The above analysis by Sam Kiley, CNN Senior International Correspondent, is loopy for a number of reasons. For starters, he hasn’t dropped the “dissident” label. Secondly, most Russians could give a shit about what happens to their compatriots in Belgorod oblast. The same goes for Kursk, Bryansk and maybe Voronezh and Krasnodar (not Krasnodor).
While cross-border raids may boost morale for some in Kyiv, they are probably counterproductive because they fuel enmnity towards Ukraine among Russians. They might have some military value, but no one is sure how much.
We gave Sam a score of minus 15 points on a scale of 1 to 10 for his first reportage on May 251. This second effort is just as meh.
Alya Shandra at Euromaidan Press talks up Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) leader Aleksandr Fortuna here. The interview exposes what Kirill Rogov describes as the “ideological wishy-washiness” behind the group’s message.
Alya footnootes passionaries, crediting Lev Gumilev, whose ideas about the ethogenisis of Ukrainians were interesting, but, er, dead wrong.
Lev devotes an entire chapter to passionarity starting on page 33. I picked up the book when I was carousing in St. Petersburg in 1991. I’ve beeing reading portions of the manifest every since, usually late at night when I have difficulty falling asleep.
As for RDK, I would refer Sam and Alya to the project’s kick-off presser eight months ago. They should study the video carefully before writing more articles about RDK.