How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[Hermit]

It does not publish announcements by mistake

True, but it was neither announcements nor mistake.

OK. So RIA Novosti published the truth on purpose. There's hope for it yet. If it can do it once, it might become a habit.

It was an opinion piece by one overexcited "patriot", I am sure they have plenty of these people at RIA Novosti. You are making big deal out of nothing.

RIA Novosti does not publish anything by mistake. Even opinion pieces are vetted by people in power before they are released to the public.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't think it proves anything. Stepan Bandera was also opposed to the communist regime. His wiki page says that he's a controversial figure in the Ukraine

Do you know who else opposed communist regime? Hitler and his nazi.

Yes. I'm eagerly awaiting to hear what your point with saying this is?

BTW, so many people have since WW2 been accused of being "just like Hitler". But today... for once... we can say that about Putin. The first time the comparison is valid. And just like Hitler, he's turning out to be a shit military leader.

 

[barbos]

RIA Novosti does not publish anything by mistake. Even opinion pieces are vetted by people in power before they are released to the public.

No, these days are long gone.

 

[barbos]

Yes. I'm eagerly awaiting to hear what your point with saying this is?

You implied that Bandera was not that bad because he hated communists.

You really did not see "Hitler" argument coming, did you?

 

[Hermit]

RIA Novosti does not publish anything by mistake. Even opinion pieces are vetted by people in power before they are released to the public.

No, these days are long gone.

Bullshit. RIA Novosti is Russia's publisher for domestic propaganda, and temnik is its means to control what its writers must - and must not - write.

The word temnik describes when authorities provide instructions to media about what topics should be covered or avoided, and whether this coverage should be positive or negative. First coined in Ukraine in the early 2000s, the temnik phenomenon is believed to be actively used in Russia to control coverage of specific topics in mainstream media and on Telegram channels.

 

[Copernicus]

Russia has used  thermobaric weapons (aka vacuum bombs) in Syria and Chechnya before. We know that they have introduced these into Ukraine, and there are reports now that they are using them in Kharkiv on civilian areas. This would constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, and their use was very likely approved by Putin. So the war has entered a new stage--the genocidal extermination of population centers. Russia has also been accused of using  cluster bombs. Thermobaric and cluster bombs are antipersonnel weapons that are just short of nuclear weapons, but Putin has already threatened the use of his nuclear force.

What are vacuum bombs? Concerns grow about Russia's thermobaric weapons​

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yes. I'm eagerly awaiting to hear what your point with saying this is?

You implied that Bandera was not that bad because he hated communists.

You really did not see "Hitler" argument coming, did you?

No, I did not. Look, bad people sometimes do good things. Some times bad people do good things for bad reasons. What counts is the result.

Finland was during WW2 allied to Germany. Actually allied. Nobody today accuses Carl Gustaf Mannerheim of being a Nazi. All Finns hail him as a conquering war hero. The many thousands of Swedish volunteers, of who many were actual Nazis, aren't today remembered for being Nazis. They are remembered for helping to defend Finland from Russia. In Sweden today we separate those who travelled south to join the German SS (=bad) from those who went to Finland (=good). Both travelled to a Nazi country to fight for the Nazis against the communists.

Like it or not, the Nazis/fascists were for most Europeans the best bet against communism. It was the same card Pinochet pulled when he toppled the democratically elected Allende.

No matter Stepan Banderas politics he was relentless in his battle against communism in a totalitarian communist country. That requires balls of steel and is worthy of praise IMHO.

My point is that giving him a postumous medal of honor is NOT an endorsement of Nazism. I'm sure Zelensky has given all kinds of people all kinds of rewards. More importantly, his politics aren't right wing politics. He clearly isn't a Nazi and hasn't been. Their neighbours Hungary and Turkey, are both run by fascist regimes. So it's not like he would have to hide it if he was.

I think Putin zeroed in on the Stepan Bandera medal and spun it. Either way, I think it's irrelevant. Putin wanted to invade Ukraine and would have used whatever flimsy excuse to do so. No Nazi sympathies in the world can compensate for bombing the shit out of an entire country and wrecking it's infrastructure. Putin is so far out of line here that your quibbling about Stepan Bandera is bizarre IMHO

 

[Harry Bosch]

Mad Vlad loses another key alley:

MSN

Hungary's Viktor Orban, a longtime ally of Mad Vlad has decided to align to with the Euro and against the dark side. I predict that China will as well soon.

 

[lpetrich]

Right's desperate Putin pivot: CPAC derailed by Ukraine invasion, struggles to blame "wokeness" | Salon.com
"Tulsi Gabbard, J.D. Vance and Nigel Farage furiously backpedal on Putin worship — but somehow the left is to blame"

When the conference started,

Right-wing social media influencer Rogan O'Handley warned that GOP hawks from the "establishment, military-industrial complex" wing of the party would try to convince the crowd that defending Ukraine was in America's interests, when really, he said, there was no reason to send U.S. troops "to cover up the Biden crime family's corruption." Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk agreed, saying he wasn't "defending dictators," but adding, "when your own country is falling apart, I don't want to hear lectures about why we have to send our troops halfway around the world when we are being invaded!"

Other scheduled CPAC speakers had made similar arguments earlier in the week. Bestselling author turned Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance told Steve Bannon the previous Friday, "I gotta be honest with you, I don't really care what happens to Ukraine." Right-wing U.K. broadcaster and Brexit booster Nigel Farage, who has long expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, blamed the European Union's "territorial expansionism" for provoking the attack.

Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, in an appearance on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, blamed President Biden and NATO for not taking Ukraine's potential membership in the defense alliance off the table.

Russian state TV then repeatedly broadcast their comments, with dubbed translations.

But by the time those three speakers reached the CPAC stage on Friday and Saturday, events on the ground in Ukraine had forced them to change their tune. Vance still complained that he'd unfairly gotten "flack" for suggesting Americans should care more about the opioid crisis than "people 6,000 miles away," but also released a statement calling the attack a tragedy and charging that "Russia is always at its most bellicose when a globalist sits in the Oval Office."

Gabbard, in a high-profile speaking slot during the conference's Saturday night Ronald Reagan dinner, opened with a call to send prayers to Ukraine, before charging the Biden administration with hypocrisy, for wanting to "go to war to spread democracy and freedom while they actively work to undermine our democratic republic and our freedoms right here at home."

Farage backpedaled furiously in his Saturday speech, admitting that while he'd always thought Putin was a "reasonable" nationalist, it was just possible that wasn't the case; in any case, the invasion was still Biden's fault, for giving Putin "nothing to fear."

That theme was repeated throughout the conference: "Muscular diplomacy" was required to secure peace, but Biden "radiated provocative weakness," as former Trump acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell said. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., argued that "weakness invites the wolves," and Donald Trump himself, in his Saturday-night stem-winder, protested that "none of this ever would have happened if the election was not rigged and I was the president."

They also claimed that the US needs more oil and gas drilling, and that President Biden was obstructing that.

 

[Jayjay]

Yes, they attacked republics which declared independence from Ukraine trying to get it back, source is reality. Bunch of other regions declared independence after maidan, but Ukraine managed to get them back.

A bunch of unmarked, possibly Russian, militants seized government buildings and declared "independence" on behalf millions of people living there. That's the starting point of the war in Donbas. Sending troops when the police couldn't deal with foreign-backed rebels is not an "attack", it's defense. If your city was taken over by, say, ISIS and declared it an islamic caliphate, you're damn right the authorities would be allowed to react.

No. you are talking about Crimea. I am talking about Eastern Ukraine.

I'm talking about Eastern Ukraine too. That's the whole point. The brunt of may have been local pro-Russian militia, but guys like Strelkov and other leaders of the movement were Russian agents. That's no different from what happened in Crimea where unmarked Russian soldiers took over government buildings, only one step more clandestine. the weapons, the training, and some of the people came from Russia at Putin's orders. It wasn't a popular movement.

And in Kherson, now Russian soldiers are setting up "people's republics" without even the pretense of having any people to back them.

Crimea was different. There was no chance in hell for Russia allowing it to stay in that kind of "Ukraine", mainly because of russian military base there, no chance!
Crimea had almost no local ukrainian nazis in it to organize any kind of measururable mess.

So Putin took the one place where there were no nazis. Doesn't that kind of ruin the delusion that he's only attacking to get rid of the nazi menace?

The fact is that Putin always considered Crimea, as well as rest of Ukraine, as Russian territory. This nazi bullshit that he's shoveling down your throat is just a lie to justify his warmongering. He is acting exactly like Hitler and Stalin, going on a land grab just because he can and because he feels he's entitled to. Ukraine was too naive to take steps since 1990s to prepare for this contingency, although in retrospect, they had other problems as well. And still do.

 

[Jayjay]

NATO offers a deterrent against Russia just waltzing in like it has now.

Most of the ukrainians did not want that.

Correct. And there was no realistic chance of Ukraine joining NATO. It was just paranoia. Or maybe propaganda? You never know how much of their own lies Putin's inner circle believes.

But now? Ukraine will want to join NATO just out of spite, thanks to unprovoked Russian aggression and expansionism.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But by the time those three speakers reached the CPAC stage on Friday and Saturday, events on the ground in Ukraine had forced them to change their tune. Vance still complained that he'd unfairly gotten "flack" for suggesting Americans should care more about the opioid crisis than "people 6,000 miles away," but also released a statement calling the attack a tragedy and charging that "Russia is always at its most bellicose when a globalist sits in the Oval Office."

Gabbard, in a high-profile speaking slot during the conference's Saturday night Ronald Reagan dinner, opened with a call to send prayers to Ukraine, before charging the Biden administration with hypocrisy, for wanting to "go to war to spread democracy and freedom while they actively work to undermine our democratic republic and our freedoms right here at home."

Farage backpedaled furiously in his Saturday speech, admitting that while he'd always thought Putin was a "reasonable" nationalist, it was just possible that wasn't the case; in any case, the invasion was still Biden's fault, for giving Putin "nothing to fear."

That theme was repeated throughout the conference: "Muscular diplomacy" was required to secure peace, but Biden "radiated provocative weakness," as former Trump acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell said. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., argued that "weakness invites the wolves," and Donald Trump himself, in his Saturday-night stem-winder, protested that "none of this ever would have happened if the election was not rigged and I was the president."

They also claimed that the US needs more oil and gas drilling, and that President Biden was obstructing that.

Yeah, Biden is obstructing the World's leader in oil production. Again... the US is the #1 producer of oil on the planet. Saudi Arabia probably could beat us if they wanted, but we are currently #1.

 

[Harry Bosch]

NATO offers a deterrent against Russia just waltzing in like it has now.

Most of the ukrainians did not want that.

Correct. And there was no realistic chance of Ukraine joining NATO. It was just paranoia. Or maybe propaganda? You never know how much of their own lies Putin's inner circle believes.

But now? Ukraine will want to join NATO just out of spite, thanks to unprovoked Russian aggression and expansionism.

Yes. Ukranian support to join NATO was very low before the war. However, today, it is very very high. Mad Vlad is a great recruiter for NATO/EU!

 

[Jayjay]

I think it's up to two options: either Putin will annex the East and South in their entirety, and cripple the rest with an unprecedented refugee crisis and economic turmoil, or it will use some of the less strategically important pro-Russian regions as a tool to "democratically" sway the Ukrainian political process. Basically some sort of veto for the Russian puppet regions in Ukrainian foreign policy.

None of the above.

Unfortunately for Russia the Russian owned Ria Novosti prematurely declared victory at 08:00 on Saturday the 26th of February 2022 and made the intentions perfectly clear: A reintegration of all of Ukraine, which along with Belorussia and Russia proper marks the return of Russia to its glorious former state as a world power.

The announcement was quickly deleted. Alas, too late. The Wayback machine had already republished it in full. You can read it here. Or rather, you can feed it into Google Translate and read it there. I did. It's worth doing.

In that announcement Russia is totally upfront about its motivation and what it thinks will happen at the imminent conclusion of the "virtual civil war" in Ukraine. It will see in a new world order, and no other country or power block will be able to do anything about it.

That article may have described the plan, but what's Russia going to do with the millions of Ukrainians who don't want to be part of Russia? Does Putin really want to occupy a country of 40 million and fight a constant low-level insurgency while trying to Russify the population? I don't think so. I stand by my prediction that Russia will annex large part of Ukraine, but will let there be a smaller stump that's politically, economically, and militarily crippled.

One off hand remark by Lavrov that I think I read somewhere was that Kyiv should be demilitarized. Of course, Russia's overall demand has been that whole Ukraine should be demilitarized. But singling out Kyiv, either by accident or deliberately, may have revealed the plan: there is no point in demilitarizing just the capital, if Russia also doesn't occupy the surrounding area, ... or if Kyiv is not bordering an occupied area. This brings me back to my original prediction that Russia will annex everything east of Dnepr river that flows through Kyiv.

So, even though I admit this is just speculation, if Russia were to occupy the entire Eastern part, it could designate Kyiv as a "demilitarized zone" right next to it where it can keep an eye on it or take it over anytime if need be. Just like it was able to take over Crimea. Of course Russia could just annex Kyiv too, but that might be unacceptable to Ukrainians, and then Putin would again have the insurgency problem. It's better to just put a noose around the capital that he can squeeze whenever he wants, than formally annex it.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Yes. I'm eagerly awaiting to hear what your point with saying this is?

You implied that Bandera was not that bad because he hated communists.

You really did not see "Hitler" argument coming, did you?

No, I did not. Look, bad people sometimes do good things. Some times bad people do good things for bad reasons. What counts is the result.

Finland was during WW2 allied to Germany. Actually allied. Nobody today accuses Carl Gustaf Mannerheim of being a Nazi. All Finns hail him as a conquering war hero. The many thousands of Swedish volunteers, of who many were actual Nazis, aren't today remembered for being Nazis. They are remembered for helping to defend Finland from Russia. In Sweden today we separate those who travelled south to join the German SS (=bad) from those who went to Finland (=good). Both travelled to a Nazi country to fight for the Nazis against the communists.

Like it or not, the Nazis/fascists were for most Europeans the best bet against communism. It was the same card Pinochet pulled when he toppled the democratically elected Allende.

No matter Stepan Banderas politics he was relentless in his battle against communism in a totalitarian communist country. That requires balls of steel and is worthy of praise IMHO.

In a general sense, I agree with you: often the reality of life is that you must choose between the lesser of two evils. While I would say at the time that Russia was the lesser evil, at the time in Ukraine most persons were probably more prone to thinking that Germany was the lesser evil because the Russian empire impacted Ukraine territory more. I suspect this was not the same for Ukrainian Jews, though, who would have feared the chance of more Russian pogroms but the imminent, concrete threat of death would seem more associated to Nazi Germany.

I think it is reasonable that some leaders of movements for independence try to ally with one evil side over the other, but there ought to have been straddling of the fence at times, switching allegiance when the opportunity arose, or taking over a faction of the evil empire to promote fair-minded goals of independence but when doing so very safely was feasible. To this last point, I believe if you look at the Wiki page on Bandera, he does qualify as breaking with the Nazis:

Bandera cultivated German military circles favorable to Ukrainian independence, and organized OUN expeditionary groups. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he prepared the 30 June 1941 Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood in Lviv, pledging to work with Nazi Germany.[4][5] For his refusal to rescind the decree, Bandera was arrested by the Gestapo, which put him under house arrest on 5 July 1941,[6] and later between 1942 and 1943[7] sent him to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.[8] In 1944, with Germany rapidly losing ground in the war in the face of the advancing Allied armies, Bandera was released in the hope that he would be instrumental in deterring the advancing Soviet forces. He set up the headquarters of the re-established Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council, which worked underground. He settled with his family in West Germany where he remained the leader of the OUN-B and worked with several anti-communist organizations such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations[9][10] as well as with the British intelligence agencies.[9] Fourteen years after the end of the war, Bandera was assassinated in 1959 by KGB agents in Munich.[11][12]

So, to be clear, he tried to use the Nazis at great personal risk to his life. He did so by organizing pro-Ukraine Nazis around himself and promoting the idea of independent Ukraine in their minds. Then, he made a declaration of statehood that he expected those Nazis to support, but upper management said no. So they threw him in a concentration camp. That's something that ought to be mentioned. Of course, the Nazis started losing the war and then released Bandera to try to use him to fight their enemy. So, overall, Bandera was using the Nazis as an opportunity for independence, but they were using him.

And I'd be neutral to this idea of Lesser Evil argument promoting Bandera as a hero if it did not have further nuanced logical consequences. In particular, let's not forget that there were other groups of people with different interests and outcomes in the region, in particular Jews and Polish, apparently. I do not have time to research this, but I do know at least some in the circles and possibly Bandera himself had some culpability in the Holocaust and pogroms or exterminating Jews in Ukraine. There seems to be some debate on this because there were different factions of the Ukrainian militia once the Nazis reacted against the independence, some more loyal still to Nazis than others, but there are also communiques involing killing Jews and so it seems likely Bandera knew about it. In any case, those who may promote Bandera might disagree with his involvement, even if they are wrong.

Also, anyway, it does bring me to an exception to your general rule about these persons who supported Nazis for Lesser Evilism reasons, such as to gain independence: primarily, the extent and culpability of Holocaust and genocide-related history just doesn't excuse any of it in my mind.

This nuance seems a bit different between Bandera (and the circles around him) versus the person you brought up, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (and the circles of persons around him) and how they treated Jews. Or at least, there is more debate around Bandera, but Mannerheim is surrounded by established facts in support of Finnish Jews. Here is an excerpt from a Wiki article:

As Finland's forces had substantial numbers of German forces supporting their operations, the Finnish front had a field synagogue operating in the presence of Nazi troops. Jewish soldiers were granted leave on Saturdays and Jewish holidays.[10][11][12] Finnish Jewish soldiers later participated in the Lapland War against Germany.[citation needed]

In November 1942, eight Jewish Austrian refugees (along with 19 other deportees) were deported to Nazi Germany after the head of the Finnish police agreed to turn them over. Seven of the Jews were murdered immediately.[13][14] According to author Martin Gilbert, these eight were Georg Kollman; Frans Olof Kollman; Frans Kollman's mother; Hans Eduard Szubilski; Henrich Huppert; Kurt Huppert; Hans Robert Martin Korn, who had been a volunteer in the Winter War; and an unknown individual.[15] When Finnish media reported the news, it caused a national scandal, and ministers resigned in protest.[14] After protests by Lutheran ministers, the Archbishop, and the Social Democratic Party, no more foreign Jewish refugees were deported from Finland. Approximately 500 Jewish refugees arrived in Finland during World War II, although about 350 moved on to other countries, including about 160 who were transferred to neutral Sweden to save their lives on the direct orders of Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, the commander of the Finnish Army.[14] About 40 of the remaining Jewish refugees were sent to do compulsory labor service in Salla in Lapland in March 1942. The refugees were moved to Kemijärvi in June and eventually to Suursaari Island in the Gulf of Finland. Although Heinrich Himmler twice visited Finland to try to persuade the authorities to hand over the Jewish population, he was unsuccessful.[14]

In 1942, an exchange of Soviet POWs took place between Finland and Germany. Approximately 2,600–2,800 Soviet prisoners of war of various nationalities then held by Finland were exchanged for 2,100 Soviet POWs of Baltic Finn nationalities (Finnish, Karelian, Ingrian, or Estonian) held by Germany, who might have volunteered in the Finnish army. About 2000 of the POWs handed over by Finland joined the Wehrmacht. Among the rest there were about 500 people (mainly Soviet political officers) who were considered politically dangerous in Finland. This latter group most likely perished in concentration camps or were executed as per the Commissar Order. Based on a list of names, there were 47 Jews among the extradited, although they were not extradited based on religion.[16]

Jews with Finnish citizenship were protected during the whole period. Late in the war, Germany's ambassador to Helsinki Wipert von Blücher concluded in a report to Hitler that Finns would not endanger their citizens of Jewish origin in any situation.[17] According to historian Henrik Meinander, this was realistically accepted by Hitler.[17] Yad Vashem records that 22 Finnish Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, when all died fighting for the Finnish Army.

Three Finnish Jews were offered the Iron Cross for their wartime service: Leo Skurnik, Salomon Klass, and Dina Poljakoff.

What I expect from this is just that we can understand diversity of opinion on Bandera. (None of this ought to excuse an invasion...it's just some nuance).

My point is that giving him a postumous medal of honor is NOT an endorsement of Nazism.

I agree with you. Also, since different people have different ideas of the connection of Bandera to Jewish deaths in WWII, some may find the medal more objectionable than others. Personally, I would not be in favor of a medal due to the reasons as stipulated above.

I'm sure Zelensky has given all kinds of people all kinds of rewards.

For the record, just in case you thought Zelensky gave the medal, there's some history on the medal. It was given by former President Yushchenko and in a Donetsk district court declared illegal. I have no idea if that was the end of its legality, but clearly this was before Zelensky was President. There was much uproar over this from some Jewish people, Polish, which are both very understandable, but also ethnic Russians who have roots to the opposing side in WWII. That last is probably related to the Donetsk court. In any case, Zelesky doesn't have much to do with this.

More importantly, his politics aren't right wing politics. He clearly isn't a Nazi and hasn't been. Their neighbours Hungary and Turkey, are both run by fascist regimes. So it's not like he would have to hide it if he was.

True.

I think Putin zeroed in on the Stepan Bandera medal and spun it. Either way, I think it's irrelevant. Putin wanted to invade Ukraine and would have used whatever flimsy excuse to do so. No Nazi sympathies in the world can compensate for bombing the shit out of an entire country and wrecking it's infrastructure. Putin is so far out of line here that your quibbling about Stepan Bandera is bizarre IMHO

Yes, this is also true.

 

[Jayjay]

I think it's up to two options: either Putin will annex the East and South in their entirety, and cripple the rest with an unprecedented refugee crisis and economic turmoil, or it will use some of the less strategically important pro-Russian regions as a tool to "democratically" sway the Ukrainian political process. Basically some sort of veto for the Russian puppet regions in Ukrainian foreign policy.

None of the above.

Unfortunately for Russia the Russian owned Ria Novosti prematurely declared victory at 08:00 on Saturday the 26th of February 2022 and made the intentions perfectly clear: A reintegration of all of Ukraine, which along with Belorussia and Russia proper marks the return of Russia to its glorious former state as a world power.

The announcement was quickly deleted. Alas, too late. The Wayback machine had already republished it in full. You can read it here. Or rather, you can feed it into Google Translate and read it there. I did. It's worth doing.

In that announcement Russia is totally upfront about its motivation and what it thinks will happen at the imminent conclusion of the "virtual civil war" in Ukraine. It will see in a new world order, and no other country or power block will be able to do anything about it.

Interesting. I understand it can be interpreted that way by some (all) in the west.
To me, as a russian speaker, who is familiar with such "work" it looks like an overexcited "patriot" opinion piece, it does not even remotely looks like prepared article which leaked prematurely. It was put down I suspect by advice from people in power.

Having said that, there are unconfirmed rumors that Yanukovich (that guy !!!) was spotted in Belarus. Bad Idea, bad bad Idea.

The news I read source that claim to this article in Ukrainska Pravda and Ukrainian intelligence. War propaganda exists in both sides; I'm treating this as false until there is a non-Ukrainian source that says otherwise. Also any paper called "Pravda" is immediately suspect.

 

[Jayjay]

Nice theory, except that the timeline doesn't match. Putin made the decision to annex Crimea before the language law repeal was suggested in the parliament.

That's what I just told you. There was snowball in hell chance that Russia would let Crimea to fall to these people. Language crap was well expected.

Emphasis on word "mini". Russian military and agents in unmarked uniforms can hardly be compared to popular uprisings.

No, it was real, no agents were involved at the time. Yes these republics would not have survived without russian millitary rather limited support. Putin gave them enough to hold positions.
But man, stop trying to convince yourself that Eastern Ukraine was on board with Maidan crap, they were not, they were absolutely not.

They didn't have to be on board with Maidan. But I don't buy the claim that they were on board with splitting off with Ukraine and joining Russia, or the sham separatist republics. The 1.4 million internal refugees who left Donetsk and Luhansk to other parts of Ukraine are evidence of that.

 

[Jayjay]

Are all these videos fake too?

Sorry, can't see them in Russia.

I don't deny that russian forces (like any other forces) do on occasion produce collateral damage.
But that particular video I was talking about is fake.

Yet you've given no evidence of why you think it's fake. Just riddles of some mysterious "inconsistencies".

Only way to fake that and the other videos from the area is to actually blow up a missile near that building.

 

[Elixir]

Are all these videos fake too?

Sorry, can't see them in Russia.

I don't deny that russian forces (like any other forces) do on occasion produce collateral damage.
But that particular video I was talking about is fake.

Yet you've given no evidence of why you think it's fake. Just riddles of some mysterious "inconsistencies".

Only way to fake that and the other videos from the area is to actually blow up a missile near that building.

It's truly shocking how willing a Russian is to deem what he hasn't seen as "fake" because it shows war crimes that cannot be shown in Russia because - they're war crimes.

Why does the Russian think he's not being allowed to see it? Because it doesn't show war crimes?

I remember in the third grade... in America ... my 7 year old peers and I couldn't grasp how easily Russians could be fooled by their leaders. We were told about how the iron curtain kept certain facts away from the Russian (and occupied countries') citizenry, but could never understand how that could be maintained in the face of reality. Now it's plain to see: it requires just a tiny bit of willingness and desire to believe what they're being told. I can thank barbos for making that fact crystal clear.

 

[Jayjay]

Yes. I'm eagerly awaiting to hear what your point with saying this is?

You implied that Bandera was not that bad because he hated communists.

You really did not see "Hitler" argument coming, did you?

No, I did not. Look, bad people sometimes do good things. Some times bad people do good things for bad reasons. What counts is the result.

Finland was during WW2 allied to Germany. Actually allied. Nobody today accuses Carl Gustaf Mannerheim of being a Nazi. All Finns hail him as a conquering war hero. The many thousands of Swedish volunteers, of who many were actual Nazis, aren't today remembered for being Nazis. They are remembered for helping to defend Finland from Russia. In Sweden today we separate those who travelled south to join the German SS (=bad) from those who went to Finland (=good). Both travelled to a Nazi country to fight for the Nazis against the communists.

A good parallel, but for slightly different reasons. Mannerheim was no Nazi (like someone already quoted from his wiki page), he despised nazis and fascists. But being a former officer of Tsarist Russia, he absolutely loathed bolsheviks and would ally with anyone against the USSR. Nobody in their right mind in Finland would consider Mannerheim as a nazi (although Russian propaganda may have tried), but he had other skeletons in the closet: during the civil war in 1918 Mannerheim ordered summary mass executions, which didn't really win him any good will among the losing side. But in WW2 he put his murdering skills into good use against the Soviets, and all was forgiven. He's still venerated as a hero, has statues, and holds unique honorifics much like "Hero of Ukraine" or whatever Banderas got. All this despite everyone knowing his crimes.

The point is, that historical figures have many sides. Banderas was a nazi collaborator and there's no denying that. But he was also an Ukrainian independence fighter against the soviets. I can understand why he's being venerated in modern Ukraine where Russia is constantly undermining not only their country's sovereignty, but their existence as separate nationality. It has nothing to do with all Ukrainians being "nazis" like Putin's vitriol would have us believe, and everything to do with Ukrainians just trying to find some historical figure to rally around.

.... and to spite off Russian occupiers because fuck those fuckers.

I think Putin zeroed in on the Stepan Bandera medal and spun it. Either way, I think it's irrelevant. Putin wanted to invade Ukraine and would have used whatever flimsy excuse to do so. No Nazi sympathies in the world can compensate for bombing the shit out of an entire country and wrecking it's infrastructure. Putin is so far out of line here that your quibbling about Stepan Bandera is bizarre IMHO

Exactly.