I decided to reach out to that creator in Mariupol whose videos I’ve previously shared and he was sweet enough to get back to me. I reached out to him because voices like his are almost non-existent on any of our platforms. What we do get, for the most part, is an over abundance of the social media savvy, English-speaking, pro-Maidan, rabidly anti-Russian factions (in addition to the Western war tourists, grifters, pseudo-journalists and of course the self-appointed geopolitical experts with questionable employers).

These factions have been able to shape the narratives without any challenge from their compatriots, especially those in the East. While their voices (and I’m strictly speaking about Ukrainian voices) are most certainly important, valid, rooted in their own truths and should be heard, they have never been, nor are they now, representative of the entire collective. My primary objective here has always been to try and give a voice to these other people, people like my family who remain in Donetsk and this awesome gentleman in Mariupol. These other people whose agency has been questioned, dismissed, denied and mischaracterized by most of you. Let’s not even get into what their supposed compatriots refer to them as or the punishments they believe to be just for their “treasonous” expression of the same free will, that they, themselves, got to express to jubilant cheers from the civilized world during their Revolution of “Dignity”.

For the record, this gentleman was born in Mariupol, raised in Mariupol, lived through those first few insane months of 2022 in Mariupol and remains in Mariupol today.

I don’t want to overburden him, but if you have any specific questions for him, I can pass them on and share the responses. And if you have TikTok, I highly recommend for you to give him a follow @ mrplru.

I’ll give some context to his responses to me and post some more of his videos ⬇️
The key takeaways:

Re sharing his voice on X: X is blocked and there isn’t much of an interest to access it through VPN. He also confirmed that as far as social media platforms go, X was used by a tiny minority even before it was blocked.

So, what you do get to see and hear, especially here, isn’t even a trailer for a multi-season, multi-arc show. As I said above, I don’t want to overburden him but if you do have specific questions, I’d be happy to ask him and share his response.

I was also really curious as to how many people would he estimate to be in Mariupol currently. According to him, there are more than 350K people there now with people continuing to return mostly from Europe (as it’s more difficult to return from Ukraine). And no, it’s not the resettled Russians or the workers.

For the record, the population in January of 2022 was 425,681.

The headlines following Russia's maiden IRBM use are somehow even more sensational and delusive than expected.
 
"Putin is terrified"
"Crippling revenge blitz"
"Clear and Big escalation"
"Insane"
"Bragging and Threatening"
"Unprecedented! New kind of weapon"
"Not really accurate" (at least according to the Ukrainian Air Force who didn't even know what weapon was fired")
 
If these are the best takes the legacy media could come up with, you can imagine the range of ridiculousness being offered by the self-appointed experts on this platform.
 
But how did we even get here? In this clip from 2022, in response to the question about the growing threat of a nuclear war. Putin concurs that the threat is growing and explains Russia's nuclear doctrine. He proceeds with the following.
 
"Did we talk about the possibility of using nuclear weapons? No. The former prime minister of Great Britain, let us not mention her by name, directly and publicly said that she was willing to do it. In response to this, I had to emphasize a few things too. Right away her statements were ignored, and what we said was immediately stuck out and the statements we made used to frighten the whole world. We haven't gone crazy, we are aware of what nuclear weapons are, we have the means and they are in a more advanced and more modern form than any other nuclear country. But we are not going to brandish this weapon like a razor running around the world but of course we proceed from the fact that it is. "

The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada has now officially passed a bill to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The UOC has existed since the baptism of Kievan Rus' in 988. It had 12,092 parishes with a membership of between 2.5 and 6 million faithful.

This religious cleanse isn’t new, since 2014 (but prior to 2022) 1,300 churches of the canonical UOC were forcibly seized and handed over to the schismatics.

And all this despite the UOC proclaiming its loyalty to Ukraine and insisting that it has broken from the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Zelensky, an atheist, said that it is “our common duty to guarantee Ukrainian spiritual independence”.

This now also gives the schismatics of Constantinople’s “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”, abetted by the government, free reign to unleash their absurd campaign of Ukrainization of even the holiest of things in full force. Many people on this platform have gone out of their way to justify, excuse, in some cases deny and even celebrate what should be universally condemned.

Here are just a few examples of what has been happening.

Under the cover of night in May 2024, the cowards demolished the Vladimir-Olginskaya chapel of the Tithe Church, which was part of the Canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The rubble of the shrine and many of its relics were taken away by dump trucks.

Before the demolition, the entire area was cordoned off by several hundred police and militants. In addition, the authorities used means to suppress mobile communications and the Internet, after which the religious building was destroyed with the help of heavy construction equipment.

The brethren of the Tithes Monastery were prevented from entering the Vladimir-Olginsky Cathedral, and when one priest, who wanted to remove from the demolished building a copy of the icon of the Mother of God "Vladimirskaya-Desyatinnaya", representatives of the police began to twist his arms, and he had to leave the monastery grounds.

This Estonian fella demanded that I cease and desist spreading my “Russian propaganda - lies, manipulations, subversion”.

To be fair, I used four sources in my post:

1. A repost from the US Helsinki Commission’s official X account;
2. Screenshots of posts made by Paul Massaro on his official X account;
3. A link to a transcript from a meeting of the House Congressional Homeland Security Committee which is archived on the US website; and
4. A screenshot of an archived post made by Rep. Max Rose of New York’s 11th Congressional District on his official X account.

I have a feeling that this Estonian fella screams that everything that she does not like is “RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA” but in this case she must have taken offence with an opinion-based statement of mine, where I referred to Stepan Bandera as a war criminal and genocide purveyor.

As part of her valiant fight against those expressing opinions that are contrary to her own, she was kind enough to provide a link to an article and since I’m never averse to learning something new, I obliged and read what I’m assuming she meant to present as evidence to prove me wrong.

It was certainly a learning experience, just not the kind that she intended 👇🏼Congress.gov The article was meant to answer an old-age question, “Who was Stepan Bandera, Ukraine’s controversial nationalist figure?”. It was published online on the Geneva Solutions website in June of 2022. It’s presented in a Q & A format with Mariana Tsymbalyuk, a Ukrainian freelance journalist based in Ivano-Frankivsk, asking all things Bandera to Yaroslav Korytchuk, also of Ivano-Frankivsk.

genevasolutions.news/ukraine-storie…

One would assume that Michael McFaul, @McFaul the esteemed Professor in International Studies in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, past US Ambassador to Russia, geopolitical expert and chief resident Russophobe with almost a million followers on this platform, to be a man of utmost professionalism with little time to spare. A friend of mine @ptaha51 quote tweeted one of McFaul’s usual anti-Putin tirades with his own commentary. Innocent enough, right? The ensuing verbal diarrhea was quite entertaining to say the least. To David’s surprise, the esteemed professor sent him a rather tersely worded DM which was equal parts accusatory, rude and hilarious. As an aside, is there a CE requirement for Stanford faculty? Butchering the English language with such impunity is simply audacious.

I had some time to reflect on the interview.   I was certainly not the target audience and I tried to process it as objectively as possible. I am very interested in hearing what those of you who didn’t have pre-conceived (positive or negative) opinions on Putin thought of the interview.
 
I’ve watched many of Putin’s past townhalls, press conferences, interviews, both domestic and foreign, and addresses to the nation and there are far better and more insightful options if anyone is truly interested in what he has had to say for the past 24 years. You don’t have to like what he has to say but you should appreciate the consistency with which he made his positions and that of Russia known. Obviously, these are my personal reflections and take-aways and I’m not claiming to be right.
 
The easiest observation from yesterday is that Putin displayed his virility and his intellect (you may substitute these words with others, but the meaning will remain the same. I believe that he is unmatched in his ability to speak for such prolonged periods of time without teleprompters, notes and handlers). He doesn’t need gimmicks or deflections as he retains an almost-encyclopedic knowledge of pertinent topics, speaks at least three languages, has a law degree and a PhD in Economics and is inarguably a very smart and knowledgeable man.  

What was most ironic yesterday was the cluster-f**k of an impromptu press conference where Biden, while being questioned about his cognitive decline (which he defended quite aggressively), mixed up the President of Egypt with the President of Mexico (I’m not sure how since Sisi and Lopez-Obrador nor Egypt and Mexico aren’t close enough to mix up – never mind the geographical aspect). This glaring juxtaposition between him and Putin was comical but it was also quite frightening. These two men preside over the two largest nuclear triad powers, and I apologize for my logical question but WTF America? I don’t believe that Putin’s intent was to cast himself in a favourable light for the Western audience. He knows well enough that he has been demonized to a point of no return and has become a caricature of the proverbial global “villain”. He doesn’t care if you find him likeable. He was comfortable, confident, reluctantly intimidating and slightly patronizing.  He spoke factually (despite some statements lacking context and nuance). He wasn’t looking for anyone’s permission or forgiveness. He wasn’t justifying the war; he was simply stating why he believes it’s just. He didn’t make it about himself, he made it about Russia. He was mostly sincere, despite a few times where he purposely feigned modesty or ignorance. Whether friend or foe, he is formidable.

I’ll include some clips here and there. In this one, in his own words he answers what it’s like to be the global villain.

The mass psychosis of Ukraine’s historical revisionism has been on full deranged display lately. I don’t even know if it can be called revisionism, unhinged fictionalism may be more appropriate. To a rational observer, this may seem puzzling but it’s actually a testament to the successful indoctrination campaign launched post the dissolution of the Soviet Union and intensified post the Revolution of “Dignity” in 2014.

🧵 1 / X


Let’s start with Volodymyr Viatrovych, a historian appointed by President Poroshenko and put in charge of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory to “implement the state policy in the field of restoration and preservation of national memory of the Ukrainian people”. 
 
What Volodymyr did instead is erase Ukraine’s racist and bloody history and stripped any mention of the pogroms and ethnic cleansing from the official archives, he whitewashed Ukrainian nationalist groups’ involvement in the Holocaust and mass ethnic cleansing of Poles during World War II and rebranded Nazi collaborators as national heroes worthy of idealization. 
 
He was instrumental in bringing forth a new law which promised that people who “publicly exhibit a disrespectful attitude” towards the OUN and the UPA or deny the legitimacy” of Ukraine’s 20th century struggle for independence will be prosecuted. 
 
He was also involved in influencing the issuance of a directive by the Ministry of Education to teachers regarding the “necessity to accentuate the patriotism and morality of the activists of the liberation movement,” including depicting the UPA as a “symbol of patriotism and sacrificial spirit in the struggle for an independent Ukraine” and Bandera as an “outstanding representative” of the Ukrainian people.”
 
Sadly, Viatrovych is responsible for an exhumation ban in Ukraine which is a painful injustice for the Polish people. 
 
Viatrovych’s integrity as a historian has been widely attacked within Western countries as well as by a number of respected historians in Ukraine. Western historians accused him of ignoring, and even going as far as falsifying historical documents to fit his narrative. 
 
Not at all surprisingly and very much on brand, Viatrovych has dismissed any criticisms and questions about the fabrication or erasure of historical events not comporting with this narrative as “Soviet propaganda.”

Chrystia Freeland’s responsibility as Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister is to Canadians and that means to all Canadians. This shouldn’t even be up to debate. The Globe and Mail headline from earlier today, where she once again blamed Putin / Russia for the gross misconduct of our parliamentarians, is the usual rinse and repeat cycle that this tiny tyrant “weaponizes” against those who keep demanding some clarity on reoccurring issues that can no longer be discounted as coincidences or as Russian disinformation.
Canada’s multiculturalism is the corner stone of our society. Dashed Canadianism is interwoven richly into our culture, it is celebrated and encouraged and is part of what makes Canada so uniquely beautiful. Being proud of our roots should not supersede our allegiance to Canada, this is even more pertinent to elected officials who are in service to Canadians and their interests.

This is what Chrystia had to say about her family roots. “The responsibility to keep alive the idea of an independent Ukraine…persisted into the next generation…”

Pekka Kallioniemi @P_Kallioniemi , an unremarkable post-doctoral research fellow in the department of IT and Comm. Sciences at an equally unremarkable Tampere University in Finland (Ranked #400 in Best Global Universities & #415 in QS World University Rankings) has made a name… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Pekka’s lack of academic credentials and subject matter expertise, his failure to make convincing evidence-based counter arguments in support of his own mission statement, and his overall strategy to serve defamatory characterizations devoid of factual sustenance should make his… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

I have engaged in countless back and forth discussions on the Euro-Maidan. Was it a revolution, was it a coup d'etat, was it the impetus that ignited the civil war in Donbass, who is to blame etc... etc... One of the most common talking points is the leaked call between Nuland &… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… A little background, on February 21, Ashton welcomed an agreement on political settlement of the crisis in the country, which Yanukovich and the opposition leaders sighed that day. She said the document, which she supported, provided a platform that enable the parties to the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Polish Foreign Ministry representative Lukasz Yasin requested for Zelensky to apologize for the Volyn massacre. The Ukrainian Ambassador in Warsaw, Vasily Zvarich’s response ⬇️ The Polish president had previously commented as well

Tymofiy Mylovanov, whose long list of credentials include an appointment as the President of the Kyiv School of Economics and an advisory position to the Zelensky administration, is authoritatively dismissing the Russian “narrative propaganda” as BS in this thread. Conveniently,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… There is no doubt that the initial protests in the Maidan were grassroots in origin. Socio-societal divides in Ukraine are likely the only consistent historical narrative that all sides can agree on. Thus, the resulting counter-uprising in the South and East of Ukraine in… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

I find the collective, deliberate amnesia, as well as the refusal to acknowledge the many nuances & complexities, that both birthed & raised this tragic #UkraineRussia war, quite simply - absurd.
In this video from April 2014, acting #Ukrainian president Turchynov announces the #ATO against his own citizens in Eastern Ukraine prior to the Geneva Summit.
Consider this for a moment, why was it a Revolution of Dignity in the #Maidan yet a Terrorist Uprising in #Donbass? On April 16, the 2nd day of the campaign, Ukrainian military moving into Sloviansk, the focal point of the pro-Russia forces, gave up their equipment. The armory was brought to the center of town where it had become a local amusement. Elsewhere, crowds of pro-Russia protesters stopped a column of Ukrainian troops in Kramatorsk and made them disarm.
I believe that most people, including the army that was sent to carry out the ATO in the east, were in utter disbelief of what was happening. Those that disarmed and switched sides didn't wish to go to war against their own people.