from my treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. Arms control appears to be dead.
… went to a museum of the defense of Sevastopol, and as you walk out of one exhibition, you walk down a hallway, and there’s stars above
Every time I get the honor of talking to Scott to talking next to Scott, I get the shivers from the sincerity that he exhibits in everything he does. So thank you very much.
…responsable for America’s nuclear war plans, spoke to an audience, and he said,
«The big board don’t matter when you’re all dead».
So I’m here to learn about the Russian people, to learn about the Russian soul, to bring it to America so that we collectively can learn together, live together in peace,
I believe it is their patience that is the only thing that has kept the world safe. So my opinion is that the leadership of Russia has kept the world safe by being
.. It is a disease of the mind, and it will take a special effort to eradicate it. And I don’t know what the solution is, but as long as American-Ukrainian children are allowed to parade in Ellenville at night wearing their brown Nazi uniforms,
burning their torches, holding the portraits of Bandera, and singing his praises, Banderism will live forever.
oooooo
