Catherine A. Fitzpatrick does a great job explaining the phenomenon at interpretermag.com [link to full article, the selected abstracts are copied here, since I haven't found the way to reblogg it here]
This clip was broadcast on Russia's TV1 and other channels:
This clip was broadcast on Russia's TV1 and other channels:
At 0:41, the soldier can be seen putting his hand up in front of the camera and saying "out of my face":
Possibly the soldier spoke in English, even though the TV journalist spoke in Russian, because he saw the English letters "MTV" which isn't music television but stands for "Mariupol TV".
This is a problem for "LifeNews," as well, which seems to have wanted to give itself more international recognition by calling itself an English name -- but which then can be perceived by locals as a foreign camera crew.
Maybe the soldier simply thought that was a great expression he had heard on TV.
But Russian propagandists have a more damning clip, which they take from the Azov Battalion video (which we reported January 24) in which a soldier is heard speaking at length to the cameraman about a Grad missile crater in a school yard:
But Russian propagandists have a more damning clip, which they take from the Azov Battalion video (which we reported January 24) in which a soldier is heard speaking at length to the cameraman about a Grad missile crater in a school yard:
At 0:11, we can see a soldier wearing his cap backwards, in the American style:
This soldier's accent isn't American but it might be British or Australian although he doesn't sound like a native speaker, as he speaks in very short sentences, without proper grammar, drops articles, and has an unaspirated "k" in the word "school." Here's a transcript of the dialogue:
Azov soldier (cameraman): Is detected?
English-speaking soldier: It's it's right in.
Azov soldier: Uh-huh
English-speaking soldier: So. Maybe explode, maybe not...
Azov solider: Uh-huh
English-speaking soldier: So blow up in situ....Go to wall here.
Azov soldier: Uh-huh
English-speaking soldier: It's a kindergarten, school?
Azov soldier: Yes, yes.
So it's not confirmed that the person speaking English is in fact a foreigner -- "blow up" and "school" are two words not pronounced like a native speaker.
It seems as if both videos are covering the same man with a khaki-colored cap and a green backpack. At 0:43 in the first video:
At 0:11 in the second video:
Why would both the cameraman and the other soldier speak in English at the end of this video footage of a devastated Mariupol?
One possibility is that the Azov cameraman, throughout the video, kept creating ready-made stand-alone clips that might be used in a television broadcast. Multiple times throughout the video, he stops people in the scene, asks them to introduce themselves, and asks them to repeat several times the name of the location and the city where they were, i.e. "School No. 5" and "city of Mariupol" -- even though these facts were already obvious to the cameraman.
So perhaps the cameraman was hoping to create a ready-made episode that he could give to foreign news that would prove in particular a particularly dangerous situation -- unexploded rockets in a school yard.
To be sure, there might actually be a foreign volunteer in Azov. Azov, an ultranationalist battalion known for its symbols similar to Nazi insignia, has received enormous scrutiny from some foreign and Russian media, because it seems to embody the worst case of much-feared Ukrainian nationalism.
Azov is said to have a Swedish white supremacist named Mikael Skillt in its ranks, and other European recruits seem to have been attracted to the battalion, according to Wikipedia.
The reason the fighter in the video may not sound like a native English speaker is that he could be Swedish or French or some other nationality, and English is a lingua franca with the Ukrainian soldier.
So perhaps this one man is a foreigner fighting for the Azov Battalion, but it hasn't been proven.
Azov hasn't commented on the allegations of having foreign fighters among them, and there hasn't yet been any credible media investigating the story.
UPDATE:
The mystery of the foreign fighter in Azov Battalion has been solved, thanks to a reader:
@Interpreter_Mag Azov fighter is Chris Garret, and is from the Isle-of-Man in the UK. His blog is here: http://t.co/cFQWfnmgEm.
— Evan Whitney (@evanwhitney) January 27, 2015
So Garrett is British, not American, and the reason he spoke in such short, clipped sentences was that he was busy with the job he came to Ukraine to do: de-mining.
Thus, there are no "NATO legions," but just a British specialist who came to Ukraine to help. No doubt the teachers and children of Day Care Center No. 5 in Mariupol will be glad that he identified unexploded Grad rockets on the center's grounds, which we learn about from the full version of this video (11:10).
Garrett, who goes by the nickname "Swampy," has replied to those claiming he is a "NATO agent":
In response to the recent allegations of me being an american mercenary paid by western governments. I shall soon release my own statement. For now, here is my response to a certain twitter idiot
Garrett then published a photo of himself upside down:
