Ohman criticizes the West: It should help Ukraine more in the fight against Russia

Jonas Ohman, founder of the non-governmental organization “Blue/Yellow”, in an interview for The Geopost, criticizes the European Union and Western countries for the lack of sufficient and effective support for Ukraine. He points out that the West must do more to help Ukraine in the fight against Russia’s military aggression, because if it drags on any longer, he says, European politicians will have to do much more in the future.

Director Ohman also shows the reasons for his support for Ukraine. He explains that he became suspicious of Russia’s actions after the 2008 attack on Georgia.

Ohman points out that with his experience in the Swedish intelligence services, he realized that Russia was planning further aggressive actions, including in Ukraine.

Full Interview:

The Geopost: Mr. Ohman, you are a filmmaker but also turned as a great supporter of Ukraine, what made you change that?

When Russia attacked Georgia back in 2008, everybody was surprised, what’s happening, this war, what’s going on? And I started to look at Russia differently at that point. I was suspicious of Putin, obviously, you know, who’s that guy? And then Georgia happened. So I started to perceive his actions and Russia’s actions, and I started to see a pattern, I saw how they talked, how they started to make history revisions, for the Baltic States, for instance, that Soviet Union was right to occupy the Baltics. And actually, I told in public, in the press, in the very beginning of 2013, that I started to feel that Ukraine is going to be the next issue. I didn’t know when, but it was like a bad feeling I had. And, well, in 2014, Crimea, I saw what happened, and I also should say probably I have a background in some kind of Swedish intelligence.

I see a Russian soldier, and I know what I see. I remember in Crimea, I looked at the weapons that they were carrying, the new Kalashnikovs, the valve suppressor, integrated suppressor, I saw, this is Russian Federation, they are attacking Ukraine, then Donbass started, and I saw these, uprising, rebels, whatever, I mean, this is just bullshit, Russia is attacking Ukraine, and I understood that, if we let this happen, next target for Russia is the Baltic States, obviously. So Lithuania, I live there. It’s not going to happen. You’re not going to pass this plan. I looked at the Ukrainian army, and I saw they had lots of problems, they had so many problems, I understood that, but they were fighting, and people, they joined up, volunteers, so I decided quickly that I’m going to support the people fighting in Ukraine, from Lithuania. And we did.

In the beginning, we got some money, a couple of ten thousand euros, and we started to go there. My first trip was to Donetsk airport, near the airport and we got involved in the war and quite quickly we started to be quite efficient for many reasons that’s maybe not for this interview but and so it’s been going on.

I’ve been telling for 10 years, for 10 years now, I told war is coming, war is coming Russia it’s gonna do something more than attack on the open war nobody really believed, yeah you know it’s just unfortunate, Donbass, whatever, and I said, a war is coming.

And eventually what happened in 2022, when Russia attacked, was that people understood, especially Lithuanian, that I was right. So they started to donate as crazy. So I gathered millions and millions and millions, our NGO, it’s not only me, a lot of people obviously, we gather millions and millions of euros so we could start to support in a whole different way.

We support Ukraine every day with some drones, this is an anti-drone, this is a Lithuanian anti-drone, extremely efficient, made in Lithuania. We provide them by the hundreds. We also provide drones, this is an FPV drone that we also provide in the hundreds together with partner organizations in Ukraine to fight. If you don’t have ammunition, you don’t have shells, you use drones, for example.

The Geopost: And does the European Union and Western countries help enough Ukraine?

No, no, we are not helping enough and we are not helping in the way we should. We must understand that war in Ukraine, when you have been in the war you see how it works, what is efficient, for instance have to decentralize the support effort. You cannot do everything via a centralized system. Ukraine is tricky, not everything works out as it should, and in order to be fast enough, we are working with the units all the time. Brigades, regiments, etc. Because we have learned that that is the way that you get most effect for your support. And also, another thing, you start to understand the war. You understand what you’re looking at. Now, the biggest problem, I think, for the European Union and most of others, they are helping. We have to be fighting. Yes, we can help, we don’t have to fight ourselves. We have to be understanding we are fighting by helping.

Now we are providing support. We call it, it’s a term we call it, the firework politics. Oh, we handed over some tanks, but you have to understand that in the war you have to fall through, you have to be part of this more support effort, as we are. And that is not, we’re not there yet. So it’s both about volumes, I should almost say we have to do ten times more now, so that we don’t have to do a hundred times more in the future. So it’s both about volunteers but also about how the support is provided. And the basic problem here is that European politicians, and also not only European, but they do not want to admit that at this point we are at war in Russia.

That’s the biggest problem.

/The Geopost