Alexander Zakharchenko gave an interview to Marina
Akhmedova from Expert Online/Russian Reporter, which Zakharchenko clearly
intended as one of his key PR performances in his and his backers for the post
of the DPR president, but, which thanks to Zakharcenko himself and the selected
reporter, only serves to show the so-called fifth column at its game so that
even the word "fifth" looks more and more like a placeholder for a
different word, yet almost the same but for one letter in the middle.
http://expert.ru/russian_reporter/2014/39/nachalnik-donbassa/
So first let's meet the journalist to whom
Zakharchenko spoke to. Marina Ahmedova. Works for Russian Reporter and what
could be more Russian than a reporter that is called Russian?
In one of her previous interviews, "What
Strelkov, Bes, and Others Believe and What They Are Fighting For" (July
31), Akhmedova is attributing to a local militiaman who "did not, did not
give his name," a statement that Boris Bezler, the commander of Gorlovka,
is "a psychologically sick person." Akhmedova then offers a statement
emphasized in the text in bold fonts, in which she reframes the Odessa massacre
simply as "a fire" and asserts: "In Odessa, they already forgot
about the fire. People live a peaceful life there." She then finishes her
interview with a Ukrainian officer in Slavyansk whom she quotes as saying that
captured militiamen "don't want to accept responsibility" because
their reasoning is slow--they cannot even organize themselves to be led for a
"lunch" supposedly offered to them by the Ukrainian army. The title
of the article, as indicated, is a question her answer to which Akhmedova
craftily puts into the https address of the article: "A child's tear is no
longer worth anything." That's who she is summing up the supposed cause of
Novorossiya. http://expert.ru/2014/07/31/sleza-rebenka-bolshe-nichego-ne-stoit/
In his article from October 2, "To save the
country's soul," Akhmemdova explains her mission and the meaning of the
title right at the beginning: "The goal is one--to expel war from our soul
and heart [so that the Minsk] truce would change from fragile to reinforced
concrete." She then reports on her discussion with Ukrainian POWs from the
39th territorial defense Dniepropetrovsk battalion who, as she writes, told her
that they were captured by a Russian regular army unit.
http://expert.ru/russian_reporter/2014/38/spasti-dushu-stranyi/
In other interview, she presents this particular
exchange: "Can the army be afraid of the militia? --When five people are
chasing a rat and when they corner her, she could become dangerous to any of
them." She then adds speaking to several Strelkov's soldiers from
Slavyansk: "If you had not gotten out of Slavyansk and had you not
occupied Donetsk, there would have been as many victims and shelling."
Later, in a different conversation, she suggests again that, by raising arms,
the militia was "endangering local people." Again, Akhemedova's
intended message is in her title: "We will be later ashamed of this
war."
Listenihttp://expert.ru/russian_reporter/2014/31/za-etu-vojnu-potom-budet-styidno/
After listening to her, a local at last says to
Akhmedova point-blank: “You know, you are asking such strange questions [some
of them of military character] that people in the town started to doubt whether
you are a Russian journalist.” http://expert.ru/2014/05/8/muzhiki-i-lenin/
So, now we come to Akhmedova’s “election campaign”
interview with Alexander Zakharchenko.
The title of the interview is “Chief [i.e. Chieftain] of Donbass.” This half-ironic, half-mocking twist sets the
tone. Before she gets to ask political
or military questions, she asks the aspiring leader of the Donetsk Republic: “About
what were you crying as a child?” “A car ran over my dog. I cried a lot,’ [Zakharchenko]
unhappily laughs.” After that, Akhmedova takes the reign of the discussion even
more firmly into her hands and starts “teaching” Zakharchenko about politics of
Russia, as she sees it. When Zakharchenko says that Ukraine “changed people’s
psyche and made slaves from formerly proud Slavs.”
At one point, Zakharchenko then understood that the
system treats them and sees them as slaves. To this Akhmedova retorts: “And do you
think that, in Russia, people are treated differently?” And she lets
Zakharchenko reply: “No , I don’t … I
say even more. The mistake of Russia is
that many of you—Russians [like Akhmedova]—see us as people who have revolted
because of our hunger and poverty.” In response, Akhmedova continues to lecture
Zakharchenko: “Why do you want into Russia? In Russia everything will be our
way, not your way. Our system is breaking people fast. Especially, those like
you.” “Why do you think that the [Russian] system has already broken me?”
Akhmedova then continues asking helpful, pertinent questions: “Where else do you wear a
man’s suit? … [For] Europe cannot see a man [like you] who went and dug out
from his garden a hidden machine gun any other way than as a barbarian.”
Zakharchenko then presents himself not only much as
an antithesis to Strelkov, but also as one of those who took Kurginyan’s
position against Strelkov, claiming that Stelkov and his men should have
remained in Slavyansk surrounded with all the obvious consequences for Strelkov’s
brigade and Novorossiya: “[When Akhmedova met Zakharchenko for the first time],
I was then in Boroday’s office, and Strelkov was there too. And we were
fiercely cursing [Strelkov] for surrendering Slavyansk. It was just a complete
scandal. And before I went out from there, I said the phrase: “You, Igor
Ivanovich [Strelkov], smell differently for us. … [I said that] because [and
his nostrils are growing—Akhmedova’s comment] he wanted to demolish ten-store
buildings at the outskirt of Donetsk, and that was crazy. … Because he thought
that it would be more comfortable to defend the city from the ruins. … He does not live here …”
On top of this then comes the big lie of the
interview, which either Zakharchenko himself said or which Akhmedova assigns to
him: “Ninety percent of his army did not support [Strelkov’s] ways of how to
fight this war.”
Zakharchenko then continus: “[Strelkov’s way was]
way too different. He is an officer and
he sees war as a dogma. But here we have a different war. And we tried to
explain it to him. … [This different war] does not consist in strenuous defense.
We cannot do that. … Defense needs to be built differently. … But Strelkov
tried to solve the problems at the expense of the lives of our people … We
would have it done differently.” In a word, Zakharchenko claims that Strelkov
was not fit to command because supposedly he did not know what it means to live
in Donbass … because he was not local: “He simply did not know. But we know.”
Hearing this, Akhmedova marvels: “How come that you
combine goodness with such cruelty?” As she indicates later, for her the
procession of the captured Ukrainian soldiers led through Donetsk was “cruel
and debasing.” For Akhmedova, this was a cruel act against the “human dignity”
of the soldiers sent into war in Donbass by the fascist regime in Kiev. In this
she makes sure to guess that when Zakharchenko thought of the idea of having
this “parade,” his “nostrils must have widened.”
When Zakharchenko is then telling her about one of
his soldiers who threw himself under a Ukrainian tank that tried to smash a
group of wounded militiamen lying on the ground, the one question she can ask
is why Zakharchenko did not prevent the soldier from doing so.
Then comes another revelation.
Zakharchenko, as Akhmedova presents it, declared
that “in Minsk [he] was put before a
choice—to betray or not to betray. …
They demanded that we have signed on to a demarcation line, which would mean
that we would need to give back all what we have liberated. I refused to accept this demand. This would
have been treason to the people who live there.
But I will tell you more. I have just signed my resignation letter. You
are sitting here to a man who, in two and half hours, might no longer be Prime
Minister. And you are the only journalist who knows about this. I cannot betray
my people. I did not sleep at all last night. We were deciding what to do next,
and we decided not to retreat. But if I don’t quit my position now, I will
become a traitor. That’s because they will force me to sign on to the same
demarcation line [which they demanded already in Minsk]. … They will force me
to do it.” “Who?” “Ha-ha … let’s go …”
Later Zakharchenko says that, in Minsk, he was
feeling to be out of his league. He was “annoying everyone with his questions.”
He was then told that he is “stupid, feckless and impudent.” He then supposedly
retorted that if that was a duel, he would have “slaughtered the whole their
delegation and would have been sitting already somewhere in Warsaw.
After this, they go out and are being shot at by the
Ukrainian army. After that experience on
their way back, Zakharchenko asks: “What do you think? Is Putin in the eyes of the
whole civilized world a barbarian?” And, as if this was just a rhetorical
question, Zakharchenko is then quoted affirming: “A barbarian. But if I am proud of this man
then what does it matter [what the ‘whole civilized world thinks’]?”
The interview then ends with Akhmedova describing
Zakharchenko as running away barely with a word—except for “I don’t know”—from a
local woman who, having lost her brother in the war, asked him what she should
do. Zakharchenko is then quoted, when
interrogated by Akhmedova about it: “What words can I find? What can support
her?”
Akhmedova’s last words of wisdom then define
Zakharchenko as a “maverick” (useful idiot) who, once his job is done, will be
then disposed of.
While a political scientist in me can understand (though not excuse) the penchant of the powers that be to remove true leaders like Strelkov and replace them with Zakharchenkos, much everything else that is worth anything detests such a cowardly and bastardy policy.
It is also clear--too plainly clear--why Zakharchenko is but a poor substitute for real leaders of Strelkov's or Mozgovoy's quality. The fact that Zakharchenko himself tries to make his bid here and present himself as an anti-Strelkov candidate speaks volumes and is too plain--too embarrassingly plain.
The fact that he was put or allowed himself to be put into the hands of a fifth column journalist such as Akhmedova also speaks volumes.
