Kitbag Conversations - Kitbag Conversations Episode 7: Blue and Yellow USA

Episode Date: April 9, 2023

Cody and Matt talk to Rima, a former lobbyist, and current NGO spearhead inside Ukraine. Want to know who's brining the beans bullets and Band-Aids? She'll tell you. Support her work at https://foblueyellowukraineusa.org/

Who are you to wave your finger? You must have been out of your head. I hold deep and muddy waters. You practically raise the den. Rock the grave to snow the cradle and burn the evidence down. So much house of cars and glass so don't put top of your stones around. You must have been, you must have been, you must have been. You want to do this one? I can do this one. You can do this one. She's your friend. You brought her on. It's your problem.

Welcome to the kit bag. Not my friend anymore. She interrupts. Welcome to the kit bag episode six or seven. Six or seven. Yeah, we have Rima, Eastern European last name. Just going to leave it at that. Generic Call of Duty villain. Generic Call of Duty villain on Rima is a former,

can I talk about your former job as a lobbyist and how, you know, you did it for non-pro, it was a good lobbyist, not a bad lobbyist. Like I'm a good personary, not a bad, or yeah. Okay, former lobbyist. I was working in advocacy, not technically lobbyist, but close. Okay, so basically you did what like everybody always wants as you murder and eat bureaucracy and shit results. And then you became a nonprofit, what like manager for a wing in America out of Chicago.

I hate Chicago. I've been there once, never going back again, probably, but it is a huge warehouse. They do great work and she's probably the only nonprofit that goes from start to finish. You give it to her. She runs that pair of Fruit of the Loom underwear to the front. So everybody, Rima, how, tell her, how did you go? How'd you get involved at any of this, right? Like how did you start in nonprofit work? First off.

So to be honest, like when the war kicked off and I was actually already kind of involved in the effort in 2014 as well to help bring awareness to the invasion at that time. So in Chicago, I was organizing a lot of protests with the Ukrainian community on my Lithuanian side. And then we also did a lot of work in Washington as well to advocate for Lithuanian and Ukrainian issues then. So fast forward to, you know, February 24th. Obviously any of us who are on Twitter and those of us who have studied Russian imperialistic tendencies, they're most of their adult life, we kind of saw it coming. It wasn't great. We saw it coming. So, you know, I'm watching this and I'm like, well, I'm not, I can't just sit by and do this. And, you know, so for the first three months of the war, I spent any free time I had, which I was working a finance job at the time.

So adding on volunteer work and packing humanitarian aid for, you know, 40 hours a week. So I'm working like 80 to 100 hours a week between both of them, just making sure that, you know, aid was going out and getting into it. I was asked by Jonas Oman who runs Blue Yellow Lithuania. He was the founder of it. He's been on the ground in Ukraine since 2014. So he's been around for eight years. He knows the drill, you know, they're, they're pretty, you know, legit in terms of getting stuff to the military. So, and he's, you know, seen everything with his own eyes, but he wanted to kind of get into the Washington, Washington advocacy side of it. And I have a lot of experience with that. So I went for one trip to D.C. with him and we had meetings with, you know, congressional staff from, you know, the entire spectrum of the political parties. And we talked to them what was going on on the ground. And for him, you know, having that kind of role was really important in Blue Yellow, you know, USA was established on paper in, you know, 2018.

And, you know, we already had our nonprofit status essentially. And once, you know, the war started, our PayPal exploded. And so we kind of had like that ability to create a role of managing director. And, you know, he asked if I wanted to run the nonprofit and we have a board of directors as well, both Ukrainian and Lithuanian Americans. So we have many perspectives. We have military people, you know, we have regular civilians. So we have a really good group of folks that are helping kind of keep the wheels turning of this organization. So what I do is I do the travel, I do the advocacy and I come to Ukraine to bring also all the stuff to the front line. So that's kind of how I ended up getting involved with it. And we do the two parts of the job, which is acquiring stuff for the military and then going to Washington and making sure that from our end, as a group of civilians from what we see on the ground, we can talk to congressional members instead of them getting a sanitized CIA report.

And be like, well, this is what we see with our own eyes and we're US civilians, so we can make a comment about it in a different way. I mean, touching on the DC advocacy part, because I live here and it's, it was remarkable to see how many like, like I would joke about with Cody that the real winner is Amazon because everyone was waving Ukrainian flags and everything like, hey, but it's like. It's true. Or eBay. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, all those dead Russian soldiers uniforms. Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, just noticing around here all those like Ukrainian flags came down and so on your end, looking at more like the numbers piece. How is that kind of support going because in the media, we can look at Twitter, we can look at Instagram and a lot of the American Heartland Midwest guys that were very gung-ho against the Russians are now kind of siding with them or just saying get it over with already. So I wasn't looking more on the political side.

I think, you know, obviously people's attention spans are like this big these days. Like, I mean, it's like, oh, well, it's nothing exciting, then they're going to be like, well, screw this, like, you know, is it over yet? Like, and it's actually, to be honest with you, we got Ukrainians over here also being like, oh, well the war is already won and we're like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's like complete horseshit because people are tired. So, you know, the morale thing or whatever if like we're, you know, with politicians and I think, you know, obviously you have to keep reminding them that this is going on because it's not in the news media as much, you know, I mean, there aren't mass genocide events happening with the same frequency that it did last year where it was like every couple of weeks. There was another like liberated town with mass graves and that's not saying that it's not happening because we know it's still happening, but it's just there's no sexy news. So like, you know, people are kind of bored and like, yeah, whatever, you know, like, you know, so that translates into the DC attitude that translates and I'm not saying that everybody's like this in DC. We still have several dedicated members of Congress from both sides of the political spectrum that are still supportive of Ukraine, but those voices are getting smaller. And that's a problem like they're not talking about it out loud as much. So then what the Ukrainians are doing in DC, there's a summit coming up.

So they they're now doing this, I'd say every other month where they're doing a Ukraine advocacy summit to keep that on the forefront of the minds of congressional members. But again, it's not hitting as hard on social media. This also translates into funding. You know, people are like, well, you know, it's, are you telling me it's not over. And the thing is, of course, it's not because the less money you give, the less, you know, aid packages or everything that takes longer, of course, this is going to drag on for years if we don't make a concerted effort to continue. And I pretty much project it won't be over for at least two to three years. So we're seeing it called the next forever war, just a money pit. And I mean, you could if you want to go like Alex Jones, military industrial complex, keeping the war going simply for money, you can go that way. If you want to be a realist and just say like nobody cares because the like, I don't think the world knows how to deal with like an imperialistic state anymore. Because back in like 100 years ago, there was so many empires, everyone was trying to compete. No one does it anymore. So you're like, how do we handle this? How do we stop a country? Say we're going to arrest Putin, but he's never going to go to your country. It's an empty line.

Well, and he's got so many doubles now. It's almost like Castro. Nobody knows which one is the real one. But I think it's Alex Jones. He's got multiple people. They're just like him. You can have like four Putin stuff, got like five at the garage. The government doesn't want you to know this. You know, I honestly, every time I hear the doubles thing, it makes me laugh. I'm like, all right, you know, but honestly, like, I don't even think it was 100 years ago, even like World War II, or like, you know, just 50 years ago, the 80s, good versus evil. Like we knew that, you know, like that was not, it was not, there were no blurred lines about that one. It was just a, we don't deal with dictators. That's wrong. People should be free to live their lives, you know, that kind of thing. And now it's like the indifference or the, you know, well, we do, we really need to work. Yes, because if Ukraine loses, he's going to go right into the Baltics, and he's going to take everything back because that's always been the goal. It's always been the USSR. Like that's clear in all of his weird speeches that he gives. And I think, I think people just lose sight of it. Again, I really do believe it goes back to this like short ass attention span where it's like, well, okay, but like now we're just kind of focusing on other things and then like Chinese balloons and all this other garbage that's happening, you know, it's, it's weird. Midterm elections.

Yeah, midterm elections, bingo. Absolutely. I was going to say, like you, you're hitting on it and we're kind of dancing around it. But the main question is, it's like, I gave 100, we've given $120 billion worth of equipment. Why the fuck do I need to donate? But we both were talking about this beforehand, like, we're giving equipment, we're giving M113s and Bradley's and stuff. But what's it look like? Because you've been there and you've met the jabronis, the boys that hold the line, the 93rd Mech. What's it look like? Yeah, like, what's it you've been to the frontline? You've talked to these guys. What does it look like up there? And that's the problem is nobody knows what that looks like. And so give your take on it. There's a couple of things. So obviously, we are constantly getting asked for artillery. I, you know, as a nonprofit, we don't provide that, but they're asking us because it's desperate enough. You know, we can't do that shit. So, you know, they're ammo, 120 millimeter mortars, like I have lists, you know, people like these guys meet with me from the front, they're like, we don't have enough. And I'm like, how the, how the fuck do you not have enough? And that's always the question is, we're all wondering, why are they asking us, we're already where NATO should be to begin with. That's a problem in general, but the fact that they don't have enough to actually do anything or not enough to like, get across that that's not good either. So, you know, and then, of course, the constant request for drones, my understanding from what I hear from some of these units that are at the front, especially from the, I have some intel from different units. I've also talked a little bit to the 93rd is that they encounter four enemy Russian drones per one kilometer of the front. That's a huge number. And they don't.

Oh, my God. And I'm like, where the fuck are they getting it? And, you know, 100%. Right. And so we know that they're being supplied by, you know, Iran, China. But that's, you know, I, there's no way that I mean, we've supplied at this point. Maybe a hundred drones, if not more, from my end, Jonas hundreds of drones. But like, you know, that's the thing, the average lifespan of one of those is two hours on the front. So you know, you have to constantly replace it. I mean, yeah. And the, the one thing I do hate is the constant, like, over positive approach of the government. Everything's fine. Bakhmut holds and you're sitting there going, these guys are dying at an incredible rate. And Bakhmut's holding, you know, like for how long. So I do want to like dig into the Bakhmut question, because six months ago, everyone joked that it was like a pointless battle is there's no strategic value. And then within the last month, so let's see comes out and says something like, Yeah, if we lose it, we're going to lose the ease essentially. But then on top of that, they go, if there's no strategic value, why'd you send the equivalent of like the first armored division and the first Marine division, your best guys into a city. Even look at the map, you can see the strategic value in it. You know, I think it's just one of those things. And I, I don't always understand, you know, why anybody here, you know, does things the way that they do them. Obviously, maybe it's not, maybe it's supposed to be that way, you know, keep them guessing. I don't know. But, you know, from my take on it, tactically speaking, I don't, I think they need to pull out of Bakhmut, or at least pull the line back because it's not people are, it's a meat grinder.

People are just dying. I understand that they're defending their country and they should be there doing that. But there's a point where it's like too much loss of life. And I don't, you know, strategically, it no longer makes sense to be that close. That's just the way that I see it. And, you know, I can't say why they do things the way that they do them. It's just kind of, yeah. It's two things, right? Definitely a different way of thinking, yeah. It's, it's a, well, one, it is like they're trying to keep a hold on it. I remember that Zelensky in the beginning kept a, like, hey, there's going to be no Ukrainians dying on social media, like, no bad talk about Ukraine, like, we're going to, no freedom of speech, basically. And so we're just going to be pro positive Ukraine. And that has bonuses and pluses and minuses, right? And I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not for a hundred percent sure, but it's, it's weird. Because, because you can, like you said, if you look at the fucking map, bro, you can see, like, this is a problem. And then it's like, no, this is fine. Everything is fine.

It's that game with the dog where everything is burning. Everything is fine. But I was at a volunteer conference today and like, you can hear people getting upset at the Ukrainians getting upset about the over positive nature of things, the way that they're saying it. And I agree. I think sometimes you have to be real because the rest of the world then can see how tough it is. You know, I mean, I've got, you know, desperate requests, like for ambulances, because they can't get them out of the front line with, you know, they're either using ATVs, I've seen bikes, scooters, just to get the injured soldiers out. And that's a problem, you know, like, I mean, there's so many of them, they can't get them out fast enough. And I feel like if we at least take on a more realistic approach saying, yeah, Bakhmat is hell, it's not, it's not good. I mean, it's a fucking wasteland. All I have to do is look at the pictures, but like the over positivity, I think actually harms more than it helps because then people like, well, it's fine. They're, look at, they're defending, it's all good. Like they're defending everything.

Meanwhile, there's not enough artillery, there's not enough weapons, not enough ammo, and there's not enough of anything, drones, all that. So what do you do in that case? And, you know, for us as a nonprofit, you know, there's only so much we can do, especially when we have situations where like people are like, oh, but it's fine. You guys don't need any more funding because look, they're winning. Everything's okay. And that's, that's where that hurts us because it's like, well, no, we still need funding because we still have to replace everything that they're losing at a high rate, you know, that they can't replace. And that includes, you know, not just, they need scopes, binoculars, you know, whatever, like we, you know, we try not to, we try to replace everything as quickly as we can, but that's also a huge, you know, pullback in terms of finance. You know, finance isn't such. So, you know, it's, it's a rough situation. I will, I mean, talking to the soldiers, they are tired. You can see it in their eyes, they're exhausted. Like that's, there's no, you know, they try to maintain a positive attitude. I wouldn't say morale is low. I think morale is high, but they're so tired. And that's like those things. And like, the hard part for me is when I sit down with these units and they ask me, you know, to help resupply their stuff, whether it's like echo flows or drones or like drone batteries or binoculars. You know, there's this like desperate look in their eyes, especially the ones that are at the front embankment or anywhere else really.

And that's hard for me to deal with because like, you want to be able to give them everything they need so they can win. I mean, it, for us, it's in our best interest to supply these units because it gives them a higher rate of survival. As well as higher chance of winning. Going back to the, going back to the over positivity on a lot of things, there's that double-edged sword where there's footage of like, oh, Russians taping and a grenade to a stick and throwing it like an old potato masher with the Germans or World War Two. And everyone in the world called the Germans, the Russians done. They're like, oh, look how stupid they are. But then the Ukrainians do it and everyone goes, look how smart and adaptive that the Ukrainian average fighting soldiers. And then on the other side, the Russians, they got, you know, how deep in the like, Kharkiv and Kiev and all these places, then they left. They had a tactical retrograde that consolidated their forces, you know, as you do, like an operational pause. And everyone went, look how bad they are at fighting. But then we see the Ukrainians do the same thing and a failed counter offensive. And you're like, see, look how understandable they are with basic military strategic capabilities and tactics like application. Yeah. So building on top of that, so you have the whole world's percent, like we know the big page that are like the gung ho Ukraine guys are like, oh, look how they feed dogs and Ukrainians, you know, love animals, you're like, pretty sure they're fattening them up to eat them.

I don't know. But We're going a little further. No, they're doing that all by themselves by eating dead Russian soldiers. So that's on dogs. That's, that's like one of the things that people don't know about war is that dogs will eat dead bodies. I think it was like first or I've watched it on ISR when first Marine or one of the Marine divisions went into Fallujah, the commander said the dogs will grow fat on the bodies of Baghdad. And it's like, Jesus.

Like, but go ahead. My bad. Yeah. So to like take that idea a little further, because we know the bigger pages that are like supporting nonprofits in Ukraine and whatnot, but every time someone else pops up with like a differing opinion. You just get crushed and lackless in using stuff like, like the Meta's new policy where if you show any war footage, you get, you get deleted your accounts to platform. So as long as you have like a hashtag Russia, your account gets shadow banned. But if you have hashtag Ukraine, you're good. So something like that.

It's like, you know, painting everything is, hey, we're okay. We're like, I understand the reasoning, but it's not good to like cancel out the Russian perspective because you're just filming their whole justification of like, oh, you know, they're, they're coming after us. They're coming after the villain. If they want to see a villain will be won something like that. And so I don't know. It's, and I'm just kind of talking out loud here, just kind of throwing it all on paper, but it's, yeah, there's a lot going on. I don't think the, to be honest, it's like a happy scenario is good. Yeah. Well, I mean, to be honest, I'd rather not see, you know, Russian crap fly across my page, but I'm a very biased source. So you don't want me answering that one. I mean, I don't know, like it's, it's, it's hard to describe what it's like, like for me, the way to describe the, the best way to describe Ukraine right now, it's 1776 in Ukraine at the moment. Yeah. And it's, it's kind of like everything is kind of also at the same time while we're out here. Sorry.

I mean, it could be, but you know, it honestly like, and then of course at the same time, there's also comparisons to the fact that it's like the wild, wild West out here and you know, it's the right hand sometimes doesn't know what the left hand is doing. So it's hard to say, I mean, at the end of the day, the, the goal is the same. It's to win the war. And that's, and I think like the issue, the best way to say it is that people are especially soldiers are still like, soldiers are still extremely motivated to win. And that's, at least that is what I'm gathering from everybody that I've talked to at the front. It's, I was about to say, because I was, I said one thing and then, but it's, if you subscribe to the Patreon, you would know. No, I did do a thing where I said like, the thing, the Russians do this thing called deep battle penetration, giggity. But it's, it's different from like how we do combined arms warfare and people don't understand that because like the Americans we bring everything to bear we strike we bring logistics with us and the Russians tried that but they failed but deep battle penetration is essentially you make hundreds of little pockets and you're like, you need to pull the line back, or else as the Russians surge breakthrough Bakhmut they'll spread north and south to create pockets along the line. Right. And so guys who are to the north and south of Bakhmut are looking to their flank and they're seeing that holy shit the Russians are starting to break through and they're going to turn and fight us from the side fight us from the flank.

And so it's, it's not just a matter of positivity right it's like you said we need to be real about this and have a strategy, because if we don't tell people like hey Bakhmut is there's a problem with Bakhmut and the reason why we're pulling back by the entire forward line of troops or the flood is because if we don't pull it back, then the Bakhmut situation is going to spread and they're going to go right and left at work north and south, and they're going to attack the flanks and so you're right and it's hard to sit there as Linsky or the Minister of Propaganda or whatever and say, hey guys, we need to pull back because on the map it looks like you're losing but the strategically or your hoy for players or whatever game you play like you're just for treating so you don't get fucking in circle. And it's like you said like these guys are tired well they're tired because they're trying to prevent an encirclement like yes and they're failing they don't have it they don't have what they need. I wouldn't even say they're failing and that's a thing that like we hold over right is that the we look at it from a perspective of like they're failing I would say they're as an Afghan that like their leadership is failing them like soldiers. And so it's like, and you're sitting there. Let me preface this by saying, yeah, you are correct. It's the leadership that's having issues that is really failing that regard the soldiers are doing everything they fucking can to save themselves. It's a white paper that came out from was it like the Mozart group guys or something that was talking about just how how.

It was like, but you know just forget who it was I don't know the name it was like an anonymous tip but it was essentially outlines like yeah I mean our soldiers are doing good things, but the officer for is so bad. Hey, it's like a hodgepodge of a Soviet and American ideologies working in one direction they're like, how do we do this. That isn't to say it's not everyone because I've met some great commanders like that's like for sure. But yes, there are some older commanders that are still like on that Soviet style bandwagon and that's really tough because like it doesn't work. Yeah, and they're still employing those Afghan vets running around talking about how to like kill them. And they're like, are you okay sir. Sir, stop, stop drinking stop relaxing. He shows up to work sometimes with a hero of Russian metal on like hey motherfucker. She's listening to Kino and his blue jeans.

I've seen that to where like the the Western trained Ukrainian officers are like bro, what the fuck and like it's Sergei the fat former ussr general like, what do you mean what the fuck this works. And then there's Rima from the USA like no I'm telling you for the love of fucking God. Like literally, you know, I think that that's also what some of the like the US military guys that are out here non active duty force that are you know, struggling with that too because they're seeing this you know I had to caveat that one real quick. But you know, they're seeing, they're seeing this like this non compliance or like the lack of like wanting to westernize some of these you know methods or whatever like even like down to like combat medicine and that's a huge complaint. You know, like, we're still doing this in the Soviet way I mean so I ran a very small rifle training pilot with an m4 platform for some Ukrainians that have never used an m4 before. And, you know, we did this for a couple of days, and you know kind of help them with you know using either iron sights or red dots or whatever kind of optic they had and like you know, zeroing out your because in some cases they don't even let them zero out their rifles here. So, you know, you've got like an utter lack of training also and like in some senses and so we're working on this and we told these guys like I had a break with my training partner that he and I were working on some things and so we said you know practice the drill on your own. And that was something completely foreign concept because some of them came up to us a few minutes later saying you know hey we apologize for taking initiative, because they're not allowed to do that under the Soviet methodology of war teaching.

And we're like, you should do whatever you we want you to do this like this is this is a good thing and that was one of the biggest examples that I can give from from my perspective from seeing it firsthand is, they have to apologize to us for taking initiative that just killed me. Yeah, like that. I'm like no that you never apologize for actually wanting to do something and get better at it like this is but that's what I mean, you have to teach them that it's okay to do stuff like that and that's that's the rough part is is how do you. How do you take that in grain mentality out, because so many units that are new need this kind of training because they're getting. I've heard as little as three days, and as up to as high as two weeks of training but they never fired their rifle. Yep. Not even zeroed. Yeah. Yeah, and that and that drives me crazy so like you know I mean for me, wanting to be able to help with that in some way also because I would like them to live, you know, and are high enough as it is like you know you can fix that like you know so that's yeah it's it's tough it's tough out there. I got so go ahead Matt, you just have to completely it's look at it like a cancer you got to cut that entire. It's 100% it's not re teaching the old fucks because you know they're not going to change it's the same thing our military like all the old war hats the golf war veterans are still in their same ways of like oh we're preparing to fight the red menace and you

got to get the flu shot right it's not the same thing, and so the best way is just to get rid of them completely, retrain the new guys, make a complete new officer Corps and then go from there, but then at that point you're like, so if we have a Ukrainian offensive coming up you have to put an op pause on that push it to the end of summer or something like that and then how much, how much heavy handed us support these guys need to do everything but pull the trigger like it's I mean, and let's not kid ourselves, right, but let's not kid ourselves without that heavy-handed support, it would be a much different picture, completely different. Even with like other Western countries helping, like Lithuania and Poland and everything, I'm telling you, if it wasn't at least for all that support from the United States, we would be having a much different conversation, I think. You'd be in Western Ukraine and there'd be a thing coming Eastern, yeah. Yes, absolutely. No, it's Novorossiya, come on.

My ears, they're bleeding. I got some questions from some people here for you. What's full arms are preferred by the rank and file in Ukrainian foreign units? Like, what's their favorite gun if they can get it? Yeah, well, I've heard some interesting things. So some of the teams get CZ brands, which they hate, and then what they would rather have are the M4s. So it's usually like the M4 or M14 or whatever. And like, I mean, it's usually that if they can get it. I've also heard like, you know, the strong desire for Glock pistols, but they're getting these like Russian, I think it's a Tokarev, maybe. Nice. Yeah, I've seen them. They're pretty crazy.

Like those things look like shit, you know, much like where they were manufactured. That would be my understanding. But then again, you know, they get their grenades and they're happy. So what are the choke points for equipment supply, like not enough stuff and ability to transport the stuff they do have, gear, a drift, loss, like sticky fingers. That's a loaded question. It's a lot of things. I mean, I'm hearing like even some Ukrainian units are they don't have enough ammo, somebody just asked for tanks. And it's like, where's that we're trying to figure out where the chokehold is, because we don't know where the bottleneck is at. And you know, even for me, sometimes that could be above my classified

pay grade, you know, that's one of those things where like, I don't even know. But like from what I gather is, you know, some things are just not coming fast enough from, you know, where there's from military distribution centers. And we don't know why. And you know, for me, one of the things that I try to do from our end, when we're asked to supply as we get there within a day or two to wherever they're at on the line, or I mail it, and it gets there in a day from the intermail system. It's amazing. Novapostia is incredible. I've been drawn one day, and it gets there the next day. And I'm like, what in the USPS, I think you need to take some notes, okay, because this is terrible. I'm just picturing a guy like a male uniform getting into a trench like,

are you Trevor? Yeah, sign here. Let me tell you something to my least favorite. I had a meeting in a couple weeks ago where the person had sent me several different requests from several different units. And so I filled most of them and for drones. And then at that meeting, they were like, can you give us a list of who you sent it to? Because we're not sure if everyone is still alive that you sent a drone to. So we have to transfer the recipient. Yeah. Something like that. A year of doing this after almost a year of working on this, that is the worst fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. And I've heard some shit with all this stuff that like, like my whole, like my whole, all my, I'm already palest fuck, all my color drained out of my face. I became

transparent at that time. Talking about the ammunition shortage. So in terms of like, tactically how the Ukrainians are approaching a lot of things, because it's like, I've seen a lot of like, lackluster performance on like the Ukrainian side of just like shooting ammo, because into like a tree line or something where they think the Russians are. And so how was there a tactical performance with like, munitions, conservative, like consolidating ammo and saving instead of just like burning it? Well, so one situation that I had when I was, you know, I went for a range day with one of these voluntary units, you know, and I just wanted to kind of see like where they were at with some of their training or like what they,

you know, what methods they employ. And so, you know, I went in and I played the dumb blonde, don't laugh. And, you know, I was like, I don't know anything. What do you guys do? You know, like tell me just a girl. How do I hold this again? And so basically, you know, I'm like, well, what, you know, basically, they told me at one point, well, in the trenches, it doesn't matter, because you're just going to turn the switch to full auto and just spray and pray out of your trench. And that just, I was like, never, you never, you don't use the fun switch, you leave that to the belt fed, you do not use the switch. And that's, and that's something that I have heard from multiple units that like, Oh yeah, full auto. And I'm like, uh, like, what are you doing? That's what I

thought. It's not everybody, but it's a good number of people are like, spray or whatever. And I'm like, no, you need to save your bullets because you don't know when you're going to get those replenished. So like, you need to have these cool videos of you shooting nothing. So like, you know, St. Javelin can repost it. Oh, find out. Yeah. It's a great example of fuck around and find out how little ammunition you will have after you do something like that. And so that's so funny. That's the most depressing thing to be like the resupply person. And they just, yeah, bro, full auto. And you're like, what the fuck, Jimmy fan on rolling up like in, uh, like a band of brothers, he shows up at the ammo and he's like, what do you mean? I was just here

yesterday. Oh my God. And that's, and that's one thing that bothers the hell out of me. And again, it's not everybody, but they are assuming that full auto is going to solve their problem. Like, you can't even accurately hit anything on full auto. If you're doing it that way, you're going to hit nothing and waste tons of bullets. And then you're, do they do it in versus at least to save the barrel? Do they do it in burst or do they just melt their, you know, yeah, they just destroy it. I can't speak for everybody. I have no idea. I want to say yes, but I don't know. So that's like one of those things we're like, you know, and then they're sitting to be like, yeah, you know, try it, you know, do you full auto? I'm like, absolutely not. I'm not going to waste ammo.

That's not, do not do that. No, like that's, I even in normal life, I wouldn't do that anyway. Like that's because why I mean, great. A dollar a piece per bullet, just 30 rounds out. I think it also goes back to that idea. And in my head, I'm going, do you know how expensive ammo is? Like, I think it goes back to the idea that they just bank on the fact that like, oh, supplies are never going to stop coming in from the Americans, the Brits, you know, the Poles. It's like, what if one day it does? What do you do then? So yeah, that sucks. I mean, it's, I mean, we, but the thing is, as you say that, but let's be real honest, Matt, you and I both know that Raytheon and Bowie, the hell it will. Like, there's American taxpayers, you're paying,

buddy. That's a good joke there, Matt. That's real good. Now, pay up. Bowie needs another jet. Okay. Fuck you. Like, that is the word. Yeah, that ain't happened. And the myth just like laugh. The military industrial complex would never let that happen. Fuck it. Lockheed Martin's hand is so far up the fucking Congress's ass might as well just be prepared with the frog and you're like, what if they stop supply? Dude, they will never stop. Fucking three congressmen just spun around their grave. What is the actual, okay, so this is, this is actually something that a lot of guys have hit on and we've talked about it, but I don't look like the logistical piece, but the maintenance issues, right? Like having all these different

weapons systems from different countries and inventory, you've got, I mean, so like AK-47s, the 762, you got the 74 version, which is 545, M4s, 556 is the Bren, the CZ Bren, 556 as well. And I don't even think they share magazines with the M4. Okay. So it's like, you've got like seven different just guns, not including artillery, trucks. Oh, okay, there you go. But there it is. All right. We can piece it together. We have scars. Oh, scars too. Shit. Yeah. So there's NATO. Damn, you trip. You snap that piece of plastic in half. Scar's gone. Uh-oh. So yeah, logistics and maintenance. What's that look like? I mean, most of these units have AK-47 or 74s. So like it's the foreign region and the other teams

tend to have the other weapons. And you know, usually there's enough to kind of go around and like, you know, train on them and stuff. But, you know, that's not a huge problem. It's the weapons, bigger weapons systems where training is an issue. And I'm going to go ahead and use like maybe the Abrams tank as an example. You're sending one unit out of the country to train on it because you can't bring the trainers in. So, you know, there's, and then you have, then one unit is responsible for, I'm assuming, training everybody else that might get an Abrams tank. So, you know, I think that's a bigger problem too, especially with some of like the heavier artillery we're sending is we can't, you know, they, we can't, US can't send in trainers into the country because that would be

seen as something problematic. So, you know, that I think is more of a hindrance than I would say, because I mean, when it boils right down to it, a rifle is a rifle and it's not as hard to train on that quickly. But I think like the larger weapons systems, I think we, we're, it's a disservice to most of these units that have to use them because they can't get enough training. Yeah. They promote down to the small unit leadership level. Do they promote like disassembling and cleaning your weapon every single day? Because they're using an, if they're using an M4, fuck those things. They don't work if you get a third on there. So, yeah. That is a problem. A lot of the Ukrainian units don't like using M4s because basically you can

cover an AK in dirt and it'll still fire. You could actually probably, you know, batter that thing. That doesn't, that, that thing doesn't break. So, you know, M4s, however, are a little bit more temperamental. And, you know, if you don't clean it, it's not going to fire properly. And that, you know, that was one complete, well, we have to clean it, you know, and it's like, yes, you have to clean your rifle that you should be doing it anyway, even if it's an AK, you know, but I think some of them are not used to doing it. So like weapons maintenance, it's not like a huge thing. It should be bigger than it is, but I've even gotten requests for, for gun lubricant, because, and they can get it here. It's not like it's not available, but like, I don't,

the OP just on the market. Yeah, who knows? I mean, you know, I mean, that's, I had one like lubricant manufacturer that like asked me about it, like, you know, that we're saying, Hey, you know, we're getting requests for it. And so I asked one of the US Marines that's out here, I'm like, is it hard to get lubricant, you know, for your rifle out here? And he's like, no, it's really not. You can definitely get it. And I'm like, so why, you know, and I, you know, maybe they don't want to spend the money. I don't know. But like, you know, that's funny that you have to something funny, a pro, and I'm just, you know, thinking out on the top of the spot here, something funny, like a lubricant company, they make like him and hers, they could promote

for the. So what material aid is the most beneficial at this stage of the conflict? Are you talking on an NGO level or on like a government level? At your level, at your level, like what's your shopping list? Our major biggest shopping list items are always number one is drones. Optics is number two. And then we start getting into uniforms and tourniquet and iFAC kits. We've got units that are going in with no iFACs. They have nothing. Yeah. Yeah, no iFAC, no tourniquet, like even in some of them, I asked, I got a request for med backpacks for these medics for the combat medics. They don't have that either. So they're

going into the front without medical supplies. So these are our main things right now. Vehicles, I would say are number five on the list because, you know, they're, they lose the vehicles at the same rate as the drones because if it gets bombed or the roads are shit, your suspension will, you think Chicago potholes are bad? I've not seen a pothole. Okay, it's a fucking crater. I've been on the roads. It is not, it's not cute. Okay. We deal with that too. So, you know, there's that on a fundamental level. We have issues like that. So yeah, drones, optics, medical supplies, vehicles and uniforms. That's big stuff right now. I don't want to hear anybody talking about how we're pro-russian. I don't need a shit ton of fucking uniforms. Okay. Yes, you

have a very well received. We definitely have been, you know, people are like, are those us army issue? I'm like, yes. And they're like, you know, whatever. It was funny because like some of those, like there's like some of the older like marpads in there. Yeah. And I got flicks. I posted some of those pictures online and some of the like military dudes are like, holy shit, where did that come from? I'm like, my buddy gave it to me. You know, some fucking artist in Tennessee just like, you guys want some shit? Yes. Bless your lord. What's the footwear looking like over there? Oh, that's a tough one. So we see a lot of sneakers. Like I'm not joking. It's rough. It's rough when they're in the trenches

with those. Like that's really bad. Like I don't even, I can't stand it. But like we have, we're trying to give, we have boots that we're trying to get out as fast as possible, especially with the guys that are out there because that's, they need to have normal like regular footwear. We get requests for that all the time, like especially for boots. And you know, boots wear out like, and uniforms too. You can't just issue a soldier one uniform and expect it to be still good a year later. It doesn't work that way. Like it doesn't work that way at all. So, you know, that's, it's one of those things. I mean, that's, yeah, you get a mix. It's not as bad as it was a year ago when like they really didn't have anything. And they were literally

running around like Air Force ones. Like I'm not kidding. Like that's, you know, nice. Don't get on them again. Yep. But it's a little, it's a little badass, not gonna lie. But I mean, you know, essentially, yeah, we are seeing that it's better, but the requester, because shoes wear out. Which one of us like actually has shoes for that long or boots that last that long, especially when you're constantly on the line. Okay, you don't count. You know, like you're on the line, you know, and you're wearing the same pair of boots every day for a year. Like it's not going to last that long, you know, holes, other conditions, issues, or again, they just have gym shoes. Yeah, that's definitely a Soviet holdover, because I know in Afghanistan, they would sell

their boots, and they put on like a pair of like Adidas, like running shoes. And they also did the Russians did the same thing in like Chechnya. And it's just like a, like, oh, you know, if I'm going to fight and die, might as well be comfortable. Like it's, I mean, I understand the reasoning. I get, I get it. But at the same time, it's like, you know, you need a decent pair of boots, but we have units asking for them constantly. I mean, I just gave 10 pairs to, you know, a unit in her son just the other day, you know, and also 30 uniforms from from Cody's donation. So, you know, that's one of those things we're like, that's so helpful, because we need uniform donations like that, especially for like US military ones, because the quality is good. You know, they fit

great people like them, you know, it's better than it's faster for us than getting them produced here. Because that's also these guys need it now. They don't need it a month from now, they need it now. It's a it's a weird thing where like, because I was the one that said like, I've got boots that last a while, but they're $200 fucking boots. Yeah, like I got a few months, I think I got like two pairs and then I minor bait. Yeah. So it's like those last like two years, but you're right. Like the amount of US soldiers who listen to this podcast or Marines can tell you like, oh my God, how many times have we blown out a gooch in a pair of pants? Like dudes will be coming back to the fob or back from like a field exercise, balls hanging out. And it's just like,

bro. And it's like, Hey, and you go pull more, but people don't understand. Like there isn't a fucking supply people full of shit to pull from there. It's you volunteering. I brought so I had I had two separate orcs desperately messaged me because a Brit who took a horrible shrapnel injury like to the arm was awful. Had to be cut out of the only uniform he had no uniform. Yeah, they cut him out of it. He had nothing. So I went out to a hospital on the front and literally drove three hours just to bring this guy one of your uniforms, because thank God we even had them from your donation. Like it was a huge deal. And, you know, that really helped Cody. And like, I mean, he was over the moon just to have another uniform,

you know, and that was a big deal. You hear that, Jake and Lewis? You hear that? I had me saving the British. 1776 all over again. But what about the so when it comes to the international donations and stuff like this, and Cody and I talked about it, Lviv, because I've seen a lot of a lot of people talk about how it's like the Sodom of Gomorrah of Ukraine, where it's just NGOs and like, look, just doing coke and fucking women essentially. Yeah, I mean, that's what the essentially what Twitter is saying. I mean, I don't I don't stay in Lviv. I'm in the East because I do real work out here. But you know, I mean, that's that's essentially I'm hearing the same. And it's unfortunate, you know, it's

if you're coming out here to have a vacation or just to have a good time, you're doing the rock, you're doing a disservice to everybody. Let me just say it for you, go fuck your mother, like fuck you for coming to a combat zone, taking a picture in your Gucci kit and leaving, like you're the biggest piece of shit. Just end your bloodline. Holy fuck. End your bloodline. I love that. I mean, that's how I feel about it. It's like, you're you're not helping anybody. Essentially, you're just making it worse for the rest of us. We're literally here risking our lives and actually doing the job, because we need us more than you need your little photograph. You know, and that's what kills me about these organizations, especially

the ones that are like in deep shit right now on Twitter, because they fucked up so bad. And then you find out that they were basically just in LeViv having a good ass time. And I'm like, I'm like, do you not understand? Like, do you just not care that there are soldiers dying every day? Like, do you not? Do you really still not give a fuck about anything that that's what you're doing? Because you are the scourge of humanity. Kill yourself like that. I can't. It's on top of that. You got a lot of the big names that are like, they get circulated on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, these kind of pages where they have like their own hive mind. They're like, all right, as long as we can keep this up, we're good. Yeah, yeah, someone like yourself after

actually like doing the work is probably not going to be very popular if you call them out. So well, and for me, like, I am not I'm really not afraid of that. I have a big mouth. And if I think you're doing something wrong, I'm going to call you out over it, essentially, just because you're hurting everybody when you do when you pull shit like this. It's not it's it's not like about, you know, being tougher, like, I called you out. And no, it's like, it's one of those where like, you're fucking it up for the rest of us that are trying to save lives. We're trying to help make sure that Ukraine wins because if it doesn't, so many bad things happen after that. I truly believe that the fate of Western democracy is hinged on this victory, in my opinion.

I don't think so. And here's why because the Ukrainians beat the shit out of Russia so hard that like, even like, Romanian National Guard units are like drinking on a Saturday, like send me in, I can fucking take them. Like, all of NATO is like, begging at the border, like say win, because it's like Ukraine sucker punched Russia so hard that it's just like, all of NATO is not scared anymore. Like, even like everybody said before the war, we were like, oh, shit, Russia might have a chance. And then Ukraine just like beat this kid out of its Walker, like, shut the fuck up. Like, it's like, oh, shit, Ukraine's going off. And we as like soldiers and like, everybody is just like, if we were there, I think the ratio that NATO did in a war game recently

was like, kill rate would be 1000 to one, like between the Tomahawk cruise missiles are our way, our super weapons and F 35s, like we would just destroy Russia, but we can't because, you know, nuclear weapons. But I think Ukraine, if anything has given hope to the rest of the world, like, it's like the bully, like I'm gonna beat your ass. And then Ukraine just showed up and it's like, fuck it, draw it. I'll kill you. And on top of that, when it comes to someone like not so much the political standpoint, but the military readiness of the Russians were the big bad guys forever. And Ukraine dunked on them so hard, you're like, I think complacency is going to become very popular inside of our military. Like, like, why do I have to train so hard to the fight Ivan,

because he can't even win against his autistic. Okay, and here's why I disagree, not for any other reason, but I just like, complete and utter fear of the whole, oh my God, we can't get into World War three, like remember when the when the missile or whatever landed in Poland ish, and here and here's kind of, you know, like all everybody at the GA it's like, okay, pulling no, they're all talking to Duda like, listen, just just it's okay. Don't worry about the farmer that died. It's fine. Like it's okay. Like, you know, no World War three. That's my problem right there. Okay. But I also don't, I think when push comes to shove, I don't think he I don't think Putin's gonna push that red button

out. So it's mutually assured destruction. However, I do think sometimes that yes, NATO will do what they need to do if push comes to shove. But that example for me of Poland, with that, you know, missile sitting there, like, I just kind of that that example right there is like, I disagree just a little bit. Yeah, like the public perception that came out of that one, because they were like, initially, it was saying that, Oh, the Russians attacked the Poles, you know, Article five needs to be enacted right now. But they were like, actually, it was a faulty Ukrainian missile that landed in the neighborhood. They're like, so does the, does NATO need to invade Ukraine? Because the poll, if you've ever worked with the Polish,

they would have like, I'm sure everyone was making like, yeah, dude, it's, they're so bad, they would have done it too. They'd have been like, I don't care if it's Ukrainian, fucking Article five will invade Ukraine and make them ours. Like, and now the Russians are like, dude, when I saw that, because I was deployed with the Polish, and I know what they, how badly they hate the Russians, like they'd have, they'd have invaded Ukraine and been like, Russia's fighting us, they're attacking our new country, we need to kill Russians now. Like, but it's, I think it also has to do with the fact that you are Lithuanian, and I think it is part of the NATO plan that the Baltic states will be captured, but they'll have to go into

guerrilla warfare. And so that is the plan, right? Like, the Baltics are kind of like a sacrificial lamb that has to die, but we will get them back. And you, a Lithuanian are like, bro, what the fuck? Like, what do you mean? Like, you're going to take another one. Yeah, no, literally, like, are you fucking again? Like, you know, you might get hit, bro, but I'm going to come in and I'm going to save your head. It's like, you just have to beat up a asshole. It's okay. I'm right behind you. The fuck you are. Like, What do you mean you're behind me? Excuse me? You should be in front of me, god damn it. Yeah, you first Lithuania. Fuck it. Yeah, me while you're right here. Oh, yeah. It's like,

it's exactly like, you know, you're going to dive into a pool and peer to a friggs, you can't see down. It's like, yeah, right after you go ahead. It's, it's fine. Asshole, like, bro. Oh, I mean, we kind of talked about it. What else do we have? I mean, I have more questions about like, how NGOs interact with each other, because I'm sure some are money laundering, and some are war profiteers, and other ones are actually doing good things. And I'm sure there's political infighting between the two sides. So let's see the best dance you have, Rema. Dance around. There's a reason why we tend not to,

there's a reason why we tend not to work with other NGOs, because again, the scandal on Twitter, that I mean, we'll play nice people, but like, I don't, you know, for us, because our job is the soldiers of Ukraine, we want to help them. I don't, you know, for me, like, I never understand what everybody's motivations are. And I tend to worry about that more than the average person. And it's not, I'm not saying that we won't, you know, play well with others. We just know that sometimes if I can't, you know, figure out like what you're, you know, if you're actually a good guy like we are, or if you are trying to make it, you know, a profit for yourself, or, you know, get yourself some notoriety, clout, whatever. I don't give a crap about clout, you know, and that,

and for me, I hate these orgs that come through and are like, Oh my God, look at all the great stuff we do. What are you doing exactly? Because all I'm seeing is these nice, pretty marketing campaigns. There's no like, and a couple drones here and there, like, you know, like what, what exactly are you doing? And like, you know, you don't always see, like, you don't see pictures with the units, you don't see these people actually come in here, and, you know, do, you know, deliver it to these people, you know, that's, if you're going to be real, be real. If I can't count on you, then I don't, I'm not going to work with you. That's 100%. Now, like, if you don't have, I know if you, if you talk to them, if you talk to some of them, because you're like sitting there showing up drinking

energy drinks, maybe having a Marlboro red, and like you're talking about these NGOs showing up, like, it smells like piss, and that guy's taking a shit in the open. This is awful. I'm like, it's fucking war, bro. It's a switch. What the fuck? It smells like pee. Yeah, they haven't showered in months. Listen, if you can't live with the fact that sometimes you're going to have to use an outhouse, you should, you should be here. Like that's, you know, some of these, like, lily-livered NGOs are like, oh, God. You're like, no, okay, this is war. It's always funny when ugly, like it is pretty. Some of the NGOs that they'll take their larking photos are like, look how cool we are. We're like, go to Bakhmut, and they're like, no, I'll die.

Right? Well, to be honest, we can't go into Bakhmut either because the only road in is controlled by Russian fire control right now. So technically we can get close to it, but we can't actually get into it. Anyway, but we still go. That's a new situation. You know, for me, it is funny because like my, I give my translator a fucking heart attack on a constant basis because I'm out here, like taking pictures, you know, with these units, like there's fucking artillery, like flying everywhere. And she's like, get in the fucking car. And I'm like, I'm not done. Like, you know, I have to flip off this Russian tank real quick. And there's a picture of me doing it. So it's definitely like one of those things. I'm like, I need to get one picture first. Wait, you know,

I'm here. I'm literally like this. It's like yet in the car. She's like, God damn Americans and they're cowboy shit. We've come to find out as we've grown the page that like, if you just talk to an Australian, that's actually what you sound like to most people is like that Australian get fucked mate. It's like what Americans sound like to the rest of the people. They're like, they're like our long forgotten twin brother. And so like, it's kind of like looking in a mirror. So if you ever as an American want to know, like, what do I look and sound like to an Australian? So it doesn't surprise me at all that you're like, hold on, I need to fucking flick off the front line, like get the fuck back in the van. Sometimes it's like a bizarre reality where he has the same

mustache and haircut as Cody. It's just I hate it. It goes my husband. But that's fucking yeah, that's, that's wild. And again, like I said, it's not that we won't work with you anybody, but like my problem is I have to make sure that like, you're here to actually support Ukraine. It's not about, you know, your motivations or, you know, getting a great Twitter following or Instagram influencing crap. Cause that's another thing is we have that problem too, where it's like, Oh my God, look at me. I'm delivering stuff to who, you know, one fucking bag of medication. Great job. Awesome. Like, you know, like that's, try to do it in volume next time. And I might be able to take you seriously. Like that's my issue. Like driving around Ukraine, dropping off single

bags like at a time. What are you, what impact are you making? I'm not doubting that that's helping some people, but it's not doing, you could do more. And like these people are pulling, you know, it's like all these people that are out here, they're pulling attention and funding from the rest of the organizations that are actually seriously working high volume. And that's a problem. Cause you know, you get enough of that. And like that's, you know, it's also like you could compare it to votes and elections. That's how you use an election. It's all these other people, all these little, you know, all this, you know, I don't know. So it's, that's my problem. I, I don't, I wish that more, you know, and I get even more, you know, I'm not paranoid,

but I guess weary of organizations that come out here that, you know, I'm not really sure exactly what their motivations are. Yeah. It's, it's got a lot in common with like being forgotten about, right? Like there's people that are seriously there and there's people that are seriously not. And I mean, that's kind of like, I'll call it Afghan syndrome. You're like, Hey motherfucker, we're at war. Like, but yeah, I'm in the green zone. It's safe. And there's a chili's like, fuck. It's, it's, as I use, as everybody says in the army, deployment experiences may vary. Like some people's friends are going to get shot and blown up. Other people are just going to go to green bean and have a coffee. Like, perfect. So what else you got?

In terms of like political terms, say Ukraine does take everything back, if they talked about what's next, because you got 10 years worth of indoctrination in those children in Crimea that are trying to like fight Ukrainians in the West. And then on top of that, I think there's going to be a low level insurgency within the occupied regions because like, Hey, Ukraine does take it all back. They have all these weapons and cool tools and bombs and tanks and I'm sorry. Can you just imagine being a Ukrainian kicking in a door to a preschool and there's like 30 little USSR nuggets there. Like the fuck is this? They're like taking apart AKs. Like, Holy shit. I mean, it's true. It's actually happening. Like somebody's going to kick

in the door to like children and be like, Oh my God, there's like Stalin propaganda everywhere. Or something like the nuclear reactor. Like the Russians took that immediately because, hey, it's the biggest in Europe. And number two, all the farmland, the Russians burnt it to the ground and they took all the farmers and they kicked them into central Russia. So you're like, I mean, yeah, taking territories cool, but if you can't do anything with it anymore, what are you going to do? Like, I mean, demining alone is going to take decades. Like, I mean, that's 50 years minimum. And that's, you know, and that's if we get enough deminers out here to actually do it, you're right. I mean, what does the future look like? The only

thing I can tell you is reconstruction. You know, that's, that's, we can't, that's a broad stroke because there's nothing else that we can say right now because priority one is winning the war. That's it. You know, and that's how all of us are focused or where some of us kind of starting to think about reconstruction personally. Yes. But we have to first do this part before we can even think about it. And you're right. You know, what do we do with the separatists that are being bred in Crimea? And that I don't know myself. Throw them all in prisons and sort of re indoctrinate them on your own country's ethics. I mean, I think like you have to figure out deep programming, you know, deep programming because

it's literally you have to deep program these children, adults, whatever, because it's, they're also kidnapping Ukrainian children. Don't forget still that's a huge thing that one's talking about right now. Matt talks about it all the time. He's like, there's like six million fucking human traffic people. And then they're like, Hey, you pro Russian fuck. And that's like the only person who's like keeping track on that number. He's like, there's like 600,000 women gone. Like they just came and took the women. What the fuck. And it's, it's currently sitting over 6 million total people inside Russia. But I think like 300,000 are like below the age of five.

Well, they're kidnapping the children and indoctrinating them. This is horrible. And like, you know, for me, again, we're not talking about this. And that's a huge problem. Like, you know, and there's still a lot of dangers everywhere. I mean, we had a unit that, you know, somebody, somebody who knew where their warehouse was, they got paid off by Russians. And that warehouse was met with some very nice artillery, then they lost everything. So that we still issues even within Ukraine of that sort of thing. So I mean, yeah, I think it's not a easy question either. Yeah, it's not, it's not. And you don't want to run around like a deep programming, you know, because that just sounds even worse. And like, you're, but that's exactly what it is. You have to, you

know, it's the same thing. Like, okay, let me put it this way. As a Lithuanian person, I have talked to many Russian people. I've also had a lot of friends who've talked to Russian people. And we, even the most Western ones, they're still, they all have the same mentality. When you finally get to like the last layer of the onion, you get a comment saying, well, you know, Russia allowed the profits to be free, they will come back. And you sit there in a fucking person, Russian person who's lived in the West their entire life still makes this fucking comment. And I'm like, okay, it's an old way of thinking. It's another thing I'm looking to. I have a black friend, right? Yeah, that's the whole thing. Like, you sit there, you're like,

that's not, it doesn't work that way. It's like, you know, you sit there, you're like, oh my god, you know, and that's the part of the problem. So like, you're faced with these issues of, you know, you have to deprogram because otherwise, they're just going to have this same mentality forever and ever amen. And that's just the issue because again, these Russians who lived outside Russia, their whole life still have this mentality. And that's that's a huge problem for me. Something I like to look into is talking about just like the way of thinking is like the Russians are definitely built around like a victim mindset and victim complex where like, you can grab one from St. Petersburg or Vladivostok or someone who's grown up in Chicago their whole life,

and they still play that whole like, well, the West was coming after us anyways, or something like that. But they always talk about they always talk about that, like the unified people is like Slavs, we are Slavic people, like this is who we are. But then you also see them calling like the West Anglos accents, you know exactly who they're talking about. So you're like, man, it's like, how do you address that one? Because the West really doesn't like to play those games, but yeah. Sorry, I just got another message about a unit that doesn't have enough ammo. This is what I mean, like we get constant information. Save one for themselves. I don't know.

Yeah, right? Like we get that or like, you know, they don't have enough, they don't have a tank or they don't have enough tanks. So it's like, I can't supply tanks like that. I can find tanks. I'm sure you can, Cody. You want to mail me a tank? No, we've got, for those that are listening, we've got Patreon goals. I know where to find BTRs and tanks. There's some in Oklahoma, some in Florida. We're working on it. No, I don't think they need them anymore.

Yeah, go to, I don't know, we were talking to Lewis about that, how the Irish Ireland. 6,000 strong. Yeah, go get some scout cars. Got a jam. We could just keep going, but I don't have any more like questions off the cuff. I mean, I could talk about this all day. This is pretty much what I do. So it's hard to make you work on a Saturday, you know, there are no days off in this job. So there's definitely no days off in this job. I worked on my birthday three days ago.

Oh, happy birthday. You had a little pop tart with a cigarette in it, like happy birthday. Yes, for the cigarette. No, it was a great combo of Air Raid Sirens and Georgian food. You know, it was interesting. We'll take it. You should get the two pop tarts, put PB and J in there, make a sandwich out of it. I used to, that was my go-to for a while. I think I might have an MRE sticking around. I'll just, I'll just, I'll just eat an MRE. Beef stew. Yeah, yum.

I got, I got a half, half a pop tart in a match in it. And then they're like, and I blow it out and I blew it out. And this like mustang, he was enlisted before he turned officer. He's like, cool. And then he slapped the pie, the pop tart out of my hand and then slapped me in the face. He said, that's for having a fucking birthday. I was like, what the fuck, bro? You bitch, what do you mean you have a birthday? Loser. So I guess the next question is like, you're, you're prepared. That's, that's the weird thing, right? Is like, you're prepared for this to go more, right? Like you guys have been doing this since 2014, or many of you have been doing it and you guys have the experience.

And that's what it could, it could potentially end up like a stalemate, right? More trench warfare, another 2014. How are you guys preparing for that, for this to go the long way, like the marathon versus a sprint? I mean, essentially, like in terms of the NGO way, like we just, we prepare for longer halls with fundraising, especially because we know we're going to need more volume. It's, it's not going to change, especially for how much is being requested. Like I get anywhere between 10 to 15 requests per day from units, you know, and that's not going to change. In fact, I think it's just going to get worse because they're not getting things replaced

as quickly because, you know, we've run out or like, we have to wait for places to ship stuff to us or, you know, then, and then again, it becomes a question of our preparedness in terms of funding. So at this point for us, for the long haul, our, our number one goal is maintaining enough funding to be able to procure these items. That's the biggest thing for us right now. That's the best way we can prepare for the long haul is to make sure we have enough money to buy them what they need and be able to do that, as well as maintain a relationship with Washington on our end to have these conversations with congressional staff, military staff, and also just Congress members themselves to say, Hey, from a civilian perspective, this is what we see.

This is real. This is not a CIA sanitized report. This is what we see on the ground from who we talk to, how we do it, where we go. And that's, it's just a different way through real eyes. Like, instead of just facts being thrown at us at a classified briefing, it's a totally different thing. Yeah. And that's the thing that people don't. So for those that don't know, like a sanitized report is like, you're going to, that thing is going to some field agent is on the front line and he's got his sources and he's polluting. And then he's like, I don't think this is important. And then his boss is like every word this and then it gets changed like nine different ways. It's like a game of telephone. So by the time it goes from the front line to Congress, all they

see is like, we need to go away and get some guns. And then, you know, Ivan, the Ukrainian sitting there like, I don't have underwear or socks for the fucking God. Can somebody please supply me? Like that's, oh my Lord. Yeah. When it comes to funding from like, you know, America's heartland of the Midwest or something like that, because the average person really doesn't care anymore in America. And so how do you, how do you drum up support with those guys? Because if this goes on for another two years, those outside of the hard line, like donator guys, like no one's going to give a shit. And they're like, Oh, Ukraine's still going like the fuck. So you're going to And that's the issue. I mean, yeah, right. Oh, it's still happening. Yes, you fool. It is still

happening. Like that's always my favorite thing. I said, Oh, is it still going on? And I've had people in the States, like, especially friends, sometimes they're like, Oh, are you still doing that? I'm like, no, I'm just here for fun. Like, I'm here in my, you know, Bikini getting my tan in Crimea. What the hell? Like, you know, like that's that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. But it's been, we've had like, we've taken like an hour and a half of your time. So Oh, I don't have any other plans tonight. I actually cleared my schedule for this because I really wanted to talk to you guys about it. It's stuff like this is super important for us, especially like to be able to talk about it on also a non a non journalist level, like keep it

real. Like that's also a big deal too, because there are certain things that like journalists either, you know, I don't want to deal with anybody who has an agenda. Like this is purely to talk about like the what is actually happening. And I really appreciate the real approach you guys take to stuff. Oh, thank you. Thank you. And the dick jokes and the oh, they're great. They're fantastic. All the gay stuff. Yeah, nice. Don't drop the stove. Okay. I've got a husband. Okay. And he's a strong Australian man who has seen combat. Kind of like a love triangle at this point. But all right, yeah, it's so funny. But yeah, I mean, hey, guys, this comes out on Sundays. This is the regular episode. But yeah, tell your friends

about the Patreon. We have bonus stuff. That's more of Cody and I just going into an echo chamber talking about the fentanyl crisis and Kulio's assassination at them. You know, that kind of stuff. So the Chinese and how they're lowering birth rates in New Zealand by peddling drugs. Can't wait to be vindicated with that when I'm like other targeting the kids in the affluent neighborhoods to get them on a fentanyl. You might be on to something there, scoops. So, you know, Patreon, it's a dollar a week. If you are buying Starbucks, go to fucking Duncan, get the same thing with twice the caffeine, half the price, and then take the difference and spend it on the fucking patron. God dammit. It's a dollar a week, $1.25, $1.50.

Well, let's go around and have a better coffee. So do yourself a favor and don't buy bitter bucks because nobody has it. Yeah, if you guys know of any sweatshops that will make mass-produced t-shirts, that'd be sick. If you can plug us. Nice. Let me get right on it. Well, I could get you guys, if you want patches, I could get those made here. So you tell me. Probably. Oh, yeah. Just make sure my blood type's on it. Here you go. Yeah, make sure you go. All right. That is Reeva from Blue and Yellow USA. Follow it on Instagram, Twitter. Go donate a dollar or two. Help her buy some uniforms, drones, because the Russians are beating you. You need to donate because the Russians are beating you. They have more drones, and so don't let them win.

No. Nope. Don't let them win. The only good one is the dead one. Anyway, have a good one. Well said. Goodbye. Bye.