Fighting For Ukraine Yuriy Matsarsky

May 3rd 2024
Yuriy heads to a frontline combat zone, where he captures a day in the life of the relentless battles, moments of respite in a peaceful town, and the stark realization of the thin line separating wartime chaos from everyday normalcy.
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
It is 3rd of May. 
Full scale war in Ukraine has been ongoing for exactly 800 days now. These are 800 days of pain, despair, unbearable suffering, and incredible heroism. The Russians intended to conquer us within a month to subjugate and then destroy us. We've been resistant for a third year now and have no intention of surrendering.
Now, let me tell you a story that I find fitting to share on this bloody anniversary while you take a look at the description of this podcast there are GoFundMe and Buy Me A Coffee details to help me and my loved ones. Remember, the only monetization of this podcast is your support, which is always necessary and always welcome. Thank you. 
So the story, I spent some time with a unit holding positions on one over hot sports over front the guys' positions were in a semi destroyed building a few hundred meters from the Russian invaders. The battles there were constant; five people who could fit into this building fired several crates of ammunition and RPG shots per day. Every two days, the fighters were replaced. The exhausted five in the early morning while it was still dark, left the position and fresh five soldiers loaded with crates of ammunition, took over the position and began fighting the Russians. 
Those who were replaced, got into a Jeep and drove to rest. They had two days to recover and return to hell. They rested in a regular country house on the outskirts of a small town. From the positions where bloody battles raged, it took only 30 to 40 minutes to drive to this house no more, and it was truly impressive. Here you are in a ruined settlement, much of which has already been ceased by the Russians, where you can only move stealthily, where the gunfire never ceases for a second and just a half an hour's drive, you are in a town where cafes work, where a supermarket where people are busy with some ordinary things working: going on dates, buying ice cream for their kids. 
Shells from Russian artillery don't reach this town, so it leaves relatively peaceful despite the fact that the battles are region very close to it. Relatively peaceful because there are no longer any cities or towns in Ukraine where the Russians could not reach. We wear ballistic missiles. A shell from a howtizer can fly 30 miles and that's it. A missile flies thousands of miles and it's very difficult to intercept. But that's a story for another time. Now, it's about the guys who rested in an almost peaceful town and returned to the war hell every few days.
I will probably never forget the feeling that struck me when I rode with them in the dark to their positions. At first, we drove along a well lit street surrounded by billboards of pizzerias and Japanese cafes. The guys in the Jeep joked and laughed, but as soon as we left the town, the jokes stopped. The street lights disappeared, and the road became worse and worse- heavy military vehicles going back and forth had destroyed it. Soon the driver turned off the headlights and drove in the dark, as if guided by some sixth sense as if he were a Jedi, who felt the way even when he could not see it. If the headlights were left on the enemy would see us and try to hit us with fire from mortars and heavy machine guns. In an un armored Jeep, that would b

April 30th 2024
Yuriy reflects on surviving the brutal realities of war in Ukraine, highlighting the devastating losses and the haunting presence of overcrowded cemeteries. 
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
 It is April 30. 
I met a guy of whom we stood in line to enlist in the Army on the second day of the full scale invasion. He was greatly surprised because as it turned out, there are very few of us- those we are in service from the first days -who are still alive today. He said straight out, "look, we are still alive even for we were going to die back when we had almost no chance of survival and yet here we are." 
Indeed, looking back, you realize that we really walked on the edge, that through bloodbath of the first months of war we were pulled only by a miracle. And for some reason it was us and not the hours. A couple of days after meeting this guy, I was at a cemetery. It was the anniversary of a death of a person from the unit where I now serve. The cemetery is not in the largest city of Ukraine and there are entire alleys of graves of people killed by Russians since 2022. 
I cannot convey with feelings, this despair when you see endless graves of very young guys and girls, who were buried only because with stupid Russian fuhrer decided to destroy Ukrainians and his spineless slaves went to carry out his senseless desire of an old idiot. 
Every day, several war dead are buried in this cemetery, and I repeat, this is far from the largest city and this is not the only cemetery in it. It's so painful, it's almost unbearable, and this unbearable feeling grows more and more. I understand that the war could last for years. That means for years the size of cemeteries will grow. For years, the number of widow and orphans will increase. 
We won't lose, we won't retreat, we have nowhere to retreat. We either win or simply disappear and we don't want to disappear, but what to do with this feeling of horror from overcrowded cemeteries, from crying mothers and children? I don't know. For everyone lucky enough to survive over war and see peace, it'll be difficult because of understanding of the price of victory. 
God, how many people could have been saved, how many parents would have returned to their children? How many destinies would not have been ruined? If we had enough modern weapons, if it were the Russians, not us, who hit every day from a missile attacks and airstrikes. But unfortunately, this did not happen. And for the lack of iron, the best of us have to pay with blood. Pay literally, with the future of Ukraine, young guys and girls, brave and smart.  

April 22nd 2024
Yuriy gives an account of survival in the war-torn Ukrainian cities occupied by Russia for a decade, unveiling the struggles, atrocities, and resilience of the locals in the "Women's People's Republics."
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
  It's April 22. 
Several people serving with me come from the part of Donbass that was occupied by Russia back in 2014.  Back then, they seized Donetsk, Luhansk, and several smaller towns. Thousands fled the occupation immediately. Some stayed, trying to adapt somehow, but later had to flee. The Russians did not admit at that time that it was their occupation of Ukrainian cities. Their official stance was that it was rebellion by local pro Russian residents who formed their own states, the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. 
In reality, these pseudo- republics were just a cover for the occupiers. Russian military and officials ran everything there, quickly seized local businesses from the residents, throwing wealthy inhabitants out onto the streets and settling in their homes. Those who resisted were either killed or fled to the free part of Ukraine after beatings and abuse. My comrade, who is from Luhansk, told me he had spent several weeks in a basement where Russian FSB agents beat him daily just because he served in the Ukrainian army in the early '90s, which seemed suspicious to the occupiers. He was released only because the Russians brought in a new batch of Ukrainian prisoners and there was not enough space and some of the old ones were just thrown out. He immediately left the occupied city and joined the Ukrainian army. He's been at war for 10 years. 10! And he dreams every day of going home. Home which is still occupied by the Russians. 
What's happening now with the Ukrainian cities occupied for a whole decade is a complete horror. Russians don't really care much about their own cities. Except maybe Moscow and a couple of wealthy regional capitals and the occupied Ukrainian cities have turned into garbage dumps. Literally. Trash hasn't been collected for years, sewage systems aren't repaired, roads aren't built, and they've mostly engaged in looting and plundering. And human trafficking. Russians always have a shortage of cannon fodder, they put all reasonable healthy prisoners in their prisons into uniform, lured all the greedy fools with high salaries, but still they lack people. So, local gangs catch men on the streets of occupied Ukrainian cities and sell them to military unit commanders, who then drive these unfortunate souls in human waves toward Ukrainian positions. 
There are constant problem with electricity in the occupied territories because all the electricians were stolen from the streets and sent to war. Public transport hardly operates because drivers and mechanics are killed in human waves, and there are hardly any man on the streets who have not been caught by the patrols of human traffickers hide in their homes behind closed doors. Locals sarcastically call these fake Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics the Women's People's Republics, because there are no men left there.
Just imagine a town with only women and really old men in it. It's unbelievable, but it's true. No man's land in a very specific sense. Specific and horrible. 

April 19th 2024
Yuriy reveals the harsh reality of war in Ukraine, highlighting the grim consequences of every dollar that can buy bullets to kill Ukrainians, emphasizing the urgent need to strip Russia of its means for war.
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
  It is April 19. 
One bullet for Kalashnikov costs about 50 cents. You can buy two bullets for a dollar, theoretically, with two lives. $1 equals minus two lives. It's simple math. It can't get any simpler. The point of sanctions imposed against Russia is precisely to leave Russians with as little money as possible, so we don't have the means repair weapons, build tanks, or buy bullets. 
When the so-called Russian opposition starts complaining that the average people are suffering because of the sanctions, and that's why they should be lifted, they are playing into the kremlin's hands. You can't take money only from the state and leave the money for the people. That's not how it works. The state's money is the taxes people pay and the less money they have, the fewer taxes they pay, and the less where state can buy tanks and bullets. Those who call for the lifting or easing of sanctions are either fools who don't understand whether state's money comes from or they're working for Putin, pretending to be his enemies. 
Russians who fled to the West, love to talk about how Russian people are not to blame for the war, how people don't support the occupation of Ukrainian lands and the killing of Ukrainians, but they are lying. Just read what Russians writes about the war- by the way, I've counted about  30 insulting names for Ukrainians. With this supposedly entire war, people have come up with. Just watch videos from the first days of a full scale invasion when thousands of people in Russia, were celebrating. They were genuinely celebrating dancing on the streets, having picnics near the border with Ukraine to see missiles flying towards our cities, and they were very, very happy about each of these missiles. 
The so-called Russian opposition is a bunch of fools Putin's agents and people living in a fantasy world where the war can end without Putin's defeat, without destroying his army and without returning the occupied territories. Let me remind you once again that for a dollar you can buy two bullets for an AK that can kill two Ukrainians, and we need to make sure that Russia does not have that dollar so it cannot even buy war to bullets, because if Russia has even one less dollar, it'll spend it not on bread for the old person, not on the school notebook for a child, but on war. Because killing the Ukrainians rather than caring for its citizens, it's the only purpose of Russia's existence now. There's nothing else. 

April 16th 2024
Tasked with writing for an American media outlet, Yuriy delves into the complex ties between Ukrainians and the Russian opposition during the ongoing conflict, aiming to shed light on the nuanced perceptions in a turbulent landscape.
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
  It is April 16. 
A couple of weeks ago a major American media outlet- one that is truly democratic and reputable- asked me to write an article about how Ukrainians perceive the Russian opposition now and how much this opposition can help Ukrainians in their fight against the aggressor. I gladly accepted the task. I wrote about how out of tens of millions of Russians, only a few stood against the first stage of the war, the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The vast majority, including those now considered opposition figures were not opposed to the occupation of part of another country. 
I wrote that most of most Russians who now live peacefully abroad and talk about suffering under Putin's regime lived comfortably in Russia when, starting from 2014, this regime was killing Ukrainians daily in Donbas and was almost openly preparing to occupy the entire Ukraine. These people fled Russia only when Putin announced mobilization and they faced the risk of becoming cannon fodder in this war. Before that, they were not particularly concerned about the war. 
I wrote about how the luminaries of Russian culture- contemporary writers, poets, composers -who fled to the West and supposedly opposed Putin have still not determined their position on the war. They even dare to publicly declare that they are not ready to support the Ukrainian army. In other words, they still cannot fully understand that supporting the Ukrainian army is a truly noble cause, that this army is the only force that is currently saving Europe from the genocidal horde of Russian military criminals. 
I wrote all this, sent it to the editorial office, and the editor, who was supposed to publish this text, replied to me. She said she was expecting a completely different text, that she needed a text about how Ukrainians see Russians as friends, that the war is all about Putin and maybe a few people around him. 
According to the editor, it would be painful and uncomfortable to the readers of her outlet to read about how even opposition Russians are perceived by Ukrainians as enemies. She is convinced that what is happening in Russia now is something unusual, some deviation, that Russians are actually against war and killings, against occupation and concentration camps and she expected me to write exactly about it. 
But such a text would be a science fiction, moreover less scientific and more fictional. You can't live in illusions in the third year of the war, thinking that only Putin wants this war. That Russians are his hostages who are simply forced to kill, rape, loot and destroy entire cities against their will. There are no two Russias, bad and good, there is only one, which lives by war, dreams of destroying Ukraine and is committing genocide against an entire nation. And even if you don't read about it in a reputable liberal outlet, it does not change the situation. Ignoring the problem does not solve it; it only makes it worse. 

April 12th 2024
Yuriy shares the importance of carrying Ukrainian flags with him wherever he goes, spreading hope and unity in the midst of chaos and destruction.
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
  It's April 12, 
Friends, I'm very grateful to you for your help. You can't even imagine how important it is. Thanks to you, I have opportunity sometimes to forget about our constant horror, to distract myself from the war. Without your help, I could not buy books for my daughter, which she needs for studying, set aside money for a trip to see my parents, whom I still dream of seeing alive, support my family, and not fall into complete despair. All this is possible because of you. If I could, I would hug each and everyone of you tightly. 
I want to tell you about one thing that I always carry with me. Of course, I always have my gear, combat boots, body armor and weapons. And also a first aid kit, power banks, and e-reader. But that's not all. I always carry a Ukrainian flag with me. It's always in my bag. And not just one. I try to have several. From time to time, I replenish my supply of flags, which quickly run out. 
They run out because I give them away. I give them to soldiers who have moved to new positions, leaving their flags behind at the old ones. I give them to civilians in liberated territories where the Russians have destroyed everything even remotely connected to Ukraine. I once gave a flag to an old woman in a liberated village. When the Russians came, she took down her flag, which had been flying over her house, wrapped it in a plastic bag and buried it somewhere in her garden. She didn't want the occupiers to destroy it. And then she forgot where she buried it, so she took mine, but she promised to give it back to me as soon as she found hers. She's a wonderful person. I hope she's doing well. 
Children in frontline cities also eagerly take the flags. They wave them when convoys of military vehicles pass by their cities on their way to the front, when helicopters fly over their homes, when funeral processions with a coffin or those killed by occupiers, pass through where streets. Maybe some over flags are distributed are now flying over the cemeteries. I've already told you about the tradition of placing flags over the graves of fallen soldiers. So our flags are important both for living and for the dead. 
That's why they run out so quickly and need to be bought again. Such a simple flag- blue on top and yellow on the bottom- but it contains so much meaning, so much sense. Now, it's a true symbol of a free world, of freedom itself, and I'm happy and proud to give my flags to people. For me, it's an honor to be one who can share such an important symbol. By the way, I share this honor with you. Because I replenish my stock of flags thanks to your help too. So, thank you once again.