OK, let's unpack this, because usually when we
sit down to talk about a football team like soccer,
for our listeners who use that term, we're usually
talking about, I don't know, striker stats or
transfer windows. Maybe a manager getting sacked
if it's a dramatic week. Exactly. We're generally
not talking about special forces police units.
No. Or armored vehicles or international war
crimes tribunals. Yeah. The Venn diagram of.
you know, Premier League sports and paramilitary
operations. It's basically nonexistent. It doesn't
usually have a lot of overlap. No. But today,
we're looking at a file where those circles don't
just overlap. They're practically the exact same
circle. They are. And it's a story that really
forces you to hold two completely contradictory
ideas in your head at the exact same time. Which
is always the mark of a fascinating deep dive.
Completely. Because on one side, you have this
narrative of desperate, almost cinematic national
defense. Right. Regular people just grabbing
rifles to save their city when the actual army
couldn't. But then on the exact other side, you
have a much darker narrative. A very dark narrative.
Allegations of private armies, billionaire warlords,
torture, and just a total disregard for the rules
of war. It's messy. It is. We are talking, of
course, about the Dnipro One Regiment. And just
to set the ground rules for everyone listening
right off the bat. Yeah, let's be clear about
our sources. Exactly. We are basing this entire
deep dive today on the Wikipedia entry for the
Dnipro 1 Regiment. That is our North Star for
this conversation. It is. We're going to squeeze
every single drop of information out of that
text to really understand how this unit evolved.
Because this isn't just military history. No.
It's a story about what happens when a country's
institutions practically collapse. And something
else. Something else. Yeah, something else rises
up. to take their place. So let's set the stage
here. Take us back to April 2014. What does the
map look like? What's the vibe on the ground?
Well, the vibe is basically existential dread.
Yeah. You have to remember, Crimea has already
been annexed by Russia. And that had incredibly
fast. Dizzyingly fast. And now the unrest is
spreading like a contagion into the Donbass region.
Donetsk, Luhansk. Exactly. Government buildings
are literally being seized by pro -Russian separatists.
And right next door to all of this chaos is the
city of Dnipro. Right. And geographically, Dnipro
isn't just another city on the map. It's the
linchpin. It is the firewall. OK, explain that.
If Dnipro falls to the separatists, the entire
southeast of Ukraine is essentially gone. Wow.
The logistical corridor is broken. The government
in Kyiv is looking at the map and realizing that
Dnipro is the dam holding back the entire flood.
But I mean, if the stakes are that high, where
is the army? Right. Where are the tanks and the
cavalry? And that is the critical point of this
whole story. The source material uses a very
polite, very specific word to describe the state
of the Ukrainian armed forces at that moment.
What's the word? It says they had gaps. Gaps.
Gaps. That feels like a massive euphemism. It's
the understatement of the century. The reality
was that after years of corruption, just total
neglect and, frankly, infiltration. The regular
army was hollowed out. Completely. They didn't
have the manpower. They lacked organization.
And crucially. They didn't have the loyalty in
some sectors to respond to a hybrid insurgency.
Because the police in a lot of these eastern
towns were either defecting or just sort of standing
aside. Yeah, exactly. They were just watching
it happen. There was a total, absolute vacuum
of power. And nature abhors a vacuum. Always.
So into that void steps this new formation. But
the classification here is really interesting
to me. The special police designation. Yeah.
The source defines DIPR -1 as a special tasks
patrol police. regiment right they're subordinated
to the ministry of internal affairs not the ministry
of defense yeah why make them police instead
of soldiers that seems like a weird bureaucratic
choice in the middle of a war it's a legal workaround
a hack it's a total hack you can't just raise
a private army overnight that would be unconstitutional
i assume Highly illegal, yes. But the Ministry
of Internal Affairs has the authority to swear
in special police battalions relatively quickly.
Oh, I see. It allowed the government to give
weapons and actual legal standing to these volunteers
without waiting for the slow, rusty machinery
of a full military mobilization. So it was a
way to legalize the militia movement. Instantly.
Precisely. It gave them badges to go with the
guns. Okay. So the government essentially opens
the armory doors and says, we need help. Anyone
who could hold a rifle. Who actually walks through
those doors. Who joins Dnipro 1 in April 2014?
This is where the sociological experiment begins,
really. It was an incredibly eclectic mix. Okay.
The source details that the personnel. included
the people you would expect. You know, former
police officers, military reserves. Guys who
knew how to handle a weapon. Right. But then
it also included a very large number of political
activists from the Euromaidan movement. Okay,
let's unpack this. Yeah. Because we have to remember,
only a few months prior to this, the Euromaidan
activists and the police were mortal enemies.
Mortal enemies fighting street battles in Kyiv.
Exactly. The police were the oppressors of the
old regime and the activists were the revolutionaries
throwing cobblestones at them. Yep. And now they
are in the exact same unit. Wearing the exact
same patch on their shoulders. That is wild.
This is a forced marriage. Born of pure necessity.
Wow. You have the enforcers of the old regime
and the people who literally overthrew them suddenly
thrown together in a barrack. Work together or
the separatists take your city. Exactly. That
sounds like a recipe for some serious internal
friction. Oh, it was. And it wasn't just internal.
The source notes that because of the heavy inclusion
of these activists, the unit was accused of having
nationalist views right from the start. OK. So
they weren't viewed as neutral peacekeepers or
just standard cops. They were viewed as ideological
soldiers. Yes. And that heavily colored how the
local population and obviously the enemy saw
them. But ideology is one thing. Right. Logistics
is another. Ideology doesn't buy body armor.
It doesn't fill the gas tank of an armored truck.
It does not. Which brings us to the money. Because
you really can't talk about Dnipro 1 without
talking about the wallet behind it. No, you can't.
We have to talk about Ihor Kolmoisky. Okay, set
him up for us. He was the governor of Dnipropetrovsk
Oblast at the time. And one of the most powerful
oligarchs in the entire country. A massive, massive
figure. Yeah. And the source states that he is
believed to have spent... $10 million to create
this unit. $10 million. Yeah. Let's just let
that number sit there for a second. It's huge.
That is a staggering amount of private capital
to pour into a government unit. Well, it completely
changes the entire dynamic of the unit. Yeah.
The funding was this weird hybrid model. How
did that work? Technically, the unit received
some base funding from the Ministry of Internal
Affairs. Like standard police salaries. Right.
But the source explicitly mentions a charitable
organization called Fund Dina Pro One. A charity.
Quote unquote. That was the primary vehicle for
the private money. So if I'm a soldier in this
unit. Right. I'm wearing a uniform issued by
the state. Yes. But I know that my high end helmet,
my tactical vest, maybe even my salary bonuses
are coming directly from the governor's private
charity. Exactly. So who am I really loyal to?
The president hundreds of miles away in Kiev
or the guy signing the big checks right here
in Dnipro. And that was the exact fear. The nickname
for the unit in the media quickly became the
Oligarchs Battalion. The Oligarchs Battalion.
Yeah. It looked a lot like a return to feudalism.
Wow. Yeah. Like a local lord raising his own
banner. Raising his own private army to defend
his fiefdom because the king in the capital was
too weak to do it. That's a great analogy. But
I mean, was it effective? Extremely effective.
Really? Because money moves infinitely faster
than bureaucracy. That makes sense. While the
regular army was waiting for procurement orders
to be signed in triplicate in some office in
Kiev, Kolomoisky could just write a check. Just
buy radios and trucks out of pocket. Buy the
radios, buy the trucks. by the thermal sites,
they were often significantly better equipped
than the regular army in those early days simply
because of that cash flow. But gear isn't everything.
You actually need to know how to use it. That's
the catch. And the timeline here is absurdly
fast. Yeah. They're founded in April. They're
operating outside their home oblast by May. That's
lightning speed. How much training did these
guys actually get before going to the front lines?
This is one of the most shocking details in the
text, and it really highlights how desperate
the situation was okay the source says that before
june 2014 the training duration was often as
short as one week one week seven days i mean
think about that basic training in the u .s army
is what 10 weeks yeah and that's just to learn
how to march fold your socks and clean your weapon
you can't learn unit tactics or communications
in a week no you can't learn medical evacuation
or complex rules of engagement in seven days
you can barely break in your new boots in seven
days seriously it means they were sending essentially
untrained civilians directly into a very hot
combat zone. They were just relying entirely
on high motivation to compensate for incredibly
low skill. Exactly. Though the source does mention
they recognized this and tried to bring in outside
help to fix it quickly. Who did they bring in?
They claimed to have hired foreign military advisors.
From where? Specifically from Romania and Georgia.
OK, Romania is NATO. That makes some sense. But
why Georgia? That seems very specific. It actually
makes perfect strategic sense. If you look at
the recent history. OK, break that down for me.
Georgia had fought a direct war against Russia
in 2008. Oh, right. The invasion of Georgia.
Yes. So they had recent firsthand experience
with Russian hybrid tactics. The provocateurs,
the unmarked soldiers. The roadblocks, the massive
disinformation campaigns. They understood the
enemy arguably better than anyone in NATO did
at the end of the very time. That's a really
good point. So bringing in Georgian advisors
was a way to inject highly relevant combat tested
knowledge into these recruits very, very quickly.
But even with top -tier Georgian advice, a week
is still a week. It's still just a week. So they
finish this crash course and they deploy. What
were they actually doing in those early days?
Initially, the mission profile was technically
police work, but very widely defined. How widely?
The source says their primary duty was to control
movement in southeastern Ukraine. Okay. They
were manning checkpoints. So stopping cars, checking
trunks, looking for weapons. Right. They were
the filter. Their job was to stop saboteurs and
separatist fighters from moving easily between
cities. Because if you stop the flow of guns,
you essentially starve the insurgency. Exactly.
And there's also a specific, very interesting
note here about railroads. What about them? Russian
sources, specifically Vesti .ua, reported that
DINIPRO -1 took active control of the railway
system in their sector. Really? Yeah. That's
a massive strategic move. It's huge because in
Eastern Europe, War runs on rails. Sure, for
moving tanks and heavy artillery. If you control
the train stations and the tracks, you control
the heavy logistics. You get to decide what moves
in and out of the industrial heartland of the
country. But they didn't just stay at these checkpoints
and train stations for long, did they? No. They
got pulled into the absolute meat grinder. Because
the war escalated. It did. The transition from
patrol police to essentially light infantry happened
almost immediately. Right. The source notes they
fought in the Battle of Mariupol. Which was a
success for Ukraine, right? Yes, a major one.
Yeah. They helped hold that city. And Mariupol
is a critical port. Keeping it in Ukrainian hands
was a vital victory in 2014. But then came August.
Then came August. The Battle of Yelovaisk. Yeah,
Yelovaisk. That name carries a massive amount
of weight in Ukrainian military history. It's
seen as a profound tragedy from what I understand.
It is. It was a massive encirclement. Regular
Russian military forces, not just proxy separatists,
crossed the border and completely surrounded
the Ukrainian units. Including Dnipro -1. Including
Dnipro -1. Practically a massacre. And you really
have to remember the context we just discussed.
These guys, some of them with only a few weeks
of overall experience. Just a few weeks removed
from being activists or IT guys. Right. They
are suddenly facing down coordinated artillery
barrages and actual tank columns. It went from
stopping suspicious sedans at a checkpoint to
total conventional warfare overnight. Very quickly.
And it really illustrates that gap filling role
we talked about at the very beginning. Yeah.
They weren't just guarding the rear lines. They
ended up as the tip of the spear simply because
there was no other spear available to use. They
were buying time with blood. Exactly. Now, here
is where the story gets really complex. The pivot.
Yeah. Because while the unit is fighting for
its life in the east, the leadership of Dnipro
1 starts looking at a totally different kind
of battlefield. The political battlefield. Yes.
This is the classic warlord to politician pipeline.
Is that a common thing? You see it in a lot of
civil conflicts or times of extreme national
crisis. When the state institutions are weak,
the people who actually hold the guns and win
the battles become the new de facto authority
figures. They have the real power. Right. Let's
look at Yuri Berezo, for example. He was the
commander of Dnipro -1. He was. So in the October
2014 parliamentary election. Keep in mind, this
is just mere months after the unit was even formed
in a basement. Right. Berezo runs for office.
He joins the People's Front Party. OK. And he
isn't just some fringe candidate. He is placed
10th on their national election list. 10th. Now,
for listeners who might not be familiar with
how proportional representation systems work,
being number 10 on a major party list is a very
big deal. It's essentially a golden ticket. Right.
It practically guarantees you a seat in parliament.
You don't even really have to go out and campaign
door to door. So in the span of roughly six months,
Bereza goes from organizing a localized volunteer
militia to sitting in the Verkhovna Rada as a
national lawmaker. That is a staggering ascent
to power. And he wasn't the only one from the
unit to make that jump. Right. The source also
highlights Volodymyr Peresuk. Peresuk is a truly
fascinating character. He was a rank and file
member of the unit, but he was already famous
nationally. Why was he famous before the election?
He gave a very fiery, impromptu speech on the
Maidan stage during the revolution that many
historians actually credit with changing the
entire course of the uprising. Oh, wow. Yeah.
So he had huge name recognition. He ran for a
constituency seat in a place called Yavariv.
Not on a party list, but directly elected by
the people. Exactly. And how did he do? He won
big. A total landslide. Like what kind of numbers?
He secured over 56 % of the vote. In a multi
-candidate race, that's a massive mandate. It
really is. It shows just how intensely popular
these fighter activists were with the general
public at the time. The public didn't want the
old professional politicians anymore. No, they
felt the politicians had failed them. They wanted
fighters. They wanted people who had bled for
the country. But... Parasyuk didn't exactly switch
seamlessly into diplomat mode once he got into
the halls of parliament, did he? Not at all.
The source very dryly notes that he was involved
in the, quote, first brawl. Of course he was.
It really does. You have men who are completely
accustomed to solving immediate problems with
physical force. Suddenly sitting in committee
hearings. Right. It completely changed the tone
of Ukrainian politics. It militarized the political
discourse. But it also raises a really massive
conflict of interest question. Yeah, it does.
If the commanders of these heavily armed police
battalions are also sitting in parliament making
the laws. Who is actually overseeing the battalion?
Exactly. Who holds them accountable if they cross
the line? And that lack of clear accountability
leads us directly into the much darker side of
this file. Yes, we have to pivot now. We do.
Because we've established the genuine heroism,
the desperate defense of cities, the rapid political
rise. The foundational myth. Right. But we cannot
tell this story. honestly, based on our source
material, without looking at the severe allegations
of misconduct. And we're not talking about minor
disciplinary infractions here. We aren't talking
about guys missing curfew. No, we are looking
at formal reports from the United Nations and
from Amnesty International. These are highly
documented allegations of serious human rights
violations. And I want to be incredibly clear
to everyone listening. We are reporting these
exact details as they appear in the source material.
Right. We are not taking sides. We aren't judging
the fog of war. But we aren't looking away from
the text either. We have to cover what the source
provides. Exactly. So let's start with the U
.N. reports from 2016. They documented a specific,
very brutal incident in a town called Avdivka
in January 2015. Yeah. This section is a genuinely
tough read. Tell us what happened. The UN monitoring
mission documented that members of DINIPRO -1
raided a private house in Avdivka. Okay. The
report details that they severely beat a man
there. But it gets much more specific and much
more disturbing. What else did they do? They
subjected him to asphyxiation with a plastic
bag. I mean, that is torture. Yes. There is no
legal or moral gray area there. That is a war
crime. And it didn't stop there. The UN report
also states they performed a mock execution.
For those who might not know. What exactly does
a mock execution entail? It generally means putting
a loaded gun to someone's head or firing a shot
just past their ear, specifically to make them
firmly believe they are about to be killed in
that exact second. Does pure psychological torture?
Yes. It is designed to completely and fundamentally
break a human being's mind. And the U .N. grouped
Dnipro -1 with some other battalions in this
report, too, right? They did. They grouped them
with other high -profile volunteer units like
IDAR, KIV -1, and KIV -2. And what were the broader
accusations against that group? The U .N. accused
them of systemic enforced disappearances and
arbitrary detention. Okay, enforced disappearance.
That's a very sterile diplomatic legal term.
It is. What does that actually mean for the victim
on the ground? It means you are grabbed off the
street or pulled out of your living room in the
middle of the night. No arrest wards. Zero paperwork.
There is no phone call to your lawyer. Your family
has absolutely no idea where you are or who took
you. You're just gone. You're thrown in a basement
or a shipping container somewhere, operating
completely outside the protection of any legal
system. You essentially cease to exist as a citizen
with rights. And there is a very specific case
mentioned in the Wikipedia article that highlights
exactly this dynamic. Yes. The case of Vladimir
Komatitsky. Right. He was a local official, specifically
the former deputy mayor of the city of Slovyansk.
Okay. What happened to him? The U .N. allegation
is that he was kidnapped by three soldiers and
a commander of the Dnipro -1 regiment. Do we
know the commander's name? Interestingly, no.
The U .N. report, as cited in our source, refers
to the commander only by a pseudonym. Mr. A.
Right, Mr. A. And what was the outcome for the
deputy mayor? Did he ever come home? No. The
report states he was murdered later that exact
same day. So we have a brazen kidnapping and
a murder of a public official by members of a
state -sanctioned police regiment. Yes. Was there
a trial? Was anyone held accountable for this?
Well, the report notes that the accused men were
eventually charged by the authorities. Okay,
so the system worked. But look at the specific
charges. What were they? They were formally charged
with, quote, illegal confinement and, quote,
illegally handling arms. Wait. They kidnapped
and killed a man. And the harshest charge the
prosecutor brings is illegally handling arms.
It's baffling. That sounds like getting a speeding
ticket after you rob a bank with a machine gun.
Exactly. And the U .N. report explicitly highlights
and questions that massive discrepancy. I would
hope so. It asks the very obvious question. Why
were there absolutely no war crimes charges or
even direct murder charges, given that the victim
was clearly killed while in their custody? What
does that tell us about the justice system at
that time? It suggests a catastrophic failure.
Either the local prosecutors were quite literally
too afraid for their own lives to touch these
heavily armed hero units. Which is plausible.
Highly plausible. Or the legal system was just
completely too broken and overwhelmed by the
war to function normally. But regardless of the
reason, it creates a terrifying culture of impunity.
Total impunity. Because if a unit realizes they
can get away with the murder of a deputy mayor
with a slap on the wrist, what else are they
going to feel emboldened to do? Precisely. The
guardrails are gone. And that leads us to the
other major international report we have to discuss,
the one from Amnesty International in December
2014. Right. Now, this one is different. It isn't
about direct physical violence or torture. It's
about food. It's about the weaponization of logistics.
Explain the Amnesty report. What's the core incident?
The report details that Dnipro -1, acting alongside
a few other battalions, was intentionally blocking
humanitarian aid convoys. Who was sending the
aid? He was sent by another prominent oligarch,
Renat Akhmatov. Okay, so you have rival oligarchs
involved now? Yes, the politics are very tangled.
But these convoys were full of food and clothing,
and they were trying to reach pavilions trapped
in the separatist -controlled areas of the Donbass.
And Dnipro -1 set up roadblocks to stop them.
They physically turned the trucks around. Now...
Let's play devil's advocate for just a second
because we want to understand the complete picture.
What was the unit's actual justification for
doing this? Why block food trucks heading to
a war zone? Their argument? internally was entirely
tactical. They claimed that they strongly believed
that food and winter clothing would ultimately
end up in the wrong hands. Meaning the separatist
fighters. Right. They thought the militants would
just seize the aid off the trucks to feed their
own frontline troops, or they would sell it on
the black market to buy more ammunition. So their
logic was essentially, we cannot allow vital
supplies to cross our lines and potentially sustain
the enemy army. Exactly. Which, historically
speaking, in the brutal calculus of war, is a
very standard siege tactic. Right. You starve
the enemy garrison until they surrender. But
the massive problem with that logic here, as
Amnesty pointed out very aggressively, is that
you aren't just starving the enemy garrison.
You are starving the entire civilian population
locked in there with them. Exactly. Amnesty noted
in their report that over half the population
in those separatist -controlled areas depended
almost entirely on this specific food aid to
survive the winter. We're talking about incredibly
vulnerable people. Pensioners, young children,
patients in hospitals. So by blocking the trucks,
whatever the tactical justification, they were
ultimately punishing the most defenseless people
in the conflict zone. And Amnesty did not mince
words about the legality of this. What did they
say? The acting director of Amnesty International
at the time formally stated that, quote, using
starvation of civilians as a method of warfare
is a war crime, end quote. That is such a heavy,
heavy label to apply. A war crime. Is the ultimate
legal condemnation in an armed conflict. And
it really forces you to grapple with the complex
legacy of this unit. It's a dizzying contrast.
It really is. You have the Battle of Ilovaisk
where these exact same guys are bleeding out
in trenches, dying to protect their homeland
from a foreign invasion. Utter heroism. And then
you turn the page of the Wikipedia article and
you have these checkpoints where they are allegedly
torturing detainees and intentionally starving
civilian populations. It represents the ultimate
double -edged sword of relying on these rapid
volunteer formations in a crisis. Because they
operate outside the normal rules. Yes. They operate
with a massive degree of operational autonomy.
And that autonomy is exactly what allows them
to be so fast, so flexible, and so effective
in the early days. But that exact same autonomy.
Allows them to completely ignore the rules of
armed conflict. Yeah. When you have a unit heavily
funded by a regional oligarch. Check. Commanded
by a guy who is now a national politician. Check.
And filled with highly motivated but. Basically
untrained volunteers with deep ideological grievances.
Discipline regarding international humanitarian
law is inevitably going to break down. It's a
structural guarantee of abuse eventually. And
obviously the other side of the conflict, the
Russians took notice of all this. They absolutely
did. And they weaponized that reputation. How
so? Well, jump forward a bit. The source notes
that in 2023, Russia officially legally designated
Dnipro -1 as a terrorist organization. Now, obviously,
given the context of the 2022 full -scale invasion,
that designation is heavily laced with state
propaganda. Undoubtedly. It serves a political
purpose for Moscow. But at the same time, it
reflects a reality about how these specific volunteer
units were viewed by their adversaries. Right.
They weren't seen by the separatists or the Russians
as just another standard unit of regular soldiers.
They were seen as something much more dangerous.
They were the boogeymen. They were the ideological
hardliners. I want to shift gears slightly here
back to the actual structural evolution of the
unit. OK. Because despite all of this massive
controversy, the wild politics, the horrific
U .N. reports, the brutal battles. They didn't
just fade away or disband. No, they actually
kept growing. They evolved significantly. They
didn't just stay a ragtag group of guys with
AK -47s riding around in unarmored pickup trucks
forever. Not at all. The source details their
structural composition later in their history.
And it is actually quite a robust, complex military
organization. What did it look like as they professionalized?
Well, for one, they eventually formed a first
armored company. OK, so they finally got the
heavy metal. Exactly. Tanks, infantry fighting
vehicles, heavy support. They weren't just light
infantry anymore. And they were pretty early
adopters of new tech, too, weren't they? Very
early. The source specifically mentions they
formed the third... Aerosvitka group. Aerosvitka.
That means aerial reconnaissance. Yes. Drone
units. And this was years before the 2022 invasion,
where drones are everywhere. Exactly. This was
back when battlefield drone warfare was really
just starting to become a staple. It wasn't standard
issue yet. But Dnipro -1 was already integrating
that capability into their operations. They clearly
understood that the immediate future of war was
going to involve looking down from the sky. Smart.
The source also mentioned that they had specific
companies named after different regions of Ukraine.
Yes. They had units named Donetsk -1, Krim, and
Krivbus. Krim. That's the Ukrainian word for
Crimea, right? That is. And that is a very intentional,
very powerful branding choice by the unit leadership.
Tell me why. By establishing a combat company
specifically named Crimea. They were creating
a very visible home within the regiment for refugees
and volunteers who had fled that occupied peninsula.
Oh, wow. That's actually really moving. It gave
those displaced fighters a highly specific identity
within the much larger national struggle. It
was a statement of intent. Exactly. It was a
way of saying to the public, we absolutely haven't
forgotten where you were from and we are fighting
to eventually get you back. So if we fast forward
to February 2022. The full -scale Russian invasion
begins. The entire country is under attack. Right.
Is Dnipro -1 still a relevant fighting force
at that point? Very much so. The Wikipedia entry
specifically highlights their combat role in
the liberation of Lyman. And that took place
in September and October of 2022, correct? Yes.
And the retaking of Lyman was a huge strategic
win for the Ukrainian counteroffensive. It was
a massive operational success. It forced a major
Russian retreat. And the fact that Dnipro -1
was actively participating in that operation
shows how they were being utilized. Yes, they
were still being used as a frontline strike force.
They weren't just comfortably patrolling the
rear echelon back home in Dnipro. No, they were
out there actively pushing the main frontline
eastward. But, as with all things in military
history, eras eventually end. They do. Transformations
happen. So what exactly happened in December
2023? That date marks the end of an era. The
era of the fully independent standalone volunteer
regiment sort of officially came to a close.
Because they were absorbed. Yes. The source states
that Dnipro -1 was reassigned and permanently
absorbed into the loot brigade. The loot brigade.
Lut means fury or rage in Ukrainian, doesn't
it? It does. The Fury Brigade. What kind of unit
is that? The Lut Brigade is a relatively new
formation. It's officially designated as a combined
assault brigade of the National Police. OK, so
they're still under the police umbrella, but
organized as an assault brigade. Right. And this
merger is a totally crucial evolution in the
broader story of the Ukrainian military. Why
is it so significant? It essentially signifies
the state. Finally achieving full centralization
of these incredibly diverse volunteer units.
Oh, I get it. So they're cleaning up the organizational
chart. Exactly. Instead of having all these standalone
regiments, each with their own unique internal
cultures, their own idiosyncratic leadership,
and potentially their own shadowy private funding
streams. They are bringing them all firmly under
one massive standardized professional command
structure. It's the professionalization of the
entire 2014 volunteer movement. Precisely. You
take all that raw, chaotic energy and unmatched
combat experience, and you finally put it into
a formal, sustainable, state -controlled military
box. And theoretically, that solves a lot of
the severe problems we discussed earlier. It
solves the command and control issues instantly.
And it brings oversight. Ideally, yes. It brings
much better oversight to actively prevent the
kind of horrific human rights abuses the UN documented.
Because you are far less likely to have a mysterious
Mr. Oster going rogue and kidnapping a mayor
when there is a rigid modern chain of command
and actual military police watching the unit.
Exactly. Institutionalization is the ultimate
antidote to the warlord dynamic. Now, before
we wrap this deep dive up, we have to talk about
the absolute elephant in the room. Oh, yeah.
Or rather, the football team on the pitch. The
wildest detail in the entire file. Because honestly,
this is the detail that just sticks in my brain
and completely refuses to leave. It is truly
unique. I genuinely can't think of another historical
example quite like it anywhere in the world.
We are talking about SC Dnipro 1. The football
club. A professional Ukrainian Premier League
football club. Playing in the absolute top tier
of the national sport. They are playing matches
against legendary teams like Dynamo Kyiv and
Shakhtar Donetsk. They were even playing in high
profile European competitions. And the club is
named explicitly... After the police regiment.
Yes, it carries the exact same name. I just,
I need the listener to really imagine this for
a second. It's hard to wrap your head around.
Imagine if, I don't know, the NYPD SWAT team
suddenly had a fully professional baseball team
in the major leagues called the New York SWATs.
Wearing the police badges on their jerseys while
playing the Yankees. It is absolutely baffling
to an outsider. But the Wikipedia source confirms
it. The club was literally named after the unit.
It wasn't just some weird civic coincidence.
No. And we have to remember the deep funding
connection we talked about earlier. Kolomoisky,
the billionaire governor. Exactly. Now, while
the Wikipedia article doesn't explicitly draw
a direct financial line between the football
club's bank accounts and the military unit's
bank accounts in that specific section. The shared
branding is impossible to ignore. It points to
this unbelievably intense integration of military
power, political influence, and mass cultural
identity, all centered in the city of Dnipro.
The unit essentially transcended being a military
formation. It became a brand. That is exactly
the right word. It became a lifestyle brand.
A regional symbol of defiance. And having a top
-tier professional football club named after
you? It completely legitimizes that symbol. It
normalizes it entirely. It puts the name Dnipro
One on national television screens. Every single
weekend during peacetime. Kids are walking around
the city wearing the jersey of a paramilitary
unit. Thousands of ultra fans are chanting the
name in a packed stadium. It permanently cements
the unit's mythological status as the ultimate
defenders of the city. It really just brings
home how deeply, incredibly deeply, this war
penetrated every single facet of Ukrainian society.
It wasn't contained. It wasn't just happening
out in muddy trenches at the front. It was happening
in the halls of parliament. It was happening
in the opaque bank accounts of billionaires.
And it was happening under the floodlights in
the football stadiums. It shows that total societal
mobilization isn't just about drafting soldiers
to hold the line. It is about mobilizing the
underlying culture, the economy, and the very
identity of the people. Because when a country
is fighting for its literal survival, the neat
lines between everything. Civilian and soldier,
sport and war, legal and illegal. They all just
get completely erased. Blown away entirely. What
does this all mean for us today? We've looked
at the rapid timeline, the desperate battles,
the horrific war crimes and the bizarre football
connection. We've covered a lot of ground. When
we step back from the details, what is the ultimate
takeaway on the Dnipro -1 regiment? I think Dnipro
-1 stands as the absolute perfect case study
for the desperate measures of 2014. A snapshot
of that panic. Exactly. Ukraine faced a true
existential threat. the state was fundamentally
too weak to handle it. So civil society responded
in the only way it could. Right. Oligarchs essentially
threw millions of dollars at the problem. Angry
activists picked up assault rifles and they managed
to hold the line. They genuinely did the brutal
job that needed to be done when literally no
one else could do it. They absolutely filled
the gap. We can't deny that. But that extreme
desperation came with a very, very high moral
cost. Yeah. The total reliance on private, unaccountable
funding, the shocking lack of basic military
training, and the deep political radicalization
of the personnel. It directly led to those serious
ethical and legal violations we discussed. It
did. They might have saved their city, but they
left a very dark trail of baggage regarding human
rights and political independence. It is the
absolute classic double -edged sword of relying
on militias. You can sharpen it incredibly fast
to fight your enemy, but you can cut your own
society just as easily when you swing it. And
their ultimate evolution into the formal Liet
Brigade shows that the state eventually realized
a crucial lesson. Which is? You cannot rely on
these semi -autonomous, privately funded structures
forever. if you want to be a modern nation. You
have to eventually rein them in and institutionalize
them. It's a necessary maturing process for the
state. You have to move from the chaotic Wild
West back to a regulated professional army. Exactly.
Well, here is a final thought for you listening
to Ponder. Let's hear it. When the definitive
history books are finally written about this
entire conflict decades from now, how do we as
a society reconcile the undeniable tactical necessity
of units like Dnipro -1 with the heavily documented
accounts of their horrific conduct off the battlefield?
It's a heavy question. Can you honestly separate
the heroic defender bleeding in the rubble of
Mariupol from the alleged abuser suffocating
a man in a basement in Avdiivka? Or in a chaotic,
desperate war like this, are they inevitably
just two sides of the exact same coin? That is
the defining question of asymmetrical warfare.
And I genuinely don't think there's an easy,
clean answer to it. Definitely not. But it is
absolutely something you need to think about
as we watch incredibly violent conflict shape
and break state institutions in real time all
over the world. Thank you for diving deep with
us today. Thank you. It was a fascinating discussion.
We will see you all next time. Stay curious.