January 17th 2025
Yuriy describes through the brutal realities faced by the Ukrainian territorial defense forces. He details the unwavering spirit of everyday people standing up to defend their homeland.
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
It is January 17.
Over the past year, Russians have killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war. This year, they continue to execute people who surrender. We do this openly knowing that were being recorded by Ukrainian reconnaissance drones, and often they film this acts themselves and post them online. They take pride in killing wars who lay down their arms. They want everyone. To see how brutal they are, how deeply they hate territorial defense fighters. Because it is people from territorial defense whom Russians kill in the first place.
Why such hatred specifically for the territorial defense forces? Why are my comrades and I at maximum risk? What infuriates work so much about us? From the very start of the full scale invasion, Russian propaganda portrayed the territorial defense as a gathering of fanatics who voluntarily joined the military solely to kill Russians. For years propagandists spread tales that only crazed sadists served in the territorial defense. People who lined up to join the Army just to get weapons and finally kill Russians.
They took one real fact- we really did stand in lines for hours during the first day of a war and built a myth around it depicted territorial defense members as savages, whose sole purpose in life is to kill Russians. In reality, the territorial defense now includes not just volunteers; many were mobilized after the volunteer numbers became insufficient. None of us would have taken arms to kill Russians if they had not invaded our land with weapons and the intent to destroy our country. Killing invaders has become a way of life for thousands of very different people, not just war and the Territorial Defense.
You know, it's a very strange story. The Territorial Defense began as groups of people protecting their towns or neighborhoods with a vast majority having no real military experience before the full scale war. Now, the territorial defense fights on the hottest front lines, often hundreds of miles from their homes. They fight fiercely and bravely. And it is us, once entirely civilian people, who invaders have joined into the most relentless enemies.
The killing of prisoners of war is a horrific crime, a sign of inhumanity of true monsters. But in this war, there is no crime the Russians have not committed. I am proud to stand on the side of good, proud to be among those who fight with blood thirsty, senseless heart, risking our lives every day. Eternal glory to those who have fallen at the hands of the scum that invaded our land and let it be a reminder two wars who torture and kill prisoners- we will find you. Every last one of you.
