The North Group is a company that specializes in responding to crises, like the one in Ukraine. That being said, we are all humans. It is hard to watch what’s happening. That’s why we are actively helping with humanitarian evacuations. We decided in the middle of chaotic days, to gather up our CEO, Steve Hernandez and two our intelligence analysts, Sam Tobias and Jacob Hauser to have a general conversation on the subject. To see the entire episode of “Time to Head North” scroll down.
One of the topics we openly discussed was the why, Sam took this one. Explaining that in Russia’s mindset, the eastern part of Ukraine has always been a part of Russia and that there is a constant fear of increased involvement of NATO, especially after the fall of The Soviet Union. Sam gave us this take, “In Russia’s mind, Ukraine is aggressive, Ukraine wants to join NATO and Ukraine is willing to launch a counter offensive in the Crimea. Whether or not that’s true doesn’t matter, the Russians believe it’s true and so they’re going to act that way. So their goal in this invasion and what we’ve seen reflected in their plans is to take the eastern portion of the country where there are a lot more Russian speakers, and I think some of the slow pace of the advances, they didn’t anticipate the Russian speakers to be so hostile, is to take the eastern the eastern portion of the country. Then they’ll want a neutral state in the western portion sort of a rump state version of Ukraine.”
The amount of propaganda and misinformation is also a constant in the current climate. Steve believes both sides are striving to use the misinformation to their advantage. However, Steve believes that could backfire for Ukraine. ” Here’s the deal, that doesn’t help people know that you need help. That helps people think that you guys are winning a war in Ukraine when you’re when you’re not.” Steve reiterates it’s imperative Ukraine puts out authentic information to make sure they get the necessary assistance.
Speaking to ensuring information is correct and clear, Jake added the language used in the media can be taken the wrong way. Jake clarified how Russia speaks on its military readiness and how the word “heightened” could be taken out of context. “I’d really like to touch on because it’s been getting thrown around in the media and there’s a lot of mistranslation of what it really means. We are talking about the heightened readiness that they have, so whenever people hear that they instantly think that oh Russia is ready to drop something. Russia follows four stages of military readiness. Number one is peacetime, two is heightened, three is threat of war and four is complete. ” When we heard the words “threat of war,” that is when things are ramping up.
This is just a snippet of the conversation, the video is below in its entirety. There is also an audio version on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio and Podbean,
If you need help or just some authentic information, do not hesitate to reach out to The North Group. You can find all of our service offerings on our other pages here on the website. Thanks for stopping by!
