Kitbag Conversations - Episode 1: Dr. John O'Brian and the War in Ukraine

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Dr. John O'Brian is the director of a faith-based humanitarian mission in Ukraine. Arriving in 1997, Dr. O'Brian dedicated his time to assisting orphans and the blind until the annexation of Crimea (2014) and subsequent war in Donbas (2015). Since then, Dr. O'Brian has been an active volunteer assisting Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and wounded members from Ukraine's military with non-lethal humanitarian aid.  In this episode, we discuss:  -Russo-Ukrainian history -The Russian road to war  -Strategic importance of Kharkov -The Propaganda war -Current situation on the ground  -And next steps from both the Russians and Ukrainians   

Hello, and welcome to Croatoma Report, a podcast dedicated to bringing quality information to the community level. This week I am joined by Dr. John O'Brien, a humanitarian who has spent 23 years in Ukraine working amongst the orphans and the deaf. He is a Russian Ukraine expert and an active volunteer to assisting internally displaced persons or IDPs with medical supplies, as well as assisting the military since the war began in 2014. I'll just let you take a minute to elaborate on who you are in your background.

Okay, back during the Soviet Union, I was a Russian studies major in college. And then when the opportunity became available in the 90s after the breakup of the Soviet Union to come over to Ukraine, I did. And seeing the need of the condition of things, the abject poverty when I first came in 97, the average wage of a Ukrainian at that time was literally 50 cents a day. You can imagine that with a brand new government that began completely bankrupt because of Chernobyl, there is no money available for anything. So the orphanages were in a state that you could not imagine.

And the lowest rung of the ladder in society, being the death, they received, they received less than $10 a month to live on. So the need was immense, the need was overwhelming. And as a faith based ministry, we began to seek to assist those deaf and those orphans in their darkest hour of need at that time. And so that's how we started. Okay, and since you're a Ukrainian Russian background, or you haven't experienced in Russian and Ukrainian relations, can you walk us through the road to war or the background

of heightened tensions in the last decade? Sure, Ukraine, of course, is the bread basket of Europe. Ukraine provides the food, the grain, the bread, not just for Russia and Ukraine, but for Eastern Europe and the world. Ukraine has hovered between second or third largest grain exporting nation on the planet. So for that alone, they are strategically important to a vast population, for example, like Russia. Secondly, the very word Ukraine comes from two Russian words, which is Ukraine, put them

together, you have Ukraine. And Ukraine means in Russian at the border or on the frontier. So for centuries, this large section of land has been the Russian Empire's buffer between the Empire and, in their view, the West. And so beginning, even back to 2010, I can speak from a confirmed source with the security services here, plans that were made by Russia in 2010 to take Eastern Ukraine and Crimea and restore what was called Novorossiya, which is a very historical section between Russia and Europe.

So from that point alone, Ukraine is extremely strategically important. Secondly, because of Crimea, you have Crimea, Sevastopol is a deep water port, and Odessa is a deep water port, which supplies over 80% of all material and all goods within Ukraine. And then, of course, as more and more former Soviet bloc countries became part of NATO, Russia, of course, began to see this as an imminent and direct threat against their national security, much in the same way America probably would respond if China put 50,000 soldiers and tanks and missiles on the Canadian and Mexican border. And so the idea that Ukraine would become part of NATO is strategically unimaginable

for Russia, because that would be the last country fully surrounding the whole European and Western side of Russia with NATO and NATO forces. And so you know what happened in 2014, they came in and took Crimea without firing a shot, and then they began to attack in the east in what is called the Donbass, which is two counties, the Lugansk County and Donetsk County. They tried to take our city in Harkov, and they failed to do so, which is a longer conversation than we have for this podcast today. Okay.

And so you mentioned that NATO forces are along essentially the entire Western border of Russia, but we have Belarus to play, or Belarus is a country at play here. How involved are they in the current situation? Belarus is involved in that they unbeknownst to themselves, they are being used by Russia as a buffer, and as a launching point, Russia has assembled in Belarus massive amounts of artillery and rockets, the ice glider, ICBM, which they've been launching continuously on Kiev and other strategic points across Ukraine. But Russia, excuse me, Belarus internally, as you would follow the news, Lukashenko

has real big problems of his own internally. So for him, this is really kind of a opportunity to quelch the opposition within Belarus and unify the national spirit of Belarus by pretending to say we're going to stand with our Slavic brothers in Russia and push out and get rid of the alleged neo-Nazi fascist regime in Ukraine. So Belarus is being used, obviously, just simply as a puppet and as a means to strategically further surround Ukraine with Russian forces to improve their invasion. Now, you just mentioned the neo-Nazis or fascists.

I know that Putin used those words a lot during his, essentially his declaration of war two weeks ago. Can you elaborate on why this is perceived and where this idea comes from? Sure. It goes back to World War II. He's an impeccable historian and we still have... He is in Putin? Yes, yes, sir.

Putin is an impeccable historian in his slant and Russia, like Ukraine, continues to this day to celebrate Victory Day, to... Our city celebrates on the 23rd of August a liberation from the Nazi forces when our city was finally liberated on the 23rd of August in 1943 after two years of Nazi occupation, which cost the city over 900,000 citizens in a two-year period. So the idea that there are Nazis or neo-Nazi fascism really plays to the deep internal fear that is culturally put inside every Russian citizen. And so it makes for a very easy narrative for the Russian authorities, aka Putin, to

rally the troops, to have a banner under which they can self-justify the invasion. And that has been half of the cry that they have used since 2014 when they invaded eastern Ukraine in the Donbass, the so-called fear of neo-fascism and Nazis and the alleged persecution of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. Okay, and just from my own basic knowledge, I know that there's extreme right-wing or left-wing, quote-unquote, Nazi militias within the Ukrainian military who started off as a paramilitary organization but attached itself to Ukraine in order to help essentially protect their homeland.

Is this... Where are they currently located, if you know? Well, you know, again, going back to World War II, okay, you had Stepan Vandera who was a Ukrainian nationalist who in fact did, in a sense, very careful sense, assist the Nazis only in the sense to fight against Soviet Union. He wanted Ukraine to be so independent. You know, my enemy is my friend and that happened back during World War II. Some of the volunteer corps, specifically Azov, Freikor, Zhyvniy Korpus, which is Ukrainian

for the Eastern Corps, they do have an element of what would be considered right-wing or skinhead or something like that element. They have been brought in under the umbrella of the Ukrainian Armed Services by law under former President Petro Parashenko. He decreed that back in 2016 in an attempt to make sure that they were being used to the best benefit of Ukraine. And I want to interject that I know many volunteer men and women affiliated specifically with these organizations, battalions, and they are not actually neo-Nazi and I'm not saying

there's not just like anywhere on the planet, but overall they are a very nationalist group that has a very, very deep and passionate love for their nation. And they have been in 2014 and 15 and continue to the hour right now in which we speak to be very crucial in standing in the gap and filling in and bowlworking if you would, strengthening those areas where the armed services proper are limited or thin. So that's why they're integrated, but they are very effective in the method of warfare against Russia. Okay.

All right. Thank you for that. So I would like to pivot a little more towards current events and so there was that intelligence assessment that was released back in late November, early December in 2021 that outlined the Assess Occupation Zone for the Russian forces and within that it always looked like Kieroslavl and Kharkov were going to be 100% targeted and after two weeks of fighting they have yet to, outside of Kieroslavl which fell the other day, have yet to have fallen. So can you elaborate on why these are strategically important cities and then maybe touch on the

current situation in Kharkov? Okay. Well, strategically, if you look at Ukraine, if you recognize where Kiev is located, where they're centrally in the country, Belarus to the north, 12 o'clock, Crimea and Khursan, south at six o'clock and Kharkov over in the east, next to Donbass at two o'clock roughly. From these three staging points, you are able to have a three-point front, a three-point attack to go directly to Kiev. Kiev is on the Nepr River, a very large river that runs through Ukraine and has been a historic

boundary for what was called Novorossiya, new Russia. Khursan, of course, is strategically important because of its base and its location in the south of Ukraine next to Crimea. Kiev, obviously, you have to take the capital if you're going to have a regime change, which is certainly, was certainly their desire. Kharkov, of course, is strategically important because of its industry and its historic place in history as the former capital of Novorossiya, new Russia, as the first capital of Ukraine before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

So these three cities consist of three of the top seven military objectives that Russia had when they first began the invasion a week ago, Tuesday, at Forish in the morning here. Okay, and before we wrap around back to Kharkov, I know that the defenses that were established in the Donbass region that have been set in place for the last eight years now have held very successfully against repelling any Russian advance or separatist movements that are trying to cross into Ukrainian borders or into Ukraine. So outside of the established defensive positions that are there, it seems like the Ukrainian army is in a pseudo-retrograde and almost like they're waiting to have their own counteroffensive.

Can you elaborate a little bit on what's going on in the Donbass area because it doesn't seem like the separatists or the Russians there has gained any territory since the war began? Correct. They have not been able to. Ukraine has been able to successively fortify its positions. I really don't feel at liberty to publicly say about some of the areas along the very long border of conflict between the Russian-backed forces in Donbass, in Lugansk, in Donetsk, in the Ukrainian armed services.

But they have been able to fortify and dig in. And to be honest with you, it has really been a stalemate. It has been very quiet through the four years of the Trump administration. We literally had very few fatalities, shelling was very random and not very often at all actually during those four years. Since the change of administration, yes, it has ratcheted up and it did begin to shell much more frequently. But there's never an advance from their side because it would bring about an immediate

response from Ukraine to once again mount a counterattack, which would be in violation of the Minsk and Minsk-2 agreements that they made. So that really has been the single factor that has held Ukraine back from making large counteroffensive moves back into the Donbass was they have been trying, even at the detriment of their own soldiers, keeping to the ceasefire agreement that they had made. And it's been a one-sided deal, while the Russian forces in Donbass have used and continued to use before this war broke out, which would be simply continuation of the war in 2014. I want to make that very clear, this is not a new war.

This is a continuation of the war that began in 2014, but they continue to shell and have continued for the past seven years with 150, 155 millimeters, all of which were banned under the Minsk agreements, which shows you the veracity of their commitment to seek peace. So in short, Ukraine has not mounted up until now any large counteroffenses simply in trying to prevent what has now happened, which is an all-out attack by Russia. Okay, okay. And you told me offline, and I've seen several videos of Russian soldiers, especially in Harkov, raiding grocery stores and going door-to-door asking the locals for food.

It seems like everyone overestimated the capabilities of Russian logistics in that they even overestimated the quality of their logistics lines themselves because their guys were dropped in without food and water. Can you build on that? Yeah, that is factual. That is not propaganda from the Ukrainian side. The village just north of Harkov down through which Russian forces began to approach Harkov. We know people in that village that had Russian troops, soldiers coming to their door and

asking for water and asking for food. They did, in fact, simply outrun their supply line. You can only go so far so fast, and pretty soon you're going to run out of the things that you need, which would be food and fuel for your armament. So really it's been a logistic breakdown, which is why, and I know you've been watching, the build-up north of Kiev, north of Chernihiv, coming from Belarus. That column now is approximately 60, 65 kilometers long. They are, they're very much now assembling the logistics necessary for a long assault

on Kiev. Okay, interesting, interesting. The, let me look for the next question here. So you just mentioned propaganda. Who do you believe is winning the propaganda war? Because outside of, both sides are pushing their own agenda. And as I posted the other day, Russian soldiers are showing TikTok videos and little war videos of the first 12 hours when they were thrashing Ukrainian positions and the Ukrainians are

posting videos of the Russian occupation of Hatterson and all the locals, people's protests to the Russian occupation, as well as Russian videos, especially a Chechen video that was released the other day where it showed, essentially, Chechens rounding up civilians to protect them with heroic music playing over, but it was, it looked completely staged and civilians looked terrified. So who do you believe is winning the propaganda information war at the moment? Well, it depends on what side of the world you're on. Russia has mastered the art of propaganda and by complete state control of media within

the Russian Federation. That includes television, radio, cable, satellite and internet. It is very strictly controlled and more so in the past two weeks since the invasion. So for years, literally since 2014 specifically, Russia media, the version of Russian news, if you would, for the evening news, has been a constant uninterrupted scenario where they constantly speak about American influence and American and Western meddling and the neo-Nazi issue and things like that. Russia has very, very successfully brainwashed, that's just the best way to say it, brainwashed

their people. I spoke this morning, literally this morning with a man who is a Ukrainian national from Western Ukraine. So he's very Ukrainian who told me that back in 2016 and 17, he worked for two years up in St. Petersburg, Russia. And he said, I noticed myself after two years, I changed the way I looked at Ukraine. And he said, when I finished my work there and came back to Ukraine, he said, at first I thought to myself, I'm surrounded by the enemy.

Interesting. And then he said, well, no, wait, you know, and he recognized himself that he had been under the influence of propaganda. I have good friends of mine in Russia and we spend time together talking and, you know, they'll mention something and I'll say, you won't believe this, but that's actually not true. And they'll talk about something else and I say, you won't believe this, but that's actually not true.

But if you only hear one thing one side all the time, you know, you tell a lie off and it's not enough long enough and loud enough, people believe it to be true. Russia, I've just absolutely 100% is winning the propaganda war internally. But they are, I believe, failing miserably with the entire rest of the world as sheepish and gullible as much of the world is, the images that are coming out by independent news sources and just the pictures and videos that are available to any person. The reality of what's happening inside of Ukraine is speaking for itself without much additional help by any propaganda.

And again, I agree with you, I'm not going to say at all that the Ukrainian government has not engaged in polishing some aspects, but overall, they have not had to do that. And that's the advantage of having a reality on your side. So within Russia, Russia wins the hands down outside of Russia. Ukraine has a very easy task in communicating to the rest of the world the facts and the reality of what's going on here. Ahmed, do you believe that social media outlets and Western and outside media axing their connection to Russian new states or just preventing them access to view, say Facebook

or Instagram or losing their access to YouTube, do you think that will make the Russian people more, I don't want to say victimized, but just to think it justifies what they're doing as they are the enemy, or do you think it's going to take a different route? No, I agree with you. I believe that's true in any and all spheres of our lives in society. Any restriction of information, we as Americans, we do believe some stronger than others in freedom of speech. We should believe that people have the right to express their opinions, no matter how erroneous

that opinion might be, believing that that is a basic human right, the right to freely express oneself. And so I believe that the decision by Western media companies to temporarily, and I've noticed that tag and so often that CNN has decided to temporarily suspend and so and so has decided to temporarily suspend, I believe actually overall, I think that is not the right decision to make because you are then denying the people within Russia an opportunity to see something that would be different than what they're seeing in 99% of the rest of their media input, input and influence.

OK, OK, I'm 100% on the same page as much as you can see bias on, say, telegram being pushed out of RT news where they essentially didn't even touch the war or Splutnik or Red Fish that are very pro Kremlin. Correct. Acting that side of the story is just making their side more biased and our side more biased, essentially, because it's down the line. It's also them. So it's brave new world.

OK, so last question here. What's the next steps? Where do you see this going? Because I know you told me offline that if Harkov falls, that's it, essentially. Where do you see this going? Well, I believe that that assessment still stands. Harkov is very strategic in this, even though it's out far east, which is why at this very hour, our skies are ablaze with Russian fighter and bomber aircraft and they are pounding

our city without mercy. Harkov is too strategically important and above all things, because even Putin himself mentioned in his pre-recorded declaration that he spoke warmly about Novorossiya, New Russia, which obviously put us immediately on the map. It brought chills down my spine as I was watching that. I told everyone around me, that's bad for us. So where do I see this going? A lot will depend on how Harkov is able to hold up and its ability to receive further

assistance in munitions and manpower. And Kyiv, obviously, Kyiv is crucial. I do believe Odessa is next on the hit list and I think that's apparent. They want the last deep water seaport and then that will give them all of them. And so I see based upon a press release this afternoon, 1630 local time, that Kyiv stated that two months of open active warfare will probably prevail before any substantive negotiations are able to take place. I don't personally believe that the rate and the ferocity at which we see things happening

here, that it would be physically possible for this great country to stand for two months, night and day having cruise missiles and ICBMs launched at your city, now that they control two of our power plants, that's 50% of our energy. And so truly, Ukraine's in the balance at a very critical point. Harkov must stand, Kyiv must stand because there is no question that he is not going to take half the country and simply recreate Novorossiya. I believe he's going to go much further than that, which will potentially be bad news for part of Moldova and the pre-Baltics and possibly even further.

And in terms of the Ukrainian resistance or defense, how do you believe Zelensky has been handling the situation? Hats off. My wife and I saw him in Harkov. We were at the same hotel together and I had just a few brief moments with him. This was just very shortly before the war broke out and, you know, there were many, there were many very pro-Patashenko supporters who believe that Patashenko was a better president and handled the invasion better in 2014 and 2015 and 2016 and mocked President Zelensky

as a nobody, he's a comedian, he doesn't know anything, he's the wrong man for the job. Well, you know, hats off to the man. He has proven to the world, I believe, and he is 100% proven to his own people here, that he is Ukrainian, that he is proud of this country, that he has not fled, and he has very, very intelligently and very wisely used the resources of the Ukrainian armed forces to repel attack after attack after attack and after attack. He literally is an absolute hero right now. His approval rating is completely off the charts, you know, of the hits.

Oh yes, he survived 372 hours, I believe. Correct, and that that's not propaganda, that's very, very, very real, and he's 100% still on the target map, obviously. But hats off to President Zelensky, and he is doing remarkable in the conditions in which he is presiding and leading the armed forces and the people of Ukraine. I might not agree with his harshness towards the West, but I understand it when he says, every bomb that drops and every civilian that dies now is on you, NATO. I understand that, but it's hard to ask for help while you're slapping them.

But, you know, but I mean, honestly, you know, people have to understand the stress and pressure that is on this man. Truly, truly, 100 other leaders would have folded up already. This man is doing remarkable, truly remarkable in the face of absolutely overwhelming odds. What faces him and what's against him, what's arrayed, betrayal by Belarus, betrayal by Georgia, betrayal by Turkey, yet he stands. And I believe the man when he said, I will stand in Kiev and die in Kiev. I believe that's true.

I believe his line, I need ammunition, not a ride, is the slogan for his next run. It's, I agree with everything you said. He's very, he surprised a lot of people. He's doing a very good job. Yes, he did 100%. Well, Dr. O'Brien, thank you so much for your time. I'm going to let you go. I know you're very busy, but I appreciate you setting aside 40 minutes

or so to speak with me and get this information out there. So please, or thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you for, for, for you allowing us to get out some of the truth that is happening here inside of Ukraine, especially Eastern Ukraine, the atrocities that are happening there to the civilian population, the people that have been sitting 10 days, 12 days without electricity, without heating, without gas. It is catastrophic.

So thank you very much for allowing us to give you a window into the real Ukraine. Anytime, anytime. Well, please stay safe and we'll talk again. All right. Thank you, sir. Good evening. Have a good evening.