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Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
How to approach people who are convinced that Russia is trying to final solution the Ukrainian people?
Have friends who are insistent that Ukraine should fight to the last man, because if they don't the Russians will kill them all anyways. "The killing won't stop, look what they did in Bucha!"
Astonished how many people have completed pushed the geopolitical concerns aside and just thinks Putler wants to do a genocide.
Some points to try:
Time to transpose myself into a liberal's mindset...
Because Putin is an evil and insane dictator, and can change the national policy to exclude Ukrainians at any point.
Uh, being officially allowed to say Hello in Ukrainian doesn't mean they aren't oppressed!
They simply don't know about them, and are putting all the civilians in mass graves and through mobile crematoriums before Ukraine can tell.
Yet! And, for all we know, this is like the Ughyur genocide where China is blah blah blah
Ukrainian anti-air is just too good - you actually believe that they have ""air superiority""? I read an article that Ukraine has more planes now than when they started the war, so they can just fight back!
Oh god, that was a horrific experience.
:rat-salute:
About 20-25% of Ukraine outside Crimea identified as Russian more than Ukrainian before the February invasion - maybe 10% feel that way now.
Russia was probably a few years from Crimea's referendum joining the Russian federation being recognized internationally. Crimea after the fall of the USSR had close to a million ethnic Russian military, professional, and industrial families left behind in Ukraine. Crimea has been majority Russian since the late 19th century, and while what the Soviets did with the forced migrations of the Crimean Tatars was fucked up there are more Tatars in Crimea today than ever before. Russia is smart and usually plays the long game with territorial disputes/claims. Crimea was taken with almost no bloodshed, it would have been a major windfall for Putin to pull off a warm water port without bumping up against NATO.
There was incessant Cheney-level "we will be greeted as liberators" political propaganda being pushed out before the Feb invasion began. Either way, we all know that most of Ukraine has not in fact welcomed Russians with open arms. A massive miscalculation by Putin and a historical intelligence blunder by Russian military intelligence for telling Putin just what he wanted to hear.
There are regions where Russia was greeted with open arms (Kherson, Melitopol, LPR, DPR) and certain portion of the population are obviously Russia supporters. There were mayors of some southern cities that just handed the city over to the Russians and the Ukrainians later hunted them down and kidnapped them for treason.
It’s hard for the Russia friendly population to greet anyone as liberators with Azov and Ukrainian intelligence breathing down their necks and slaughtering “traitors”
???
Ah yes, I can see the situation you're describing now, in my mind's eye...
DATE: 20th of February, 2022. Vladimir Putler is sitting at the end of the very long table. His hands are in an arch, tapping his fingers against one another as he grins malevolently.
ENTER: terrified advisor.
Advisor: "S-sir, I have the latest opinion polling from Ukraine. I don't need to remind you that the, uh, the hostilities between west and east Ukraine since the coup in 2014 have deteriorated due to their differences in which country they want to be part of. Well, uh, I have g-great news, sir! The opinion polling has, uh, fixed itself, like you said it should in that evi-- I mean, very bold tone you were speaking in, just yesterday."
Putler: His grin gets even wider. "Yes, yes, out with it boy, before I take out your the next generation of your family!"
Advisor: "Sir, yes, sir, uh, I have great news! The western half of Ukraine, and the south as well as Kiev, they actually uh, want to be part of Russia now! They say that they are yearning for freedom, and will fight for you if only you give them military support!"
Putler: "Yes... very good... what are the exact figures?"
Advisor: "Well, sir, in 2014 it was, well, very polarised, and has remained so ever since. But, well, in the last few weeks, it's gone up to 90% support across the whole country! They strongly desire your rule! You must only march in there with soldiers and then all will join your banner!"
Putler: "Fantastic. This intelligence is reliable, I assume. Tell my generals to draw up a plan to immediately go for Kiev, because, as I'm sure you know, taking a capital city grants a Domination Victory and you get a big golden trophy icon. I've been playing lots of those Civilization games, as you know."
Advisor: "Yes, sir, I've noticed. I will tell the generals immediately. Is my family safe, sir?"
Putler: "For now, young man... for now..."
END SCENE
Germany and France were pushing for Ukraine to sue for peace with Russia pre-invasion. With offers of 100's of billions in future loans/aid being tantalized behind the scenes it seems Zelensky kept holding out for more goodies as the security situation in the East continued to deteriorate. Zelensky chose not to even negotiate the de facto reality of the new Russian territory of Crimea which created a massive security problem for the Russian military. Ukraine's Neptun anti-ship missiles are one booster stage from being able to take out most ships in the Black Sea.
Macron pre-invasion on NATO and Russia:
BTW: Macron's "stability order" envisions a Russia that does not exist. Macron's willingness to work with Russia comes from French version of the Anglo neoconservative mindset that once those
evil Stalinistsevil Putinists are gone the liberal West will have Russia as a security/economic partner which they can bully/bribe or puppet into being a buffer between Europe and China.So many fucked-up agendas colliding at once. The world will definitely be different geopolitically forever because of this invasion. In ways we have yet to even fathom I'd bet.
The literally did this shit in the 90s, succeeded, and proceeded to spit on the Russians and drive them away.
What do you base this on? I haven't seen any signs of this happening, quite contrary no westoid politician or journalist has been able to say "Crimea" since 2014 without prefixing it with "illegally annexed".
Crimea has been the go-to "Russia bad" story up until the war and has been used to justify everything from increased spending on armaments to energy policy to football.
The US empire has seen Russia as a rival since Soviet times and Crimea has been not only a perfect propaganda tool but also a justification for economic warfare and sanctions meant to weaken Russia to America's benefit. They had no reason whatsoever to give Russia a win in Crimea by recognising the will of the Crimean people.
The realpolitik of Crimea was written on the wall in 2014. There was never any serious international diplomatic effort for Ukraine taking back Crimea.
What Western politicians loved was the status quo pre-invasion of getting cheap Russian gas/oil and cheap Ukrainian labor by doing nothing.
Honestly the Realpolitik in Crimea was written on the wall in 1992. Crimea has tried to assert independence from Ukraine every 2-5 years since the end of the USSR and the only thing special about 2014 is the Kiev government was too weak to stop them.
Here is a good post yesterday with links to western media own reporting on the Nazis before the war.
Here is another video doing the same. If you don't want to link the video then learn the rhetoric and save the links to the BBC videos directly.
Here is again western media this time trying to hide the nazis, but they are incompetent.
You can find pictures like this going back to 2014.
The first thing to do is establishing that before questioning what Russia is doing they need to understand what exactly is Ukraine, the root of the conflict. Before you radicalize people with the idea killing nazis is good actualy they have to accept the premise these nazis exist.
First use western media sources. Then go look at Russian telegram and search for nazi you'll find dozens of posts with tattoos, insignias on their uniforms etc.
There is a lot here, the US has been helping nazis in Europe since the end of WW2, so many actual Nazis went on to work with NATO or in the US.
If they answer with oh its just a few hundred then you should mention why Zelensky doesn't disown them. Why is it that western media tries to hide them? If it is just a few hundred why bother making excuses for them? Why is nobody(in the west) trying to make Ukraine take responsibility for having real nazis in their army? What would they say if the US had literal ISIS members in the army?
Zelensky keeps making sus talking points, like going on about Ukrainian culture being under attack. It's even hypocritical because the Ukrainian government made Ukrainian the only official language, thus alienating the Russian speaking minority.
I think there's like three groupings of pro-war Ukrainians. First, speculatively, is the "Hey, Russia invaded our fucking country not cool bro!". I can't prove that this group exists but it seems reasonable to assume that there are Ukrainians with a reasonable degree of patriotism who aren't hard-line nationalists. "I'm just defending my home" type people.
Two is Right-Wing Ukrainian Nationalists who want to forcibly suppress the Russian language and the Ethnic Russian Ukrainian Minority. This is a big group, Western Ukraine seems very nationalist and the snapping point of the Euromaidan coup was, as near as I can tell, Ethnic Russian radicals in Donbas recognizing that the new government was made up of hardliner Ukrainian Nationalists who were going to strengthen Kiev by suppressing the Russian ethnic minority.
And then the third group is actual Nazis and Right wing radicals who are not meaningfully different from Nazis. These are the guys that Kiev sent in to the Donbas to suppress the uprising during the "Anti-Terrorism Operation" preceding the Russian Invasion. They're the hatchetmen for the relatively more moderate Nationalists, the guys the Nationalists call out to do their dirty work. They were deployed because they were the only organized groups that could be readily mobilized in2014, as the Ukrainian Army were a shambles and the Ukrainian police/security forces weren't able to restore order.
I think the government is almost entirely Ukrainian Nationalists, and has become more so as the civil war progressed and moderating voices were pushed in to exile or hiding. Deploying Nazis against their own countrymen seems to have strengthened the resolve of the Donbas factions, as well as increasing public support for them; People saw that their own government had unleashed Nazi thugs against them and turned against an already unpopular Kiev government. As the low-intensity civl war progressed things became more and more polarized, and as we know the Nazi fringe constantly violated cease fires and frustrated any attempts at a negotiated peace.
I really do wonder what the RF's commanders thought was going to happen that made them trigger the invasion. From what I understand Ukraine was massing for a serious offensive in to the Donbas, and it seems credible that protecting the Russian minority was one factor in choosing to invade. They also have territorial aims, and I suspect the Russian leadership doesn't have any respect for Ukrainian Nationalism or the Ukrainian state, viewing it as simply an administrative mistake caused by the chaos of the breakup of the USSR. I wouldn't be surprised if they originally had a goal of militarily defeating the Ukrainian army to de-militarize Ukraine and remove the nationalist threat on their border, and eventually it became clear that they wouldn't be leaving any time soon and chose to dig-in and make it a permanent arrangement.
I don't have any love for Russia or Putin, but their actions seem rational enough. I thought the "Special Operation" moniker was just propaganda newspeak, but as I've learned that Russia has only mobilized a very limited part of it's military and wouldn't be able to mobilize the full armed forces unless Ukraine invades Russian territory, the distinction makes a little more sense. It's not quite like the US saying that Vietnam was a "police action" while it mobilized the entire US army and flattened the country, this really is a limited military intervention with limited aims and a great deal of restraint relative to a full military mobilization.
Convincing Liberals that de-nazification is real and our friend is probably the road of most resistance and the one they are least likely to accept, besides maybe biolabs talking points.
The most convincing argument to Liberals is to educate them on the attacks on Donbas, the civil war, the Maidan Coup with US funding, the expansion of NATO, the reckless escalation to war being dangerous and all parties needing to negotiate.
You are never going to convince an western Liberal that Russia’s intervention is based. But you can convince them that Ukraine is even worse and that the west caused this with their greedy expansionist meddling and lack of care for Russia’s pragmatic concerns
Western media before this war always portrayed Nazis as bad. The entire WW2 entertainment industry revolves around Nazis vs the US. The eastern front despite being far more important to the war is quite severely less popular than the stuff the US actively participated in.
They must be able to see the bizarre world we are living in right now where 3 months ago Nazis were villains both on news reporting(which is why I suggest western sources) and entertainment sources compared to now where supposedly a little bit of Nazism is ok. As I said ask them about ISIS in the US army and if that would be ok. You don't need them to agree that war is justified, but only start questioning why this fact is taken for granted.
If they do believe nazism is ok no matter what then these are not libs you are talking with but 15yo chuds living and breathing FPS games still thinking playing on the Nazi side is cool.
I actually saw polling on what Westerners thought about various Russian pro-war narratives. The ones with the highest agreement from western normies was “Ukraine should not join NATO” and “Ukraine is in an ongoing civil war” and “not our business, we should not interfere or sanction Russia and hurt ourselves”.
The ones with the worst polling were de-Nazification and irredentist territorial claims
What percentage of those people actualy believe the Nazis exist in the first place?
Remember the No fly zone polls and how they change when people are told what it actualy means and the result would be WW3.
Americans just spent the last 6 years calling each other fascists and Nazis. They pretty much all tune out to the insult as hyperbolic when it’s coming from “the other side”.
Liberals also think that we should solve everything with words (or at least others should, we get to use democracy bombs). Even if you get them to agree Ukraine has a major Nazi problem, they still will turn around and say “that doesn’t give Russia the right to invade and kill the Nazis”. Remember these are the people that could not agree whether or not it was ok to punch Richard Spencer.
I saw some of that in the wild today, albeit from a few years ago on twitter. "We can't just denounce Nazis we have to sit down with them and have a frank discussion and then they will change their minds!" Liberalism projects a delusional view of the world.
But then you'd have to explain that the "moderate rebels" the US was backing against Syria were literally just ISIS.
:same-picture:
Both are a terrorist organization but only one pretends it isn't.
I'm going to disagree. Anything about Donbas civil war is met with "Russian Backed separatists. No civilians were killed they were all Russian separatist fighters"
Nazis on the other hand are monolithic "evil" if you can convince someone that a person or group are Nazis or even Nazi accepting its basically instant dehumanizing. When Zelenskyy is literally deleting his victory day tweets because there are Nazi symbols that slip past him and there are dozens of pre-special operation reports/articles/videos on the Nazi's role in the Euromaidan Coup and tons of videos of Ukrainian Nazis since the Russian intervention it isn't hard to prove.
I don't think you linked what you meant to in your first link.
Yes I fixed it thank you I have to remember the show context button on this site doesn't actualy copy a link but opens up the post instead.
Ahh yes. The Nazi-Atlantic Treaty Organization.
This is forbidden knowledge to most Americans. At most they know about Project Paperclip. If they're history buffs they'll know about the rat-lines to Argentina and Brazil. But frankly understanding that NATO and west Germany were a seamless development from Nazi Germany is not widely known or accepted.
Even Paperclip is barely known or at least never talked about
Not sure if you can argue against their propaganda-instilled emotions.
"Current frontline ois in the Russianspeaking part of Ukraine ,so that would be a wierd tactic.. Do you even know a Sing about Ukraine ? Like its a deeply diveded Country in Ethnic Conflict.. "
I was reading something yesterday that said that during the Soviet Era, after Stalin decided to be a dick, The Soviets imposed Russian on Ukraine. And by the time the USSR collapsed most of Ukraine was speaking a pidgin of Ukrainian and Russian, if not just Russian. When Ukraine wrote in to it's constitution that only Ukrainian could be the official language of the country they had to scramble to figure out what the Ukrainian language was, because it was so intermixed with Russian and there were few if any people who still spoke the original pre-Soviet Ukrainian language. Now thirty years later we're having a war which was at least partially set off by conflicts over whether Ukrainian would be the only official language or if Ukrainian and Russian would be official languages. Just the stupidest this is your brain on nationalism shit imaginable.
"The civilian casualties reported by the UN are half of what they were at this point in the Iraq war in a country with twice the population. So either USA was purposely trying to genocide Iraqis or Russia is being 4 times more careful to not hurt civilians. If Russia wasn't specifically trying to keep civilians from harm they would have just levelled Kyiv to the ground with cruise missiles first thing and there is nothing anyone could do about it."