Kitbag Conversations - Episode 11: A Youth in Revolt

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

This week we are joined by Mac (@macmillies) and Mike (@mikereports__), two individuals who have been focusing on former Soviet conflicts abroad. In this episode we discuss: - The Georgian legion  - Central Asia's economic situation  - A growing nationalistic movement in a post Cold War world  - and drawing parallels between recent geopolitical events 

Hey everyone, welcome back to Crotone Report, and we're sitting down this week with a few decent individuals that we found on the Instagram news community. So gentlemen, would you like to introduce yourself? You want to go first, Mike, or you want me to go, no matter? Neither one. I'll let you take the lead. All right, my name is Mac Millies. I'm just basically like an independent historian, just got a big passion for extra

fee artists and stuff like that. And basically just using my Instagram at the moment to just kind of help support a charity fund and support Ukrainian soldiers that are wounded. And that's basically it at the moment. And I'm also working on a book for post-Soviet war wars at the moment also. This is pretty interesting. We're going to definitely come back to that one. Yeah, about myself a little bit.

I'm Mike, the man behind Mike Reports. You can probably figure out what that name comes from. But I'm a freelance journalist based in the South Caucasus, the country of Georgia. I've been doing reporting in one way, shape, or form, not necessarily on the street, but just analysis and things like that for about almost two years now. Mike Reports has been live for about six months and so I've just been using the platform as a way to build a base to launch that brand is a little bit bigger and start doing more, more activity and start trying to get more.

I've been gunning for more conflict reporting, but, you know, kind of expand in other things. So I don't know if that's a good way to go about it, but that's where we're at. Brought you out to Georgia. What was the big attraction for that? Yeah, if I had a dollar for every time, even my friends here, my Georgian friends asked me that, why are you here? I could probably retire.

So originally what got me here, I took a contract job, just a short little six month there here as a kind of consultant to some of the border, border guards, border police, whatever terminology needs, just advising, consulting, riding around on the pickup truck, pickup truck, catching dust in my mouth. Doing that for six months and I loved it. It was great, but when it ended, it was kind of, here's a plane ticket. Do you want to go home? And, you know, with just the, the geographics, the culture, the food,

of course, and the wine, I was not about to leave. So I just rolled everything over to one year tourist visa and said, well, I'm going to, I'm going to set up shop for a little while. It's saved a little bit. So I could do that. And of course the exchange rate with dollar to the Georgian larry local currency was pretty good. So, but I was just telling Macmillie's about, you know, when COVID hit,

and of course the, the government response that came with that couldn't really go anywhere. And it was probably one of the better places to get shut down at. It was pretty good here. Things weren't too bad. And so yeah, I just, I just started getting involved with some of the press, getting freelance, pitching to everybody and their mother. So it's been pretty good otherwise.

Well, Mac, your background seems a little more different than everyone else I've seen out there. An extra street artist to a living historian, also a conflict journalist, quasi. So what's your interest in that? Like, how'd you get where you're at? Um, I mean, basically graffiti just goes way back to when I was younger. I had a friend that got me into it and not to get too much into detail.

I got into trouble with it and say that. So I stick to books and stuff now drawing in that and painting. I don't really go out and about, say the least, but I do have a lot of friends that are still in the community and actually an artist that's been following me for a long time now. We've been connecting and he's actually going to be helping me set up the fundraiser that I'm doing now for the wounded soldiers of Ukraine. So I'm just trying to get that all linked together right now and get it all set up

plus, plus the money for it because it's going to be a little bit of a price drop in my wallet. So, and then the history stuff, that just kind of goes back to when I was a kid. I grew up in a military family. My father served, both my brothers served. One was a Marine Corps sniper. The other one was a naval officer. My dad was in the Air Force and trying to think.

My great uncle served in World War II. I actually have an article posted on my Instagram about it. He fought in a general, I don't know how you pronounce her, Anders or Andres army. So it's actually a pretty interesting read. We found that at my grandmother's house when we were cleaning out after she passed away. So, but yeah, history has basically always been a passion of mine. And basically everything that's also been going on lately. It's just kind of also personal because I have family members that are still over there

and plus the stories that you see here for my grandmother and everything. So it's all kind of culminating into one big thing now for me. It's really interesting. That's a, like I said earlier, a more unique background than the others. I've talked to where they're pretty clean cut. Like I wanted to be a journalist and I'm a journalist. The conflict stuff, I definitely want to go over there. I've been talking to certain photographers and people on the ground

and like some of the people in the group and things. So I do want to go over there for my own personal reasons to document things and take imagery and like, you know, also for my book that I'm planning on hopefully writing. A lot of this is like me documenting stuff for my book. So cause a lot of the post-Soviet wars, I've always found interesting and especially like growing up in the West, like I'm 29. A lot of that was really like not covered here when I was younger. Cause at that time period, it was like 9-11 and Afghanistan and Iraq and,

you know, all those things that were going on at the time. So kind of going back and re-looking at it now, it's kind of interesting. I'm sure you have a whole chapter, maybe six dedicated to Georgia and that whole scenario. So, Oh yeah, I was, I was going to ask Mike about some of that stuff. If he was like around in 2008 there, or if he has any experience with people that have been there at all or not. I wasn't here, but a lot of the guys I've worked with either were here. I actually, this weekend, one of the, one of the senior guys I was with on a,

you know, I guess you could call it like a long range reconnaissance training thing was, not only was he, I guess the precursor to the Georgian special operations forces, the old Spetsnazzi. He was in the Abkhazian wars back in the nineties and then he had fought again, I think somewhere in, in, in and around South Ossetia and like the late nineties. Then he was in the 2008 war. He'd been fighting since he's 17 years old. So I'm like, you and I need to sit down and have copies at the time.

Cause I've got some questions. So, I bet you get the, Oh, go ahead, Mac. You're good. Oh, I would, my bad. I was just going to say, I bet you, you get some interesting stories from that guy. If he's been doing it since he was 17, so I can only imagine for sure.

And now that I know that kind of historical background and that post-Soviet sphere of interest with yours, I will probably be sharing notes now that I know that. Thank you. Do you know anything about the, or know anyone who's kind of linked to that Georgian legion that was recruiting volunteers and sending them over to Ukraine, essentially? So I've personally met with a bunch, not necessarily their commander, Mamuka. I think he's in Ukraine now, but he's got some of his, I don't say this as the rank.

I say this as more of just kind of how they are on the hierarchy, his lieutenants. That are here operating. I've attended at least one of their briefings and I went to their rally. More is the reporter than as the volunteer. I have teetered that line to be quite transparent about that. I've teetered that line, whether, which, which format I wanted to go over there under to be just transparent. And I've attended it.

It's, it's, they're pretty, they're, I've met with some of their guys. I know some of the people here that are, if it wasn't for family matters, they'd already be gone by now. But they are, I guess you could say card carrying members since way back when. Really, that's, that seems like a really big under talked about topic because everyone kind of sweeps over the, oh wait, war and how they lost what a third of the country, essentially over to the pro-Russians. And then when the war started, there was cries coming out.

They're like, no, we're taking our stuff back too. So, and then I'm sure you saw it and Mac, maybe you did too, that as soon as the Georgians said that they wanted their recently seceded territories back, they immediately applied for state ship in Russia. So they went, oh, you want to, you want to come after us, but we're also Russians now. So, which you could go way into the weeds of how that would even unravel because if the Russians are getting eaten up and Ukraine, could they really do anything to stop Georgia wanting their stuff back?

So, I can't cite sources on this for a myriad of reasons, but there is a popular, a youth popular movement to do exactly that. Obviously, there will never be government support because right now, from everything I've gauged on the government political side, and I've talked to people, I know that work in parliament, the there's far more a feeling of fear than there is of any sort of rationality or even, you know, kind of that chest feeding attitude of saying, you know, we can take back that percent of the country.

Right now, I think one of the big things is right now, they've just finally got the economy teetering at a level, especially post COVID where everything, you know, we can go all day about whether it was their choice or it was COVID or whatever, but, you know, they've finally been able to manage the stability, they finally see EU attainability within reach. Is it something that they really want to risk by engaging in this, you know, this bout of foreign policy by way of war? And I honestly don't think, you know, I think the population would also be split.

You have the youth that are very pro this, you have the elders, the kind of the older crowd that's really not into it, they just want to live their life, they want to be peace. And if it costs, you know, this continuing just simmering for semi-frozen conflict, then so be it. Do you think it's because of what they're seeing in Ukraine right now, or is it because after the 08 war, they really seem to defund the military but not put so much focus on that and redirect their economic policies

into other areas? I think, so I think there's, there's an a British friend of mine had a very, very extensive conversation about that, about this. And my discussions that I've had with a lot of Georgian families, like individual families that live out, they live kind of the farm life, the agrarian lifestyle. They have this, what we call the what can we do lives, the what can we do vision?

Because that's exactly what they say is, well, if Russia, well, Russia has taken this land, well, what can we do? And now that we've seen what Ukraine, the resistance that Ukraine's been able to present is something that I think has been a rallying cry that's only really gain ground in a lot of the youth movements. So you see a lot of these young either former or current military members, veterans of 2008, or just veterans of the Georgian military in general that are saying, well, look what Ukraine can do.

Russian military is a paper tiger. Now, without going down on entire rabbit hole, the 2008 August war, the vast majority of the problem was with the command level of the Georgian military leadership, not with the battalion below at the tactical level. Even though you might be able to take on a Russian BTG, if you're a commanding general says fall back, well, then you have to fall back. So I think ultimately that I've kind of gone down a little bit there, but I think ultimately there is a resurgence of the idea that this can be done.

What's going to happen, I think, in a few years is when we do have the election, that's going to be a byproduct of it. Do you think these youth movements are split into ideological camps, or they're all just pretty nationalist? Or Mac, maybe you know more about that whole former Soviet sphere of the youth in all these countries, but it seems across the board that everyone's pretty white-leaning, in that sense that they're like, no, we're Georgians, where this is who we are. I don't know if there's separate camps down where it gets really into the weeds, but...

Forgiving for the background noise, I got a furnace running in the back. Hopefully it turns off. I kind of caught a little bit of that. Hopefully it's not bleeding through too much. It should turn off in a second. Yeah, I think when I was listening to what you were just saying, Mike, I was curious when you were bringing up the fact that when they weren't funding the military as much, do you think that was possibly a balancing act from a standpoint from them showing the

Russians, like, hey, we're not going to fund the military as much after this war, kind of a little bit of a showing of clean hands, in a sense. Plus, the area has never really been fully demilitarized anyways in the north of Georgia, like South Ossetia, and stuff like that. So, kind of in a way to answer both of those parts, the youth part and kind of the militarization. Military development here has been steady, but slow, if that makes sense. It's been at a very low curve. It's grown by, you know, I mean, I like it for example.

I've shown some pictures on Instagram about, you know, that we had the May 26 Independence Day, where of course the military comes out and shows all their brand new toys. And of course, they've got, they do have some great stuff. A lot of it's EU, NATO, or I should say NATO slash US supplied, but some of it's organic. They have brand new MTV mobile tactical vehicles, stuff like that. And a lot of that has drummed up going back to that youth movement. It's got a drummed up a lot of interest. I can tell you personally, because I was there, I can't tell you how many young teenagers

into almost kind of the late teens, early twenties that were there. I mean, checking out things like 50 cows and being like, man, this is beyond cool. There's a fair chance I might sign up. With the youth movements, I actually just published an article with a local outlet here about that disconnect between the politics and the youth movements and how they've, how a lot of the politicians here have yet to really grasp how to, how to engage with the youth because the youth movements here come in all different shapes and sizes and a lot of different flavors.

You have everything from, I mean, for example, like I was on the ground, what was that July 5th, 6th, 7th of last year when there was the Tbilisi Pride Parade that turned into an absolute, I don't want to cuss on your show, but absolute third show. It was terrible. I had two by fours thrown at me. There was a picture on Formula TV where there was an egg that hit me square in the chest. I was wearing my Oakley glass, my ballistic glasses because I was like, man, this is actually pretty bad.

And it got so bad where I actually, I packed my camera up and IE&E, escaping of aid through the city because as you may have seen in some of the reports, there was a couple of reporters that actually did get beaten up. It was pretty bad. By another youth group, which is, they come under different names, but the collective group is Georgian Power. And it's a youth group that's very nationalistic and very much anti-EU sphere. They reject the Russian influence, but they also reject a lot of European influence as well.

But you also, again, a lot of that pro-EU integration have kind of allied together on the other opposite side of the spectrum. So you kind of get this split even at the youth level. Okay, that kind of makes sense because the demographic that you're talking about age-wise would have been young when that war was going on in 2008. So they probably were five, six, seven years old around there. So that's a pretty traumatic age to be affected by all of that. So that would make sense.

I could see that, which is probably something we're going to see similar in Ukraine in the next several 10 to 15 years also. Real quick. So two years ago, there was that Armenian-Azerbaijani border conflict. Was there any interest with the Georgians going, hey, let's go help Armenia? Is there anything like that? Because it seemed like Armenia was the underdog.

And then internationally, a lot of states pretty much said like, hey, Azerbaijan, calm down. You're the aggressor here. But since the Georgians lost the war essentially back in 2008, do you think there was some kind of like rally cry with these youth organizations to support or make like a branch in Armenia? And maybe I'm just thinking too big here. But no, not at all.

I think so. Another thing I wrote as it was happening, I was writing a lot at the time about that conflict. And again, to compress everything into a small nugget, I believed, and I felt from a lot of both the Georgians on the kind of the Georgian on the street versus also people I knew at the friend level. Georgia was far more, at the street level was far more pro-Azerbaijan Turkey, because of the economic, kind of a socioeconomic,

I get there's a religious difference. But a lot of that is cast aside when we say we get a lot of medication from Turkey. We get a lot of trade from Turkey. A lot of our common houseplace goods. I mean, I can pull out stuff from my bathroom cleaning tools that are all in Turkish, the entire things in Turkish. We get a lot of trade from Turkey. There's a Georgian, if you look at a lot of Georgian people's Instagram,

a lot of them are vacationing in Turkey instead of EU, where you have to deal with the euro. The Turkey still has the lira. So just because of exchange rates. So there's far more of a connection at that level than there is with Armenia. And you have to remember at the end of the day Armenia is still, despite their EU aspirations, they are still very much sort of in the back pocket of Russia, because there's three, at least three,

not counting the peacekeepers, military bases that are in Armenia. So they're very, and until recently, until very recently, much of their government has been pro-Russian. Now they're starting to, I mean, we've seen the protests, so things are getting a little touchy. But so there's been sort of this idea that, I think if Georgia socially had to choose between Armenia and the Azeri-Turkey duo, they would go Turkey all day long,

and most of that would be because of money. You know, and the other thing is, I know some of my Georgian friends that are devoutly Georgian Orthodox, they see the Armenian Church as kind of a bit of a red-headed stepchild of the Eastern Orthodox Church. That might just be anecdotal, but... I was not expecting that answer. I thought it was more a pretty clean cup.

But yeah, I guess at the end of the day, everything does come down to the dollar. So it's from a friend, those kind of things. But I mean, as a side note, let me just interject. I apologize, but with all of that comes with the underlying tone of neutrality, of let them obviously Nagorno-Karabakh has no Georgian claims. It's entirely their conflict. It would be miles from military intervention, anything like that.

So it's purely one of those... Like you said, it comes down to the dollar, where if they absolutely were pushed to the question, they'd pick based off the dollar. Okay, Matt, were you going to say something? Oh, I was just going to point out what he was saying about the differences in religions and stuff and the cultural connection between Turkey and things like that also plays a huge part in what's going on over there.

Because each of those countries are extremely traditionally based and stuff like that. And I mean, talk about people that know their history. I mean, they definitely do. So that all plays a real big part in everything that's been going on there for the last like 30 to 40 years, really. And Andrew by John there. Go ahead. You're good, Mike.

One thing, I don't remember who said it, but it was exactly right. In the West, coming up in the... I'm obviously American, but I grew up in America. In America, we look at a lot of things within the past year, past maybe five years, maybe the past 10 years. That's about the limit of our sort of frame of reference when we look at an issue, right? Occasionally, we'll go back into history, especially if it's something like constitutional law, but that's about it.

Well, here, what I've noticed is transgressions that happened 600 years ago might as well be two years ago. They have a much larger frame of reference. So for Georgians, I know Georgians that despise Persians or Iranian people because of something that happened a thousand years ago because of some massacre that happened. Well, they have this cultural frame of reference that's far click-dragged out versus what we have in the West. You could easily chalk that up into, well, America's 250 plus years old, 270 plus years old.

You could say 400, respectfully, but yeah. Yeah, that's fine. But on paper, it's about, yeah. Versus the countries here that have basically been taking land, receding land, basically have existed in one way, shape, or form for thousands of years. So it's something where I think that that frame of reference gets blown out and then that amplifies current events, current issues. I'm glad you mentioned the Iranian or Persian angle because

these days, it seems like they're the big instigator for regional destabilization. And they supported Azerbaijan indirectly because they're Shia, Shia Muslim. But at the end of the day, they're like, hey, we also have our own agenda. So if you're going to go off and go rogue, we're not going to back you up. So that's when after the 2020 war with Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Iranians immediately threw their troops up to the North because they went, oh, well, you sided with Turkey. Don't think we can be friends there, pal.

We all don't like Armenians, but we're all supposed to be on the same page. And so, yeah, you're absolutely right that it goes back to that traditional historic mind frame of, oh, 2000 years ago. Remember what the Persians did? Yeah. Well, there's absolutely no way we're going to trust them, regardless of the number one economic hub in the region. It's, yeah, Americans definitely do have that five-year frame of reference.

And then not even looking towards next week, we're looking to tomorrow. So there's, we can go all day about the West or the American frame of view. But yeah, I was going to say too, another good comparison of what he was just saying also is you could just look right over to the Balkans. And it's like just a mirror image of exactly what you were saying as far as like, you know, it's stretched out over hundreds or, you know, 1000 plus years. So in both of those regions have also experienced extreme amounts of invasions, invaders and all sorts of atrocities and horrific things that have occurred throughout history.

So, yeah, it's definitely like along the same lines of what you were just saying. So it's pretty funny to see when the war on Ukraine started and all these mainstream media headlines on CNN or whoever going, this is the largest conflict since World War II in European history. And they were like, excuse me, did you just forget Yugoslavia? Everyone just kind of brushes over that because it has that, that real touchy cultural and religious and it's just a hotbed of instigation riot. So well, a lot of those two weren't very long in the sense,

like kind of how everyone thought Ukraine was going to be over in like a week, like the Russians are going to sweep in like Desert Storm or like we were over there in Iraq the first time. But clearly that's not the case. But yeah, it's funny that you do bring that up because it's pretty interesting because even though they were small individual conflicts that lasted for some 10 days, others a year or two, but if you put them all together, it was over like a decade's worth of conflict, if not more.

And some of it's still going on over there right now. Well, there's still a UN peacekeeper and humanitarian peacekeepers from NATO posted up in Bosnia just to make sure that them and the Serbs don't shoot each other. So, yeah. Yep. Sniper alley. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's definitely, you know, it's kind of wild how we keep seeing this stuff kind of repeat

over and over again. And now I think it's finally coming to like a boiling point to say the least. So taking it like a step further. Have you seen like, have you seen any like a movement to go back to that whole platform of joining NATO? Or is that that whole just dream debt and they're just the Georgians are doing their own thing. So that's a really intense topic here. Obviously, you know, at a very surface and even somewhat of a subsurface level,

there is a vehement desire to become part of NATO. A lot of that is grounded into what we were talking about earlier about the just the self preservation, you know, the Georgian army numbers, something like 40,000 troops, you know, it doesn't take it doesn't take an expert or a military analyst to look at that and say there's no way you could survive another another invasion, at least not without massive popular support and popular mobilization. And even then, so there is a push. I think the government does take a lot of the steps to move towards NATO.

But at the same time, I highly doubt there's a real path towards NATO for Georgia. I just don't see that becoming a reality. I think it's I think it's paid lip service by Brussels. I don't think it's actually given any serious consideration for several reasons. But I don't and I think even the Georgian government, I think in their in their deep heart of hearts, parliament understands that even as many boxes as they can check, they're not going to be able to actually fulfill those requirements. Even though they may check all the boxes, if you understand what I mean,

you know, they're not going to actually get the door open. But there is that desire. Of course, there's there's a J tech here, the joint. I'm going to mess this up. It's like the joint training and education center, which is a joint NATO Georgian base here. It's not a base where they're permanent station, but it's like a training facility and all that sort of thing. They do all the parades.

Anytime there's a parade, there's always the Georgian flag and then somebody's got the NATO flag. So, you know, it's more of a lip service thing. But I don't think there's a real consideration. I don't see Georgia becoming NATO at least at least while the current events right now are ongoing. So going with that, going back to the Georgian Legion, is there a major, are they autonomous? Are they under the government? Or and with that, is there a base where all the supporters or volunteers are coming from?

Are the Americans, Brits, you know, checks? Is it anything like that? So one, they're autonomous, completely autonomous. In fact, in a lot of ways, they're opposed by the government. I shouldn't say opposed. It's one of those things where, you know, when the Prime Minister or the President looks at that, they're not exactly excited when that happens. You know, once I think I did some research a while back and when the Georgian KIA were

coming back to be repatriated, they were given full military honors. But unlike what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Prime Minister and a lot of the government officials were not present. And I think they did that deliberately, because they wanted it known that they did not exactly condone those actions of them going over there and fighting. Though they understand a fall in Georgian is a fall in Georgian. So I think, so there's definitely a split between the Georgian Legion's mission. As far as their base, they do get the occasional, well, people such as myself,

they're just people here that are like, yeah, I'll join them, I'll go. But a vast majority of them are veterans of 2008, guys who or were just in the military and went to Afghanistan, sat at a guard tower for six months or eight months or whatever, and feel like maybe they didn't really get to do their military service. So they said, well, the Georgian Legion is an outlet for that. Because remember, the Georgian Legion and for any listeners, they have been serving there since 2014. This is not a new thing.

They've been there since the beginning of the incursions into Ukraine. So there have been Georgians serving in combat there since then. They just got a resurgence now, kind of a headline name now because of all the work they've been doing. So a lot of them are old veterans, guys who maybe did Iraq and Afghanistan, and kind of want to just get back in the circuit. Interesting. So is there a stigma associated with the Georgian Legion, like the Ukrainians

Azov, how they were like, oh, hands-off Azov. No one wants to associate with them because they're the Nazis. Is there anything like that with the Georgian Legion? Or are they just like that ultra-nationalistic wing that are like, hey, we'll just take the problem into our own hands? Or is it just a pretty clean cut? There's a little bit of that. I would not say near to the extent of Azov where they really do have a stigma because,

well, I think there's a shred of that that is earned, as we've seen. But some of that may be a little bit blown out by propaganda. With the Georgian Legion. Targeted hit piece. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. But the Georgian Legion, I think, look, I've seen plenty of .ru, websites that do exactly that, hit pieces against the Georgian Legion, saying these are

nationalists that are venomous to the stability of the South Caucasus and all this sort of stuff. Well, honestly, if we want to put it in a diminutive form, a lot of these, like I said, a lot of these guys are 2008 guys, or Iraq and Afghanistan guys that did NATO ops, they're out of the Army, they're sitting at home, they're drawing a pension, they're working a decent job. They're like, no, I want to get back in the circuit. I wouldn't say washed up, but they just want to get back into the ring. And a lot of them are drawn out to be these Georgian nationalists that are violent and

venomous. And I don't believe that's true. A lot of them just want to get, I mean, for better or worse, they want to get back in a fight. And I don't know whether those intentions are good or bad is up to the observer. Yeah, I think a lot of people nowadays get a little bit of nationalism and just regular, just pride for your country, a little too scoped up to extremism. You know, I think those two words get mumbled together too much and people kind of, you know, jump to conclusions, that's for sure.

Absolutely. With all this being said, Mac, I got a question for you. Since you've been doing all this research into former Soviet wars and that whole sphere of the world that's pretty under talked about. Have you noticed anything, any kind of trends or certain groups that are more instigated than the others? Or if we have something like in January, when Kazakhstan was going into that quasi-revolution and the Russian really quick and solidified that almost like six months earlier,

the Americans left in Afghanistan and there was a power vacuum that needed to be filled. Is there anything that you've kind of just mentally made notes of to go, yeah, it's kind of, I can see this. Actually real quick, as you're bringing up Kazakhstan, it's been something I've been meaning to look into since they have the space launch facility over there. They're not allowing anybody, that's pretty much not allied with them anymore to be launching off of that now, correct? Not totally sure, but I know that the Soviet, or Soviet, what am I talking about,

the Russians are the ones who do the shuttle launch to the ISS. That might have something to do with it. Yeah, because I know a while back they were threatening to shut that down for, because that's pretty much how everyone goes up there now, they're pretty much, unless you're using like SpaceX. Yeah, I've been curious to be looking into that because I was just wondering, because I don't know, it would just be something interesting to look into. But one thing I have noticed, I was kind of bringing up before with like when you said

you go to Slavia and stuff, how we looked at those as kind of like individual things, it's kind of like one big sphere of like conflict and more or less. I kind of now look back at all these things like in Dagestan, Georgia, South Ossetia, even like the Balkans, Bosnia, Kosovo, all that stuff. It all seemed kind of like individual things also, and it's kind of funny because a lot of that stuff was labeled as Russian like anti-terrorist operations, kind of interesting how they like to label things like that, and now we're in a special operation now. So now I'm looking at that now is not just individual things, but more like you said,

like this is a pattern that was, you know, them kind of, I've heard people from the things I've read in the past and, you know, older documentaries and stuff of them kind of like show their sphere of influence still, but now it's like, no, you're trying to definitely maintain your old grasp on these regions, whether it's actual through military standpoints or like regime changes, or even, you know, economic wise where they're forcing the money system upon them, you know. So yeah, that's definitely a pattern. I honestly just really don't think there's any individual group. I think it's just wherever they manage to take their advantage opportunities with anyone that's willing to side with them. They're just going to go, oh yeah, here you go,

just come along with us and we'll, you know, help you right into whatever type of situation you want to gain here. And then, you know, but yeah, that's definitely the pattern I've been noticing. So it's been interesting now going back and looking at old footage from these wars and stuff and like just seeing how, you know, basically it's like the Soviet Union just for shuffling in just with a different flag basically, you know. If we take that one step further, that former Soviet idea where, hey, Russians like Dolph Lungen, Rocky Four, like all Russians are these big massive just tanks as an individual. And that there was within the last 10 years, especially in the US, there's been this gradual shift going, well, maybe the Russians

aren't so bad, maybe they're just misunderstood. Orthodoxy is really cool. It's maybe that's actually a good religion. And then there was this really weird wave. It was quasi over the last 10 years. And just to see that almost like the Russians were banking on it where they're like, hey, I got the youth of the West to go, hey, the Russians are pretty cool. I know we've been the bad guys in every video game for less 30 years, but hear me out. But and then there was that hashtag that came out where it was like, stop hating Russians and everyone went absolutely not know we know you're the problem here. But talking about the situation like Georgia or Kazakhstan where there's hit pieces coming out against these countries if the Russian

internet is so closed. And then the youth are just absorbing all of this. It's the same thing that they were doing with us just with their own youth. They're just receiving this one, one dimensional viewpoint on the world. Right. They come down to the school zones and go like, hey, we can't talk about wars. And if we do, it better be in a very positive light because the Soviets were still Russians. Don't forget that. And so they teach their youth that, hey, all these former Soviet blocks know they were all Russian, there was 550 million of them, and they all spoke Russian. So that's where it's like this weird like Star Trek 40 chess comes in where I'm pretty sure the Russians were really banking on that. And it absolutely

crumbled as soon as the war started here this time. Yeah, no, for sure. It's actually interesting you say that because one of the guys in the group he grew up during the Soviet Union, he was saying like, yeah, after it fell and stuff, that's when they weren't, that's when they actually started teaching Ukrainian in school and changing all the road signs back to Ukrainian and things like that. And a lot of that was all like that all the way from World War Two and whatnot. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's real interesting to see how this is all playing out, especially since I talked to somebody over in Russia quite often, they've been one of my followers like way prior to like even any of this stuff even happening. So when all this started happening,

we just started trying to communicating about all of it. And they talk about like pretty much, it's like a, you know, I don't want to like use the word, but like they don't agree with any of this stuff that's going on over there. And, you know, it's, it's kind of like a brainwash state, essentially. And yeah, you do really have to be careful what you say or what you post because it's, it's kind of like, you know, the old school NKVD sitting out there, you know, having, you know, a year to your front door waiting for you to say something, you know, because they're going to come right in and, you know, find you or charge you or arrest you or whatever. So. And I know that in their education system that if they push a very pro Russian

narrative, just so down to the youth where if you say anything kind of contradictory to, hey, maybe Stalin was a bad guy, you know, one of those things to go, hey, you're getting detention, your whole job for the next week is to just rewrite like line for line, just trace it's like Russians are the good guys. And so that's that narrative for the youth has really held over into this very pro like pro fighting in Ukraine, but the older generations are going, oh, I remember the Soviet Union. No, that was terrible. Why do you guys want to go back to this? So it's, I would say it's actually kind of a mixed bag from what I've seen over there. And they're like, talk to certain people and like, you know,

things I've just read, it's from at least the older generation, I think you'll get like a half and half, you'll get like people that want to go back. Because if you look at some of the regions that were like actually like heavily influenced, and now that the like when it would collapse, the infrastructure just went away. I see a lot of people in areas like that that are underdeveloped now, they wish the Soviet Union would come back because those are the areas like, oh, when it was here, the factory was open, now it's gone, it's now closed, this whole place is desolate, no one lives here anymore, blah, blah, blah. But then again, if you go to people that may be more developed areas closer to the Moscow region, they may be like, yeah, no, I don't want to go back.

And that could be a age range from people like my age or younger to, you know, older or whatnot. So yeah, that's all over the place for sure, I think. But one thing that's interesting, you bring up to the point that you're bringing up about that sphere of information that they're kind of stuck in now through the internet is one of my followers was asking me about that white phosphorus post I had posted that everyone was posting, the black and white night image of it where it looked like the stars were falling out of the sky. And apparently a Russian soldier messaged them and was telling them that that wasn't white phosphorus, that it's called chandeliers. And I kind of giggled because I'm like, that's probably just the nickname they say or call it,

because honestly, when you look at the video, it does look like chandeliers like hanging in like from a ceiling like shining in the light. But it kind of goes to show you that because I think they said he was only like 19 or 18 to and he's like just signed up. So it's like just with that kind of statement. I mean, he has a phone, I know he can just go look what that is up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what that is. It that just goes to show you like almost like the incompetence level of like the information that's being passed to them. Because it's like, yeah, dude, like that could be you on the receiving end of that. And you don't really even know what that is, you know what I mean? And then it was also kind of interesting because

he pointed out the fact that the person would be getting burned, but he didn't say what he was saying. It wasn't like phosphorus. That they're like, hey, I'm not a smart guy, but let me let me take one step and read into this. Yeah, I thought that was kind of funny. I mean, I'm sure you guys get a lot of that too. You'll get people asking you questions or trying to like send you something and you're like, yeah, no, that's thanks, but no thanks. You know what I mean? So but yeah, they cleared that up for him, I think. And apparently they're actually trying to convince him not to sign up. So I referenced or I said to them, I was like, Hey, maybe you'll actually save the kids life. You know what I mean? Because it sounds like he's about to go join a video game

and that's not at all what it is. So sadly, you kind of see that a lot of these at least Russian soldiers, a lot of them, it seems like they are like fairly young, because it seems to me that most of the actual heavy hitters were taken out at the beginning of the last 90 days. So there's a, I don't know if you gentlemen have seen this, but there's a telegram page called the tsunami bog, which is like Russian for God with us, but it's this 18 or 20 year old Russian soldier who just puts everything up and he gets wounded and he was like, hell, yeah, for Russia, it's just, it's completely polar opposite to see the Ukrainian side and their telegram channels where they're going like, yeah, this war is absolutely terrible. And then watch

this one kid who's very pro Russia and he was like, Oh, I was a photographer before this. Hell, yeah, Russia's doing good things. It's even if you got wounded, you got like, rocketed and sent back to a field hospital and came out and he was like, no, no, that's good. I want to be back in the fight. So it's, yeah, he's probably 20 years old, 19 maybe. Yeah, a lot of it too. I think people like, I mean, I'm, I never served and I don't want to like come off as anybody like as a professional about this. But one thing I've also kind of taken into reality watching all this stuff, because it's like, I feel like this is kind of like one of the first words we're watching like in full real time, like as everything's happening, like literally on the ground, you know, that for all we know that

kid could have been walking around a ruined city for half the time, barely saw anybody. And a lot of guys know in combat too, you know, these weapons, they shoot so far and stuff, you don't really see the guy that you're shooting at until he's already dead. And I mean, for all that kid, no, he could have just saw a bunch of broken rubble and that's it. You might not have seen any charred bodies or, you know, some of the horrible things that, you know, you see, and then it's easy to blur a lot of that stuff out on the internet. Like you said, if you're 19 or 18, you just don't want to care about it, you know? Yeah, I will say, having been 18, 19, 20 years old, you know, on deployment, there is a cognitive dissonance that is far

easier done at that age than at my current age now. You know, when I was in my first deployment was to Iraq, and it's a far different, it's a far easier way to look at things. I don't want to, and let me put a preface on this, is I do not condone the actions of some of the Russian soldiers and the statements of what they've made. But I will say that having been in, I wouldn't say how I hesitate to even say similar, but in any very young man's military shoes, that it's far easier to compartmentalize and just say, well, this is for insert whatever term or the greater good or whatever, or this is for the mission or whatever, it's far easier to do that at that age versus at an older age where you kind of understand how lives interconnect and you realize

kind of the weight and depth of what you're doing. So to hear something where, you know, I haven't seen this particular, this particular account on Telegram, but it sounds not dissimilar, not similar, but not dissimilar, I guess, some gray area to what I've probably witnessed at some point with comrades, you know, with my friends of mine in the US Army that, you know, and when we were just young and dumb, we didn't have a full understanding of the world and admitted, I'll admit at the time, we were probably pumped full of pro US military propaganda and thought what we were doing is great, great stuff. And don't worry, you know, what is that mean where he walks in, I'm here to liberate you, you know, have no fear, I'm here to liberate you.

So it's sort of that, there is that sort of element to it, but at the same time, you know, there is that youthful cognitive dissonance that I think, sadly, that is preyed upon by a lot of countries, but as we see right now, Russia is turning that machine at full speed. Yeah, for sure. That's that ignorance is bliss kind of thing, you know, young and dumb kind of, but just to throw a little rabbit down the hole is, do you think that guy is possibly similar to say like, what was it? Was he a French guy that was pretending to be over there? Or do you really? I know what you're talking about. So I don't remember the name of the Frenchman, but he was supposedly hooking in jabbing in Ukraine and they find out they're

like, no, this guy's staged. Everything's fake. I don't think this guy is because he posts videos of him in the field hospital with surrounded by Russian soldiers lined up on beds. Hey, I'm out here. Slavo Rusya, you know, one of those things. So but looking at those initial days of the war where it was in Kyrgyzstan, where the Soviet flag started popping up and it was by that 18 year old tank crew, like six of them just crammed in this little t72 just, you know, rolling down the strip with a Soviet flag. And so I saw that and try to put myself in their shoes where imagine if the US lost in 1991, and California and Texas and Florida ran away. And then you're going to get it back and someone's waving the old US flag.

If I was 18, I'd be like, Oh, hell yeah, like if you're getting this, just indoctrination in school of the union was good. It was a good time. Everything about the Russians, there's nothing wrong with Russians this. So they're getting the spoon fed for the last about 20 years since Putin spent an office or 22 rather. And then someone's waving the Soviet flag, I would probably be pretty pumped. But that's just thinking as like 18 year old me. Yeah, that's a great way of looking at it, man. It's a plain devil's advocate. I mean, that makes sense to me too. I mean, I don't see what it's also kind of interesting too, because now that their economic situation is falling, they grew up in the new system. So well, they're like, Well, why don't we go back to the old one

now that our grandparents always talked about that was so great that we celebrate all the time. So it kind of sickly plays hand in hand kind of well. Yeah. And like, one of the things one of the things I've noticed not always, but in a lot of the videos that pro Russian sources site, they always have the older generation front and center, right? One thing a little, it might be like I said, it might be anecdotal, but it's something I found that was kind of interesting while while working here in my early days, especially out in some of the villages and kind of these remote areas. And I'll tell a quick story. I'll try to keep it short. I promise. But so periodically, when I was doing this, I'd have to come back to the police, the Capitol,

do a monthly report, basically death by PowerPoint. And so to do that, I have to take one of the taxis and the taxis is basically like this old mid late 90s, maybe early 20s, 2000s, if you're lucky, you know, Mercedes, wherever he just packs in, you sit in there and ride two hours to about two hours to the Capitol. And I remember vividly, there was one guy that had a Jagooly or a lot of like the old Russian car. Yeah, thing rides like a Pogo stick. It was guys that yeah, don't ever buy one. I guess he can't leave America, but don't. But one of the things I vividly remember was he had a Stalin picture and a Lenin picture on his dashboard facing out. And he even though he knew I was American,

he always spoke to me in Russian because I mean, my Russian is not great, but it's slowly deteriorated, but it was once really good. He always spoke to me in Russian and he was intent on speaking to me in Russian because I don't know. In his mind, I was Russian, but he had that. And I remember one day, and this was closer to October, so it was starting to get cold in the east of Georgia. And I'm not joking. He had a bright red, like fire engine red jacket on. I don't know what was on the front, but I remember what was on the back was the globe, the wreath and the sickle and hammer. And it was like, he had like one of the athletes jackets that I guess he bought off the market or something. Old school one. Yeah, yeah. And he was die hard

about it. And he genuinely I in my broken Russian slash Georgian slash English, you know, all slashed together. We managed to manage to find out from him. He genuinely believed that was a better system. I'm not here to criticize economic systems. Right. All I'm here to say is he genuinely believed that Georgia, at the very least, was better under the communist rule than it was under the current capitalist sort of pseudo capitalist system. Because like what you were saying earlier, he knew every day when he woke up, he had a job, he had a paycheck, he had a house that was already paid for by either the factory or the party. He had a certain allotment that was set for food, for etc. for whatever. He knew that everything, you know, it was all it reminded me a little bit

of being in the military where everything is basically laid out for you. You wake up, you wear this, you do this, you answer to this. And that's it. Life is very simple, where now he's thrust into a capitalist system where he has to make his own way, which is now a taxi driver. I suppose he makes somewhat good money, you know, comparatively. But it was one of those things where I saw that and it was a microcosm, sorry, a microcosm of what I think is a larger sociopolitical issue. That's, we can draw that line for any country, because I know that the old minister of finance for Afghanistan is now an Uber driver in DC. And there's some people that's fascinating. I think it was the New York Times and I've tried to find this guy, I get on Uber and I'm,

you know, scooting around, but there was a New York Times article I want to say was New York Times that sat down, they were like, how do you like the US? He's like, this sucks. He's like, I'm not supposed to be an Uber driver. My country is gone. So I really don't have any purpose anymore. And so you could just put that in any broken, like kind of former Soviet fallout state where everything's very up in the air when it comes to day to day living. And I think it's really interesting that everyone overlooks Central Asia, because after Soviet Union came down, the US put up all those bases. But then the Russians made this quasi economic pack where they're like, Hey, you're not going anywhere, almost like with Belarus. And then it's, everyone

always talks about how great the Soviet Union was. Well, for the former Soviets, I've met, they talk about how cool the Soviet Union was. But then if you bring up the Aral Sea, they go, ah, we're not talking about that. And how they just dried up the entire thing, the third largest inland sea on the planet, they just drained it because of irrigation or whatnot. But it's certain areas that are heavily overlooked. And so all of Central Asia feels that fallout because the water, it's gone. So now they're dependent solely on the Russians to get their water. So it's one of those weird, like, Hey, let's just go back to the Russians. Maybe they weren't the bad guys. Yeah, not only that, since all the water's gone over there, there, I think it was some island or

something in the middle out there, that a military base on it that they were doing, they were biological and like some sort of nuclear test. So all that sand that's blown around out there now from all the water that's gone, that's filled with all sorts of you name it, because it's causing all sorts of medical issues for the people that are living over there now. It's, it's an interesting topic to talk about. And it's really interesting to look at it from. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say, I know they've been in the past several years, because it's been getting so bad that they've been trying to like reverse it. But you know, how much of that can actually go, you know, you know, nature does what nature does, you can't really control mother nature once it

starts doing its course. So in most of those countries, too, the all the leaders of it have all been in power since the fall of 1991. So it's kind of like, did really anything change in that sphere of the world as far as like politics? So did you ever hear about that old, that old story of Putin, where when the wall came down, he put his friends in power and all these former Soviet states and they're all ex KGB guys are his close circle with the Soviet Union. And so once he came into office in 1999 2000, he got all of these guys together in the old KGB building, and he was like step one, secure the keys like a joke, like reciting all the old KGB manual of step one, secure the keys step to block the door, like no one's leaving. So it was,

it's pretty, it was in his book, First Citizen, where was the autobiography that came out in 2000. I don't know if you gentlemen have read it, but it's a phenomenal tale of these journalists who would sit down with Putin in like 1999 2000, and just how he painted himself as he's like, I am Russia. There is, without me, there is no Russia. And it's almost like, if you take a step back, you're like, didn't Hitler say the same thing about Germany? Like it's, but it's the whole part of the world is very under discussed. Yeah, no, for sure. It's, you know, at the end of the day, it's, it's the same idea and ambition, just a different color on the boat, you know, they're all floating in the same lake. So

all fishing for the same fish. But Mac, do you have a kind of a timeline of when your book's going to get published, or is this more of like a side passion? This is just like a passion of mine. I've never written one before. So and I just watched so much history stuff. And now all this stuff's kind of been playing out. I just think it would be kind of interesting to kind of compile everything together in a nice like nice timeline of things to kind of show everyone like how things have started and where they're going. And I guess we'll see where it goes in the next couple years. I don't think any of this is going to be ending anytime soon, sadly. Have you read Putin's Russia?

No, I have not. I think I'm going to have to get a list of books from you. There's a book I read a few years ago called Putin's Russia. And it's about a two American journalists. One lived in Siberia out in the middle of nowhere. And the other lived in Moscow since the mid 80s. So they had a house there and another house with constant something like that. And so they were just documenting the change in culture from the Soviet Union to the Russian current state and how in Siberia, they really didn't tell any real difference because it was so out of the way. But then how the other guy was talking about Moscow was rapidly getting more progressive, more militaristic. They were just and it was

interesting to see like a complete split. It's like grabbing someone from Chicago and having to mingle with someone from Iowa. Like it's a completely different mindset on the entire world. And so the Siberians are going, they're cool. Like, I mean, I have food, but then the people in Moscow are more progressive. So because it's a larger city, but it's pretty good. I think it came out in 2008 and there was a revision that came out in 2012. But it's pretty good. Yep. Difference in wool and even cultural difference in Russia where everything's more hyper centralized around Moscow, because it's, you know, heavily centralized as far as the

government and everything that's concerned. So everything that's highly developed is basically around that massive sphere that surrounds that city. And then the farther you go out east, the less and less it's developed. And I mean, culturally wise, you know, that exactly what you're saying. It's like almost like a like a night and day as far as your concern. So I know there's actually some form of a independence movement based out of Siberia. Not sure. I can't remember on the top of my head how long it was going for. But like as far as how long it goes back, but I know there is some sort of form of an independence movement. But and there's a few other places in Russia, but it's that's like the kind of the thing is like everything's so,

you know, key to Moscow, everything's so locked in. And pretty much everything is still ran kind of like as far as like security measures, the way the internals, you know, security works and everything over there, it's all basically the same as like it was in the Soviet Union. And it's actually kind of funny. I don't know if you know this, but in Belarus, they still called the the NKVD or the KGB, well, the NKVD was prior to the KGB, the KGB, they still call it the KGB there. They were the only country that didn't ever change the name. I don't know if you knew that. I always thought that was kind of funny because Lukashenko is one of my favorite guys to always watch and learn. He's a comedian in himself. And you probably know more about this than I do. He was

the only Belarusian to vote against the session from the Soviet Union. And then he immediately became president. And he was like, Oh, we're going back to mother, you know. Oh, yeah. I mean, he openly admits he's a dictator. So I mean, he's a character. That's all I can say. Have you seen this Instagram? His Instagram is his Instagram. It's so funny. It has like 14,000 followers and it's just him in like an Adidas track suit on an airplane overlooking Belarus. And he was like, just the caption is mine. I don't know who's worse, him or the fat Chechen boy, but I don't know, man. They're both characters. That's all I can say. Oh, Kedro. The Chechen play basketball and it was pitiful. So I mean, I won't say about all of them

because I don't want to get anybody angry, but he definitely is terrible at basketball. After that third shot, he missed. He should have just stopped. Like, I don't know what he was doing. I shared that video on Facebook. The comment section was wild. Like everyone's afraid of this guy. I mean, it's just great because he does it to himself. So, you know, and he openly just like like anything. I love people that are like that on the internet when they think they're like really, really cool or like, yeah, I mean, clearly he has so much money and I think he's the perfect definition of a daddy's boy because he just he rubs me all that way. The way he comes off his

flamboyant like over the top, everything. I mean, he's just, he just creates his own, you know, he just I love people that just make fun of themselves without even trying. And it's just lovely. It's great content. Yeah, man. They're all those dictators in that part of the world are just so the jokes just write themselves there. Oh, yeah, they do. It's great. There's a good series on YouTube. I had to find it the other day because it's kind of was buried. It's old. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but it's like something dictators and this guy, he did like a three or four part series and it's all, it's Belarus, Tijikistan, Uzbekistan, and what's the other one right there? Oh my god, Tijikistan Uzbekistan. There's three of them right

there. Kazakhstan? Yes, yes, that one. And he did videos on all the dictators there and the, you know, just how the country is ran and stuff. And wow, it's just amazing. They all like really, really big things. Really, really, really big things. And so far, the South American presidents, where they're driving like the smallest car they could afford, they were like, yeah, here it is. Like, I'm from Uruguay. Like it's, this is what it's like down here. But hey gentlemen, I think we're coming up on about that time. So if you have anything you would like to plug, go right ahead. All right, you can go ahead, Mike, if you want to go first. Sure. Yeah, so I'm Mike from Microports. Pretty much any social media,

if you put in Microports, I'll probably be the first one. I think it's Microports FB on Facebook, Microports underscore underscore on Instagram, Microports on Twitter, and microports.org for the website. I try to keep current news topics, anything I can, I'll try to put something on there to kind of keep current topics. Yeah. Yeah. And just if you want to check anything I'm doing right now, just go to my IG page at MacMillies. It sounds exactly how it's spelled. And then I'm also working on getting some YouTube stuff set up for some streaming with all these guys. So yeah, that's about it. That's all I got for the moment. Too easy. Well gentlemen, I really appreciate you coming out and we'll chat soon.

Yeah, definitely man. Appreciate you having me. Thanks a lot. Yeah, three times. Of course. All right, take it easy. You