The Russian invasion of Ukraine (2 Viewers)

2019...

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

That AP story is about some night-vision photo I haven't seen, it is not referencing the video above

Either way, the point is the Moskva is at the bottom of the Black Sea and it wasn't an ammunition fire.
The fire story is true, only insofar as a fecking missile caused the fire.

The regime is incapable of the truth.
 
A good read on this Azov battalion that Putin stans love to throw around as being Nazis, with the implication that the country is rife with them
When the facts are that far-right parties got about 2% of the vote

The fascists are the ones invading. The battalions that deserve our scorn are the ones that raped and pillaged Bucha.


The call for Ukraine’s defence has been met by a wide section of Ukrainian society, from the young to the old. Volunteer battalions include anarchists, gay go-go dancers, imams and Hasidic Jews, for example. In Irpin, I met a lesbian territorial defence volunteer named Anna, who was fighting alongside a native Georgian. To ignore these people and concentrate solely on Azov does little to serve Ukrainian civil society, which faces an existential threat at the hands of Russian fascism.

That’s where this argument moves from the absurd to the obscene. Vladimir Putin is a major sponsor of far-right political parties across Europe, and is close to a militia (the Wagner Group) that is involved in military action around the world and has been linked to white supremacy movements. Under Putin, Russia has regressed into a totalitarian fascist regime. He threatens Ukraine not because it has a far-right element, but because Ukraine is a growing, sovereign liberal democracy that he can no longer control.

Russia’s information war focuses on Ukraine’s neo-Nazis because it seeks to take control of the narrative. It wants to dehumanise Ukrainians to the point that when a bomb is fired on a theatre full of children in Mariupol, it can blame the atrocity on Azov and avoid international condemnation and accountability. This is a tried-and-tested model that Russia has perfected in Syria over the past decade.

Well, exactly.
 
A good read on this Azov battalion that Putin stans love to throw around as being Nazis, with the implication that the country is rife with them
When the facts are that far-right parties got about 2% of the vote

The fascists are the ones invading. The battalions that deserve our scorn are the ones that raped and pillaged Bucha.

Well, exactly.

the reason that putin stans love to throw it around is because it’s true — I mean it’s in the first line of their wikipedia entry. it’s also true that the country has a serious problem with far-right extremism generally, to put it mildly. the fact that far-right parties got 2% of the vote most recently is not a helpful stat to throw around either, because the *explicit strategy* of azov, OUN, pravyi sektor, and related groups is to build themselves as paramilitary forces, not as electoral forces.

none of this is to disregard the plentiful russian cynicism in picking this as their propaganda line. but to disregard it is to simply fall into a different kind of war-blindness.
 
the reason that putin stans love to throw it around is because it’s true — I mean it’s in the first line of their wikipedia entry. it’s also true that the country has a serious problem with far-right extremism generally, to put it mildly. the fact that far-right parties got 2% of the vote most recently is not a helpful stat to throw around either, because the *explicit strategy* of azov, OUN, pravyi sektor, and related groups is to build themselves as paramilitary forces, not as electoral forces.

none of this is to disregard the plentiful russian cynicism in picking this as their propaganda line. but to disregard it is to simply fall into a different kind of war-blindness.
Not disregarding it.
Putting it in context.
Azov are horrible - the New Statesman piece makes it clear what pieces of shit they are - but they are relatively tiny.
They only exist since the 2014 invasions, they are a reaction to Russian aggression.
And as a pretext for war, they are irrelevant.

And it's not Russian cynicism, it's just pure deceit.

The 2% is relevant because of the Russian lie that Ukraine is Nazi.
Ukraine is a threat to Putin because Ukraine was becoming a thriving democracy, NOT because it was Nazi. The exact opposite of the Kremlin claims.

There are not two sides here.
There is a thriving democracy that wants peace with a tiny far-right element.
And there is an invader committing war crimes on the basis of a mendacious claim that the entire country is essentially Nazi.

Anyone saying "Yeah, but Azov" it's kinda clear where their sympathies lie.

From the piece

Make no mistake, the existence of Ukrainian neo-Nazis or Syrian al-Qaeda fighters has nothing to do with Russia’s atrocities. Russia’s own propagandists understand this well. In an op-ed published on 3 April on Ria Novosti, a state media outlet, the Russian spin doctor Timofei Sergeitsev said that “denazification is inevitably also de-Ukrainisation”. Russia doesn’t just achieve its war goals by employing indiscriminate bombardment of civilians and civilian infrastructure, it makes certain that it is actively discriminating against those targets in the hopes of breaking the will of the populations resisting them. Russia is at war not with the Ukrainian government, but with the entirety of the Ukrainian people, and these attacks are intended to delegitimise and dehumanise them while Russia actively brutalises civilians with impunity.

Ukraine has a very real and credible far-right problem, but it is one that, at this moment, is significantly less politically successful than many of its European neighbours. Hungary’s recent election, which gave a fourth successive term to its authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, should make that clear. It is an issue that is being used to justify atrocities committed against the Ukrainian people by a revanchist fascist dictatorship.
 
Last edited:
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
In the theatre of war it's actually a lot less dark than just using anonymous mass graves. In some strange way it sends the message that Ukraine is more humane to the Russians. In the long haul it's for the better. But yes it also dark and a bit tech nightmarey too
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Activity
So far there's no one here

21 Day Calendar

Mohammad Syfkhan 'I Am Kurdish' Dublin Album Launch
Bello Bar
1 Portobello Harbour, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland
Mohammad Syfkhan 'I Am Kurdish' Dublin Album Launch
Bello Bar
1 Portobello Harbour, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland
Gig For Gaza w/ ØXN, Junior Brother, Pretty Happy & Mohammad Syfkhan
Vicar Street
58-59 Thomas St, The Liberties, Dublin 8, Ireland
Bloody Head, Hubert Selby Jr Infants, Creepy Future - Dublin
Anseo
18 Camden Street Lower, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland

Support thumped.com

Support thumped.com and upgrade your account

Upgrade your account now to disable all ads... If we had any... Which we don't right now.

Upgrade now

Latest threads

Latest Activity

Loading…
Back
Top