Divisions and Rising Above

The war between Russia and Ukraine has been divisive within the HAM Radio community and that division is doing damage across borders in ways never intended.

Ukraine made a decision to require HAMs to stop operating for 30 days under a state of emergency. This is understandable - having the ability to communicate so far makes them targets for an enemy that needs them to be silent. One might argue that there might be heroism in doing so anyway, but we don't have a full picture of everything that is going on to really know. Either way, that's Ukraines choice. They are their own democratic country after all.

Recently - and luckily briefly, QRZ.com decided to remove all Russian callsigns from its database. I'd read the post from the site admin and didn't put a lot of thought into it until I saw a Facebook post from YL Raisa - R1BIG, a Russian HAM who has been stuck in Finland. 

Raisa is an avid HAM operator, and like all good HAMs - she keeps the politics out of her radio operations. 

Going back a few steps, when this all kicked off, I saw a few social media posts with comments about that we shouldn't work Russian callsigns and so on. I even agreed for a moment. 

As this war progressed though it became clear - many of the Russian people quite simply do not support this war either. There are plenty of Russian people who believe the lie that their government has sold them, but there are plenty more who know how to find out facts and understand the bigger picture. 

Stories are emerging of Russian soldiers who had no idea they were being deployed to invade Ukraine - they'd been told they were going on training missions or the like. Other stories tell of soldiers contacting their parents telling them they wish they weren't there because they're fighting a war they want no part of. Perhaps the stories of abandoned tanks and trucks - still with fuel all help illustrate that perhaps there is some revolt against being thrown into this situation.

It can of course be hard to tell; Russia is an expert at using misinformation and psyops to obfuscate, confuse and hide their intentions, and I have no doubt that Ukraine has resorted to using similar tactics, particularly with social media to bolster hope within its people and to help relieve its enemy of it.  As a side note, this stuff can be fascinating to learn about if you can cope with the terrifying reality of it. Chances are, if you're on HAM groups on Facebook, you're seeing part of this in action; anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian comments here, anti-West, anti-NATO comments there. And that's just the basic, bot level stuff that is easy to spot when you know what to look for. It can get a lot deeper and less obvious from there - Russia had a field day leading up to the 2016 US election with how it went about its influence campaigns using similar mechanisms. For the Trump fans - this stuff was proven and known fact by those us with the technological skills to understand it - the only debatable point was whether or not Trump actually knew about it. From my perspective at least, the documentary Active Measures paints a pretty clear picture.

HAM radio is a uniting pursuit; we over come borders and differences. We treat others as we'd like them to treat us, and for the most part we learn to get along. 

How can we, therefore, justify the vilification of the people of a nation based solely upon the actions of a dictator? 

To what end does removing a method of identifying them such as the removal from QRZ.com achieve? It's not going to stop them picking up their radio and trying to communicate with the world. 

I'm not going to defend Russia here; my postgraduate study was in cyber security, and my primary interest was Cyber warfare and terrorism - and Russia features heavily in that. In fact, it's most of the course content. I do though, differentiate the people from the state. It's not a democratic state, so people don't really get to make a choice. 

The Russians - the "good", hard working human beings that want no part of invading their neighbour are about to struggle. The world has imposed sanctions upon them that will make their lives difficult. It's not their fault, but it's a price that they will pay while their "leaders" carry on with whatever psychiatric malfunction that allows them to think this is justified. 

The rest of the world has little choice but to impose sanctions (for whatever real world value this has), as Russia as a state.. and as a military machine.. needs to be stopped.

Merely isolating Russia and its population though is an over simplification of a solution that lacks any understanding of the problem. Their "leaders" need to be stopped. The people who don't support their leaders - of which there appears to be many, they need our support too. The Ukrainians need physical, kinetic and financial support. The "good" Russian folks opposed to this war need to be heard. They need to have their voice. 

How much damage does the rest of the world do to the "good" Russian folks because we've decided to ignore them? To treat them all as war mongers? To hold against them the actions of a "leader" that they never really go to choose? 

While the subject is deeply emotional, one must think beyond simplistic labels of "good guys" and "bad guys" - especially in a world where facism and communism still exist. 

Understand too, for a Russian like YL Raisa, who is currently in a country that her home country has also just warned against joining NATO, that she must be careful in what she says publicly - especially now. She does after all, come from a country where political dissidents have extremely high mortality rates; and right now they're going to be a lot more sensitive to this than they were a month ago. 

This extends to all Russian HAMs really. You can be sure that there will be authorities listening to them and any saying things against that regime puts them in a precarious situation. To us in Western countries, we can largely say what we like without much consequence beyond perhaps being read the riot act by other HAMs for getting into politics on air. For the folks in Russia, that can be a life or death situation. 

An understanding and considerate HAM might consider that the Russian HAMs, as they struggle with the sanctions imposed upon them, might take some solace in being able to communicate with the world, that they might feel that there is some kind of redemption in doing so. An understanding and considerate HAM might recognise that there is a lot that a Russian HAM cannot risk saying on air, but might understand that radio is how they can continue to feel apart of a world that is otherwise ostracising them for their actions of a dictator. 

Isn't it great to be "Free" where we can say and think what we want without fear? Aren't we so privileged when we forget that there are still HAMs in many countries where there is no democracy who need to be careful about what they say out of fear for their lives?