ICTV published a story about “how Ukrainians in the east have changed their attitude towards the war”. It was reported that the correspondent of the channel Vladislav Kruglov interviewed 150 people. One of the respondents emotionally said that before the appearance of “For Ukrainians” [those who are pro-Ukraine – ed] there was “silence and peace”.
The story was continued when the journalist himself posted a full video on his social media page, in which a resident of Rubezhnoye disputes with him and asks to draw the attention of the SBU, police, activists, military, and president. And he also called the man he was interviewing “riffraff”.
He later deleted his post, but it had already started to be discussed online. The Ukrainian “Strana” news agency dealt with this case.
How the resident of Rubezhnoye argued with the journalist
A 7-minute video appeared online showing an ICTV journalist arguing with a local resident during the poll. Here is the full text of their conversation.
“Do you support that the withdrawal is now taking place in Donbass?” asked the journalist.
“Well, in my opinion, only a moron wouldn’t support it. A big moron may say that they shouldn’t be withdrawn. These are people without honour or conscience, just making money from it and shouting. They earn money from war – they need war. That’s it.”
“And what choice would Rubezhnoye make if what happened in 2014 happened now?”
“I think if Rubezhnoye knew what would happen next, Rubezhnoye would immediately stand up and go to that side [LPR – ed], so that this mess is not seen. Something like that. Or do you like what’s going on? This is complete lawlessness. The police are generally zero, they only put on a uniform, but their contents has become even worse. Well, do you like that?”
“I’m asking you about the war”
“What am I talking about? Or did you think I was speaking to you about Mars?”
I just ask you, what now would Rubezhnoye choose – Russia or Ukraine?
“What does Russia have to do with it? Let’s start right away that Russia has nothing to do with it. You were here in 2014? How many people there were for Ukraine? I was here, too. They brought disabled people out of the boarding school on purpose. Rubezhnoye is the territory of Ukraine, but you understand that we have a different Ukraine. You have a fascist Ukraine – I have a normal Ukraine. We had silence in the city, peace. When some holidays – the police came only to block roads. And now there are morons with machine guns. You think that’s okay? Before the appearance of, well like yours, ‘for Ukrainians’, we had silence and peace. And the mess was there [on Ukrainian territory – ed]. Here people went to work, and there [Ukrainian territory – ed] they went to rallies for money. Am I not right? Or would you say that people went in a rush to unseat… who? People ended up knee deep. Or am I wrong, do you see something good?”
After that, the exchange began. The journalist replied that he was not obliged to answer. But then he started making arguments.
In Ukraine in 5 years an army was created that didn’t exist before.
“Does it exist now? Why aren’t you in the army? Because you’re a coward, most likely. What is next up after the army. Pensioners, how do they live? Economics?… What does ‘LPR’ have to do with it? You ruined the country, and now you’re talking what if the LPR was there. Were you at the LPR? Have you seen Russian troops? Who were people hiding in basements from? From Ukrainian artillery. And you know it very well if you’ve been here. There are no troops here at all.”
The journalist tried to move away and interrupt the interview.
“So it turned out that you are just a bigmouth. I know you’ll cut it out. So then clean up everything. Because you say ‘Here there was an occupation’, it means you weren’t here. And you are just blah-blah-blah. And now you will start to fling mud, saying ‘here the man said, he is bad’. You weren’t here, you didn’t see anything, but you talk nonsense, like ‘I am a fighter on the information front.‘
Here in general there was nobody, in general! Whoever could enter here. Some came for cigarettes, others came for cigarettes. And you say it was occupation. In foreign reports it was written that fights lasted 4 days. Here there was no shots in general. Two Ukrainian shells arrived in the cemetery and destroyed graves. Are you afraid of the truth? And in order to not be scared go there. Show how it is there and here. And then there will be the truth. There is a saying ‘the further into the forest, the thicker the partisans are’. The further away from the front line, the more Russian troops there are for some reason. And most importantly, Kiev knows better than us how they fight here.”
“Real riffraff”: Correspondence reply from a journalist
The program “We no longer want the LPR! How Ukrainians in the East changed their attitudes to war” was aired on ICTV on November 4th. In the sub-report it was reported that ICTV “Facts” conducted a survey in Severodonetsk, Lisichansk, and Rubezhnoye. People were asked if they were freed from pro-Russian sentiment, if they saw themselves as a part of Ukraine or dreamed of friendship with Russia in secret. Among the respondents were fragments with a local resident arguing with the journalist.
On the same day, the author of the program commented on it on his Facebook page, calling those like his opponent on the video “real riffraff”: “70/30 is how I estimated the mood of people in the east after interviewing more than 150 people in Rubezhnoye, Severodonetsk, and Lisichansk. The majority are 70% pro-Ukrainian, and 30% are ardent separatists! Opinion changes, but not as quickly as we would like. By the way, pay attention to the contingent that advocates separation from Ukraine or federalisation… Sorry, they are drunkards or real riffraff, which even insults without saying hello!”
And a little later the journalist himself posted a full fragment of the interview with the debater and accompanied it with a post. In it he called on the SBU to deal with the man in the video and asked to send information about the resident of Rubezhnoye via PM, and if someone recognises him, to prevent such people from speaking out.
“My dears, I want to show you the full piece of the interview. No cutting and editing. Rubezhnoye. Early October 2019. I am conducting a survey of people to see if the mood in the east has changed in almost 6 years of war… And then! I do not know what the name of this lover of the ‘Russian World’, he did not introduce himself,” said the journalist in a post devoted to him. He added that his friends said that the man took part in pro-Russian rallies in 2014.
“You know, it was vexing to hear in my address that I allegedly lie about my presence in Rubezhnoye in the summer of 2014. In fact, I don’t boast, because I had to simply survive among such morons. It is unfortunate how he speaks about all of us, those who are in favour of Ukraine. How garbage flows from his dirty mouth towards the military…!” wrote the journalist.
He added that under Poroshenko nobody was punished for separatism. And that he would be grateful if such “patriots” are brought to the attention of the SBU, activists, state authorities, the president himself, military, journalists, and the police.
“We will not let such people continue to speak out in Ukraine. This is it!” wrote Kruglov, and asked to make public the ID of the man in the video and comment on the post, and to send to him via PM information about his opponent. “We will make the separatist known, because he so wanted to be shown!” summed up the journalist. In the tags he included the SBU, police, and the president.
However, after a while Kruglov deleted his post. But the situation itself has already started to be discussed online.
What is being written on social networks
Journalist Dmitry Vasilets wrote that the “journalist” of ICTV “ran to the SBU to snitch on a citizen of Ukraine for a comment unfavourable to his mental structure that he himself asked for”.
“It is no secret to anyone that most of the conflict in Donbass has been set on fire by journalists and members of an odious and marginalised aggressive minority, moreover, as practice showed, they did it for banal profit and looting of the country for the benefit of foreign beneficiaries of the conflict in Donbass.
I present to your attention the ‘journalist’ of Pinchuk‘s TV channel ICTV, who ran to the SBU to snitch on a citizen of Ukraine for a comment unfavourable to his mental structure that he himself asked for!
This more than clearly demonstrates the ‘journalistic standards’ of this TV channel and the quality of the people who work there, including, of course, the owner.
If anyone has that guy in the video’s contact details, send it, please, I want to make sure the SBU devils don’t start doing shit. And if suddenly they start to make them regret it quickly and strongly…” wrote Vasilets.
“Rubezhnoye. Lugansk region. The moment a journalist wanted to interview a local resident, but something went wrong,” wrote the journalist Vyacheslav Chechilo
In the comments he asked how they intended to live in the same country with such an attitude towards each other.
“The further away from the frontline, the more fighting. You weren’t here, but you know better than I what happened here. He beautifully put the dumb ICTV propagandist is their place,” wrote the head of the Housing Union of Ukraine Aleksandr Skubchenko.
Viktoriya Venk
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