Angry Planet - The Hooligans Fighting for Ukraine

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

If you’re a fan of this show, you’ve probably seen and read a lot of things about the war in Ukraine. But you’ve never seen anything quite like the new Popular Front documentary Frontline Hooligan.Today’s guest is the creator of that documentary. He’s been on the show many times. You know him. Jake Hanrahan. He’s an independent journalist and the host of Popular Front, a podcast that focuses on the niche details of modern warfare and under-reported conflict.Today we’re gonna talk about Frontline Hooligan, Hanrahan’s travels in Ukraine, and how places like YouTube make it hard, if not impossible, for independent journalists like him.Watch the documentary here: https://youtu.be/nsodbPkjO3cAngry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. People live in a world and their own making. Frankly, that seems to be the problem. Welcome to Angry Planet. Hello, welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Matthew Galt. And I'm Jason Fields. If you're a fan of the show, you've probably seen and read a lot of things about it. about the war in Ukraine. You've never seen anything quite like the new Popular Front documentary, Frontline Hooligan. Today's guest, he needs no introduction. He's been on the show many times.

If you like Angry Planet, you probably like Popular Front. I'm in my Popular Front, Havana Syndrome T-shirt right now. It's Jake Hanrahan. He's an independent journalist, the host of Popular Front, and it's a podcast that focuses on the niche details of modern warfare

and underreported conflict. Today, we're going to talk about frontline hooligan, Hanrahan's travels in Ukraine and how places like YouTube make it hard, if not impossible for independent journalists like him. Jake, thank you once again for coming on Dangery Planet. Right, thanks again for having me. Like, thanks so much. And we were just talking before we recorded there, but like you guys really help propel us like popular front from the start, man. So I'm very, very grateful, man. Appreciate it. You do. Take us with you. Take us with you. I can barely hold myself up right now. But yeah, one day. The plan is one

day to hit big and bring everybody in, but we're just getting battered by censorship. But yeah, we'll talk about that layout. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I definitely, I want to tell, I want to tell people what's being censored before we get into the censorship portion because like this, like, it's a really good doc. It's on YouTube. Everyone, everyone can watch it. But for, so basic stuff out of the way for the Americans in the audience who don't know,

because it's like a different culture that we kind of don't have here. What is a football hooligan? So a football hooligan. or sometimes the word football ultra is kind of used interchangeably, but they are slightly different. But essentially a football hooligan is somebody that fights, fist fights with other, I guess, ultra fans of various football clubs. And they meet, they organise to just fight each other, basically,

because they're from rival clubs. Usually, well, always young men, you know, want to fight. And that's how it is. And to be honest, I personally, like you'll notice in the doc, we didn't, we didn't have any moral comment on football hooliganism at all. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, really. They're not attacking civilians.

They're not, you know, they meet in fields to fight each other most of the time. So it's kind of, it kind of is what it is. You know, they want to fight each other and they do it. And it's all consensual, if you know what I'm saying. So, yeah, man, it's a culture of fist fighting, violence. Well, sometimes weapons are actually involved. But, yeah, I guess, I guess like a real subculture of violence. physical violence between opposing football teams, which in Europe, it's been a very big thing.

In Britain, you know, people quite know, like probably will look at Britain for football hooliganism because we had a lot of firms back in the day. But the European version is just way more interesting, a different culture altogether, and a lot more violent and with people that are a lot better at fighting, to be honest. Just because I'm fascinated with this particular aspect of it, because, again, we just don't have it here. You know, in America, then buy guns and push their rage down and then it explodes. They don't go out and get it out in a field with their buddies. Why, like, how did, do we have any idea, like, how this kind of developed and became formalized at all?

Well, from what I understand, it kind of began in the stands, you know, like one team would play a rival team. I mean, an example we could use right now could be from frontline hoolibing. And so the lads that I film with there, they all support Arsenal Kiev, which is bankrupt now. But their biggest rival was Dynamo Kiev. And all the ultrass from Dynamo, Kiev are far right. All the ultrass from Arsenal Kiev are anti-fascist. So there's a political aspect to it there, which is something a little bit different in mainland Europe as opposed to Britain. But basically, like, they would just end up fighting in the stands.

Two different teams would fight each other because they don't like each other. And the most ultra-angriest fans would fight. And then it just developed into, well, let's not fight at the stands because everybody gets banned from the club. And, I mean, to be honest, the football element of football hooliganism became secondary. The violence became the first thing, really. You know, like the violence was what it was. And, yeah, there's a lot of people. It's really bad.

It's really bad. Sure, whatever. But really, you know, young men found a space to get out their aggression and their anger. It wasn't really about the fanaticism of the football. actually it was more about tribal violence, which whatever, however progressive people want to be forever in a day, that will be a part of a young man's journey. I do think specifically from certain backgrounds, perhaps, but I do think a lot of young men feel that, you know, and that's how it developed. So it sounds like clockwork orange to me. I mean, it's just, yeah, the tribalness and also just this need for violence.

Yeah, I'd be honest, like I, I as a teenager, you know, like I was, you know, the background, the area I'm from, the town I'm from particularly, just violence was just, you hit a certain age and you either become involved in fist fighting or you don't, you know, and if you don't, that's fine, whatever. But it was just a, especially in my peer group, it was just a thing that happened. You just became involved in, in street fighting, really, you know, not that I was a tough guy by any stretch at all. Like, but, you know, I was like, oh, cool, like this is cool, you know, like, And then got beating up a few times. I was like, oh, I'm not the tough guy. I thought I was. But I just joined the Muay Thai boxing gym. And through that, we got it out that way, you know. So in the end, we were like, okay, we're not hooligans. We do combat sports.

We like it. And it was just like a very good way, actually, to create a good friendship group where you trust each other because you know physically you have each other's backs. And again, in certain environments, particularly working class ones in Britain, there is a lot of violence. Unfortunately, now it's all knife violence now. and it's just appalling and disgusting. But, you know, that's, it was, it was before it was fist fighting, you know, and it was like,

oh, your friends got this friend's back. I remember going to a fight where, like, my school fought another school in the same town, you know, like just the dumbest thing ever. But at the time, it was just like, oh, the boys were going out and blah, blah. So I know it sounds bad. Like violence is, it is, I guess, bad, but it just is a way of life in a way for some people, you know, in certain backgrounds in Britain. certainly the youth are different now

like I think even in my town like I see a lot of that fist fighting culture is gone it's more around gang culture now and stabbing and all that horrible stuff and the youth that maybe would have been involved on the fist fighting are more involved in partying which is actually a lot more positive you know I see a lot more of the youth that I think man

if they were coming up in my time I mean I'm not that old I'm 32 but still it's a big generation gap I think if they were coming up in my time they would have probably been involved in you know the I mean I don't want to say like oh the street fighting scene It wasn't like that, but it was just a thing that happened a lot, you know? It was just always happen. And now they're more into partying and fashion, and I think that's a lot more positive.

But my point is it was like a very big part of British culture for a long time, still is in certain places. And in Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, it's still a massive thing. You know, it has been for a long time. Over there in Eastern Europe, they're a lot more tougher than any of us are in Britain. So it was different. Okay, so tell us about Hood's, Hoods Clan. Yeah, so Hutzhudglan is the group that I, the documentary is about. And Hutzhudklan is the only anti-fascist football hooligan firm in the whole of Ukraine.

Now, due to the general politics of street violence in Europe and particularly Eastern Europe, all the other football hooligan firms in Ukraine are either far right or more interested in the right wing so much so that they would see an anti-fascist as an enemy. even if they're not fascist themselves, you know what I'm saying. They would be more inclined to be with the right wingers. So it's a big mix. Dynamo Kiev, for example, all their ultrass, their football ultras are called white boys. They're Nazis, like neo-Nazis. Not to say, again, just want to flag straight up Putin's idea that the whole of Ukraine is a

Nazi junta is complete and utter nonsense. But there is an element to the subculture there of Nazism, as there is in pretty much every European country you can find. Now, Hood's Hoods Klan have been fighting for more than 10 years now, and they were drastically outnumbered. As I said, you know, every other football hoologun firm was a Nazi or a far right or right wing at the time. But Hudson, you know, they just saw things differently. Like in the documentary, Anton, the kind of main character of our doc, the kind of de facto head of Hoods Klan, he kind of just said they didn't really have an answer for it. There was no big theory.

There was no political. It was just like we see things differently. We don't like fascism. We don't like oppression. We don't like racism. We're all anti-racist and we declared that. So not only did they take that stance, they publicly went out and said, hey, we're anti-fascists, like, and we're going to beat up the Nazis, you know?

So, and luckily for them, they were very outnumbered, but they're very, very adept at street violence. So they had a smaller group, but a very close group. Like, they were, excuse me, they were like friends, very much close friends. And that friendship developed in blood, I guess, on the streets fighting with fascists. In fact, one of the Hoods Hoods Klan members died. One of them lost the kidney. So, you know, things were very extreme, but they still carried on like, no, we're anti-fascists and we're going to fight these guys.

And even if you talk to some of the neo-Nazi groups, there's actually an extract from the book 1312, which is a book about European ultras. One of the fascist football hooligan firms in Ukraine actually talks about Hoodtuds Klan and is like, yeah, they beat us up. You know what I mean? So these are a very violent, very adept group of militant anti-fascists. It spawned out of punk hardcore. So the anti-fascist punk hardcore scene in Ukraine, despite Russian propaganda is very healthy,

has been for a long time. And then the football hooligan stuff came into it. You know, they found Arsenal Kiev. And Arsenal Kiev's fans, the football ultras, if you like, they were like, no, we're not fascists. We're kind of a political, but we don't like the fascist. And so Hudson's clan kind of developed as like the anti-fascist wing of that. And they were like, hey, no, we're not only a political us lot are anti-fascist.

Let's all be anti-fascist. Let's, you know, this is the way. And I agree with them. That is the way. Anti-fascism, in my opinion, is correct. It's the good way. Like, anybody that wants totalitarianism on another person is just brain dead to me. So, you know, it's a very interesting element of the Ukraine war.

And it's extremely unique. And when the war started, the Hudson's clan were like, well, we've got this. this group of lads, we trust each other and we're all adept at violence. We all know we've got each other's back. It's not even a question. We don't know it because we think we've seen it. They've saved each other through violence and whatever. So they said, okay, well, you know, our country's being invaded. That is the big threat now. So they kind of called a truce. They said, look, you know, I reached out to the other fascist groups and said, look, right now, we all have a bigger problem. We need to not fight each other. We're not going to fight with you,

but just know that we don't need to be fighting each other right now. We're starting. in a unit. So Hudzhud's clan, they got weapons. They formed a little militia, if you like, and they joined the anti-authoritarian coalition of fighters. It's known as the Resistance Committee. It's a mix of anti-authoritarians, anarchists, antifascists. So Hudson's Clan joined that group, and they're all under the kind of state paramilitary force, the territorial defense. So right now, some of them are fighting on the front in the east. A load of them are still on guard duty in Kiev after the war, obviously they were there, but the war in Kiev is not as hot right now. It's moved to the east completely. So now Hood's Klan is essentially a anti-fascist armed unit of the territorial

defense fighting Russian forces. I mean, what a story, right? Like when I was reading about them and I was like, this is incredible. It's a very popular front, you know. How many of them are there and how old are they? What are their ages? So it's a mix. So Anton, like I said, the kind of de facto So head, he's 35. There are some older lads. Like, they're the kind of old school. Like I said, they've been fighting for more than 10 years now. I think they formed in 2006 as this explicit anti-fascist fighting group.

And so there's like maybe 10 to 20 members in like the Resistance Committee. There's many more out in the East. You know, there's a lot of them all together. I mean, there was over 100 of them at one point. You see what I'm saying. So it was, you know, they were having fights where it was 40 versus 70. You know what I'm saying? Like big fights, organized fights.

Obviously, things change. People move away. People move away from football hooligans. They have families, whatever. But there is a young generation as well. So some of the fighters we met, there was Anton was like 35. Some of the other lads were like, you know, in their late 20s, early 20s. You know, it's a mix.

But it's certainly there's like, Hutzers clan is a whole culture. You know what I mean? You can feel it as well when you're with them. It's like, this is our thing. thing. Like, and it's a very, it's a very cool, unique thing as well. It's football hooliganism, but it's kind of, it's got this, this taint of like European, Eastern European ultra style mixed with Eastern European hardcore punk style and they all hit the gym. They're all hensched off. Like, you know, it's just a very cool people covered in tattoos. Um, one of the

best photos I saw, they're in their military fatigues and they have their, their t-shirt on one their t-shirt designs and it says Arsenal Ultras and the image is an SS Tottenkopf Deathhead skull with bulk cutters cutting the skull in half like smashing it open their declaration to say we are anti-fascist and we will break your head open you know and I was just like what a cool image and this lad he's got like tattoos on his face he's got like a boonie hat on and sunglasses like they're all about you know it's a whole culture it's uh it's not a hobby it's a lifestyle for them you know but yeah to answer your question there's at least a hundred of them in the fighting units.

They're kind of dispersed between the East and Kiev. But yeah, there's a lot of them. What does anti-fascist mean to them, really? I mean, does it mean pro-Jew, for example, or what does it mean? Oh, yeah, yeah. So they're anti-fascist. So for them, they're against racism. They're against anti-Semitism, and they're against homophobia.

So, you know, they're very much like. It's not, they're not like, oh, read this theory of da-da-da. Like some of them are anarchists, some of them are otherwise apolitical, but they're all anti-fascist, you know, they're just like, they're kind of, their outlook is essentially, we want to beat up the fascists, the people that don't like our friends, and we want to enjoy our life, and we want to protect people that want to see the world free, essentially. That's kind of it, you know, they're just, they're just natural anti-fascist. So, yeah, if you're like, if you don't like Jews, if you don't like gay people, if you don't

like people of color, you're an enemy of Woodswoods clan essentially. So it really does come down to just like Nazi punks fuck off. Exactly, exactly that. I mean, even, you know, there's from our documentary, there's, I forget the band

now, but it's a kind of a famous song, if you like, in fringe kind of anti-fascist circles, a very old song where they're just singing, come on, come on, anti-far hooligans. And it's just like, yeah, it's that Nazi punk's fuck off, that old school attitude. When I was a teenager, was very much interested in like 161 culture,

was very much driven by that actually as a teenager. I've always been explicitly like an anti-fascist my whole life, you know what I mean? Not involved in this cancel culture, all of this online internet theory. That for me is very boring. But back in the day, I know it's hard often for a lot of Americans to understand because I do understand that the anti-far culture in America is a little bit different. it's often about ostracizing people from a community, whereas in Europe, it was always about bringing everybody together and being like, hey, we hate the people that hate us, you know, and it was very cool and it was very,

yeah, it was very, it was Nazi punks fuck off. It wasn't like, oh, you're cancelled because you didn't read Marx or some nonsense like that, you know, so they're very much the old school essence of what antifa was. In fact, it's quite funny. We're seeing some right wingers from America commenting on our Instagram. like, wow, okay, this is not anti-father I thought. Actually, these guys look cool. And it was like, yeah, these guys look cool.

This isn't screaming outside of a Starbucks. This is finding out the people that want to hurt your friends because they're gay, black, whatever, and hurting them first. And whatever people think of that is up to them. But that is what it is. You know, that is very much what it is for, for Hoods Hoods Clan. Sure, you know, I'm sure they say words that would get them canceled on the internet or whatever, you know, but essentially,

It's like, okay, so you're the language police versus the lads that have actually lost members, like they've died through anti-fascist violence, you know? So I would say I would, I would rather have Hutswitz Klan next to me in a fight. You know what I'm saying? Can you tell me about the resistance committee? A little bit more. I say, because, you know, over here, we read so much about the media focuses on, like, the, kind of the more mainstream Ukrainian defense stuff.

And if they're talking about the territorial militias, they're usually talking about Azov, right? This is the first time I'd heard of the Resistance Committee. Can you tell me who they are and how Hood's Hoods Clan fits into their structure so much as it is? Yeah, so the resistance committee is a coalition of anarchist, anti-fascist, general anti-authoritarian fighters. People that took up arms and said, yeah, we're going to fight this Russian imperialism. We are going to fight against Putin with weapons. the ground. But, you know, as I said, there is obviously a right-wing element to militancy in Ukraine as there is anywhere. So they were like, well, we want to form our own group. We don't really

want to, even though we have put our political issues aside, we don't exactly want to join as of because that's just completely opposite of what they believe in. So they formed the resistance committee. There's around 50 to 100 fighters, I believe, all armed there. They signed up on day one. They were a part of the territorial defence. And, yeah, Hutswoods Klan joined them because, again, like I said, they said, yes, we've got a truce, but we're going to join the group that is essentially an anti-fascist group as opposed to a far-right group. And, yeah, under the umbrella of the Resistance Committee, there is Rev Dia, the militant anarchist group from Ukraine that I made a documentary with several years ago. There's a group called Black Flag U.A. I think there's some people from Harkev Hardcore, which is a far left punk scene from Harkev, obviously.

there's people, I think, from Eco Platform, which is a militant vegan organization, and there's Hood's Klan, and there's also just general, you know, non-group affiliated anti-fascists. And now there's even a political people. There's people that saw this group in the region

and were like, oh, you guys are doing a good job. We like you. Can we join up? And they're like, hey, hey, but, you know, we're anti-fascist. And of course, you know, Ukrainians are like, yeah, cool, we don't, right? That's fine.

You know, so they joined as well. So it's a mix. But it's interesting, but I think due to various, bureaucracy and issues with the territorial defense, which is no fault of the fighters, it just is what it is in a war. I think they might have to split up and form different units to actually get back to the east and get fighting in the east again. But again, like the resistance committee is just one part of what is actually a very big and largely underreported left wing or anti-fascist or anti-authoritarian element to the war. There is, like I just mentioned, several groups, eco-platform, Harkiv Hardcore, the resistance committee, Hutzwoods clan,

Operation Solidarity, which is an amazing, like, anti-authoritarian aid organization that supports all of these groups and gets them cars, night vision. There's a whole network of anti-fascists across Germany, particularly all the way to Germany that are helping these groups. You know, like there's a lot of them. St. Paoli is supporting Hotsweds Klan a lot financially and with equipment and stuff like that. Antifascists have reached out to me. There's a really cool photo some anti-fascists in Germany packing up food supplies that will go to people in Ukraine. So there is a big element of this out there. Oh, and there's even a weapons repair unit named after Nesta McNo,

you know, the famous anarchist revolutionary from Ukraine. And there's even another unit named after Nester McNano. So essentially the kind of right-wing element is very good at propaganda and it's very good at getting their name out there. And let's not pretend like Eastern Europe is obviously a much more right-wing culture than, you know, whatever kind of news, liberal news media is focused on. So the right-wing groups will get more attention, not to say that all the right-wing groups are fascists, they're not. They just would be considered right-wing. But my point is there was actually also a very big anti-authoritarian, anti-fascist element to the conflict that is just going massively underreported.

So it's unfortunate that it is that way. but it is what it is. I mean, to be honest, one of the first fighters that died in the east, Igor, he was a lifelong anti-fascist punk guy. And he's like a martyr now. And you even see right-wingers saying, like, yeah, this guy's a martyr. Like, you know, we wish he wasn't dead sort of thing. Rest in peace.

And it's really, to understand the Ukraine, well, you can't really be online too much. I think you really have to understand it from the point of this is not about politics for the Ukrainians. It's about survival. And luckily, Ukrainians are. are smart enough and pragmatic enough to go, yeah, obviously we don't care what some person is crying about online. We're going to put all our issues aside to form the best defense we can so that our people don't get killed. And my last point I would say is one of the best points I heard was from Salam, which is the kind of founder of Operation Solidarity, this anti-authoritarian aid

group. And he was like, look, yes, there is a problem with, you know, right-wing issues kind of in Ukraine, you know, but at least we're allowed to have these issues. If you, if Russia took over, we wouldn't even be allowed to think anything but pro-Russia. There would not be anti-fascist, right-wing, left-wing. There would be none of that. It would just be Putinism, you know. So I think that was a very good point. He was like, yeah, actually, it's kind of a good sign that we're allowed to have all

these various different battling ideologies, you know, in a country of 44 million with a very rich history. The fact that anybody is surprised about that really shows they haven't done their research. So when I see these tankies online screaming, yeah, what about Azov? What about Azov? It's like, yeah, it's a fucked up situation, but that's war. And then you could say, well, what about Ruchik and all the other? You could argue that there's actually a larger per capita presence of neo-Nazis fighting for Russia

because there are many, many, many neo-Nazi battalions in the Dombas, in the separatist regions. Recently, a photo came out with the head of the Denex People's Republic was given a medal to a guy with an SS Tottenkopf and a colovrat patch, you know, a Nazi guy, he's from a Nazi group. You've got Wagner out there, which is a Kremlin-linked private military contractor firm run by neo-Nazis. You know what I mean?

It just keeps going and going. Russia had, from 2014 to 2015, had a neo-Nazi serial killer gang called Sanitaire ATA or the cleaners that killed over 15 people in Moscow and filmed it. Like, you know what I mean? They have a huge neo-Nazi political parties. So the idea that Russia is denatified in Ukraine as a joke. They should have denatified

Russia first. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, we actually had a really cool episode about that a couple of months back. Yeah, I've seen. I've not listened yet, but I really can't wait. It's, it's totally worth your time, said the man advertising his show. I would also encourage just real quickly, anyone interested in this to just type Wagner group leader into Google, into Google image search and take a look at Batman's tattoos. Again, a Russian-backed mercenary unit that's been doing a lot of horrifying things in Africa that, again, is underreported and no one's talking about. And just see what he looks like and what his tattoos are and see how you feel about that.

Sorry, Jason. No, not at all. I have a question about how you go from hooliganism, which is mostly, I would guess, you know, hands, legs, feet, to picking up an AK-47. I assume that's mostly what they're using. Yeah. And is there training involved? I mean, do these folks know what they're doing?

Yeah, absolutely. So they joined the territorial defense, you know, the kind of Ukraine's state paramilitary fighting force, which was set up for volunteers to back up the regular military. And they have like a guy assigned to them, which trains them, basically. So the whole of Hudford's clan, I mean, I literally saw a photo this morning. They're out in the field somewhere training. they're training every single day.

You see some of it in our documentary. They're doing target practice. They're training like nonstop. And these are very disciplined guys. The reason they were such an effective football hooligan firm was because they trained. They all do moitai or boxing or some kind of combat sports. In fact, before the war started, they just opened like a hood's hud's clan gym. Unfortunately, that went to shit with the war.

But yeah, so they're all training. And it essentially just came down to, you know, we want to defend our country. country and that's it. You know, these are these are these are these are not nationalists but they're certainly patriotic people which I think there's nothing wrong with. I think anybody that would happily see their fellow neighbors be slaughtered because of internet politics is um mentally unwell. So these guys were just like yeah, of course we're going to defend our people. Um, I mean, Hudzhud's clan nearly got killed. A lot of them were, um, there's a video of them, um, kind of trying to evacuate civilians from Kiev outskirts when Russia had allegedly

formed a humanitarian corridor and Russia just started shelling them with mortar rounds and luckily they grabbed people, got them in the car and got them out. But that's what it is for them. They want to help their people. They're sicker seeing their fellow countrymen and women and children dying, you know, and that was it for them. It was just, it was a no-brainer. In fact, Anton, the kind of de facto head of Hudzutsklan, he had fought previously. So all of Hudzstan fought on the Maidan in the revolution in 2014. Again, they called a truce then with some fascist groups so that they weren't fighting each other. And then Anton went to the east and fought in a militia there just kind of on his own.

And, you know, he has some war experience already. And certainly they all have experience because they were in, you know, the outskirts of Kiev. They were some of the first people on the scene in Boucher and Borodanka after the massacre. So, yeah, for them, it's just, it's natural. It's, you know, they're defending their country the same way anybody else is, you know what I'm saying. And yeah, training a lot, a lot of training. I don't want to zoom out here and start talking about kind of the troubles you've had, getting people to see this thing.

It's like, I've watched it. It's a good documentary. It's not any different than anything you would see on front line, really, like any basic, anywhere else. You do have people shooting AKs and some footage of some hooliganism. But other than that, it's fairly tame. And yet, and yet, what's supposed to be? what's going on with popular front and some of these companies like YouTube and Instagram?

Yeah, I mean, you're right. It is fairly tame. I mean, okay, there's scenes of football hooliganism people fighting in the streets, but it's archive footage which is used to explain who these people are, which is that's what journalism is, a part of it anyway. It's a part of the standard reporting, and that is actually protected under the guidelines of YouTube. And, yeah, I mean, the subtitle of the documentary is a film,

about friendship, violence and resistance, which is war. You know, and we're reporting on war. There's no gore. There's no nothing like that. There's no racism. There's no foul language. I mean, there's foul language like shit and fuck, but that doesn't mean you should be age restricted.

And what's interesting is the second I uploaded the documentary before it even uploaded properly whilst it was processing, it got hit with an age restriction. So I'm like, what's going on here? So if anybody doesn't know, an age restriction basically means that you have to have a YouTube account where you've given YouTube your personal details to authenticate it essentially to then be able to watch an age restricted video. That absolutely torpedoes the views. It removes any way of you to make money. Firstly, our whole channel, our whole channel is demonetized anyway, but there is like a thanks button you can put on a documentary so people can click it and just donate

five, 10 pounds to you, whatever, and say, yeah, thanks, this is good. For some reason, they've even removed that, which is nothing to do with their advertisers, but there you go. So our whole thing is nerved. It doesn't really come up. I don't know. Anyone that's seen it come up and they're recommended despite watching all popular front content. So yeah, so they have completely, this is, in my opinion, soft censorship. In fact, I think that's objectively soft censorship, you know.

So they've censored a documentary about anti-fascist football huligans fighting Russia's brutal imperialist invasion of Ukraine. To contrast how insane this is, there is a parasite YouTuber by the name of Danny Mullen. He's the scum of the earth. And he has a video on YouTube, which is, I believe it's called Picking Up Hot Ukrainian Refugees. So this is a 30-plus-year-old man with his friends who are also 30-plus age. and they go to the Mexican border and basically prey on young Ukrainian refugees who are there and some of these girls are very clearly underage.

It is one of the most disgusting videos you will see in your life. If any Ukraine Americans out there, or any Ukrainians listen to this, haven't seen it. You really should avoid it because it's actually vile. And anyway, this guy does all that and that video is not only not age, restricted, it's monetized. This guy is making money off of praying on young Ukrainian refugee women on YouTube freely

with YouTube's permission and we are demonetized and age restricted by showing anti-fascist fighters in the war in Ukraine. To me, it just makes no sense whatsoever. I just find it absolutely vile. I find it disgusting and I don't understand it. I've reached out to YouTube as a guy at YouTube. He can't help me. No one wants to help.

help. It's very annoying. It's very frustrating. Once you have an age restriction, it's basically impossible to get rid of it. And not only is there an age restriction, there's also an extra little window that you have to click OK on, which says some of this content might be offensive. What is offensive about fighting a war? It's just crazy. And again, I just want to be clear. There's like, there's no recourse for you. There's nothing we can do. We're not big enough, you know. When I worked at Vice News a long time ago, if there was any issues on YouTube. They had,

how do I say it nicely, shook the right hands. And they could just call anybody at YouTube and say, hey, can you sort this out? They would sort it. For the little guy, people like me, we can't do that because YouTube is not about empowering independent creators.

Absolutely not. It's about creating their own circle jerk of corporate media where they can happily still make advertising money off of it. It's not about the truth. It's not about reporting. It's not about journalism. And actually,

I had a very deep dive into it and YouTube has gone against their own journalistic guidelines by censoring our documentary. And it's actually in America technically illegal because it's like First Amendment stuff. But there's nothing I can do. There's literally nothing I can do. So all I can do is just ask that people go to YouTube.com slash popular front and share the documentary. Anyone with a big audience, we're trying to get people to share it. It's annoying, man.

I mean, you know, there's people like Ilya, Pomerner Enkori has a million Twitter followers now. He's like the most followed Ukrainian journalist. We actually had him on popular front and helped him get the Kiev independent news out there before the war. He could share it. He hasn't. You know, he won't. But he could share it. But anyone like that could share it.

And it would really help. You know what I'm saying? Because we are being censored. And to be honest, mate, it's making me just think, why should we make docs anymore? we make a huge financial loss every time we make a documentary sometimes in the tens of thousands of pounds and I mean certainly with this one we're probably down eight grand if that like I mean probably more than that I should say

and you know we but the money is not the issue you know Patreon we do okay we do good with merchandise sales we just want people to see our stuff like that's the whole thing about popular front we're not elitist we're not about journalistic circle jerks and certainly I am completely horrible by the having for years the war reporting circle jerk the big i am the thousand yard stareers you know i hate all that scene so that's kind of what we created popular front to say hey fuck them we you know this is for the misfits and it's also very detailed and it's in my opinion

good high quality journalism um and yeah and so like we just want as many people to see what we're doing as possible and we're being stopped by the very people that allegedly ostensibly are the people that are meant to help you do that. And it's just very depressing, actually. And it's really disheartening. You know, it's like, man, what am I doing this for? Like, you know, why am I, I'm risking my life. You know what I mean?

I mean, the day we arrived in Kiev, a rocket hit, a block of flats in the middle of the town. You see it there. We went to it. It's in the documentary. It killed one journalist, actually. And it's just like, man, like, this is getting me down, you know. So what we're probably going to do is we might, I think, the only option left for us

is to do a fundraiser to try and say, say, hey, we need like 20 to 30 grand to keep making documentaries for the next two years or so. Otherwise, it's just, I just don't know what to do. You know what I'm saying? And I mean, we have over 100,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel. We are a verified YouTube channel. I have the plaque right next to me. And still, this happens.

And there's no one for us to talk to. There's no one for us to reach out to. Team YouTube has ignored me on Twitter. I have, like, I don't know, 120,000 followers on Twitter. Loads of people retweeting it. completely ignored it. And I don't know, man. I guess what can we do?

There's not much we can do, you know? The thousand yard stares is such an evocative image. You know what I mean, right? Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. And they're like, I've seen shit. Cool. Haven't we all?

Please don't unload your negative issues on me. I am trying to enjoy my life and do my work. And I am not impressed by hearing how many bullets you've dodged. It really, it's so tiring, man. And you know, like these kind of circle jerks of war reporters that are just like, we're heroes. You know, they don't say that, but they're like, we are heroes. And it's like, no, we're not. It's a cool job.

It's an interesting job. And it's an important job. But let's be real. You know, we're just normal people doing what we're doing. And it's a good thing. I like the media. I like journalism. But yeah, I just don't like that attitude.

But anyway, my point is not to be too negative. My kind of whole reason for starting popular front and framing it with the aesthetic and the vision and the morals that it has, the integrity that it has, is because that kind of thinking, that thousand yards, sterer, elitist war reporting circle actually excludes a lot of very, very good up-and-coming reporters, researchers, analysts, all them people. So, you know, popular front is for everybody. We even have on a website, we say you don't need to be involved with journalism. You don't need to be invited to a journal circle jerk to be in on this. If you like good reporting, cool, come to us. If you don't like what we do the way we do it, that's also for

fine. It's for everybody and it's for the misfits as well, but it is what it is. But yeah, man, we certainly could have had a lot more help from that crowd, maybe because I've been, you know, slagging them off for four years is why they don't, so I don't blame them. But we actually had a really good guy reach out to me from the frontline club who have kind of, I mean, I emailed them a few times, say, hey, can you help us get, you know, raise awareness for the issues we're having and they've ignored me for four years. But there seems to be a new guy there now who reached out to me a very good guy. I was like, hey, man, I love your work. This is not right. We're going to help you. So maybe things are changing, you know, maybe things are going to change. And I think

no one can argue that this is a unique story. Any editor would want this story. I mean, I'm writing an article as well. I've written two articles already about them for various outlets outside a popular front. So, yeah. Yeah, no, it's a great, it's a great story. It's well reported. It's, and again, it's focusing on something that not a lot of other journalists would focus on, but the work is solid. And it is, the camera is looking in a different place than it normally is. But it's, it looks just like any other documentary. I mean, it doesn't. It looks like popular front,

but you know what I mean? Like it's... No, no, no, I totally get what you mean. It's not like we're grassroots. We're independent, but we're not amateur. You know what I'm saying? We're certainly not going to stage now

where like it's kind of a not the greatest compliment. People say to me, man, this could be on Netflix. I'm like, fuck that. Like, this is better than that stuff. You know what I mean? Because I'm cocky or whatever. But I get it.

I get the sentiment. It's like, yeah, no, we're putting our all into this, bro. We, you know, I spend hours learning how to edit properly and get good at this and do good reporting. I've been on the front line since I was 24. Like, I'm 32 now. We, we, a lot of, there's a lot of us involved in this. We're a small team, but we're doing our best.

The graphics have got good. The music's got better. The flow, the editing, the reporting, the fact, you know, everything, the nuance. And to put that much effort in and then to just be like slap down is a bit of a pain. That said, in a week, we've got like, you know, we're pushing nearly 70,000 views on the documentary, which isn't bad, but, you know, if we weren't age restricted, I'm sure that would be at $170,000 by now. And tell us again where we can find it and where we can find the show.

Yeah, so if people go to YouTube.com slash popular front, they'll see the documentary. It's the first one there. The title on the YouTube is Ukraine's anti-fascist football hooligans fighting in the Russian invasion for SEO purposes. The doc's called Frontline Hooligan. And if people want to support us, they can go to patreon.com slash Popular Front or they go on our website, popularfront.com. You'll see everything there. And buy a t-shirt,

popularfront.com. You'll see the T-shirt, believe it or not, the T-shirts fund a lot of our documentaries, which is great. They fund them and then we lose the money because we don't make any back. But it's all good. But yeah, man, that's the way people can do it. And just share our stuff if you can. And, you know, if they can tag us wherever, they'll see all the socials on the website. They can do what they want. I recommend again the actually I have Havana Syndrome T-shirt. that one's my favorite. It's good that, right? Let me explain that.

So people were like, why did you do this? And, you know, a popular front we say, we do serious work, but we try not to take ourselves too seriously. Because people on the front line don't take themselves too seriously. You'll see the best camaraderie out there. So we kind of wanted to take that element with everything we do of the kind of boisterous kind of attitude of like frontline fighters and guerrillas and soldiers and whatever and kind of, you know, leave a bit of that in the journalism.

Don't make it too earnest. So when we do a lot of our merch, it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek. It's not like a comedy t-shirt. I know I think that's a bit weird, but it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. So the CIA was saying that Cuba was letting out some kind of sonic death ray and giving everybody something called Havana syndrome. Maybe it's real. I don't know.

But to me, it sounded like a lot of diplomats drinking too much. So we kind of made a funny shirt that just said like it says, what does it say? Like, actually, I have Havana syndrome. because you know it's it's like a kind of like a spiral and a palm tree and a guy like rubbing his temples it's like actually i have havana syndrome yeah because also another tongue-in-cheek thing was like you know when people are like um actually i have ADHD like it's all the rage that have some kind of issue now when mostly people are fine so we work we kind of wanted to be like you know actually i'm not hungover i have havana syndrome so for us i just thought that's funny it's one of our best sellers actually

and the style of it, we wanted their logo to look kind of amateur, kind of like ink press, you know, and I think it comes off. Jake Hey, Andrean, thank you again for coming on to Angry Planet, and everyone should be listening to Popular Front and go watch this documentary. Thanks, man. I appreciate it really owe you guys. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you. That's all for this week, War College listeners. As always, War College is me, Matthew Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin O'Dell. It was created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like us, if you really like us, angry planetpod.com, where you can get bonus episodes

and commercial-free versions of the mainline episodes. And every great now and then a post. It's $9 a month. Again, go to angryplanet.substack.com or angry planetpod.com. Next bonus episode should be going out shortly. It's about Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia

and the geopolitics of oil. good times. As always, we will be back next week with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe. Until then.