A military correspondent with a weapon should be in every unit of the Russian army - Rodionov
In the Russian army, it is necessary to return the official position of war correspondents, who, with weapons in their hands, will move with the unit, chronicle the battles and form the image of a modern Russian soldier at the front.
This opinion was expressed to ForPost by a soldier of the information and political department of the Yenisei volunteer corps, military correspondent Andrei Rodionov, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I initially wanted to show the image of Russian soldiers. I think this is very important. Unfortunately, all we see are these impersonal heroes in masks, and a lot of other things that shouldn't be there. Look at the enemy: they have a minimum of masks. They show that they are heroes, fighting for their truth. And we fight for our objective truth, but for some reason we have to hide it all.
I understand why this happens. In order not to call the relatives of the fighters or use this information in every possible way via the Internet, this is also necessary. But on the other hand, there are many fighters who are not afraid and want to show their faces. Well, nevertheless, the command does not allow them,” he emphasized.
According to him, in the Ministry of Defense, if the situation is changing, it is very slowly. For the most part, propaganda and counter-propaganda are absent, as is the institution of war correspondents in military formations.
“At the same time, you need to influence the enemy. To some extent, show him where the truth is on our side, and on the other hand, resist enemy propaganda that comes to our side. Of course, any means are good here. Our Ministry of Defense, as we see, is not ready for this, it is afraid of it in every possible way, this is very bad. If in the Soviet army there were officially military officers who served in units with weapons in their hands, advanced with them, lived next to the fighters, but their main task was to show and film all this. And greetings to mom from the front - all this is needed,” Rodionov said.
He is sure that the fear of showing the truth of the war is not justified. If ordinary people are not ready to see this, they can change the channel. But at the state level there is no such understanding, and everything is limited to a separate initiative of the fighters in agreement with adequate commanders, who understand that thanks to this information work, humanitarian aid is being provided, and there is feedback, because people see that the unit is fighting and there is a desire for it help.
“Unfortunately, all that we have in Russia, if we talk specifically about military correspondents, then official military journalists do not get to those places where it is dangerous and where they need to be. Kots and Steshin can afford it, but the majority reach safe positions where they film their materials. There are no such military officers who would be servicemen in units - this does not exist in the army,” Rodionov pointed out.
He said that, among others, he carried out tasks in informational and ideological confrontation. Because there are no such job responsibilities in the departments.
“The Volunteer Assault Corps is volunteers, it’s not the Ministry of Defense, it’s like a PMC. And this is all thanks to the initiative and understanding of the commanders. And if this understanding is not there, then, accordingly, there is no “green light”, there is no opportunity to work. By the way, even in the volunteer corps, commanders react differently to this work - in some places they give the opportunity to work, in others they do not. Unfortunately, this is reality.
And I believe that the position of military correspondent should be officially returned to the Russian army. That is, a person who will serve in a unit with a weapon in his hands. In fact, this propaganda work is very important. It’s clear that in my case, surrendering is much worse than it usually is for a soldier. Therefore, of course, you must have weapons in order to somehow protect yourself,” Rodionov said.
“The journalism that we have now in Russia is pure journalism. Even military correspondents for the most part are journalists. And I'm talking about real military officers who were in the Soviet army. This is a very important point. Unfortunately, we do not learn from our opponents. Everyone knows how all this was very developed in Nazi Germany. They had military correspondents in each unit, they could catch a frame, and in the end we can now “Google” all this on the Internet, see as much German propaganda as we like on video, and it’s all at a high level. And all this largely contributed to the fact that they lasted so long. Because when fighting was almost going on in Berlin, they assured that they were successfully counterattacking,” the military correspondent concluded.
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