VGTRK journalist Andrei Medvedev shared on Facebook his opinion on whether Russian athletes should compete at the Olympics in Pyeongchang under a neutral flag, as the IOC decision made last Tuesday in Lausanne allows them.
A. Medvedev:
“If I had a chance, as a sports official Zhukov, to perform in Lausanne, then I would probably say the following words:
- Ladies and Gentlemen. I see your triumphant faces and I understand that you expect words of apology and repentance from me. There will be neither one nor the other. We will not apologize for doping, the existence of which we could not really prove. And, which, they were looking for in the samples only of the Russian team.
We will not thank you for the permission to go to our athletes to the Olympics under a neutral flag. Anyway, I won't. Whether athletes go or not, it's not up to me to decide. And even, perhaps, not to the president. It seems to me that each of them should decide individually. But I would like them to say - no, we will not go. Because there are things that cannot, cannot be transgressed, betrayed. There is something that makes people a people, and the land is the homeland. These are genetic codes, the memory of the people, their traditions. My people have this attitude towards the flag and the ability to sacrifice themselves in the name of the country. And both of these things are deeply connected. In the Old Russian language, the word flag sounds like a banner. From the word "pull together", and this is no coincidence. The army was pulled to the prince's staff, stood shoulder to shoulder during the battle. In the Russian annals, the entries are usually scanty, laconic, but it was always mentioned that the enemy in the battle "hit the banner", I was the warrior who defended the banner, "killed".
So we are genetically tuned to defend our flag. We cannot genetically perform anywhere under a neutral flag. Anyway, I think so, I believe in it.
You may say - but think about the athletes, because they have been preparing for the Olympics all their lives. I think about them. And even more I think about my Motherland, which you are trying to break and humiliate. And we, I hope, are still able to put the collective above the particular.
In ancient times, my country seemed to many to be an easy and necessary prey. And the enemy often came to us. And to stop it, on the southern outskirts, in the Zadonsk forest-steppe, our ancestors created notch lines. Outposts and long, many kilometers of earth and felled trees. At these outposts were ordinary Russian people. And professional wars, and militias, yesterday's peasants. Their task was simple - to warn their comrades, when an enemy appeared, light a signal fire, and die in battle. Stand near the banner and fight. To hold back as much as possible the army of the next enemy, and disappear unknown, without even leaving a name. To die for the sake of your country, your family, your clan. This is from those times our saying "One is not a soldier in the field." All the former southern borders of my country are one huge grave of an unknown Russian warrior. But they could not have fought. Skip the enemy, sit out in the woods. There were probably some. But of course there were more of those who took the last battle around the banner.
Otherwise, I did not speak, I did not think, I would not feel in Russian. And my country would not exist, and you would have no one to blame for your troubles if my distant ancestors thought about themselves, and not about the Motherland. That is why I personally would not go to the Olympics under a neutral flag. For me it would mean betraying everything that binds me to my land. Including, to betray those distant signal fires in the Zadonskaya steppe, and the last battle of an unknown squad under the Russian banner. But it’s not up to me to decide.
And I will repeat myself. We will not repent and apologize for doping. Yes, our guys have problems. We do not hide them. Do you want to be honest? Let's check everyone then. Let's start with Norwegian skiers. And let their minister stand here next to me.
I know what you want. So that today we will repent for the Sochi Olympics, tomorrow for the victory over ISIS, then for the murder of Hitler. And in a few years, you will bill us for the stay of Soviet citizens in Buchenwald and Auschwitz. Did you even feed them something there? Did you dress it somehow? And then tell me that we need to pay for Cyclone-B. So this will not happen.
Finally, I will tell you one more Russian proverb. "Don't be dashing while it is quiet." You didn’t seem to hear her. They would have thought otherwise. "
It’s strange to see how the same people used to shout silly that war was not the business of a conscript soldier, that professionals should fight, and now they are also yelling that “what a horror, we have PMCs, a shame of this government ". Excuse me, so you kind of wanted the pros to fight with us? The authorities, at your request, in fact, created a PMC. No?
- Why hide the presence of PMCs? Because they are actually created to hide their existence. It is a proxy war tool. Again Blackwater. The first operation in 2001 in Kabul. They have been in Iraq since 2003. So then even the American military did not know exactly who they were. The American military in Baghdad told me that they were special forces or CIA units. Even the death of Blackwater fighters in Fallujah was not confirmed by the US authorities. That is, they reported the death of military advisers. Only in 2007, after the massacre in Baghdad, when PMC fighters shot civilians, did the Americans learn of their existence. Although rumors about PMCs were circulating in America. During the second assault on the same Fallujah, Blackwater played a key role, essentially acting as barriers and then as the main breakout force. But officially they didn’t exist. So the citizens who are now screaming that, they say, "the shame of our government, because it is silent about the death of ours in Syria," simply do not understand by what algorithm PMCs work and why they are created.
- Why did the Americans hit our soldiers? Because the Third World War is underway. This is, of course, proxy war, but still. Syria is one of the fronts of the Third World War. I think Afghanistan and Central Asia will be next. Not only we and the Americans are taking part in this Third World War. Do you know, citizens, that French and English special forces are fighting in Syria? So sooner or later we had to face "Western partners" in a direct battle. The private CIA - the Stratfor company - wrote in a report four years ago that the US forces are quite limited, and Washington should consider the events in Syria and Ukraine as a single theater of military operations. This Black Sea theater of operations will put pressure on Russia from a southern direction. Nothing new. So in Syria we are not fighting for Assad, but for our future, for the right of our country to be. Don't be yourself. And just be. To exist in the world.
- Based on the above. The soldiers of our PMCs in Syria are Russian heroes. They are real heroes of the fight against terrorism and the war for the Russian future. They are the same heroes as Prokhorenko and Filipov, Durachenko and Mikhailova, as our pilots, sailors and SSO fighters.
The fighters of PMCs, unfortunately, are unknown and unsung heroes (as Eric Prince called his guys "unsung heroes"). But we must understand that by their struggle, by their daily feat, the soldiers of our PMCs give us the right to a peaceful life. We go to the cinema, raise children, go to work thanks to them - ordinary Russian men whose profession is war, and who every day cleanse this terrorist purulent phlegmon.
And when some "journalist" writes about "dead mercenaries", you should know that this person is not much different from the propaganda scum from the Ishilov media center "Al-Furkan". This is the enemy who stabs our fighters in the back.
Once again, they are heroes. Their job is war, but their death is a tragedy. Moreover, apparently there was not without idiocy and betrayal.
I don't know how the state is there, whether it will forget them or not. But the Motherland should not forget them. And the Motherland is us. Don't forget the fighters of Russian PMCs.
Eternal memory to men and soldiers.
Facebook moderators blocked the publication of VGTRK journalist Andrei Medvedev twice for far-fetched reasons. From the third time, the author finally managed to convey his opinion through the censorship barriers of a social network from the "freest country". Medvedev comments on the sensational performance of a young man from Novy Urengoy in the Bundestag.
"If I had to speak in the Bundestag, as a boy Kolya, then I probably said the following words:
Dear deputies. Today I saw a miracle. And this miracle is called Germany. I walked to you and looked at the beautiful Berlin streets, at people, at wonderful architectural monuments, and now I am standing here and looking at you. And I understand that all this is a miracle. That you were all born and live in Germany. Why do I think so?
Because considering what your soldiers did in our occupied territories, the Red Army fighters could easily leave a scorched field, ruins in place of Germany, and only paragraphs of textbooks would remind that there was once such a country. It's scary, but it could have happened.
You probably don't remember all the details of the occupation, but you don't need to. I will just remind you of what the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the SS did with Soviet children. They were shot. Often in front of the parents. Or vice versa, first they shot at dad and mom, and then at the children. Your soldiers have raped children. Children were burned alive. They were sent to concentration camps. Where they took their blood to make serum for your soldiers. The children were starved to death. Children were devoured to death by your shepherd dogs. Children were used as targets. Children were brutally tortured just for fun.
Here are two examples. An infant interfered with the Wehrmacht officer's sleep, he took him by the leg and smashed his head on the corner of the stove. Your pilots at the Lychkovo station bombed a train on which they tried to take the children to the rear, and then your aces chased the frightened kids, shooting them in a bare field. Two thousand children were killed.
And just for one thing that your soldiers did with children, I repeat, the soldiers of the Red Army, who saw the endless bloody ashes from the Volga to the Western Bug, could break loose, turn into merciless avengers, and destroy Germany completely. Perhaps even with its inhabitants. After all, they spoke and wrote from the front, without fear of censorship, during the war, that they wanted to take revenge on the Germans. Not fascists. Not the Nazis. Precisely to the Germans.
But they didn't. Do I regret it? Of course not. How can you regret not spilling blood? How can you regret that our soldiers and officers have shown incredible humanism and mercy? I bow before the highest spirit and steel will of my ancestors, who found some incredible strength in themselves not to become the same cattle as the Wehrmacht soldiers were. On the buckles of the German soldiers it was written "God is with us." But they were a product of hell and brought hell to our land. The soldiers of the Red Army were members of the Komsomol and Communists, but the Soviet people turned out to be much more Christians than the inhabitants of enlightened religious Europe. And they did not take revenge. We were able to feel, understand that hell cannot be defeated by hell.
You should not ask us for forgiveness, because you personally are not guilty of anything. You cannot be responsible for your grandfathers and great-grandfathers. And then, only the Lord forgives. But I'll be honest - for me the Germans are forever alien, alien people. This is not because you are personally bad. It is in me that screams the pain of the children burned by the Wehrmacht. And you will have to accept that at least another generation of mine - for whom the memory of the war is the awards of his grandfather, his scars, his front-line friends - will perceive you this way. What will happen next, I do not know. Perhaps mankurt will come after us who will be forgotten by everyone. And we did a lot for this, we pissed away a lot ourselves, but I hope that not all is lost for Russia. We certainly need to cooperate. Russians and Germans. We need to solve problems together. Fight ISIS and build gas pipelines. But you will have to accept one fact: we will never repent for this great war of ours. And even more so for the Victory. And even more so in front of you. In any case, I repeat, my generation. Because then we saved not only ourselves. We saved you from yourself. And I don't even know which is more important. "
Facebook twice blocked the account of VGTRK journalist Andrei Medvedev for his post about speaking in the Bundestag. The text is excellent and very Russian in an amicable way, therefore it deserves to be read. “If I had to speak in the Bundestag, as a boy Kolya, then I probably said the following words:
- Dear deputies. Today I saw a miracle. And this miracle is called Germany. I walked to you and looked at the beautiful Berlin streets, at people, at wonderful architectural monuments, and now I am standing here and looking at you. And I understand that all this is a miracle. That you were all born and live in Germany. Why do I think so? Because considering what your soldiers did here, in the occupied territories, the soldiers of the Red Army had every moral right to destroy the entire German people.
Leaving a burnt field, ruins and only paragraphs of textbooks in place of Germany would remind that there was once such a country. You probably don't remember all the details of the occupation, but you don't need to. I will just remind you of what the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the SS did with Soviet children. They were shot. Often in front of the parents. Or vice versa, first they shot at dad and mom, and then at the children.
Your soldiers have raped children. Children were burned alive. They were sent to concentration camps. Where they took their blood to make serum for your soldiers. The children were starved to death. Children were devoured to death by your shepherd dogs. Children were used as targets. Children were brutally tortured just for fun.
Or here are two examples. An infant interfered with the Wehrmacht officer's sleep, he took him by the leg and smashed his head on the corner of the stove. Your pilots at the Lychkovo station bombed a train on which they tried to take the children to the rear, and then your aces chased the frightened kids, shooting them in a bare field. Two thousand children were killed.
Just for one thing that you did with the children, I repeat, the Red Army could destroy Germany completely with its inhabitants. She had every moral right. But she didn't.
Do I regret it? Of course not. I bow before the steel will of my ancestors, who found some incredible strength in themselves not to become the same cattle as the Wehrmacht soldiers were.
On the buckles of the German soldiers it was written "God is with us." But they were a product of hell and brought hell to our land. The soldiers of the Red Army were members of the Komsomol and Communists, but the Soviet people turned out to be much more Christians than the inhabitants of enlightened religious Europe. And they did not take revenge. We were able to understand that hell cannot be defeated by hell.
You should not ask us for forgiveness, because you personally are not guilty of anything. You cannot be responsible for your grandfathers and great-grandfathers. And then, only the Lord forgives. But I'll be honest - for me the Germans are forever alien, alien people. This is not because you are personally bad. It is in me that screams the pain of the children burned by the Wehrmacht. And you will have to accept that at least another generation of mine - for whom the memory of the war is the awards of his grandfather, his scars, his front-line friends - will perceive you this way.
What will happen next, I do not know. Perhaps mankurt will come after us who will be forgotten by everyone. And we did a lot for this, we pissed away a lot ourselves, but I hope that not all is lost for Russia.
We certainly need to cooperate. Russians and Germans. We need to solve problems together. Fight ISIS and build gas pipelines. But you will have to accept one fact: we will never repent for our Great War. And even more so for the Victory. And even more so in front of you. In any case, I repeat, my generation. Because then we saved not only ourselves. We saved you from yourself. And I don't even know which is more important
Dear deputies. Today I saw a miracle. And this miracle is called Germany. I walked to you and looked at the beautiful Berlin streets, at people, at wonderful architectural monuments, and now I am standing here and looking at you. And I understand that all this is a miracle. That you were all born and live in Germany. Why do I think so?
Because, considering what your soldiers did in our occupied territories, the soldiers of the Red Army had every moral right to destroy the entire German people. Leaving a burnt field, ruins and only paragraphs of textbooks in place of Germany would remind that there was once such a country.
You probably don't remember all the details of the occupation, but you don't need to. I will just remind you of what the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the SS did with Soviet children. They were shot. Often in front of the parents. Or vice versa, first they shot at dad and mom, and then at the children. Your soldiers have raped children. Children were burned alive. They were sent to concentration camps. Where they took their blood to make serum for your soldiers. The children were starved to death. Children were devoured to death by your shepherd dogs. Children were used as targets. Children were brutally tortured just for fun.
Or here are two examples. An infant interfered with the Wehrmacht officer's sleep, he took him by the leg and smashed his head on the corner of the stove. Your pilots at the Lychkovo station bombed a train on which they tried to take the children to the rear, and then your aces chased the frightened kids, shooting them in a bare field. Two thousand children were killed.
Just for one thing that you did with the children, I repeat, the Red Army could destroy Germany completely with its inhabitants. She had every moral right. But she didn't. Do I regret it? Of course not. I bow before the steel will of my ancestors, who found some incredible strength in themselves not to become the same cattle as the Wehrmacht soldiers were. On the buckles of the German soldiers it was written "God is with us." But they were a product of hell and brought hell to our land. The soldiers of the Red Army were members of the Komsomol and Communists, but the Soviet people turned out to be much more Christians than the inhabitants of enlightened religious Europe. And they did not take revenge. We were able to understand that hell cannot be defeated by hell.
You should not ask us for forgiveness, because you personally are not guilty of anything. You cannot be responsible for your grandfathers and great-grandfathers. And then, only the Lord forgives. But I'll be honest - for me the Germans are forever alien, alien people. This is not because you are personally bad. It is in me that screams the pain of the children burned by the Wehrmacht. And you will have to accept that at least my generation - for whom the memory of the war is the awards of his grandfather, his scars, his front-line friends - will perceive you this way. What will happen next, I do not know. Perhaps mankurt will come after us who will be forgotten by everyone. And we did a lot for this, we pissed away a lot ourselves, but I hope that not all is lost for Russia.
We certainly need to cooperate. Russians and Germans. We need to solve problems together. Fight ISIS ( the structure is prohibited in the Russian Federation - ed.) and build gas pipelines. But you will have to accept one fact: we will never repent for our Great War. And even more so for the Victory. And even more so in front of you. In any case, I repeat, my generation.
Because then we saved not only ourselves. We saved you from yourself. And I don't even know which is more important.