Fox News, Trains, Democracy, and Ukraine
What's happening in Ukraine?
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Good Morning, America, how are you?
Fox News, Trains, Democracy, and Ukraine; plus: the leaked intel
From 10 April, my Ukraine report, delivered each weekday for some 14 months now on Chicago’s WGN Radio with Bob Sirott—a place for sharing the truth:
Years ago, when I was upon the dark summits of power, my old mentor Roger Ailes, founder of Fox News, and his wife would play the song "City of New Orleans," at dinner parties with America’s powerbrokers as we triumphantly looked down upon the world from a mountaintop mansion.
Written by Steve Goodman, the song is a tribute to the majesty of American trains. Those powerbrokers claimed to be 'freedom defenders.' But now, years later in Ukraine, I see the real defenders of freedom, as I travel the trains of Ukraine that deliver supplies and people for a genuine freedom.
Democracy is not a brand. It's a way of life, and Ukrainians show that they will fight for it.
“Good morning, America, how are you?” sings Steve Goodman in the song. That’s a greeting, and a challenge. How are we? Who are we? “Good morning, Ukraine, how are you?” In Ukraine, even in the horrible muck of war, I suspect this answer might even be a little more positive than what we hear in the USA …
Featured Volunteer Group: Radical Aid Force
Lesson From Ukraine’s Radical Democracy: To Be Free, You’ve Got to Work Together
Ukrainian ‘anarchic’ hero Nestor Makhno—a 20th century democratic revivalist—inspires modern-day Germans to give all they got in Ukraine
KYIV—Much of the yearlong resistance to Russian aggression has been waged by small volunteer groups, what 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke called the Little Platoons. One of those platoons is a wild band of just four anarchic Germans called the Radical Aid Force.
In those early days of Russia’s invasion, everyone, including our Ukrainian Freedom News team of volunteers, was scrambling to get essential supplies to soldiers we knew. The most important supplies—life-saving chest seals for bullet wounds, night vision to spot the enemy, helmets to protect from shrapnel—were nearly impossible to find.
But the mysterious Radical Aid Force, whom I met through social media, found a way. They were able to find what we needed in small shops from Copenhagen to Munich and then they had the fortitude to make near-weekly trips to Ukraine, and close to the front lines, to deliver these supplies.
Calling themselves leftists-anarchists, the Radical Aid Force hasn’t stopped helping Ukraine, despite close calls with missiles and artillery and car accidents and car trouble. They’re on fumes, with little money left, but they keep going.
I recently spoke with one of their members, who goes by the call sign Nestor.
“Fighting back with all your might is the right of every human being,” Nestor told me. “The brutal actions of the Russian army cannot be stopped with "talks and negotiations.’”
Nestor, a fan of punk music in his native Germany, knew very little about Ukraine before the big invasion.
“I came to punk music when I was a teenager,” he said. “I can clearly remember seeing my older sister with Allstar Chucks one day with two different colored shoe laces in. I was like ‘wtf is she doing?! That’s cool!’ and yeah then I found out about punk and hardcore music. And since then I am politically active.”
Moved by social media images in the early hours of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, Nestor and friends filled up a van with what they thought would be needed and made their first trip. Since then, many of my friends here have turned to the Radical Aid Force for urgent and impossible-to-find items. While some fancy aid workers go on American television and fly around the world, Nestor had his team do their damndest to fulfill orders every week, with no glory.
As he traveled to Ukraine, he began to study its history. His code name — Nestor—is a reference to Ukrainian hero Nestor Makhno.
Nestor Makhno was a Cossack Ukrainian leader in the 20th century, a proponent of the freedom of the Ukrainian steppes, the wild fields, or the Dicapoli.
Read the full story at Poland’s TVP World.
Why does reporter eel safer reporting from Ukraine than other places in Europe?
Listen to my conversation today with Minnesota WCCO Radio’s Adam and Jordana.
Regular Resources:
Air-Raid Alert Map
State of the War Map: shows Russian positions and what Ukrainians have taken back; updated daily
“[It's something rare in our world of corporate and automated radio regular, real humanity.”
—Neil Steinberg, in the Chicago Sun-Times, on Joe Lindsley’s daily Ukraine reports with Bob Sirott of Chicago’s WGN Radio. We invite you to follow on YouTube.
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ABOUT US: Ukrainian Freedom News: The wild story—so far—of free people standing for democracy, faith, dignity
"Joseph Lindsley's reports are enlightening, frightening, heart-wrenchingly and poetically descriptive." —a regular listener to the daily report from Ukraine on Chicago's WGN Radio with Bob Sirott
“I just returned from three months in Ukraine. Not my first time there, and certainly not my last; a powerful experience for me personally, but I must say that JOE’s REPORTING, HIS INSIGHTS, and, OBVIOUSLY, HIS HEART, ARE SPOT-ON.” —Jim, a Telegram follower of Ukrainian Freedom News
American journalist Joe Lindsley, in Ukraine since 2020, leads the Ukrainian Freedom News team of Ukrainians and foreigners on a mission to share real talk and real life in war-time with the world. Every weekday since late February 2022, he has reported live from Ukraine on Chicago’s WGN Radio with host Bob Sirott. You can listen to all episodes at UkrainianFreedomNews.com or via our YouTube channel.
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UKRAINIAN FREEDOM NEWS
Truth to the World | Supplies to Ukraine
Joe Lindsley, Editor-in-chief
Vitalii Gulden, Creative Producer
Beata Szrom, Operations Director
Pavlo Vitenko, Chief Reporter
Anton Hutyriak, Associate Editor
Luka Oleschyuk, Video Editor
Jean-Baptiste Besson, Field Editor
Brennan Phillips, War Columnist