Dear Readers:
Today continuing (and concluding) this story about a Ukrainian soldier who switched sides, and now fights for Russia. Where we left off: Reporter Kots gets around to the tricky issue of language, Russian vs Ukrainian, and what role that plays in the war, and the lives of the soldiers.
Kots: What language do they speak in the [Ukrainian] trenches?
Pavel: Mostly Ukrainian nowadays, that’s considered fashionable. Previously everybody just spoke in Russian, that was more convenient. Everybody understood each other. But even [after Ukrainian became de rigueur] I continued to speak in Russian. Our unit had our own Telegram channel, and I would write my tweets in Russian. Some of the guys didn’t like that, they would sneer, “Oh, we have a Moskaliuka here…” And I would post back: “It’s strange, isn’t it? I am fighting in the Ukrainian army, but you call me a Moskaliuka because I don’t write in Mova?”
Kots goes on to provide some background information about his interlocutor, which helps to explains Pavel’s choice to switch sides. Although it’s not always cut and dried (Zelensky, after all, is himself a Russian Jew, whose grandfather fought on the correct side of the Great Patriotic War), a lot of this has to do, of course, with World War II. With one’s ancestors, with ethnicity and language.
Pavel was born in Western Ukraine, in a typical Ukrainian working class family. But they didn’t speak Ukrainian at home, they spoke Russian. In his childhood, Pavel loved reading science fiction, but his parents also insisted that he read and absorb patriotic Soviet classics such as “How the Steel Was Tempered” (Как закалялась сталь, by Nikolai Ostrovsky) and “Young Guard” (Молодая гвардия, by Alexander Fadeev). This fact tells me that Pavel’s parents were loyal Soviet people, possibly even Communists. The hero of “Steel”, by the way, is also named Pavel: Pavel Korchagin. This fact probably impressed the young boy reading this novel about a hero bearing his own name. Our Pavel recalls that his family always insisted on honoring the feats of their forefathers, they continued to celebrate the May 9 Victory Day holiday within the family circle. Pavel’s great-grandfather fought in the Soviet infantry, and Pavel got to meet him while he was still alive. Furthermore, Pavel has close relatives who live in Russia: a set of grandparents and an uncle. All of this would have been a factor in Pavel’s decision to fight for Russia; and would have also been a factor in the decision of the Russian army, during the vetting process, to accept his offering as sincere.
“We [Ukrainians] have always lived in harmony with Russia,” Pavel avers. “We always helped each other, like brothers do. And that’s because we are brothers. But no… They wanted to jump up and down on the Maidan, screaming Russians to the noose! I never accepted this. European Union, my ass, what the hell are they fighting for?”
Kots: And what are you fighting for?
Pavel: For more and more people to do what I did. I want to open their eyes, just as mine were opened. I want them to de-program the Ukrainian zombie. People need to come over to this side in order to fight for their country. Therefore, I will show, with my own example, that our unit is the place to be, and not the Ukrainian army, if you want to fight for Ukraine’s freedom. Freedom from the West. To fight for peace and the reunification of families. This filth needs to be removed from the Ukrainian government, it is a contagion that does not allow Ukraine to live and flourish.
Awful Avalanche 
Young Pavel not only has guts, he has brains and a way with words: ‘Deprogram the Ukrainian zombie’ indeed! It’s a mixed metaphor, but it captures perfectly the mindset of all Kiev’s supporters, domestic and foreign. (Though I suppose ‘mindset’ is the wrong word to describe a phenomenon so mindless.)
I remember an Afghan mujahid friend, a very conservative Muslim Brotherhood-adjacent guy, over thirty years ago complaining about hot-headed young Arab jihadi volunteers who had signed up to ‘help’ Afghans fight the Red Army. ‘They think in slogans,’ he said. The same is true of the pro-Kiev crowd, especially the politicians. Rather than mustering arguments, they recite a sort of catechism of nonsensical tropes and talking points: ‘fighting for democracy,’ ‘resisting Russian aggression,’ ‘Russian war crimes,’ ‘targeting civilians,’ etc etc ad infinitum.
If you point out that, speaking objectively, the Ukrainians are the aggressors, systematically brutalizing their Russian-speaking citizens since 2014 until RF public opinion forced Moscow finally to act; or if you observe that ‘Ukraine’ is an accidental country turned kleptocratic failed state turned DC money-laundering operation, with a now-unelected president who has banned opposition and rules by decree, well, you’re ‘reciting Kremlin propaganda.’ The west’s leaders – and those who keep voting for them – really are zombies, lurching mindlessly toward catastrophe and dragging the rest of us along.
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“They think in slogans…rather than mustering arguments, they recite a sort of catechism of nonsensical tropes and talking points”
Excellent critique of what ails, it applies to all who accept the AngloWorld-media’s innumerable omissions, it’s lies, it’s deceptions, it’s half-truths, it’s endless-straw-men-argument…all of it’s non-contextualized “information” purveyed as a representation truth.
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The phrase that Pavel used was: “Чтобы с них прошивку украинского зомби сняли.”
As I was reading through the article, I didn’t quite know what to make of the word прошивка (“proshivka”) in this context. My sense was that it meant “re-recording” or “re-carving” or something like that, like re-recording onto tape, or carving over a lithograph. But I looked it up in the Russian dictionary, and it has other specialized meanings connected with computer/mobile operating systems. One example is “reprogramming” of a micro-controller.
Google gives the English translation is “firmware“. One should recall that Pavel, in his pre-war life, worked in a machine factory creating automated systems. So, he is talking about literally trying to “re-program” the firmware on these Ukrainian zombies!
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Ukrainian? The videos I’ve seen from the Ukie side have then speaking mostly Surzhik.
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Honestly, when I hear it, I can’t tell the difference between Ukrainian and Surzhik.
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Overall, I don’t know what to make of this fellow’s story. He seems happy enough to kill his own hoi polloi “countrymen” now that he fights for Russia. Which on here means he’s some sort of hero who has seen a magic light of wonder (not dissimilar from those including pro athletes who emerge from a trance and declare they have found God. And go all gooey).
Practically, our man is acting to avoid being prisoner-exchanged, and in so doing, knocking off a few possible former next-door neighbours is fine by him. Too bad he hadn’t defected on moral principle prior to being dragooned into the AFU. I assume a lot of the volunteer Ukie RF troops are people like that –those with the courage of their political convictions who volunteered for Russia before being drafted by the AFU — nothing wrong with that. This guy is rather self-centred and to hell with everyone else. My opinion, don’t care if you have a different one. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, though that seems to be changing societally with the rise of the thought police
Because, in the land of the free and home of the brave, the permanent bureaucracy rulers are getting damnably tired with people not obeying orders. Amerikans must:
a) HATE Donald Trump
b) Support Israel and Ukraine completely and without question
c) Wish Putin dead because he’s Satan
d) Regard Xi as a terrible CCP dictator merely acting like a jovial uncle in allowing Chinese people more than two bowls of rice a day, and thus spoiling them as a source of dirt-cheap labour for Western JV factories in China.
e) Be ready at any time to lace on army boots to go and fight the “forces of anti-democratic Evif”
f) Keep one’s trap shut and do not criticize US foreign policy in any way whatsoever — or have your passport seized like Ritter’s.
And many more strictures are on the way. There will be no dissension in America, by Order. Free speech is not allowed, so watch it. Hell, it’s already worse than that in Europe and Canada — we must all be good obedient little doggies. Or else The Whip. And no Alpo deluxe for you. In Canada, the next Prime Minister who will replace Trudeau is named Poilievre, an austerity right winger and whose defining feature is that he thinks only in terms of slogans instead of logic and full paragraphs — just wonderful.
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“Practically, our man is acting to avoid being prisoner-exchanged…”
I don’t think that’s fair. From what I understand, a POW captured by the Russians is not required to participate in a prisoner exchange. I believe it is voluntary, and that they have the right to stay in the POW camp until the war is over. They don’t have to choose between fighting for Russia and being sent back to Ukraine. Like Kots wrote in his article, Pavel could have just sat back and had his 3 meals a day and a cot to sleep on until the war is over.
He seems very sincere to me, and his family story checks out. I think he was just somebody who didn’t want to fight, he just wanted to live a normal life, but they forced him to fight, he had a traumatic experience, and that changed him somehow.
Beluga, do you literally have to be cynical about everything? Or are you just being a jerk?
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i admire pavel… his last quote is 100% right on.. here it is again..
“This filth needs to be removed from the Ukrainian government, it is a contagion that does not allow Ukraine to live and flourish.”
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Pavel speaks in the language of somebody who had a decent education and read a lot of books. He is eloquent in Russian, I think his parents raised him that way.
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For the first time since the beginning of the SMO, there’s apparently no daily post for today. I’m as worried for you Yalensis as I was for MoA a few weeks back. I hope all is well for you.
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I am fine, htyul, no worries! Thanks for worrying (and caring) about me, but no need. I know that I usually post fairly early in the morning (EST time) before I go to work, so people have come to expect that; but today is a bit different. I am taking the day off from work, and I had to do a bunch of early morning chores. But now I’m ready – whew! I’ll have a new post up in about an hour or so.
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😊very happy all is well for you. Enjoy your off day!
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Thanks, htyul, you know how it is, sometimes a day off you end up working more than even on a regular work day!
🙂
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