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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.

    • Thomas_Dankara [any,comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I recommend the documentary "Ukraine on Fire" (not to be confused with Winter on Fire). And a basic understanding that the Ukrainian far right is not simply Azov battalion, but also several other groups like Svoboda and Right Sector. Ukraine has a great many electoral parties, and these parties form blocs with each other. It's not a duopoly like America. Complicating matters further, the parties on the left are viewed as Russia/DPR/LPR/Crimean puppets and the parties on the right are viewed as USA/EU/NATO puppets. The country is in an 8 year civil war. Russian, once one of the official languages of the state, has been basically banned. West Ukrainians have been ethnically cleansing East Ukrainians of the Donbass region. The "annexation" of Crimea in 2014 may not have actually been an annexation, but Crimeans themselves voting to become part of Russia in a referendum. Problem is the referendum is disputed as having been rigged. I'm not so sure about that. During Poroshenko there was revival of cults of personality around old nazi collaborators, and the removal of pro-soviet monuments. There were many torch-lit marches for Bandera attended by Azov, Svoboda, Right Sector, Our Ukraine, etc. Zelensky ran on a liberal platform of proceeding with Minsk II, but was basically pressured by Poroshenko's nazis into not fulfilling his campaign promises. Dmitro Korchynsky of Right Sector admitted in an interview that, although he was angry with the Ukrainian people for electing a Jew, he finds Zelensky useful for laundering the far right's image. Gravel Institute made a great video about all this but took it down after libs pressured them (smh).

      Here's a compilation of some nazis in ukraine and interesting clips

      EDIT: copy pasting something I posted yesterday.

      there's also svoboda, right sector, kraken battalion, and tons of other fascist groups. Svoboda Leader Oleg Tyhanybok has been photographed with Victoria Nuland and John McCain. Azov is integrated into the national guard, has been present since maidan, has been ethnically cleansing donbas, and are far more militant and organized than other groups. A group does not have to be a majority of the country to steer the country in a certain direction. They are a vanguard party of fascism. They have sabotaged Zelensky's attempts to move forward with Minsk II peace agreements, to negotiate some degree of LPR/DPR autonomy, even though that is what Zelensky ran on and why he was elected, and they have pushed him into banning several left opposition parties, but no right wing parties. In West Ukraine Azovites assault civilians with impunity, accusing them of being saboteurs and marauders, tying them to light posts, flogging them, beating them. I'm not going to post the countless videos I've seen of that unless you ask. They target Jews, Roma, Russian speakers, LGBT, immigrants, nonwhites, the usual scapegoats. They have erected countless monuments to WW2 era nazi collaborators, culturally legitimizing them. They have camps for training children. Dmitri Korchynsky of Right Sector said he was "angry at the Ukrainian people" for electing a Jewish president, but that later he realized "It's useful that Zelensky is Jewish. Try to accuse us of nazism now." It's also worth noting that all these far right groups in both Russia and Ukraine are the direct result of US-imposed destruction of Soviet-era safety nets, Soviet-era anti-capitalist regulations, and Soviet-era anti-fascist culture. We often say here if there are 11 people at a table and 1 nazi, then that table has 11 nazis. So it goes with the Ukrainian national guard, now that they have integrated an explicitly fascist battalion. America has been deliberately undermining and nazifying Ukraine since the 50s. Western bloc intelligence smuggled Bandera out of Ukraine, for example.

      Among regular West Ukrainian civilians there are many banderites as well. I've seen countless torch-lit marches of thousands of people who are not members of any far right militia but who nevertheless support bandera.

      right sector and svoboda march

      azov march

      15,000 Ukrainian nationalists march for Bandera 2014

      Under Poroshenko it was made a criminal offense to deny Bandera's heroism.

      The CIA may be breeding nazi terror in Ukraine

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I'm trying to find a source for something I read last month saying that like 30% of Ukrainians approved of Bandera. Instead I found NPR both-sidesing... Uh... The holocaust.

        https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/05/20/312719066/hero-or-villain-historical-ukrainian-figure-symbolizes-todays-feud

        Okay this article from 2014 actually cites it's source. 31% approve of Bandera, 13% have an "Absolutely positive" view of him. So that's about six million Nazis in 2014.

        https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/poll-almost-half-of-ukrainians-have-negative-attitude-to-bandera-346361.html

        Here's another interesting one - 80% of Western Ukrainians in 2016 supported a ban on "Communist Ideology" while only 20% in Eastern Ukraine did.

        https://ratinggroup.ua/en/research/ukraine/otnoshenie_k_otdelnym_istoricheskim_lichnostyam_i_processu_dekommunizacii_v_ukraine.html

        Support for a "Nationalist Ideology ban" was bout half in the south and east but only 20% in the west.

        It certainly paints a picture of an ideologically divided nation. It also suggests that while Azov and it's fellow travelers in the army might number only a few thousand, there are millions who seem to agree with them.