Over the past two weeks, we've been called "Ukrainian Propagandists" quite a bit, but here's the reason we don't publish much Russian combat footage from this conflict.

TL;DR - Russia is controlling their media so hard that it's impossible to believe any of what they're saying. Real information flows naturally without production in the 21st century. We live in the information age, not the newsreel era of WW2. Footage was recorded in Borodyanka and clearly edited in Moscow before its release.

In every conflict there's two sides. It doesn't matter if that conflict is an argument between a couple in high-school or a global nuclear war. In the still on-going war between Russia and Ukraine, there is obviously two sides to the story. On one side of the equation, we have the Ukrainians who want to join the European Union and NATO, and on the other we have the Russians who want to keep the EU and NATO far from their borders for what they say are security purposes. On the ground, there's the perspective of the Ukrainian Soldier, fighting to secure his country from an invading force. On the Russian side, there's the perspective of Russian uniforms doing military things.

Do you see where that paragraph went sideways at the end there? The footage above is for all intents and purpose the perspective of the Russian military in Ukraine as Russia has presented it to the rest of the world. Every single clip is a sanitized and watermarked production piece put together in an editing room in an attempt to show the strength of the Russian military. Unfortunately, this is 2022. Funker530 is over a decade old, and we've spawned an army of amateur war journalists, conflict historians, and combat footage enthusiasts who know what ground warfare looks like.

Since 2001, the face of war has changed. We watched the entire Global War on Terrorism in high definition on YouTube from the perspective of the boots on the ground. We saw it from the perspective of the young Marine Lance Corporal patrolling the streets of Iraq to the perspective of the Islamic State psychopath beheading his way through Syria. We're seeing some of these same perspectives here in Ukraine, but only from one side of the equation.

It's hard to discuss or post the Russian perspective in this conflict when every single one of their releases is a pre-planned production with an army of people working on it in the back-end to have absolute control of the narrative. So, to the Russians, or people who agree with the Russians and think we're propagandists, start asking the Russian soldiers to share their real perspective. If their morale is high and they believe they're doing the right thing by invading Ukraine, their raw emotions will show in the footage that they release directly from their perspective.

I didn't have to agree with the Islamic State to see that they were true believers of their cause. Same with the Taliban and the Free Syrian Army. I didn't have to agree with the Assad Regime or the Wagner contractors who released video of the committing war crimes to see that they truly thought they were in the right in the videos they were leaking out on YouTube and Twitter. I don't need to agree with them in any way shape or form, but it's plain as day when someone believes in what they're fighting for, and it's also fully possible for that footage to be released without a Public Affairs Officer sanitizing it first.

Right now, it's hard to think the average Russian Soldier wants to be fighting in Ukraine when all of the evidence we're seeing from the other perspective points to the opposite. It's hard to believe the sanitized productions the Russians are releasing stating that they have the situation fully under control when at the exact same time we're watching their tanks get absolutely dominated by NLAWs and Stugna-P ATGM systems.

Now, for those same people who agree with Russia, I want you to ask yourself a simple question. Is it truly easier to believe the Russian perspective knowing that the only footage you're seeing is coming through official channels who want to control the narrative? Is it really so easy to believe that the average Ukrainian Soldier recording and editing in the TikTok mobile app from a 7-year-old Samsung phone is faking the markings on Russian equipment with CGI? Do you think it's even remotely possible that a State controlled media agency that's living in the 1950's and equipping their Soldiers like they're in the 1990s is trying to paint their own narrative with controlled releases?

Either way, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Before I forget, the context on the video above is Russian troops moving around inside of Borodyanka near Kyiv. It's a clear indicator that in the coming days the Russians are intending to invade the capital city so they can install their own government and force the rest of the Ukrainian military to stand-down. If by any random chance a Russian Soldier reads this, I want you to go ahead and the search bar and type Aleppo. That's pretty much what you're in for inside of Kyiv.

PS, I'll take your hate mail in batches of 10 and 20. I stop reading them at midnight CST.

PSS, I didn't edit this. It's basically a long rant. Any spelling mistakes, missing words, or grammatical errors are my own fault and I accept them for what they are.