Ukraine

Jaysus, anyone listening to the Russian guy at the UN?

EDIT: just seen @Caher’s last post on previous.

It’s an utterly staggering testimony.

He’s surpassed Comical Ali. Comrade Crackhead is fully puffing on his pipe before those monologues.

War is a nasty business and I’ve no doubt both sides will commit atrocities when their “blood” is up.

That’s completely different to ethnic cleansing, genocide & intentionally deporting 40,000 civilians to work camps.

Jaysus, anyone listening to the Russian guy at the UN?

Have I just heard that right? He’s just accused the Ukrainians of being responsible for the Holocaust 😳

He’s just accused the Ukrainians of being responsible for the Holocaust 😳

There were a (fairly large) number of Ukranians who sided with the Germans when they showed up in 1941. This was mainly as a way of getting rid of the Soviets, and who can blame them after the famines of the early 1930s.
It does play nicely into the Nazi storylines and no doubt there was some complicity with the holocaust.
This does not however excuse Russia’s current actions in any way.

Surely they can get a spy plane to drop a massive pile of Texan dung from 80,000 on the Kremlin and say it was the Romans.

I saw a video purporting to show Wagner mercs with a Syrian deserter, I have no problem with they feckers getting a beating, no problem at all.

What do we make of the Western right who still seem to be supporting Putin?

I noticed Tucker Carlson changed his tune as war crimes started to emerge, but I’m still seeing a lot of supportive comments online from what appear to be genuine American right-wingers (rather than Russian bots).

I’m seeing a lot of the usual “media is lying to us; Soros; NWO; trust the plan” etc.

Some crazies would rather have Putin as president than Biden: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLQSeWvr/

What do we make of the Western right who still seem to be supporting Putin?

There are loonies on both sides – Justin Schlosberg and Steve Howell, both well to the left in Labour, are at it too.

It’s ridiculous. Useful idiots, doing Putin’s work for him.

What do we make of the Western right who still seem to be supporting Putin?

It really doesn’t matter. If Biden was condemning Idi Amin right now, they’d have a Ugandan flag stuck just over their “Impeach Biden” bumper sticker. I really have no idea – they’re just beyond redemption.

There were a (fairly large) number of Ukranians who sided with the Germans when they showed up in 1941.

The Russian STATE sided with the Nazis from 1939 until 1941! Committing some **** horrendous examples of genocide in Poland along the way.

Jaysus, anyone listening to the Russian guy at the UN?

Yeah, it was quite interesting insight into the mindset.

That beating is pretty similar to the typical behaviour of West Yorkshire Police.

There are loonies on both sides

Agreed, I guess I just find it particularly incongruous from the American right, given they are usually bleating on about freedum and lefties being “commies” etc.

It’s ridiculous. Useful idiots, doing Putin’s work for him.

Hard to know which ones are paid “useful idiots” and which ones are just idiots.
I think the ongoing information and social media war could out some of the former, if people are paying attention.

andrewh, RichPenny,

Everyone was slaughtering everyone back in the day, the answer to any accusation levelled at one group or the other is probably; Yes.

Don’t know if anyone here has ever seen the 1985 Russian film “Come and See”? Liz Truss probably hasn’t because its got subtitles but its the best antidote to all he black hawk down videos fed onto our screens.

Nothing will give greater context to the events occurring in Ukraine right now than spending two and a half hours with that film. It is harrowing in the extreme but also a complete and utter masterpiece.

This covers some the Ukraine involvement in the second world war. Or some of it at least.
Maybe the Russian UN rep has seen that and thinks it’s news??

^ Big fan of Mark Felton. He has some amazing historical stories on his channel.

He is a good YouTube watch.

Lots of Ukrainians are descendants of German Mennonite farmers, descended themselves from Dutch immigrants to Russia.  They were handed great parcels of land in the late 19thC and given tax breaks and armed to fight in the pogroms (they were pretty anti-Semitic) . Post WW1 saw them being targeted by Nestor Makhnos anarchistic movement  because of their perceived wealth. Stalin also wasn’t a fan because of their resistance to collectivisation, and so many were targeted in the Holodomor, there was active persecution from the Soviets on anyone who spoke German. You’ll hear many Russians on state telly talk about “Kulaks” which is slang for the Mennonites but has come to just mean “Ukrainian”. In WW2 many of them sided with Hitler as a result of the post WW1 famines and persecutions and identified Jewishness with communism, hence the Nazi thing being thrown around now.

The whole region has a fascinating and disturbing history.

There were a (fairly large) number of Ukranians who sided with the Germans when they showed up in 1941. 

Lots of countries had people who were complicit in the Holocaust, that’s another Russian false flag.

I’m still confused that some on here seem to think Putin and Russia are still communist/Socialist. They really aren’t, and that’s why there are American right wingers backing him

If it’s history you want then Bloodlands by Tim Snyder or his later book Black Earth are very good on this area. I think they may have been namechecked earlier. But I warn you they are not an easy read. I had to take a break from Black Earth in particular so distressing was some of the content. Conversely there are also truly amazing stories of bravery and humanity in the very darkest of times.

“East West Street” by Phillipe Sands also gives an account of many aspects of Ukrainian history, from the perspective of the Jewish Community there. (His family were from the Lviv area.) Aside from being a deeply moving account of his journey into his family history, the other main focus of the book is a history of the development of the idea of crimes against humanity and which formed the legal basis for the Nuremberg trials. If you are interested in the idea of an international tribubnal to hear cases arising from Ukraine (with which Sands is involved), you should read it.

You’ll hear many Russians on state telly talk about “Kulaks”

I thought kulaks were basically anyone Starlin didn’t like (I know he originally claimed they were “wealthy” land owners) but that it kind of expanded the definition as the quotas to send people to Siberia

andrewh, RichPenny,

Everyone was slaughtering everyone back in the day, the answer to any accusation levelled at one group or the other is probably; Yes.

Going to have to disagree with you there based on context. It’s profoundly odd for the Russians to claim Ukrainian links to Nazism whilst their own State was colluding with the Nazis for half of WW2.

Twitter rumours of a Russian Helo crossing the border to surrender for his $500k

Who’s in it?

Who’s paying them $500,000?

It’s being reported here.

Maybe a Rudolf Hess moment?

I doubt it, more a Kenneth H Rowe moment.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ukraine-1million-jet-fighters-russian-defectors_n_6248ee54e4b007d38456c75f

^ Big fan of Mark Felton. He has some amazing historical stories on his channel.

A lot of his “material” is dredging up old dead forum posts and reading them out verbatim over some stock footage and dramatic music. He also never credits his sources. I have no idea what the quality of his written work is, but his youtube output is largely clickbait bullshit.

They show that at around 20:00, 6 Russian helicopters took off from the Ziabrauka military airfield (Gomel region, Belarus) and headed for the Shatalovo military airfield (Smolensk region, Russia).
2/7

— MotolkoHelp (@MotolkoHelp) April 5, 2022

I see BJ has indeed stepped up the direct appeals to Russian Citizens.

All this talk of VPNs forgetting they’re active systems that give you away. Just receiving information passively is safer.

Ask a radar operator.

I think this is a good summary of Putin’s legacy.

Suddenly, it becomes clear. Putin's war in Ukraine shows how great damage Putin has done to the Russian state. I would argue that Putin has made Russia fail as a state. That will have major consequences.

— Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) April 6, 2022

Nor is Putin able to govern. He has formed an authoritarian kleptocracy, in which only the stealing to the benefit of a narrow elite goes well. Without any democracy, he does nothing for Russia's citizens, delivering no democracy or rule of law, only repression.

— Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) April 6, 2022

Yes. I want to see Russia lose, and lose badly. Russia losing requires that a lot of Russian soldiers will die. That’s better than Ukraine losing and the inevitable atrocities that the Russian troops would commit. That doesn’t mean that I should take pleasure in inflicting unnecessary cruelty on Russians regardless of how brutally they’ve treated Ukrainians.

If Ukranians brutalise Russians then they will simply provide more material for Russian propaganda.

^ this. War crimes are war crimes, doesn’t matter which side initiates it, you don’t get a free pass to respond in kind.

Just in case anyone is confused by my last post, it was in reply to a post that seems to have been taken down by the mods.

War crimes are war crimes, doesn’t matter which side initiates it, you don’t get a free pass to respond in kind.

Murdering innocents regardless of war is a crime but in wars it is only considered a war crime for those on the losing side. If the winning side has committed a war crime and there is no higher authority to bear on them then the only way is rely on justice which may not be on the victims side. Are those two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki considered war crimes? No, because it was committed by the victor in the name of stopping the war.

If you have the time, some useful infographics on Conspiracy Theories, how to judge, work with and possibly counter them. Its aimed at raising questions before sharing on social media…

I used them with some of my students and they were quite thought provoking. Covid obviously gets a mention but there are good general themes in there too.

https://en.unesco.org/themes/gced/thinkbeforesharing

Also – Ukranians clearly aren’t all angels, but if I were Zelensky I’d be making a personal call to whoever that was threatening brutality. He’s doing a lot of work presenting Ukraine as the good guys to get support, and it’s working very well; and that kind of thing undermines it.