The Truth Russia Doesn’t Want You to Hear: Ben Goldhagen Breaks It Down

Benjamin “Ben” Goldhagen is a human rights advocate and war documentarian whose work centers on exposing the human cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and countering disinformation surrounding the conflict. The son of a Holocaust survivor, he frames his advocacy through a moral and historical lens that emphasizes the dangers of unchecked brutality and “eliminationist” violence. After the full-scale invasion began, Goldhagen embedded himself in Ukraine, documenting frontline realities, displacement, and civilian resilience while supporting Ukrainian communities through strategic guidance and storytelling. His films—To The Zero Line and The Steel Porcupine—spotlight the lived experiences of Ukrainians and argue that meaningful international support, including modern weaponry, is both a humanitarian and moral imperative. Through his fieldwork, writing, and documentary projects, he seeks to preserve truth, confront disinformation, and amplify the voices of those living through the war.

 

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Episode Transcript

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the mission. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. Now, my guest,
this is going to be a very cool conversation. I
don't know how cool I could talk about war as
but Ukraine has been under the pressure from Russia to

(03:20):
give up its resources and its assets, and it's people
along the way and the gentleman that I have today
to speak about that, and on behalf of that is
Benjamin Goldhagen.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
Welcome to the show. Benjamin.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Hey, Ras, I love your show, and it's really great
to be talking to you and also to the people
who watch your show, because I think they have a
better idea of life and I never knew that before
I went to Ukraine than most people in civilian life.
It's the same all over.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
That's very kind of you to start the show off
with saying those nice words. I'm grateful and I'm stoked
and I know you've been on the front lines. Like
in the very beginning, I'm going to dive into your
bio real quick, Ben and just let our listener hear
a little bit about you, and then we'll crack you
open like an egg. Okay, so stand by, Here we go,
Here we go. I'm pretty good. Okay, here is okay.

(04:16):
So if you want to find out more about Benjamin,
you can go to Hartcastmedia dot com forward slash Benjamin
Dash Goldhagen.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
I'm just going to tell you that.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
And Benjamin Goldhagen is a committed human rights advocate and
expert on Ukraine, deeply immersed in the region's geopolitical dynamics
and humanitarian challenges. As the son of a Holocaust survivor,
Benjamin's personal history fuels his unwavering dedication to preventing atrocities
and promoting human dignity. When Russia launched its full scale
invasion of Ukraine, Benjamin swiftly moved to the front lines,

(04:47):
providing critical insights and firsthand documentation of the conflict. His
works highlight the resilience and spirit of the Ukrainian people
as they navigate the complexities of war and resistance against
eliminationist forces seeking to undermine their sovereignty and cultural identity.
Benjamin collaborates extensively with Ukrainian communities, offering strategic support and

(05:07):
advocating for policies that bolster Ukraine's fight for freedom and justice.
His expertise extends to combating Russian disinformation, ensuring that truthful
narratives prevail in the global discourse surrounded to conflict.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
There's more.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Through his relentless advocacy and deep understanding of Ukraine's socio
political landscape, Benjamin Goldhagen plays a vital role in shaping
international perspectives and fostering meaningful support for Ukraine's enduring struggle
for peace and human rights. Okay, now let's welcome again
Benjamin to the show.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Thank you, and I swear to God I did not
write that. I'm really impressed.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
I have to say, you know, it's wonderful to have
you on and we could use a beacon of truth
in a sea full of poop.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, well, it's a whole lot of things.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
I went this misinformation is what I'm trying to say.
You know, of like you do we.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
Believe where do we go? Why? Why do we believe?

Speaker 2 (06:06):
You? But you know, because what I went there because
I wanted to tell the I wanted the world to understand,
because I understood before this war what happens in the
information space in a conflict when there's a genocidal when
there's a genocidal conflict, which is what this is. And

(06:29):
the history of these things is that when the fighting
goes on in wherever place it is, and then some
of these conflicts are genocidal, and you know, the ideas
to wipe out Russia's ideas to wipe out all Ukrainians.
And I wanted to connect the dots. I went there
so that people could understand that a missile strike against

(06:52):
a hospital is more than a war crime, is part
of the systematic attempt to wipe out the people, which
is what we've seen I'm doing, uh, And we can
get more into that, so that that really became my
mission in storytelling and film and filming is to connect
the dots so people understand not just that there's fighting,

(07:12):
but what the fighting's about.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
And so if I were to bring up the steel porcupine, Yeah,
what would you talk about with the steel porcupine as
a film?

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, I started it when Donald Trump became president. I
was working on a different film at the time. It's
still about Ukraine. But I realized when he became president
that which was you know, just at the beginning of
this year, that there were two really critical factors that

(07:46):
would determine what this what this year of war was about.
And one was the geopolitical alignment, and the other was
industrial competition. And that and that this need to be
this needed to be explained in a way, in a
dramatic way, and that unfortunately, the fighting on the battlefield
is kind of a holding pattern while the politics get

(08:10):
sorted out and while both sides arm up basically for
the next phase of the war, which is what we're
entering right now. So I turned to geopolitics because you know, everybody,
you know, your audience is they're interested in fighting, but
everybody who fights knows that politics is a big factor

(08:33):
in a war. So that's that's really the direction that
I wanted to take. I can talk about what it's about,
but that was the mentality, my mentality in making this
film at this.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Time, the steal Porcupine, and I just wanted to kind
of like, you know, put that out there because you
did make the steal porcupine, you know, and you do
have an understanding of what's going on. And there's a
cool photo on your bio. Let me look at that
real quick here. Maybe I saw it on another piece,
but it's like it shows you with a press with
a full plate carrier on over you know, a brown

(09:04):
you know, tactical jacket with you know, like a nice
combat helmet with you know, ear protection, and you got
your camera and you're looking like at a Russian T
ten T something tank, some type of Soviet looking or
Ukrainian tank.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
I'm not sure exactly what that is.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
And there's other press there and so I mean, if
you can and my listener, I know I'm not showing
it right now if you're watching on YouTube, but if
you were to go to Hardcastmedia dot com and you
hit you looked up Benjamin Goldhagen, you would see the photo.
If it's interesting to you, go check that out. You know,
it's you literally in the front lines in the forests
of Ukraine or wherever at that time.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, well, that that particular photo that was that's in Bachmut.
And if you know anything about this war, if you
know about this war, Bachmut is like it's now legendary
battle which probably I think it went on for eight months,
one of the most brutal battles. That's where the Way
group was and we ended up there. We we ended

(10:06):
up there just by the story of how to get
how we got there was that I'm not really interested
in filming combat per se. I'm much more interested in
the soldier, in the people, and not in not in
how you shoot a gun, it's who shoots the gun.
And and so the first the first film, which is

(10:28):
to the Zero Line, and also this film is about
how whole country goes to war. And I wanted to
film Christmas at the Front, and that's that, this is
the backstory behind that picture. And uh, and you know
I have connection at that point, I had connections all
over the country. And so I contacted press officer of

(10:50):
this brigade that we had contacts with, and I said,
I want to film Christmas at the Front. He said,
we don't know where we're going to be a Christmas,
but tell me two weeks ahead of of of when
you want to come in, and I'll tell you where
we are. And so two weeks before I tell him
we want to come he sends me a pin. You know,
that's basically how things happen. You know, you get the
the you get Google on Google Maps, you get the latitude,

(11:14):
longitude and a time, and that's it. And I show
it to my my producer, I said, you want to
do this, and he said, yeah, let's go. And it
was bathmu and uh and this was Wagner. This was
this was the worst of the worst period at that point.
And uh, and I went just film Christmas. And so

(11:36):
that's that's how we ended up there and and yeah,
and it's it's a bad place where we film Christmas.
We filmed it in a number of places, and if
you see the film, it's really kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
One of the and the main place, which was the
which was the brigade headquarters at that time. Soon after
that was was hit and destroyed. And where we stay, uh,
one of the we were actually we were under fire,
pretty close fire a few times. One of them where
we stayed at that place. It looks cool, but I'll

(12:11):
tell you it's it's pretty it's pretty airy.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
And uh.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
And we got hit the building we were and got
hit and I lost my crew. They all went home
pretty much.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
And I was left there. So some of the guys
in that shot didn't stay and I ended up and
it was and we were already filming and the press
officers said you can't leave, and we were already on
the road out because the guys had the carn here.
And I said, look, I don't have a crew. What

(12:46):
am I going to do? And he said, well, you know,
I have two guys they used to work for for
Ukrainian Network Television and they were camera guys. You can
use them. And said, well, I don't have cameras, you know,
because they're all going. And we ended up. I ended
up meeting one of the guys. We got new gear
and Kiev and when we went back to Boton and

(13:08):
and so what was really cool was the picture looks cool,
I guess, But what was really cool was after we
went back we had this kind of respect because you know,
we we you know what it's like if you're if
when you're in that kind of situation you stay, it
means something to the guys, and it meant that we

(13:30):
really had a really close relationship.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
And what about the what about the crew that left
and just took off and you stayed and then you
still continue to do this, and when you guys rallied
up Stayside or wherever, it was like, why'd you guys
take off? Like why did you stay? You know, why
didn't you help me finish this? And do they get
credit in the project for.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, Well, I didn't try to talk. It was two
of the guys stayed. The rest of them left, and
and I didn't try to talk them into staying because
it's like, it's not you know, people volunteer to go.
You're filmmaker, and and one of the guys there said,
I know why they left. One of them said, you know,
I'm not here to play roulette, and it's not and

(14:14):
there is so much fire going on, and it's you
just have no idea. It's like there is no wire everywhere,
you know. You know, US military used to like there's
a wire. There's like and you have air cover and
there's like you have something.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Like a proverbial wire around the base that you're leaving,
it's like, oh, I'm going outside the wire. It was
like you're going outside of protection to go into the fight.
But what you're saying is that the wire is non
existent in Ukraine. It is just wherever you're putting your
foot and you have to always be aware. And if
you're in Bochma, or you go to Kiev or you
go to you know, any place that's under attack, you're

(14:50):
risking attack anywhere.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Right. It's really fucked up because like in some places
now they have you know, the Russians have what they
call tafari and they have drones up in the air
and they're just hitting old ladies, you know, walking their
dog kind of thing. And so there is you know,
there are places that you you are safer, but there's
no place that's out of that, that's out of range

(15:15):
and that. But then if you go east, it's all
just all kind of it's like anything's possible kind of thing.
So like the other day I saw like the super
one of the supermarkets that we needs to go to
that's in the east, that was blown up. You know,
the the apartment that we were in at that that
when the guys took off, that was hit where we

(15:39):
filmed Christmas. That's doesn't exist anymore. And that's in the
first film we showed Christmas happening, and a few months
later we show the building like in rubble and so
it's so it's it's really it's and that's that's just
the atmosphere of this war, and that that's also what
is happened what the Russians are doing. The Russians are

(16:00):
really you know, talk about wartimes. They're hitting everything that
you know, hospitals, children's centers with the dog.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Yeah, like really, she's just it's you know, I'm laughing
about it.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
I'm just like I'm did in disbelief about it, Like
I can't believe that we've let things go so far
over this political boxing match while you know, with no
timeouts and you know, no nothing, and there's no one
in there saying, you know, cease fire, sees fire. It's like,
you know, you have you know, the president of Ukraine

(16:32):
right now, Zelenski is looking for reinforcements and you know,
support to do his job.

Speaker 4 (16:38):
And you've got the real, the real.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Aggressor shooting down commercial civilian airliners in twenty twelve, twenty
fourteen over Crimea. You've got the guys that are shooting
down civilians and he is running Russia, okay, and they're
wanting Crimea so what they can get the oil and
capture all the rece I mean, can you explain to
my listener why Russia is so hard for Ukraine. When

(17:06):
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in the in nineteen
ninety four, they gave up, you know, their weapons and
said we're not going.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
To we want our own sovereignty nation.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Can you explain why Russia has renegotiated in their own
mindless term of agreement that the world also collectively agreed on.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah. Well, basically, what it basically comes down to is
that the Russian slashed Soviet because this started before, you know,
a long time ago. It has been for about one
hundred years to wipe out the Ukrainian people as as

(17:45):
as a nation, as a group of people. The Ukrainians
have an identity of their own. They have their own language,
their own you know, it's Ukrainian. They have their religion
is not the Russian Orthodox Church. They have their own
heritage and that goes counter to what the Soviet slash

(18:07):
Russians want. They want they and so their project for
a long time has been to and they've tried every
every couple of decades they try to wipe out these people.
And so one hundred years ago there was the Holodomar,
which was a forced famine which killed maybe two to
four million Ukrainians. And this just continues, and this is

(18:27):
the latest bout if you want to see it, and
if you want to see it that way. And the
idea that they have now is to finish them off
once and for all. And that's why this is. So
that's why the Ukrainians they know this, and they're not
going to give up. They're not going to say okay,

(18:48):
because what you're talking about in giving up the nuclear
weapons and trying to make peace with the Russians in
a way was a good faith effort, but the Russians
were using it basically to uh, basically to weaken the
Ukrainians so that they could eventually do this. And so

(19:11):
this this was all in a sense shaping the shaping
the battlefield. And now the West didn't think of it
this way, but Russia did. And this is what and
this is sort of what's going on. And so now
it's like the gloves are off. They're not fooling around anymore,
the Russians, and they're just saying we'll hit you. We're
gonna we're going to when we took butcha, we killed

(19:35):
the you know, we did a mass murder. We're hitting
every hospital we can. We're uh, we're stealing children, literally
stealing children from the areas that they take. They take
the children and they deport them into Russia because they
want to cut off the next generation. And you do
that by taking the children. That way, you can get

(19:56):
rid of the people the nation if they don't have
any children. And so they take them and they ban Russian,
they ban Ukrainian, they teach them Russian, and then now
they're putting uniforms on them and sending them to fight
the Ukrainians.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Re educating them, making them, you know, think that this
is the way it is. And I think if I
can say this, you know, and it happens here in
the US as well.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
It's propaganda is heavy, right.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Our own American government puts out propaganda to its people
and we hopefully try to sift through that as Americans
and the world seeing whatever propaganda comes out of here.
But in Russia, the propaganda is very very thick and
very very real, and they don't really have means to
all the I believe, like outlets that we have here
in the US, you know, and in a freer world

(20:46):
which is getting more and more stricter these days, you know,
with freedom of press and being able to put politicians
on their heels and say hey, why are you doing
this and why are you doing this?

Speaker 4 (20:58):
And why are you doing this?

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Trying to get to the bottom and root of why
are you playing political games? And it's like, oh, your
questions are stupid, or you're rude, or you're not a
trusted source, or you're not good.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
Only what I say out of my mouth is good.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, well, over there, what happens if you if you
speak up, you can be put in jail, correct, and
you can you can drink some tea and that's the
last you know, that's the last coupan you'll ever have.
You can go out a window and that's what you
know that, that's that's what happens over there. And we're
talking about Russia.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well look at the Vowley, right, that was a threat
to Putin as an opposition, and he goologged him, poisoned him,
goologged him. It's the same thing with a band called
Pussy Riot and they're a female they're a band that
wears like, you know, masks, and they were singing and
they were like saying a prayer against Putin in public
in Russia and they got put into the Gulog just

(21:53):
for voicing opposition.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
And yeah, and so it's it's an they are they
are on a mission, yeah, both internally inside Russia and
then with the West. And Ukraine is right now their battlefront,
you know is but you know, I don't need to
go into too much about what some people think that

(22:15):
what if they were to win Ukraine, which they're not
going to win Ukraine, what their next target would be
because you know, they did Chechnya. They you know, they
they they are trying to undermine Georgia. And also they're
fucking with the West. You know, they're cutting our cables
under the Black Sea, under the Clothic and uh and

(22:36):
doing all kinds of stuff, you know, which I think,
you know, under the under the cover. I think this
is really going. I don't want to go into total
conspiracy kind of stuff. But towards the beginning of this conflict,
there was the continental what was the Continental pipeline in
the US. If you remember, there was a there was

(22:57):
a sabotage. It was cyber Cybert of the of the
major pipeline on the East coast, and we were out
what do you call it? A gas station ground of
fuel for a few days. I don't know if you
remember that.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yeah I do. I do.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
I remember a lot of this. And I'm not trying
to get into conspiracies either. I'm trying to get to
you know, let my listener know, like, hey, this is
something serious going on in Ukraine. Some of my listeners
have been in Ukraine in the trenches, right. People I've
interviewed have said that, you know, they went in and
they were told that if they're going to embed, they

(23:36):
have to wear some kind of camouflage, and you know
that they're going to embed with them in the trenches,
and off they go and bringing back, you know, insights
to me that other people I don't think are ready
to hear. Like let me just say this, Benjamin. If
a supersonic missile just blew up my car wash while
I'm getting gas here in Utah, Yeah, are.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
We ready for that?

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Because in Kiev and Ukraine, that's what's happening all of
a sudden, just a super streaking contra going over somebody's
sky and then blowing something random up, like a park
or some type of a place. Something that you're going
to go eat or go. You're outside having a good time.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
I don't think that we as the US citizens are
ready for that kind of warfare.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
I don't think Kiev wants it.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
But now Kiev's getting Rubik's cubed into this tougher we
have to battle now.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, Well, because it's this existential fight, the Ukrainians are
not giving up. They know that if they don't fight,
this is sort of like this is like the US
fight for independence in seventeen you know, in seventeen seventy
or six. They but instead of instead of King George

(24:47):
just we decide that we want freedom. That's what they want. Also,
they in response, they are under threat of being completely
wiped out, and so they are going to fight whe
their bare hands. As you know, if you watch A
Steal Porcupine, which is my latest film, John Radcliffe, the
head of the CIA, he says in Congress, he says

(25:11):
that the Ukrainians will fight with the bare hands if
they have to, because they because basically if they don't,
if they don't do everything they can to win, and
they will win one way or another. They're not going
to lose. Put it that way. The Russians are totally
set on wiping out every hospital, every school, every every child,

(25:34):
will abduct or take away and kill as many people
as they can. You know, the death toll in this
war is just horrific on both sides. And but surrender
means death. So there is you know, as Churchill said, there,
you know, there's I forget the quote exactly, but there

(25:56):
there basically is no choice of sub victory.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, there's no other way out except like up. You know,
it's like, there's no other way. You got to go
through this. You gotta do. And sadly, I'm not like
lecturing anybody. I'm just saying this is it's kind of
appalling to sit back here and be able to do
the things that we do on a daily basis knowing
that the war's going on. And I get people that
tell me we want you to do something about it,
want you to go over there, we want you to

(26:21):
go do.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
Something about it. I'm just like, man, that's the attitude.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
It's like, Okay, are you ready really to have something
just blown up while we're sitting here having this conversation.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
The way I to follow what you're saying, it's sort
of like, because now there's talk about trading, about giving
up some territory. What would happen if a country came
and took Florida, Like I just invaded and took Florida,
and we say, oh, you know what, you got Florida
last week. That's okay, it's yours now, don't we don't

(26:49):
want it anymore. I mean, we would go out, we
would go over there and we would do everything we could,
and we would take Florida back. That's exactly what's going on.
And and if they don't, and if you don't, if
you let them take Florida, well what's next Texas? You know, dude?

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Look at how look how we fought over the islands
in ewo Jima. Look at the little black rocks of
island that we fought and died on to raise a
flag just because there was no value there. And let alone,
if somebody came in to take sovereign land from us,
what would that type of thing look into. It's like
I could only imagine.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
And and that and that's in a way what what
what I want the the the administration now here to
understand what really is going on and that the Ukrainians
are not going to stop just because somebody wants them

(27:47):
to stop. You know, there is only one way for them,
and that's to survive. And you know, and it's very
noble because they're fighting. Some of them are fighting to
the death, and they are doing the great job. You know,
the innovation, you know, going to how they're doing it.
They have no air force, but they create an air
force with drones. You know, it's like they couldn't. They

(28:10):
went to the West, they said, give us planes, no planes.
So you had a luck. So I said, okay, fuck it,
We're going to take these like Chinese drones off the
shelf and we're gonna put We're gonna put weapons on them.
And then now it's just you know, morphed and and
uh become a true air force in a lot of ways.
You know, that is just surprised the world. You know,

(28:32):
they've they've knocked out they have no navy, but they've
knocked out Uh maybe they've knocked out a good part
of the Black Sea Fleet. They're the only country that
has destroyed a Russian submarine after World War Two. They
did it in a dry dock. The thing was in
dry dock, so they hit it. I mean, these guys
are smart you know, the Ukraines are really really.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, right, and and I don't think really you know,
they want all the death you see Ukrainian like Zelenski
and the cabinet and all the people fighting.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
They're, like you said, in a self defense mode.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
And and and if that means that now in order
to stop them from attacking them, they got to go
deep and strike a nuclear, a submarine or something some
factory that is producing the things that are killing them,
then all at it. Because like when I was growing up,
my dad taught me, if you're ever in a fight,
there's no fair fight. It's like you shove a thumb,

(29:29):
you grab something, you stick it there, whatever it is.
There's no rules in a fight because again, like you
said to your hands, last breath, you defend yourself.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, exactly, there is one. There is a caveat to
that is that they are fighting according to the laws
of war. They're not hitting civilians, they're not there. They
are fighting against the military of the other side or
the logistics of the other side. And they're they're not

(30:00):
hitting hospitals, they're not hitting they're not killing people. They
are taking prisoners and treating them well, I mean, when
you look at the prisoner exchange, you know they are
treating prisoners and feeding them as they do their own
troops there. You know, some of the Russians when they
get captured, they're actually pretty happy because they they're not

(30:20):
going to die and they get fed better and treated
better on the Russian side.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
And I hear that all the Russians are defecting to Ukraine.
So that's great, So keep doing that, Russia will just defect.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, more surrenders, it makes it.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, just surrender, and it was a propaganda surrender. Russia,
just surrender, just give it up.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
They're not exactly at that point yet because they died
too quick. They get filled. You know, they're they're being
put into the grinder, and they grinder every every boy.
Everyone's estimate it's about fifteen hundred right now. Currently about
fifteen hundred men a day are being killed that are
Russian or on the Russian side, and they're running out
of you know, they've gone around the world. This is

(31:02):
total insanity.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
And North Korea is involved. Okay, you've got Chinese soldiers involved, You've.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Got so they called some of the North Koreans that
to go over to Ukraine because the South Koreans are
fighting for Ukraine. Right, This is how fuck the whole
thing is.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
It's propaganda.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
And so with Wagner, you know, Wagner Group was was
you know, they were it was composed of prisoners, ex prisoners,
and Wagner went around to prisons in Russia and said, hey,
if you want to get our prison you come fight
with me. And that was the deal. And they would
they would come and they would die. And then then
they went to other countries, you know, the bad boys,

(31:43):
and they took prisoners from their countries to fight. Now
all those guys are dead. Now, all those guys are dead.
So then that's when they went to North Koreans because
they ran out of prisoners. Now they're you know, now
the North Koreans say, hey, this is too fucked. We're
just getting killed here. So now it's supposedly they're they're
they're in the rear.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
And and let's remember North Korea is not just sending
people for free, right. It's not just like, oh, hey,
this is a good war and we're obligated, you know,
through our treaties to fight together. No, they're getting something
for every single one of those deaths in resources, uh
you know, survivability for their regime and all that kind
of stuff from you know, Russia and their uh comrades.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, so this is so that this basically is a madman.
You know, when when we're making the film, when we
make our film, sometimes we play Austin powers because with
doctor Evil, you know.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
Exactly one million dollars.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
And he has like he has like the table, the
table and like the guy with the eyepatch, and this
is exactly how it is. They've got Iran, China, North Korea,
and like every once in a while, you know, there's
somebody who they okay, like who pisses off Doctor Evil
and the trapdoor opens and the guy drops down and
just drops and so like we play that a lot

(33:05):
because or it's like you know, it's like hey, check
it out, and because that really is the mentality here.
This is true evil and and what we should do
we should get you know, this is the advocacy apartment.
We need. We need to help the Ukrainians to victory
that at this point, Russia can't win this war. They've
been going for four years, they've gotten almost no land

(33:28):
and they've lost you know, they have over a million casualties.
And if we had gone in earlier with the weapons
that they need to supply them, not to no knut
boots on the ground, they it would have put an
end to it earlier. And by delaying basically the UH
by delaying the aid that they need. And it's not

(33:49):
in money necessarily, and a lot of it is surplus weaponry.
You just need the right tool at the right time,
and we just don't give it.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
To see and I think a lot of us here
in stateside, in the US and around here, Oh, we
just sent like, you know, ten billion dollars to Ukraine,
and they're thinking, like check cut to ten billion dollars,
they cash it, They're gonna go spend it on their
own fashion. However, when you're talking about government contracts getting
bid on for m wraps, which are like you know,

(34:20):
up armored, you know, transportation vehicles for our soldiers, they
come in at like let's say five hundred thousand dollars
to a million to build, okay, from the contractor. Then
that gets sold to the American people's taxpayer dollars and
that goes to war. Well, we have a surplus of those,
and so they're gonna say okay, well, let's give some
of that over to Ukraine to help them, because there's

(34:41):
some you know, some some assets.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
It's not cash, it's like an asset.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
Like when they're asking for Tomahawk missiles at a million
to pop, they're gonna say, okay, we give him forty tomahawks.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
That means we gave him forty million dollars.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
But in the in the grand scheme of things, it's
not really forty million dollars because we all know government
contra are totally inflated to jack the taxpayer of their
dollar because it's a government contract. So in essence, a
Tomahawk missile might cost maybe a quarter of a million dollars,
but it's sold to the American government at a million dollars,
and then they now have this million dollar machine or

(35:15):
this weapon to send and then they say, here's a
billion dollars worth of goods, and everyone's like, oh, we
need to keep our money here.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
And really it's just defensive equipment.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
It's Patriot missile systems, it's different things that have just
these high price tags that aren't really a price.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Now, when it comes to the account a lot of
it is creative accounting. I'm not an expert in that area.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
I'm not either. I'm just a backyard I'm just a yapper.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
But there are guys who figured it out. And it's
it's not like dollars spent here, like it's not like
going to buying new stuff and sending it. Some of
it is. A lot of it is decommissioned stuff.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
Respect will be demilitarized.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah. But but Trump, I have to give Trump some
credit for you know, is is which always puts me
in trouble when I say give Trump any credit or
you know, if I say anything on political in any way,
half the people in the world hate me. But and
I'm for anybody Democrat or Republican who want to help Ukraine.

(36:17):
But he you know, he got the Europeans to pay
now for the weapons, and so it's helping US trade
to and the deal is now that the Europeans provide
the weapons to Ukraine and then backfill their inventory with

(36:38):
new contracts with the United States. And so it's actually
to the US advantage right now, to economic advantage that
this war is working out pretty well now for the
US from that standpoint, but also from the standpoint of
besides being the right thing to do, and a lot
of places to do the right thing. This continuing is

(36:59):
decent abilizing so many arenas, and it's making us look
worse with China too that we can't you know, peace
through strength, we're not showing it. We should help the Europeans,
help Ukraine finish this thing off, and not with boots
on the ground. Ukrainians want to fight. They just you know,

(37:20):
they came up with the drone air Force because would
no one would help him out if we just gave
them what they need, then they wouldn't have to figure
all this shit out, you know, and it would have
been over already.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
So to go back to twenty fourteen when Crimea was
definitely be you know, try to be annexed, right, and
you know Obama was in office, President Obama and they
shot down the civilian airliner. He kind of took a
step in that direction of sending our boots on the ground.

(37:52):
A lot of folks don't realize that the Green Berets
and special forces were set over immediately to work with
all of the Ukrainian special forces in that in that
lane to be ready for what we're dealing with today.
And so you know, his insight into like Okay, we
can't let this happen. You know this, you know, the
way he would stare down putin face to face. It
was never like hey, buddy, old Palette was just like, man,

(38:14):
you're you're you're a criminal, you know, and I'm staring
at you in the face of a criminal. And and
and now it's like, oh, handshake, roll out the red carpet,
let this guy tap dance on our on our soil,
and you know, show them all of our air power
and and.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
All these different things.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
It's like such a difference in in you know, like
situational awareness with what's really going on.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
You know, like, well, you know, I don't want to
get too much into the current negotiation with that sort
of thing, because but I think, I think, I think
President Trump has taken a long journey to from where
he started when he became president in addressing the war,
to where he is now. And I really don't know

(38:57):
where he is now exactly.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Well, he was a in the beginning too, like this
is the second swing at the situation.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah, there was a whole four years.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
In between where it was kind of like trying to
get stopped as well, and even President Biden could have
sent tomahawks and you know, all these different things to
Ukraine at the same time. You know, But I guess
I'm getting that is you know, we kind of spend
Our special forces are the best in the world, you know,
and they go over there and they help these guys,
and they teach these guys how to defend themselves and

(39:27):
they implement that to themselves. And you know, special forces guys.
Our number one export in America. Do you know what
it is? Some people might say, oh, oil rat or
maybe like fabric.

Speaker 4 (39:37):
No, it's our military.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Our number one export in the United States of America
is outsourcing our military. We ship our military all over
the world for conflict to all these different places with
all of our weaponry. So, like you said, it keeps
the economy going. Our economy is sending our number one resource,
which is our military. Are men and women who fight
and raise their hand to be a part of America

(40:03):
and defend it.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yeah. Well I I right now. The Ukrainians. What the
Ukrainians want, They don't want boots, They just want a
few tools. And if we give them, and if it's
not even given tools, the Europeans will pay for it.
Now they'll pay for the tools. We just need to
give them the tools. It's like you know, anybody in battle,

(40:26):
you know, if you have the right weapon, even if
you have the wrong weapon, but it's good enough, that's
what you want. But if you go, if you if
you're in the fight, and if you're in the fight
and you can only stand off your opposition, that kind
of sucks, you know, but you're willing yet you're gonna
have to do it for as long as you can.

(40:46):
And that's that's and we could just help them go over.
But I think, you know, recently, I recently I started
looking into World War One a little bit because people
have compared the positional warfare of this war with World
War One. You know, because for three years pretty much
the Lions didn't change very much in World War One,

(41:09):
and then all of a sudden, everything changed. And I
think that that could happen. Because you mentioned crimea, some
people think military people think that there can be a
breakthrough coming up by basically a major change in how
things are operating. One is, if we gave them the weapons,

(41:29):
then it would happen. But what happened in World War
One was the Battle of Amiens which was the first
major combined arms battle, and until then they were all
in trenches and it was the first time that everything
was put together as we know it, airpower, tanks, infantry,
and it was the breakthrough that the that the Australians

(41:52):
of British made through the German lines that in one
hundred days they were the war was finished. And because
they couldn't the German said it was worst. The worst
day of the war was that was the beginning of
that battle. And it's possible that Ukraine and so the
people who say, oh, yeah, it's been a position of ward,
it's always this way, it's it's never going to change,

(42:13):
well all they need to do is look at World
War One and say everything changed on that fat you know,
basically on that field and that Amiens was fought over
for for a very long time, for months and months
until until it was an Australian general. I think it's
more Ash and Monash who came up with this concept
to apply and that just changed the war. So I

(42:38):
think in many military I'm not a military guy, but
many really smart military guys like Ben Hodges, you know
who us or or Mick Ryan, who Australian who who
really understand battle and understand war, that there is a
way for Ukraine to break through and change the nature

(43:01):
of this war if we give them the help or
be if when they have enough time to do what
they might do with crimea which some people think, I
won't go into the battle aspects because that's not my thing.
But it doesn't have to stay this way. And right now,
also recently Ukraine has been at treating the logistical lines

(43:26):
and also the petrochemicals of Russia that they're now at
thirty percent of the maybe they've lost maybe thirty percent
of their petrochemical business, and they're basically instead of waiting
for the US and Europe to apply economic sanctions, they're
doing it themselves by you know, daily missile strikes and

(43:49):
drum strikes on the you know, in the back, on
the refineries and the terminals. So the war is and
so anybody who says right now, some people, unless you
follow it really closely, you don't have an idea. It's
like any war unless you it's like anything in life basically,

(44:12):
unless you really understand what's happening on the ground, you
just don't know what the thought's going on.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
That has to do with some of our politicians also.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
And would you say that, you know, making such a
film and continue to do this mission that you're involved
with with you know, bringing Ukraine to light and talking
about it, that there is a lot of disinformation, even
from our politicians and even from all sides of it,
Like how do you kind of steer that and navigate
that while you're producing these you know, these films?

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Well, you know, I feel I have a pretty good
sense of what I had an idea what this war
was on the what the full scale invasion was at
the beginning, because I understood, I believe the war aims.
If you have to start with what is the war
aims of the adversary? And what are your terms of victory?
You know, something so basic is what's Russia trying to achieve?

(45:08):
You always need to know what the enemy is up to,
what and in order to understand what the situation is,
what's going what goes on with the misinformation or a
lot of people is they follow battles in the sense
or they follow an attack, but they don't understand the
big picture. So what I try to do in the

(45:29):
Steel Corcupine is I create the big picture for people.
The what the war aim of Russia is for a
long time, which has been to have Ukraini about Ukrainians,
what the Ukrainian response is, which is their spirit is
to fight and to prevail, and what the international response
is and what it has been because it fucked up

(45:51):
a few times, like you mentioned the Budapest or.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
The nuclear proliferation of the nuclear arms in ninety four.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, the Mensk agreement and written in the film. Bill
Clinton is later interviewed years later saying he regrets having
forced the hand of the Ukrainian president at the time
to give up the nukes because he said, and Putin
went to pull this stunt his word, Bill's Clinton's word,
pulled this stunt if they didn't give up their nukes.

(46:23):
So we've so we haven't really understood the aim of
the adversary. And so that's my That was the purpose
of this film is to find what the war aim
is so you can so then you can so then
when you see an event or you hear misinformation, whatever
it is, then you can put it into a box.

(46:43):
And he say, oh, this is bullshit, because they're saying, oh,
for example, they steal children. I mean they really are
stealing a lot of children. Thirty five thousand is the
number right now that some people believe. And they say, well,
why are they doing that? You know they like children?
Is that why they're doing it? You know they need
more kids in around you know, why are they doing it?

(47:06):
That's that's the That's what I'm trying to do. I'm
trying to answer the question why and put it in
the perspective of the big picture and so as that's
my and to do it in.

Speaker 4 (47:20):
And it's a city of kids.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Some cities that are incorporated in the United States of
America have less than a thousand people living in them.
This is a thirty five thousand person city of kids.

Speaker 4 (47:33):
Gone, yeah, snatched, yea, gone.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
Wiped out, put it somewhere, put back into a uniform,
re educated, killed, whatever the case is.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Yeah, So some of the kids, because they started in
twenty fourteen, some of the kids grew up, you know,
basically now they're reaching adolescents and some you know, even
what however, the war is four years old and so
so at first it became this education program. You're not
allowed to speak Ukrainian, you have to become Russian because

(48:06):
and then they identify. You know, you bring up the
kid with Russian, you can bring them up as anything.
You you know, your parents influence you. Well, that's how
it works. But the problem, the problem now is a
big problem is that they're they and so part of
their school, I'll tell you, part of their school now

(48:26):
is to learn military things. And some of the schoolyards
have trenches for you know what kind of school has
a trench? Right, but not just a regular trench, not
like it's straight trench with like different terms there. It's
like a certain zig zag and and a certain kind

(48:47):
of zigzag in a certain way, which is characteristic of
the trenches now in the Dombas because of drone strikes.
So they're if they were straight trenches, a drunk can
just go straight down the down the trench. So they
have a lot of turns in these trenches. Two and

(49:07):
then if there's you know it's this is go back
to World War One, So if there is an explosion
also in one part of the trench, it's not going
to travel down. But and so some of these schools
that that where these kids have been stolen to and
now they're being educated so called and they're top military things,
and like the playground, if you want to think of

(49:29):
it as a playground, there's really a training ground. And
uh and now they're being sent to fight and they
die that way. It's really it's really a horror story.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
I've seen some video footage of kids in what they
say is like a Russian school setting, and what they're
doing is there disassembling the ak in like thirty seven
seconds and the assembling it.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
It's like this footage has gotten out in the and
the girls she can just like do it with one arm. Now,
why would you learn to dismantle and reassess, rumble anything
with just one arm. It's in case you don't have
your other arm, you see, And why would you not
have your other arm?

Speaker 2 (50:06):
You know.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
It's like what's the preparation of that?

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Okay, So it's like, you know, seeing that and just
knowing that that's existing, you know, and now here in
the US they're wanting to like have that same type
of I don't know, you know.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
I mean deer hunter.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Safety class is what I went through as a kid,
you know, hunter safety. If I'm going to go shoot
a gun, you know, et cetera. It's like you know,
and I grew up different. My dad was a Green Beret,
so I grew up in that same kind of environment
of dismantling and seeing all that equipment being in.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
An armory all day. And you want to know what's funny,
Let me just say this. Let me just say this.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
My dad's office was in a junior high school with
his entire team. So the junior high is where I
went to school. But I would just walk out of
class and go to my dad's office next door, which
was at the school. So you know, we use the
school as well, you know, in the US to protect
our valued assets like SF teams, you know, and you
know we're no different and what they're doing, I guess

(51:01):
I don't know, man.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
This is just like, well it's kind of different.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
What I'm saying is the difference is like, you know,
they're stealing the kids. We're not stolen. They're putting the
kids from Ukraine in these schools. We're just going to school,
normal days.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
School.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
You know, we don't think twice about the fallout shelter
below in the school.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Well there's I think there's different between offense and defense.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
Yeah, well I agree.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
I guess I'm just kind of frustrated, and maybe I
just am just a regular American also frustrated. You know,
it's like, why can we not just you know, have
peace in Ukraine? Why did they have to get rid
of all their nukes? And did they that's my question?

Speaker 4 (51:43):
Yeah, they really did. I mean it really, So if
you have twenty seven nukes.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
What we want, what we want is Russia has to
be It's basically the evil Empire, the Iranians, the Chinese,
Chinese half and half depends how you look at them.
And you know, Trump, once you let these guys do
bad stuff, they just keep doing bad stuff, right, you know,

(52:11):
It's like and that's real. And so part besides being
the right thing for Ukraine, it's the right thing for
the United States because you have to show strength again,
especially for Europe, to show strength against the oppressor, because
you know there are other countries involved also. And then,

(52:31):
as I mentioned, the fuckery isn't just kinetic, it's also
in cyber in all different kinds of ways that are
really nefarious to our way of life. That we want
to have a good life here, but to have a
good life here, we have to make sure that our
adversary is not trying to undermine it. And you know,

(52:51):
we found that out with you know, nine to eleven.
You know what the bad guys can want to do
to us, and the bad guys are all united. You know,
let's let's not you know, I should probably should know
this is but this is where Ukraine gotes into the
rest of the world. The guys are all united and
we I'm not saying we go fight everywhere, but we
have to be pretty savvy and we I'm not we.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
Do fight everywhere.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
America does get its hands in a lot of conflicts.
Like I said, a number one exported resource is our
Joe's with the equipment, you know, and sadly, yeah, and
I was just gonna say, yeah, Josephine's you know, one
hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
You know.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Boy, Wow, dude, I can't believe the.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Photographer an hour about this because there's like so much
more that we can just go back and forth on.
I'm just like, first of all, I just there's so
many questions in my mind of Ukraine. But I think
I know or I stand. I stand with Ukraine personally,
you know, even as a journalist and as someone who
runs a podcast, I don't think Ukraine wants the blood

(53:59):
bath of a nuclear war. I don't think Ukraine wants
to have to decimate an entire city to say, leave
us alone. I think they should just be left alone.
And yet you know the pipeline that goes from you know,
the sea through Crimea into Europe. You know, those things
are what's all being fought over and the resources in
the area. Again, and what do we know Ukraine asked, Okay,

(54:20):
the blue on the Ukraine flag is for the sky
and then the yellow in the Ukraine flag is for
the wheat and the and the bread and the wheat
that they grow. So those are their flag. That's their flag, right,
So that's how important it is. And that's not Russia's flag, right,
it's Russia doesn't have that. They don't have the bread basket.

(54:43):
They want Ukraine. They want all of those resources and everything,
including that pipeline. It seems like that goes into Europe
to like cut that off, like fuel, oil whatever.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yeah, Well, the the Ukrainian want to basically, the Ukrainian
people they want what we want in the West. They
want freedom. They want to live like just bring people free, enterprise,
have a good life. And they were doing that before
you know, to the most part before three years ago,

(55:19):
where three and a half, almost four years ago, before
they were attacked, before you know, someone tried to take
more of Florida.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
If you want to pulling in twenty fourteen, let's go
back to when you know, Putin really kicked off the
whole yeah, invasion and right the aggress.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
They want to live in. They just want to live
in peace and have a proct risk country and be
part of the West and be part of the EU.
And that's what we want for ourselves. We want to
have the freedom to be who we are and live
the life we want to live. And it's really just
very very basic on that regard. But at the same time,

(55:53):
they don't want to they are at risk of getting
wiped out. Yes, on the one hand, they're moving towards freedom,
and on the other hand, the Russians are trying to
wipe them out. So this is really probably, if it's
done right, this is going to be the last battle
and they'll and they'll succeed at that and have a
country and have and have freedom and become, you know,

(56:16):
become a part of Europe in a way that the
rest of Europe is right now even probably even better
than the rest of Europe. It's a lot like you know,
but speaking to American audiences, a lot of people don't
know other countries that well. But Poland is a really
great example of a country that was part of the
Soviet Union and modernized and now it's just a really

(56:38):
fantastic country. Their roads, let me tell you something. Their
roads in Poland are better than our roads in the US.
I've been, you know, all around Poland, all around the US.
They they you know, we have potholes everywhere. They don't
have potholes everywhere, you know, they they have great What's
really great is that they have uh these uh you know,

(56:58):
it's like gas stations, but they're like super like they're
much better than seven eleven's on the road where they
have like hot food and it's like everybody stops at
it and has a great meal. And this is This
is in Poland, but also Ukraine has those two and
it's something that Italy has them. We can really upgrade
some of the stuff that we do here, you know,

(57:22):
in some ways if we just looked at other countries
a little bit better, you know, and get focused and
see the good stuff that other countries are doing a
lot of our you know, a lot of our people.
We're very proud people. Sometimes there are things that we
can learn from the rest of the world that would
make us even better.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
And we should always look to our neighbors to see
how it's going over there, and oh hey, cool, you
guys have this going on. Maybe we can adopt some
of that in our business practices. I mean, I do
love a global economy. I don't want to be just
a one sect economy just focused on ourselves. I like
a world economy, you know. I want to eat food

(58:02):
from other places that can come to the US. I
don't want to pay high tariffs. I don't want to
have all this type of stuff over here. And you know,
here's me complaining about that. And in Ukraine, all they
want to do is just be free, just be left alone,
just live their life, go to the park with their kids,
walk their dog with their grandma, and not have some
hypersonic missile fly over their head.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
And then we hear in the news five people killed.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
You know, yeah, you know, I've been I've been building.
I think I mentioned already that. You know, one place
I was in was hit when we film, it's dangerous
because whenever there's outgoing you can count on incoming return fire.
And and so that's an interesting experience because like we

(58:48):
were filming artillery. We were filming this piece of artillery,
you know, firing and it's not there's not training fire.
This is this is you know, the real thing. This
is combat. And and then I didn't even see it,
but almost instantly a lancet which it's it's a loitering

(59:09):
drone came at us and was shot down by a
man pad and it was like, everyone's really happy. I
just heard, like, you know, I heard one more explosion.
There's just so many explosions you can't tell which is
which a lot of times. And it's like, well they
got It's like what did they get? It's like good
thing coming at us. And that was you know, and

(59:30):
so we had filming, you know, going back to the filming.
Filming in these places, it's you know, it it's not
it's not easy, I can say that. But in order
to tell the story, in order for to to really
get the life of people, you have to be out
there with them, you know, you just have to be

(59:52):
out there with them, and you have to you know,
my life is on the line. I have to trust
that and their life is online that I don't fuck
them up. And that's why a lot of journalists, I
don't know if you get how you're gonna if you're
gonna edit this, are you gonna edit this? This is great,

(01:00:12):
but a lot a lot of big because you know,
we should you know, to to your folks a lot
of times when a journalist shows up because technically I'm
a filmmaker, I'm a filmmaker, but there I have pres
cinentils and you're a journalist. You know that's me too,
that's what you say. And and you know, generally speaking,

(01:00:33):
soldiers don't like journalists. You know, it's like, what the
fuck is this guy here for. It's like he's just here,
and there's like a lot of some animosity because like
it's really really hairy in a lot of places, like
this guy is just here to make a buck on
my you know, basically me taking a risk and he's
going to make some money on it. And people have

(01:00:53):
said that to me. It's like, what the fuck are
you doing here? You just want you know, you're just
you just want to to to basically, uh, basically take
advantage of our of our hell kind of thing, and
and so and so there's a lot. So it takes
a lot, and it takes a lot to get trust

(01:01:16):
in these kinds of situations when you're with guys a lot.
And I remember that Sebastian Younger. I saw him speak
once and you know he and uh Harrington was his
partner who was killed in Libya later. Uh. You know,
they when they did Restrepo, which I think is a
great film. You know, they were they were hit and

(01:01:39):
they were injured, and they were evact and then they
came back. They went back to the to the to
Restrepo where they were filming, and and they said and
everything changed after that because then they then the guys
saw that they were one of them, you know. And
I kind of had that myself, and I thought of that.

(01:02:02):
I thought of that when uh, after we were hit
and you know, my crew, my crew left and uh,
and they took off and and a couple of us stayed.
Three of us stayed, and uh and one of one
of the one of the guys said, you know, uh,
he said the same thing. He said, Uh, you came back,

(01:02:25):
so we respect you because we we we we respect you.
And that created more intimacy. And when you see what
we've done in in in the zero line, that created
a lot of trust and a lot of intimacy because
they they knew I wasn't just there too too. Uh basically,

(01:02:46):
you know, do war porn if you and that. And
one of one guy said to me, the press officer
said to me, that unit of that brigade. He said,
you know, everybody comes here to film combat, but you
came here to film us. Yeah, and that really, that
really and that was really that. I never thought of
it quite so clearly, but when you said it, you know,

(01:03:10):
that was really my intention and and so so it
took me a long time. I didn't know anybody going
into Ukraine starting out, and not a single person in Ukraine.
But I wanted to tell the story. And now I've
been doing it for about four years now, and it'll

(01:03:31):
be coming up because of the anniversary. And at this
point I'm pretty well and it's pretty well understood by
a lot of people that I either deal with or
need to deal with what my intentions ought, and that
I'm in it for the long run. You know, I'm
to tell the whole story and to tell it properly,
and you just talk about misinformation. To tell the truth.

(01:03:54):
And for that reason, I have a lot of doors
open to me. So like, for example, I've in our film,
you know, from the mayor of Leviv uh to you know,
people in their homes. We filmed uh the whole cycle
of life. Uh. Birth, you know, birth in the hospital, uh. Death,

(01:04:16):
you know, death on the front line, death, you know,
uh it funerals, uh, boyfriends, girlfriends, and because that's really
what you know, we talk a lot about war, but
war is about people. And as John Spencer, I like
to quote him, not quote him exactly. You know, he's

(01:04:36):
head of Urban Warfare Institute or whatever at West Point,
and he's written, he's written a lot on the on
the importance of the home front to the front line,
and the home front has to stay strong in order
for the front line to stay strong. And you know
that that that was a disaster for us in Vietnam

(01:05:00):
because the guys who were fighting didn't feel that the
home front was there for them. And so in Ukraine,
the home front and the front line were very much,
very much working together and support each other. And that's
what I've show in my films. Also is how that
you know basically how the whole country is operating that

(01:05:21):
way and when you see it, so you know, kind
of like we've talked for a long time, but now
we're kind of back to the film kind of thing.
So when you see, when you see the truth of
the country. Because I don't have narration in my films,
it's really what's in front of the camera kind of thing.
A lot of verite people do talk to the camera,

(01:05:43):
but there is no trying to explain. There isn't like
my voice or some actor's voice or somebody's voice trying
to guide you through life. We just film enough things
and put them together in such a way that you
can come to your own conclusions.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
No, and I love it, and I love it and
the Steel Porcupine and you know that's that's a film
that you put out there. And then also the did
I not mention your zero line to this? You know
what I mean to the zero line Brave Hearts in
Dark Hours. You can go to www. Dot to the
zero line dot com to check that out. And you know, Benjamin,

(01:06:24):
I think that you've been a wonderful person on the
show to just invite back in the future, you know
here the you know, if you have any other insights
on Ukraine or you want to come on the show
and discuss more about anything to do with this lane
or your experiences. I think that ye're just a welcome
addition onto the show and I just want to say
thanks to Molly for linking us up together and you know,

(01:06:48):
having you come on. As soon as I saw as
soon as we saw your bio, my producer's like, yes,
I'll say.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
I like your show. I like your show. I've been
you know, getting I've been watching a lot of the episodes,
and I like, you know, the guys just talk. You know,
it's very casual and people talk, and really it's like
just guys, you know, guys and girls. But you don't
have that many girls talking.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
But oh let's change that. Just call the down below, Okay, Hey,
you want to get on the show. Pushtana just was
on the show. She's a she's like a princess of
the Northern Alliance who was shunned off to Pakistan.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
You know, it's like I had her on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
And you know, Banave was on, a former marine major
who helps with veterans. We love our ladies. They are
the most powerful people in this world. I love my guys.
You're the also second most powerful people of this world.
Take a human being from your body.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
You don't want to shitch that order when you get
into a lot of trouble.

Speaker 4 (01:07:52):
I yeah, I love my wife. I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Twenty six years successful. Okay, that's what's up. All right,
let's just be clear. Yeah, and until somebody could pull
human out of themselves, I digress, dude. It's like, I
can't do that. I can help make the human, but
I can't pull a human out of my body. My
wife Shirk did though, and otherwise do and other women do.
And I guess I'm just you know, I'm a girl dad.

Speaker 4 (01:08:15):
Okay. So it's like, and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
My mom raised me the right way, and my father,
you know, I feel that. I feel that every time
I talk with people or they get into an argument
and I'm like, whoa, you know, hey, peacemaker here right,
we all bleed the same blood.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Yeah, and so, and that that's what I like about
your show. It's really it's really pretty, you know, it's
really pretty down. It's very down to earth and people people,
there's something about you that people feel comfortable if you
have that kind of mind if you really, like really like,
if you're gonna only be talking and talking points and

(01:08:53):
slogans and this is not the place for you.

Speaker 4 (01:08:56):
No I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
And you can tell because like when we talk before,
like I'll let my listener. You're like, hey, Rad, you
have questions. I'm like, well, I got some things in
my head. And once we start talking, and you know, let's.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
Say, I'll tell you something about that. You know, Nate
Vance is in I never even mentioned it here. He's
in the Steel Porcupine. He's JD Vince's cousin and Keith
fought in Ukraine for three years and when j D
became vice president, when he was elected, he came back
because he says in the film, he didn't want to

(01:09:29):
be a potential hostage, yeah, you know, or a target,
you know, or a target and one of the things
that so when I filmed Nate and Nate was really great.
And when I filmed Nate, we spent about almost like
a number of days together talking about it before we
actually filmed, and he said, give me a script. And

(01:09:50):
I said, there's no way I'm giving you a script.
It's gonna sounds like bullshit. I'm not going to tell
you what to say. You just keep talking, you know,
you tell me, you know, and you just you just
tell me what you're thinking and we'll make we'll make
it look good, you know. But I want to know
you kind of thing. And that's the thing. You have

(01:10:12):
that attitude too. I think you know you have that
attitude too, which is the only way you really get
to know somebody.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Yeah, you know, I feel like we could play Nintendo
together and have this conversation, or like, you know, do
something like you know, hang out and eat some pizza
and just still have this kind of conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:10:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
I'll just say, back in the day, I used to
have a lot of face to face you know, before COVID,
we were always doing interviews where we'd be together, you know,
And now we have this you know medium where we
can reach each other through you know, satellites and talk
to each other through zooms and squad casts and all
of our different platforms to have a conversation with someone
we've never talked to before, and to show people that

(01:10:49):
you can still have kindness with one another in a
very sensitive such situation and listen to one side and
then you know, go back and forth, just like a
ping pong game.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
You know. It's like, yeah, I think I think some
of it is that you deal with and you deal
with guys who have been been around the military, and
there are a lot of assholes, There's no doubt about it.
Everywhere you go.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
I've seen space Balls. I've seen the movie Spaceballs. Yeah,
how many assholes are here?

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
Every single one of us, Sir, I've seen the movie Spaceballs.

Speaker 4 (01:11:21):
I get your reference. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
But if you have, but if you have, you know.
But but there's something about good guys who have the
right mindset, who have who have been part of a team,
and who are willing to work together for a cause
or for a reason, even if it's a wrong reason,
but you're still working together kind of thing, and you

(01:11:45):
have that camaraderie, which right now in the US, that's
about the only way you get it, you know. And
so that's that's really kind of like the people you
bring on in your audience is they have that understanding
of brotherhood that is really missing in from society.

Speaker 4 (01:12:03):
And you know how we engulf that brotherhood.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
So you know how we keep saying Joe's and Josephine's
you know, guys and girls, I'm not trying to leave
anybody out of our conversation that go into tough situations. Well,
they listen to us as well. And some of these
people are young kids, young adults who never could join
the military, who have like asthma or some other type
of issue that stopped them and prevented them from ever
being a part of that. But I know that, and

(01:12:26):
so therefore I'm cool with bringing them into that circle
through the show and they can listen and they can
be a part of it, and they reach out to
me and they're like, you know, And then you got
the hard guys and gals who have been there and
done that, seen war at its ultimate worsts, right, lived
through something the only survivor of something I've had interviews of.
And then they're just like, the war is just not

(01:12:49):
what we want. You don't want that. So I hear
from them, I hear from the others, and then I
just kind of like, you know, soak it up like
a sponge, and I'm just putting that out there.

Speaker 4 (01:12:59):
I still try.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
To do what my mom and dad taught me to do,
and that is have you done any good in the
world today. Have you helped anyone in need? That's kind
of what they always taught me, And so I kind.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
Of just roll off that, Well, it's working for me.

Speaker 4 (01:13:16):
No hand cut scene, all right, I'm in my trailer.
Where's my Where's.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:13:24):
I just love that, you know, I'm a journalist.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
I like to say that, and when I get people
on the show, I think that they don't know what
direction it's going to go. And that's why I warn
everybody at the beginning, it's the Internet.

Speaker 4 (01:13:35):
What we say stays.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
So you know, I love having these conversations, and you've
been a very delightful person to have on talking about
a very serious topic of humanity. And I love that
you are about the humanity and I want that also.
I want my listener to walk away saying, there's hope
we need to have humanity.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Yeah, and also there are some things worth fighting for.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
One hundred percent, and I'm not disagreeing with that. You know,
I'm not just saying layover and roll over. No, I
don't think I would.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
Kind of I don't know if I guess we're finishing up,
but I'll finish on what got me into this whole thing.
And start. You mentioned at the beginning that my father
survived the Holocaust. My family survived, many of them were killed.
He's from this area in Ukraine, which is one of
the one of the things in my family. His grandparents were.

(01:14:30):
My grandfather is deported by the Soviets into Russia and
Mike and his mother went there, was deported and sister
and they never came back. They were they died in Kazakhstan.
They had a business in this area and it was
taken over by the Soviets, so they ended up pretty

(01:14:51):
much in the same situation that but it was worse
being Holocaust survivors.

Speaker 4 (01:14:56):
It's all, yes, one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
But the the basic concept what motivated me, what motivates
me still is that I know because it happened to
my family, It happened literally to my father, that what
the outcome can be, and what saved him was one
guy and his parents. He was the mayor of what's

(01:15:21):
nau cher Nipsy who basically saved a few Jews, put
his put his neck out to do it. And that's
the only reason I'm alive, and and my you know,
and every and and my my children and everything after
us is because of this one man. And I feel
it's you know, sometimes you can't just sit back. It's

(01:15:44):
not the right thing to do. And so it's really
I feel, yeah, I go to the front or I
go just anywhere in this country because somebody's got to
do it. It's you know, otherwise I've got I'm really
paying back, is how I see it, with what I
can do.

Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
Love that, bro, love that for you. I love that.
I love that, and I'm going to let that be
your mission.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
And I always tried to explain to people around me that,
you know, you had a badass who fought through so
much to make sure that you're here today. Somebody lived
through all of these things in the world's history, of
the Genghis Khans, of the of the of the you know,
Peters the Great, all these people who rule the world,

(01:16:30):
and somehow your soul is here today because somebody was
hard and fought through all of that to make sure
that you're here today. So I can only be the
best steward of what is put in front of me,
just like you. And so you know, bless your family,
Blessed to your parents, to your grandparents, to your grandparents' grandparents,
and so on.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
Yeah, and well, more power to you. If this message
gets out to more people, your message, yes, then we'll
it'll be a better world. At least what you can
make is better neighborhood.

Speaker 4 (01:17:07):
You know, you have your buddy correct exactly, love your buddies.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
And again, you know, tough topic to try to have
a joke in there about, but I can't help who
I am.

Speaker 4 (01:17:17):
And you know the Steel Porcupine.

Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
Please, my viewer listener, please go check out the Steel
Porcupine again. You can go to I believe it's heart cast.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
You can go to the Steel Porcupine dot com. That's
that's us.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
Actually, yeah, the Steel Porcupine right hard cast is your
agent or your publicist. But you can go to the
Steel Porcupine dot com and you can go check out
is it to the zero zero line dot com dot
com and just check it out and if you like it,
leave a comment wherever you watch it. Let the let

(01:17:52):
the director, the filmmaker know what you thought of the
of the project. I'm sure he would love to read
any comment that you have. Share that with a friend,
and that's what social media is all about. Just hit
the share button and share it all around. And you know,
just you know, if, if, really, if my message could
reach one person, if by sharing it, So go ahead
and share this. If you like this conversation. If you
have a comment about this conversation, just type it on

(01:18:14):
down below. I try to reply to everybody and give
you real feedback from me. I'm I'm real, you know,
just like Ben's real. So we're we're here to just
be who we are, bro and so and you can't too.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
Well. Thank you, thank you Rad for being so real.
I really enjoy it. I really, I really enjoy your vibe.

Speaker 4 (01:18:34):
I agree, Hey, thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
And Benjamin for going into hard places and talk about
hard things and living through hard things and you know,
being also a very nice, soft spoken person. I hope
you enjoy the rest of your day today and moving forward.
And again, you're welcome back on the show to talk
about anything like oh hey, Rad, I forgot we could
talk an hour about this. Well, then you just hit

(01:18:57):
me up. You have my contact. We would love to
have you back, Okay, so please come back onto our show.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
I'm looking forward to it. Thanks Rad, And Hey, anytime
you're in my neighborhood, I can have a beer or
anything else.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
You want with that sounds good to me. A beer
in a pizza, in a video game and we'll just talk.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
You beat me at the video game though.

Speaker 4 (01:19:20):
How funny, funny, how funny.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
Well listen now On behalf of Benjamin Goldhagen and myself
rad here at Soft Rep and also my main man
Brandon Webb, who runs the show and helps make sure
that everybody is watching this and it's being reached everywhere.
Thank you, Producer Callum and everybody on the back end,
all my sponsors. I love you guys a lot. You
guys keep us going, so please keep that up. And again,

(01:19:45):
this is rad On, behalf of Benjamin, saying peace.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
You've been listening to self red Radia