Fighting For Ukraine Yuriy Matsarsky

May 30th 2024
Yuriy has written his first Substack post, it's an article he has talked about previously that an American outlet didn't want to publish. You can read it here: https://yuriymatsarsky.substack.com/publish/post/145119038
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  
Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
It is 30th of May. 
I'm sorry for a long silence. I'm going through a very difficult time right now. Several important people in my life have passed away or been killed, and I myself have fallen seriously ill. Only now do I have a strength to upload the first text on Substack and tell you about it. 
I mentioned it, this text in one over episodes. It was commissioned by an American editorial team, which later rejected it because it did not fit the worldview of media's leadership. This text is about Russian position and why it cannot be considered an a lie of Ukrainians. If you like it and want to delve deeper into the relations between Russians and the Ukrainians, they will prepare a new text for you on how the destruction of Ukraine has become a national idea for Russians. But first, I need to recover. 
And one more thing. This text is available to everyone for free, but when I will be forced to publish articles only for war who subscribe to me, I hope you will be interested. 

May 24th 2024
Yuriy has made a decision about the future of the podcast, and thanks you for all your messages of support as he has considered this decision...
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  
Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
  
 It is 24th of May. 
You know I'm not going to shut down the podcast. I received some very important messages from the listeners and realized how significant it is for people. The podcast no longer belongs to just me. 
I will start posting texts on Substack next week, and for some time I'll be using the podcast to explain these texts or add something to them. I don't feel strong enough morally to continue sharing detailed personal stories related to the war. However, if something very important happens, I will definitely talk about it. 
I hope this adjustment, which is likely temporary will help me get back on track a bit. I should say that most of the texts I plan to publish and discuss here are awesome about our war, but since I have already lived through and reflected on the events described in them, I hope it'll be a bit easier and less traumatic to talk about them.
Once again, thank you all. Your support truly works wonders. See you next week.  

May 22nd 2024
Yuriy explains why it's so hard to continue making this podcast.
Yuriy is considering ending the podcast and starting a new model. He wants to know what you think! Email him at fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com to let him know what you think.
You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  
Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
  It's 22nd of May. 
I have to admit to you that every episode of this podcast is a deeply traumatic experience. Every time I write an episode, every time I record it, and every time I edit it, I relive all the horrible things I have to talk about. Every single damn time. It really hurts because I have to constantly remember things I wish had never happened. Remembering the deaths of friends, the captivity of those who served with me, with destruction, with pain, with tears, with countless people who can never be brought back, the time and the happiness stolen from us by the occupiers. 
It's very hard. And very painful. And also I do this in my free time. I don't get this time to distract myself from the pain and the war, but instead I dive back into them to make another episode. And each time it gets harder. A few months ago I gave up trying to make the podcast daily. I think I would have gone crazy if I had tried to keep it up that often. For a while it helped me a bit doing it once, maybe twice a week was easier than four or five times a week. 
But it turned out that it was not a solution. It's painful and hard and each time. I force myself to record the podcast. I don't really understand why should I continue to force myself to do it.  I used to feel that I was making at least some impact on the general opinion abroad, but now I realize that this impact is very small, barely noticeable, really. I used to be able to tell myself, yes, it's hard, but it's not in vain- thanks to the podcast, you can pay for your daughter's education and help your parents, but that has long ceased to be true. I am very, very grateful to those who still support me, but I have to admit that this money has not been enough for a long time. So I'm torturing myself almost for free. 
I'm very grateful to those who have sent me suggestions for improving the podcast. They are wonderful and interesting, but I just don't see a way to make them work in a way that fulfills any of the goals for which the podcast was started. I'm afraid I won't be able to make them generate income, maintain my skills as a journalist and be interested for foreign listeners. I'm sure that in any other situation, I would grab unto these suggestions and at least try to do something with them.
But now I'm very emotionally exhausted and simply unable to radically change the project. I am truly trying to save it. It is very dear to me, but it seems that I just don't have best strength for it. I'm so sorry. I really think only a miracle can save this project.  

May 21st 2024
The Russians are mindlessly destroying the Northern Kharkiv region with artillery, targeting a settlement of Chernobyl survivors. Yuriy expresses deep hatred towards those who continue to bring suffering to innocent Ukrainians.
Yuriy is considering ending the podcast and starting a new model. He wants to know what you think! Email him at fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com to let him know what you think.
You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  
Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)

It is May 21. 
The Russians are now destroying the Northern Kharkiv region. They are simply mindlessly demolishing everything with the reach of via artillery. There is no military sense in this. It's some kind of primal hatred towards Ukraine and Ukrainians. A wild desire to kill everyone they can. Among the villages and towns that are under constant shelling, there is a settlement of people who almost died earlier due to Moscow's actions, and now Moscow is trying to kill them again. 
In this settlement live families who were relocated in 1986 after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. Their homes were right in the path of a deadly cloud that rose from a destroyed reactor. People living nearby were forbidden to take with them not only their personal belongings, but even their pets. Even their clothing was destroyed after the evacuation, as it was highly radioactive. So people started their lives completely from scratch with nothing left of their past, except memories. And all of this is due to Moscow's actions. 
The fact is that the personnel at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant had sufficient expertise and clear instructions to prevent the catastrophic. They knew what to do to ensure it never happened. But the Moscow officials who didn't understand a thing about nuclear energy, but considered themselves superior in everything forbade acting according to the instructions. And the frightened plant workers who feared the Moscow officials more than nuclear accident did. as they were ordered  and thus occurred the worst nuclear disaster in human history. 
Those who survived the disaster and their descendants are now being killed by people who also fear the Moscow authorities more than anything else in the world. This fear makes them perfect executors of senseless and criminal actions. How else could you force a person to leave everything at home, go to another country and kill peaceful strangers there? Only by intimidating them with the idea that the authorities will be displeased if it is not done. You know, they fear death less when displeasing way superiors. It's easy for them to die, abandoned by their own comrades on minefield from wounds, and first, when to simply refuse to go and kill people. 
This is some mysterious phenomenon, a mystical darkness that has engulfed a huge country and turned millions of people into frightened killers or equally frightened silent accomplices of killers. But their fear does not justify them. These shitbags bring so much suffering, take so many lives, that neither way nor way children will ever be able to wash off the blood of innocent people who were killed just because they were Ukrainians. I really, really hate them. You have no idea how much.  

May 16th 2024
Yuriy is considering ending the podcast and starting a new model. He wants to know what you think! Email him at fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com to let him know what you think.
You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  
Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
It is May 16, and it seems to me that this podcast is coming to an end. It emerged two years ago with three main goals: to keep listeners informed about what's happening in Ukraine, to maintain my journalistic skills, and to earn money for my parents and daughter. Initially, everything worked and was genuinely interesting and useful. Now, after two years, I have serious doubts about the project's continued variability. 
The whole world already understand what is really happening in Ukraine. The terrible price we are paying fighting the war against Russian invaders and the extent of our losses. I simply have nothing more to add to this, I have already told everything I could. There are, of course, many other interesting things that I haven't shared, but I won't share them, even in the future, because they could be useful to the enemy or could hurt the feelings of people around me. I don't want that at all. So in reality, I've already told you everything I could. 
It's no longer feasible to continue the podcast and keep myself in shape as a journalist, simply because I can't. I just don't have the right to tell much of what I know. It's becoming increasingly difficult for me. To find something new and interesting that I could talk about without harming our cause. I'm forced to repeat myself and sometimes say banal things. Obviously this does not embellish me as a journalist, but I'm no longer just a journalist. I am a soldier, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to return to my old profession although, of course I would really like to. 
The monetization, that initially helped me, indeed, it saved my parents in the early weeks of the war, allowed me to pay for warehouse and medical care, ensure that my daughter was provided with everything she needed and allowed me to buy the necessary equipment for myself. This monetization has almost disappeared. Listeners are transferring less and less money. 
So everything that this podcast started for has been exhausted, at least it seems so to me. That's why I'm considering ending it. I don't want to completely break with journalism, so I want to move to the Substack platform where I plan to publish new texts weekly, perhaps sometimes more often, and also add old ones about the Middle East, for example, what have never been published in English before. This could be interesting and probably a bit easier for me. 
In this episode description, there is an email where you can send your thoughts and wishes, regard the future of the podcast. Maybe you have ideas on how to make it relevant, interesting, and profitable again, or perhaps you have other advices. Write it to me. Within a week until next Friday, I will make a decision. On what to do with this project. Close it and move on, or try to breathe new life into it? Help me decide.  

May 14th 2024
Yuriy humorously reveals his struggles in readjusting to civilian life, leading to a comical mishap with his jeans. 
You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com   You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family  
Yuriy’s Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy  

Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat 
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)