Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[celedhring]

I think it's fake. Everything the soldier says has already been in the news/rumor mill, there are little personal details.

Stop picking on me. 

Nah man, I'm like you, desperately trying to find evidence that this nightmare could be over soon and the good guys will win. But I think there's still lots of pain and horror to be had.

Tomorrow is Day 42, btw, which is how long the US needed to invade Irak in 2003. Russian player gets -5 VPs, next benchmark is US invasion of Afghanistan, 71 days.

[Legbiter]

Ukrainian ambush on a Russian armored column. Ukrainian artillery follows up at the end.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1511407980004130827?cxt=HHwWloCy7ZnjzPkpAAAA

[Barrister]

Nah man, I'm like you, desperately trying to find evidence that this nightmare could be over soon and the good guys will win. But I think there's still lots of pain and horror to be had.

Tomorrow is Day 42, btw, which is how long the US needed to invade Irak in 2003. Russian player gets -5 VPs, next benchmark is US invasion of Afghanistan, 71 days.

I'm in the same boat - I desperately want news about how well Ukraine is doing, but I know due to both fog of war and the biases of the news sources I read, that I'm not getting a completely clear picture of what is happening.

[Barrister]

By the way I saw a bunch of twitter posts a couple days ago about a Russian-language opinion piece posted in Russian news site RIA Novosti - a site which routinely follows the Kremlin's line and thinking.

I had seen several excerpts, but here's a complete translation:

https://medium.com/@kravchenko_mm/what-should-russia-do-with-ukraine-translation-of-a-propaganda-article-by-a-russian-journalist-a3e92e3cb64

It's a very disturbing read.

Some "highlights"

Denazification is necessary when a considerable number of population (very likely most of it) has been subjected to the Nazi regime and engaged into its agenda. That is, when the "good people — bad government" hypothesis does not apply. Recognizing this fact forms the backbone of the denazification policy and all its measures, while the fact itself constitutes its subject.

...

Those Nazis who took up arms must be destroyed on the battlefield, as many of them as possible. No significant distinction should be made between the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the so-called "nationalist battalions," as well as the Territorial Defense, who have joined the two other types of military units. They are all equally complicit in the horrendous violence towards civilians, equally complicit in the genocide of the Russian people, and they don't comply with the laws and customs of war. War criminals and active Nazis must be punished in such a way as to provide an example and a demonstration. A total lustration must be conducted. All organizations involved in Nazi actions must be eliminated and prohibited. However, besides the highest ranks, a significant number of common people are also guilty of being passive Nazis and Nazi accomplices. They supported the Nazi authorities and pandered to them. A just punishment for this part of the population can only be possible through bearing the inevitable hardships of a just war against the Nazi system, waged as carefully and sparingly as possible relates civilians. The further denazification of this bulk of the population will take the form of re-education through ideological repressions (suppression) of Nazi paradigms and a harsh censorship not only in the political sphere but also in the spheres of culture and education. It was through culture and education that the pervasive large-scale Nazification of the population was conducted, ensured by the guarantees of dividends from the Nazi regime victory over Russia, by the Nazi propaganda, internal violence and terror, and the 8-year-long war against the people of Donbas, who have rebelled against the Ukrainian Nazism.

...

The period of denazification can take no less than one generation that has to be born, brought upm and mature under the conditions of denazification. The nazification of Ukraine has been going on for more than 30 years — starting from as early as 1989, when Ukrainian nationalism was given legal and legitimate forms of political self-expression and led the movement for "independence", setting a course for Nazism.

...

Denazification as a goal of the special military operation within the limits of the operation itself means a military victory over the Kyiv regime, the liberation of the territories from the armed supporters of nazification, the elimination of hard-line Nazis, the imprisonment of war criminals, and the creating of systemic conditions for further denazification in peacetime.

Ukraine has mobilized a substantial % of it's population into its military.  They're all to be killed.  Anyone who supported the current regime must be "re-educated".

Now later on the article does allow there might be a rump Ukraine in the "Catholic province" may maintain a nominal independence, but only if it has been forcibly neutralized and de-militarized.  How kind.


How does that not count as a policy of genocide?


p.s. The use of "nazi" is so confusing, but I think I finally understand it now.  Russia fought the nazis to defeat in WWII, therefore any enemy of Russia is a Nazi.  You can not refute being a nazi if you are opposed to Russia, because it's your opposition to Russia that defines you as a nazi.

[Legbiter]

Nah man, I'm like you, desperately trying to find evidence that this nightmare could be over soon and the good guys will win. But I think there's still lots of pain and horror to be had.

Yeah. Well done of the Ukrainians to force the entire Northern axis off the field. Russians really got their teeth kicked in there. But this is going to continue.

[Admiral Yi]

p.s. The use of "nazi" is so confusing, but I think I finally understand it now.  Russia fought the nazis to defeat in WWII, therefore any enemy of Russia is a Nazi.  You can not refute being a nazi if you are opposed to Russia, because it's your opposition to Russia that defines you as a nazi.

It's an evolution of the propaganda narrative to account for the fact that Ukrainians have not been welcoming Russians as liberators from the Nazi junta in Kiev.

[Barrister]

p.s. The use of "nazi" is so confusing, but I think I finally understand it now.  Russia fought the nazis to defeat in WWII, therefore any enemy of Russia is a Nazi.  You can not refute being a nazi if you are opposed to Russia, because it's your opposition to Russia that defines you as a nazi.

It's an evolution of the propaganda narrative to account for the fact that Ukrainians have not been welcoming Russians as liberators from the Nazi junta in Kiev.

While there's been an evolution in the Kremlin's line, it called the Ukrainian government "Nazi" right from day one on the war.  Which never made any historical sense other than by the definition I gave.

Now it's just more of the population count as nazis, I guess.

[Sheilbh]

Also it taps into the Azov Batallion/"far-right Ukrainian nationalist" line they've been peddling for the last 8 years - which I've found has been a pretty helpful tell of lefty useful idiots.

[Admiral Yi]

While there's been an evolution in the Kremlin's line, it called the Ukrainian government "Nazi" right from day one on the war.  Which never made any historical sense other than by the definition I gave.

Now it's just more of the population count as nazis, I guess.

Yes, that's the evolution.  Sorry if I gave the impression of disagreeing entirely with your post.  Or really at all.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMkyq4rPt-w

Drone footage of armored vehicles shooting at each other.  The Ukrainian is not such a good shot.

[grumbler]

Also it taps into the Azov Batallion/"far-right Ukrainian nationalist" line they've been peddling for the last 8 years - which I've found has been a pretty helpful tell of lefty useful idiots.

The recognition of the nature of the Azov Battalion/Regiment isn't a tell of lefty useful idiots, it's a tell of the informed.

The Russians cannot get rid of their instinctual mirror-imaging, can they?  Nothing is more telling of their beliefs about their own system than they accuse their foes of being Nazis.  Everything bad thing they claim their foes are doing is exactly what they themselves are doing.

[Syt]

Also it taps into the Azov Batallion/"far-right Ukrainian nationalist" line they've been peddling for the last 8 years - which I've found has been a pretty helpful tell of lefty useful idiots.

The recognition of the nature of the Azov Battalion/Regiment isn't a tell of lefty useful idiots, it's a tell of the informed.

The Russians cannot get rid of their instinctual mirror-imaging, can they?  Nothing is more telling of their beliefs about their own system than they accuse their foes of being Nazis.  Everything bad thing they claim their foes are doing is exactly what they themselves are doing.

In German we have a rhyming saying:
What I think and what I do
I expect from others too.
(Actually, the German version states "all others", but that doesn't fit the verse meter )

[Crazy_Ivan80]

p.s. The use of "nazi" is so confusing, but I think I finally understand it now.  Russia fought the nazis to defeat in WWII, therefore any enemy of Russia is a Nazi.  You can not refute being a nazi if you are opposed to Russia, because it's your opposition to Russia that defines you as a nazi.

It's an evolution of the propaganda narrative to account for the fact that Ukrainians have not been welcoming Russians as liberators from the Nazi junta in Kiev.

While there's been an evolution in the Kremlin's line, it called the Ukrainian government "Nazi" right from day one on the war.  Which never made any historical sense other than by the definition I gave.

Now it's just more of the population count as nazis, I guess.

The 'everyone who's not pro Russia is a nazi's thing has been mentioned by the twitter guy weeks back now. And has been linked to in this very thread. In guess this is just another confirmation of that. And another reason why Russia needs to be stopped.

[Josquius]

Also it taps into the Azov Batallion/"far-right Ukrainian nationalist" line they've been peddling for the last 8 years - which I've found has been a pretty helpful tell of lefty useful idiots.

Ours is composed of the scum of the Earth—the mere scum of the Earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much out of them afterward.

Kudos to Ukraine for managing to get their nazis to do something useful. I wonder if there's a way to do that without a military invasion.

I am curious how long this will go on considering the Azov Batallion seem to have been wiped out

[The Larch]

The Azov battallion is indeed rather inconvenient and a very useful propaganda tool for Russia. Since the war started I've seen a couple of reports trying to contextualize them better and explaining their current situation, and they basically boiled down to the following bullet points:

- The Azov of 2014 is not the Azov of 2022. Since they were integrated in the Ukranian army their far right/neo nazi profile has been dilluted greatly, and while they still mostly attract recruits of a nationalistic profile, they're not the extremists they used to be.

- Back in the day they had to be tolerated and accepted because the Ukranian army was in shambles and they needed all the fighters they could get. On top of that they were also fairly effective in combat, even if they were a political liability. To this day they're still a very strong unit, basically being the ones holding Mariupol (their HQ) to this day.

- Their leadership has changed, and its founder left the army years ago to enter politics, failing miserably in them. Their current leadership is not as political/ideological.

- They're not involved in civilian affairs anymore, as in the past when they engaged in more typical thuggery.

- They're a fairly small unit within the whole context of the Ukranian army.

To me they're still problematic and it'd be certainly better if they could be removed from the equation, but in reality they don't seem to be as horrible as they used to be, although I'm sure they still have plenty of nasty bastards in their ranks. In any case, Russia won't stop using them for propaganda purposes, as if their mere existance tainted the whole country and army.