Day 37, Phase 2
Nancy is in town. She brought Adam with her.
The reason I was disappointed to see Revolution of Dignity firebrand Volodymyr Parasiuk unboxing a Pulsar C50 the other day is because it comes from Yukon Optics Worldwide.
The company reportedly controls about 60 percent of the global night vision device market. Belarusian Alexander Olshevsky is the majority shareholder. The company’s main plant, Beltex Optic, is based in Lida, Belarus.
In February, Russia sent commandos wearing Pulsar NVDs/NODs from Belarus to rub us out in Kyiv under the cover of darkness. This explains my problem with Yukon, Pulsar and Olshevsky.
Since then, I’ve had five friends from Grodno point me to the company’s bullshit FAQ, each one claiming disbelief that such a gathering of words could come into existence. Without question it’s a hard piece to navigate: before I was through it my eyes swelled up, popped from my head and exploded like grapefruit met with a softball bat.
Unlike Pulsar, U.S.-based ATN has increased production of its Smart Night and Thermal Optics gear and is shipping thousands of units to Ukrainian fighters at no charge to the Ukrainian government. It occurs to me that, somewhere in the gaping void that is the revenue model for Oleshevsky, Pulsar should follow suit.
Or does he have to ask Lukashenko for permission?