Western Standard - March 18, 2022


ARNIE TO PUTIN： ‘Stop this war’


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

153.25768

Word count

1,409

Sentence count

99

Harmful content

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Learn English with Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama delivers a powerful message to the people of Ukraine and the Russian soldiers fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine. Michelle speaks about her deep love for the country and its people, and her support for the brave soldiers fighting for their homeland.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.240 Hello everybody and thank you for sharing your time with me.
00:00:04.520 I am sending this message through various different channels to reach my dear Russian
00:00:08.440 friends and the Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine.
00:00:12.640 I am speaking to you today because there are things that are going on in the world that
00:00:18.000 have been kept from you, terrible things that you should know about.
00:00:23.000 But before I talk about the harsh realities, let me just tell you about the Russian who 1.00
00:00:27.240 became my hero.
00:00:29.560 In 1961, when I was 14 years old, a very good friend of mine invited me to come to Vienna
00:00:34.820 and to watch the World Weightlifting Championships.
00:00:38.200 I was in the audience when Yuri Petrovich Vlasov won the World Championship title, becoming
00:00:44.240 the first human being to lift 200 kilograms over his head.
00:00:48.500 But somehow a friend of mine got me backstage.
00:00:52.520 All of a sudden, there I was, a 14-year-old boy, standing in front of the strongest man
00:00:58.100 in the world.
00:00:59.860 I couldn't believe it.
00:01:01.640 He reached out to shake my hand.
00:01:03.360 I mean, I still had a boy's hand.
00:01:06.740 He had this powerful man's hand that swallowed mine.
00:01:09.740 But he was kind, and he smiled at me.
00:01:14.000 I would never forget that day.
00:01:16.000 Never.
00:01:17.000 I went home and put his photo above my bed to inspire me when I started lifting weights.
00:01:24.260 My father told me to take down that picture and to find a German or an Austrian hero.
00:01:31.300 He got really angry, and we argued back and forth.
00:01:35.060 He didn't like Russians because of his experience in the Second World War.
00:01:39.020 You see, he was injured at Leningrad, where the Nazi army that he was part of did vicious
00:01:45.120 harm to the great city and to its brave people.
00:01:49.300 But I did not take the photograph down, no.
00:01:51.980 Because it didn't matter to me what flag Yuri Vlasov carried.
00:01:55.400 My connections to Russia didn't stop there, by the way.
00:01:58.780 Oh, it actually deepened when I traveled there with bodybuilding and for my movies and met all
00:02:04.980 my Russian fans.
00:02:07.060 And in one of the strips, I remember, I met Yuri Vlasov once again.
00:02:11.280 He was in Moscow doing the filming of Red Heat, which was the first American movie allowed
00:02:16.760 to film in Red Square.
00:02:18.220 Now, he and I spent the whole day together.
00:02:21.160 He was so thoughtful, so kind, and so smart, and, of course, very giving.
00:02:27.220 He gave me this beautiful blue coffee cup.
00:02:30.860 And ever since then, I've been drinking my coffee out of every morning.
00:02:35.920 The reason why I'm telling you all of those things is that ever since I was 14 years old,
00:02:40.300 I've had nothing but affections and respect for the people of Russia.
00:02:44.840 The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me.
00:02:49.320 That is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in Ukraine and
00:02:54.900 what is happening there.
00:02:57.260 No one likes to hear something critical of the government, I understand that.
00:03:01.100 But as a long-time friend of the Russian people, I hope that you will hear what I have to say.
00:03:07.320 And may I remind you that I speak with the same heartfelt concern as I spoke to the American
00:03:13.260 people when there was an attempted insurrection on January 6th last year, when a wild crowd was
00:03:20.220 storming the U.S. Capitol, trying to overthrow our government.
00:03:24.220 You see, there are moments like this that are so wrong, and then we have to speak up.
00:03:30.280 And it's exactly the same with your government.
00:03:32.280 I know that your government has told you that this is a war to denazify Ukraine.
00:03:38.280 Denazify Ukraine?
00:03:40.280 This is not true.
00:03:42.280 Ukraine is a country with a Jewish president.
00:03:44.340 A Jewish president, I might add, whose father's three brothers were all murdered by the Nazis.
00:03:51.340 You see, Ukraine did not start this war.
00:03:54.340 Neither did nationalists or Nazis.
00:03:57.340 Those in power in the Kremlin started this war.
00:04:02.340 This is not the Russian people's war.
00:04:05.400 No.
00:04:06.400 As a matter of fact, let me tell you, what you should know is that 141 nations at the UN
00:04:11.400 voted that Russia was the aggressor and called for it to remove its troops immediately.
00:04:18.400 Only four countries in the entire world voted with Russia.
00:04:22.400 That is a fact.
00:04:24.400 See, the world has turned against Russia because of its actions in Ukraine.
00:04:29.400 Whole city blocks have been flattened by Russian artillery and bombs, including a children's 0.98
00:04:34.300 hospital and a maternity hospital.
00:04:38.460 Three million Ukrainian refugees, mainly women, children and elderly, fled their country.
00:04:45.460 And many more are trying to seek to get out.
00:04:48.460 It is a humanitarian crisis.
00:04:51.460 Because of its brutality, Russia is now isolated from the society of nations.
00:04:58.460 You are also not being told the truth about the consequences of this war on Russia itself.
00:05:04.520 I regret to tell you that thousands of Russian soldiers that have been killed, they have been
00:05:11.460 caught between Ukrainians fighting for their homeland and the Russian leadership fighting
00:05:16.420 for conquest.
00:05:19.160 Massive amounts of Russian equipment have been destroyed or abandoned.
00:05:24.460 The destruction that Russian bombs are raining down upon innocent civilians has so outraged
00:05:30.060 the world that the strongest global economic sanctions ever taken have been imposed on your
00:05:36.460 country.
00:05:38.260 Those who don't deserve it on both sides of the war will suffer.
00:05:43.180 The Russian government has lied not only to the citizens, but to its soldiers.
00:05:48.660 Some of the soldiers were told they were going to fight Nazis.
00:05:52.700 Some were told that the Ukrainian people would greet them like heroes.
00:05:56.900 And some were told that they were simply going on exercise.
00:05:59.540 They didn't even know that they were going into war.
00:06:02.800 And some were told that they were there to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
00:06:08.380 None of this is true.
00:06:10.840 The fact is that Russian soldiers have faced fierce resistance from the Ukrainians who want 1.00
00:06:16.340 to protect their families and their country.
00:06:20.060 When I see babies being pulled out of ruins, I think that I'm watching a documentary about
00:06:25.020 the horrors of the Second World War, not the news of the day.
00:06:30.080 Now, let me tell you, when my father arrived in Leningrad, he was all pumped up on the lies
00:06:37.060 of his government.
00:06:38.060 And when he left Leningrad, he was broken, physically and mentally.
00:06:43.520 He lived the rest of his life in pain, pain from a broken back, pain from the shrapnel that
00:06:49.020 always reminded him of these terrible years, and pain from the guilt that he felt.
00:06:55.560 To the Russian soldiers listening to this broadcast, you already know much of the truth that I've
00:07:00.900 been speaking.
00:07:01.900 You've seen it with your own eyes.
00:07:05.280 I don't want you to be broken like my father.
00:07:09.480 This is not the war to defend Russia that your grandfathers or your great grandfathers fought.
00:07:15.260 This is an illegal war.
00:07:18.360 Your lives, your limbs, your futures are being sacrificed for a senseless war condemned by the 0.56
00:07:26.280 entire world.
00:07:27.560 Now, to those in power in the Gremlin, let me just ask you, why would you sacrifice this
00:07:34.060 young man for your own ambitions?
00:07:37.060 To the soldiers who are listening to this, remember that 11 million Russians have family
00:07:45.100 connections to Ukraine.
00:07:46.940 So every bullet you shoot, you shoot a brother or a sister.
00:07:52.100 Every bomb or every shell that falls is falling not on an enemy, but on a school or a hospital
00:07:59.740 or a home.
00:08:01.820 I know that the Russian people are not aware of such things are happening.
00:08:05.820 So I urge the Russian people and the Russian soldiers in Ukraine to understand the propaganda
00:08:12.400 and the disinformation that you are being told.
00:08:16.120 I ask you to help me spread the truth.
00:08:19.800 Let you fellow Russians know the human catastrophe that is happening in Ukraine.
00:08:26.720 And to President Putin I say, you started this war.
00:08:31.360 You are leading this war.
00:08:33.280 You can stop this war.
00:08:35.400 Now, let me close with a message to all of the Russians who have been protesting on the
00:08:41.360 streets against the invasion of Ukraine.
00:08:45.060 The world has seen your bravery.
00:08:47.680 We know that you have suffered the consequences of your courage.
00:08:51.820 You have been arrested, you have been jailed and you have been beaten.
00:08:56.400 You are my new heroes.
00:08:59.060 You have the strength of Yuri Petrovich Vlasov.
00:09:03.020 You have the true heart of Russia.
00:09:07.880 My dear Russian friends, may God bless you all.