Super-cemeteries, anti-military arson, Odessa tales
July-August newsletter. A variety of people beaten to a pulp in Odessa. The adventures of the war boar Demyan Ganul
On July 13, Anton Drobovych of the scandalous Institute of National Memory released designs for how its planned super-cemeteries - one for each major city - will look.
Fear not, non-Christians. Drobovych assures the public that square tombstones are available for non-believers. Perhaps some fans of Valhalla will receive them.
There’s certainly need for super-cemeteries. Mortality is three times higher than fertility this year. Under 90 thousand people were born in the first half of this year, which is 9% lower than the same period in 2023, and 50% lower than that of 2021. Before the covid pandemic, during which deaths were even higher than they are now (officially, anyway), mortality was ‘only’ two times higher than fertility.
The ministry of economics claims that Ukraine is missing 4.5 million men if it wants adequate GDP growth. The ministry claims that if there were 11.5 million people in the workforce in 2021, that figure declined to 9 million in 2023.
The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel
While little more than religion may divide the dead, plenty divides the living. A July 2 KIIS poll showed that only 44% of Ukrainians believe that ‘society is united’.
No wonder, given the ever-growing tide of civilian arson attacks against military vehicles.
On July 2, there was yet another case of anti-military arson in Odessa. In Kharkov on July 4 there was another. 4 military cars were burnt on July 10. Three men were arrested on July 12 for arson attacks against railways. There was an arson attack against a military vehicle in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region (Bander’s birthplace) on July 13. According to strana sources, a policeman was arrested in the Cherkassy region for his attacks on railway infrastructure on July 14. Another on July 27 in the capital. There were another three cases of anti-military arson in Odessa and Izyum on June 29.
On July 31, the mayor of Kharkiv stated that there had been 40 arson attacks in the region. He claimed they were paid 20,000 to 40,000 hryvnia by Russian telegram accounts. Given the long prison sentences, it’s hard to believe that people are motivated only by the money. But that’s what law enforcement claimed when it arrested another arsonist on July 26 in the Cherkassy region.
Three military vehicles and two railway transformers were attacked on August 2. On August 6, there were eight arson attacks against military vehicles across the country.
In truth, it’s impossible to catalogue all the cases. Hopefully this taste is indicative of the scale.
No wonder Oleg Romanov, an Azov officer, released a video on July 30 commanding his fighters to shoot on sight any civilians trying to destroy military vehicles:
I give my soldiers verbal permission to shoot those bastards on the spot; such traitors must be eliminated on the spot, relying on wartime measures. They should not take up the energy of any of our law enforcement agencies. Such things should be exemplary. This is a Colorado beetle that needs to be exterminated.
An explanatory note - people of putatively pro-Russian views are called ‘Colorado beetles’ by Ukrainian nationalists, since this insect is colored orange and black, like the ribbon of St George worn by Red Army veterans (the ribbon itself has Tsarist origins).
Meanwhile, mobilization officers are angry that many soldiers are sticking ‘not mobilization officers’ (TCC) posters on their vehicles. The mobilization officer Oleksandr Matsko said the following in a July 3 interview:
A decorated soldier approaches, bearded and looking handsome in his multicam uniform, with a pistol hanging at his side, going to buy something in the store. And I'm looking at this car, my eyes widen, on this jeep there's a big red sign with 'TCC' crossed out. My cigarette fell from my mouth, I'm standing there, and the cigarette is on the ground. This is the military's attitude towards the Territorial Defense Centers (TCC)
Odessa tales
Odessa continues to be an epicenter of resistance to militarism.
Six young delivery couriers were arrested in Odessa on July 29 for setting military vehicles on fire - they face up to 8 years in prison. They apparently destroyed 15 military SUVs over the course of two weeks. The arsonists worked in pairs - one set the vehicle on fire, the other filmed it. They sent the videos to a telegram group ‘to get quick money’, in the words of the Ukrainian security services (SBU).
Interestingly, though the security services accuse them of fulfilling the orders of the Russian FSB, they weren’t charged with state treason. Another indication that these arsonists aren’t motivated simply by money. That they have plenty of reason to commit these acts, without being incited by devious FSB agents.
A 17-year old Odessan threw Molotov cocktail into a mobilization office in Vynnytsia region on July 31. Naturally, the SBU describes the 17 year old as an ‘FSB agent’, and provided a range of screenshots proving he was acting on Russian orders.
On July 19, mobilization officers who tried to capture a man at Odessa’s famous Privoz market ran into some problems. Crowds blocked police cars from assisting in the officers, and gunshots rang out. In videos uploaded to local telegram channels, a shirtless man can be seen firing a gun into the air around the police car, which is surrounded by a laughing crowd.
On July 2, a veteran was severely beaten in Odessa. The cause - he asked partiers if they had served. The army soon came out with a public statement questioning the masculinity of those who beat the soldier.
A drunk man killed his taxi driver in Odessa on July 25 - local media claims the murderer was a soldier. Perhaps soldiers are angry about the civilian arsonist epidemic. A blogger reported that soldiers crashed into a civilian car in Kharkov on July 22, destroying it totally and escaping the scene.
On July 3, three young Odessan women were arrested by the SBU. Aged 19-23, they face life in prison for helping the Russian army target military objects in the city. They walked around and pretended to take selfies near them. They received money for their services and hoped to be evacuated to Russia and work in the secret services there.
Perhaps the women are in luck. On July 25, the government stated its intention to exchange collaborators for soldiers. Such plans are caused by objective factors. Dmytro Lubinets, the state human rights ombudsman, stated on July 9 that Ukraine’s lack of a sufficient number of Russian POWs is making prisoner exchange impossible.
Language battles
On July 3, it emerged that Kyiv (Kiev?), Kharkiv (Kharkov?) and Odesa (Odessa?) are the leaders in terms of violation of Ukraine’s strict new laws limiting the use of any language other than Ukrainian.
There was yet another language scandal in the southern city on July 13. Some patriotic women demanded other beachgoers to turn off the Soviet pop-hit ‘White Roses’. The other beachgoers told the patriots to ‘read the constitution’, which does not forbid the playing of Russian-language music.
In fact, a July 15 government investigation found that the amount of schoolchildren using Ukrainian has fallen. If 91% of Ukrainian schoolchildren claimed Ukrainian was their native language in 2023, this had fallen to 74% in 2023/4. The figures were supposedly higher among their parents. All in all, another example of how self-declared ‘native language’ is a political choice. Children often have less understanding of the stakes of giving the right answer.
A woman was run out of a cafe in Zatoka, a town in the Odessa region, after asking to be served in Ukrainian on August 2. The victim also uploaded a video of her notifying the police about the incident - a man can be heard behind the frame saying that ‘it’s because of people like you that we’ll be fighting this war our whole life’. A government official dedicated to fighting for the hegemony of the Ukrainian language soon became involved, claiming that a local deputy was the owner of the cafe in question.
War boar
Odessa’s beneficiaries of war haven’t taken all this lying down.
On July 3, an Odessan named Vadym swore at a military veteran without legs. In the video uploaded by the veteran (and veterinarian) Oleksiy Prytula, Vadym can be seen telling him to ‘get fucked’ when Prytula states he cannot stand up.
The same day, these two fellows came to his house, uploading videos knocking on his door and waiting outside his apartment.
Vadym was forced to apologize the same day. He claimed on camera he wasn’t angry because of the prosthetic legs, but because he felt that Prytula was acting rudely towards him.
In the apology video, Prytula (right), was accompanied by the same ‘patriotic activists’ in the previous videos, such as the man on the left in the ‘M8L8TH’ band t-shirt. M8L8TH means ‘Hitler’s hammer’, and is headed by the famous Russian neo-nazi Alexey Levkin, a big fan of Anders Breivik and the leader of Kiev’s ‘Russian Volunteer Corps’.
What about the other ‘patriotic activist’, the wild boar in a bucket hat? He’s quite a well-known personality - Demyan Ganul. A veteran of euromaidan (how else), the ‘anti-terrorist operation’ in the Donbass, and a local leader of Right Sector. He also proudly took part in the 2014 May 2 massacre in Odessa, where over 40 Ukrainian citizens, mainly pensioners, were burnt and beaten to death by brave patriots like Ganul. He celebrated the events in 2020 by having a barbeque at the location of the fire.
In 2016, he left Right Sector. It was never really a coherent organization, merely a coalition grouping for nationalists during maidan. After Right Sector, he led a new NGO called ‘Street Front’. According to ever-unbiased Ukrainian wikipedia, Street Front “united around itself eco- and animal rights activists, fighters for justice, patriots, and simply concerned residents of the city of Odesa".
In 2020, he ran for a local seat representing Azov’s National Corps party, but failed to get enough votes. That hasn’t stopped him from appointing himself as the guarantor of public morality in the city.
Ganul is constantly either attacking someone or claiming to be under mortal threat by pro-Russian forces in the city.
In March 2023, he was stopped by police in a Cadillac Escalade with EU license plates. Law enforcement found three VOG fragmentation ammunition for a grenade launcher, an RGD-5 grenade, and 30 rounds of 5.45 mm caliber bullets. Naturally, he was soon back on the streets in his new ride. He claimed the car was intended for use at the frontline, and was in Odessa for repairs. Odessan media noted that he had been publicly gathering money for ‘frontline vehicles’ a year earlier, and that local witnesses never saw the car leave the city.
Back to the present. On July 6, a fitness trainer got angry at mobilization officers who had come to his gym - and not to lift weights. In characteristically Odessan fashion, he yelled:
I don't give a fuck that you fought, everyone who fights there is a fucking idiot. You are slaves. Go on and keep fighting until you die. You are not human to me, you are a scumbag. I hope you die, I hope all of you there die.
Mr Ganul caught up with the trainer the same day, and proudly uploaded the following:
Ganul then uploaded a video of him putting the trainer into a mobilization minivan - the same vehicles that are constantly under attack by arsonists. ‘Slava Ukraini’, Ganul tells the camera.
Ganul subtitled the video as follows:
Well and here’s the conclusion of the story with the bull trainer who insulted soldiers.
He got his summons straight away and went to get his medical examination.
I supervised his transfer to the minibus, now the soldiers will have the opportunity to ask him why he wished death upon them.
Interestingly, a parliamentarian called for Ganul to be criminally charged. While Dmytruk, the parliamentarian, condemned the trainer’s anti-military stance, he claimed that Ganul just worsened the situation. Dmytruk warned that Ganul’s actions would only increase the amount of anti-government sentiment in the city:
Odessans are scared that some Ganul will break into their home tomorrow, rob, beat them and go unpunished
Dmytruk noted the the previously apolitical trainer’s instagram was now filled with anti-Ukrainian, ‘pro-Russian’ memes - but only after his encounter with Ganul. Dmytruk is worth paying attention to. I wrote about Dmytruk recently here - he supported pro-peace bloggers. In return, militarist telegrams worried that with current trends, the amount of support for ‘Dmytruks’ would only increase.
In any case, Ganul yet again went unpunished. On July 12, Ganul announced that the trainer had been ‘successfully mobilized’ - into the Azov batallion. Ganul promised that ‘work will be done with him’ in the battalion. No doubt. On August 3, Ganul called on TV for soldiers to kill arsonists on military vehicles on sight.
A positive note?
As I said earlier, Ganul often complains of being victimized by the local ‘separatist/pro-Russian’ mayor Trukhanov, and the Odessan elite generally. In May 2023, he was severely beaten, which he blamed on Trukhanov
And following his crushing defeat of the fitness trainer, on July 24 Ganul once again сlaimed he is under threat:
Various Russian information resources have announced a reward of $5,000 - $10,000 for an attack on me. Russian agents feel very free in Ukraine, as evidenced by the regular arson of Ukrainian Armed Forces vehicles and the horrific murder of linguist Iryna Farion in Lviv in broad daylight.
Considering all the risks, today I sent the relevant statements to the head of the SBU in the Odesa region, Viktor Dorovsky, and the head of the main police department in the Odesa region, Ivan Zhuk. I ask them to review these statements immediately and apply the appropriate procedural measures.
Right now, I need the help of the state. I want to be able to protect myself and my loved ones.
Interesting thank you.