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The Russo-Ukranian [War] sadly still continues.
JusticeforPluto
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Registered User regular
Latest news is that Russia has pulled back from Kyiv, Ukraine now controls border posts with Belarus and the Chernobyl/Chornobyl Nuclear Power plant. Sadly, in the newly liberated regions evidence has been found that Russian forces executed civilians before they fled.
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I know that recording the horrors is kind of necessary for posterity sake, but can I please request that those who are doing so put the worst of the bad behind spoiler tags?
I'm trying to control my nightmares as best I can.
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People can still take steps to ameriolate the damage the thread may do, and for some of us, keeping up iwth current events is important. Also depending on where you are in the world, the war in Ukraine may not be getting much play - the most trustworthy news source over here is also very focused on local issues. So this thread and it's citing of sources has actually been by far the best journalistic resource i've got right now.
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I'm very anti-Russian gov and pro-NATO (largely because of the threat of Russian imperialism) for a while now. I think Putin is a brutal authoritarian dictator, who had invaded another nation on an imperialist, ethnically chauvinist basis, something which is entirely and utterly wrong, and not a result of a provocation from NATO but rather a symptom of the deep ugliness of the ideals in the Kremlin, ideals that led to the invasions of Chechnya, Georgia and Eastern Ukraine in 2014. I also think that the Russian people have no recourse to democratic agency in terms of dealing with Putin.
I've been pro arming the Ukrainians for several years and definitely think it has paid off. I think appeasement would have failed and that Ukraine, if anything, should be in NATO. I support sanctions as a necessary way to attempt to curtail the Russian ability to fight and dissuade them from continuing the war, a harsh policy and one I rarely support (I'm against them in the case of Iran and NK for example). I think the Russian military is definitely committing war crimes and massacring civilians. But I don't believe that NATO should get involved and I think we're at the limit of what external actors can really do.
The reason why genocide is a testy word is because of what it means in terms of definition and what it entails in terms of response. Raphael Lemkin's original definition, used in UN law in 1948, talked about the eradication of an ethnicity, cultural grouping etc through means of extermination, sterilisation, population transfer etc. This was later expanded to include things like banning languages and destroying cultural identity, forced adoptions, removal of children etc.
So by those definitions it seems distinctly possible genocide is going in in Ukraine, as opposed to the more generic but entirely awful results of conventional war. Which is an important distinction, otherwise we might look at the actions of our own armed forces and see the big G-word. Maybe we should, maybe they are. But also we are in a deeply chaotic situation. We've heard a lot of certainly credible reports, but the numbers have grown in the reporting, there has been a lot of talk of deportations but where, when, how many people, can we be sure this happened? Mass graves seem undeniable at this stage, but who is in them and how did they get there? It seems distinctly possible that everything we assume is absolutely true, I suspect it is, but we need to know.
Because if it has, that changes the peace talks and acceptable outcomes. If there is a policy of genocide rather than isolated acts of Russian army units, then things like the post war status of Ukraine change. If Putin has a direct policy of genocide then Ukraine must be in NATO. If not then it is possible a peace process could end with "neutrality." If genocide as a policy exists, the sanctions cannot end when the war is over but when Putin is gone from the Kremlin. An illegal war is one thing but a policy of extermination is another. If Putin has a policy of active extermination we need to re-examine what NATO can do, with all the very scary consequences of that.
So wanting to see some evidence and being cautious about the use of a term with huge relevance is not unreasonable. Saying I'm carrying water for Putin for asking that is... it's just histrionics tbh, and not reasonable. I'm obviously not, if anyone reads my post history, or indeed my actual posts.
https://ukraine.bellingcat.com
https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-russia-bucha-un/russia-asks-u-n-security-council-to-discuss-bucha-provocation-idUSS8N2TU07Q
(Reuters) - Russia has requested that the United Nations Security Council convene on Monday to discuss what it called a “provocation by Ukrainian radicals” in the town of Bucha after Kyiv accused Russian troops of killing civilians there.
The answer should just be this video
Cw: war crimes
Russia needs to be publicly grilled about this and the record and proof of their war crimes and genocide needs to be shoved in their fucking faces until they shut he fuck up
Jesus Christ yes I have also read Foundations of Geopolitics, but it isn't unreasonable to say that there's a distinction between a rhetoric and an active policy! You can disagree with me on that but what I'm saying doesn't make me pro-putin for gods sake
You literally take your time to talk about genocides we totally may be doing so we don't condemn this one
Do we all need to prove the purity of how much we hate the Russian government, how upset we are about the situation in Ukraine, if you won't just use the word genocide immediately when asked 5 weeks in (never mind that nobody was saying this 4 weeks in) then you're a whataboutist, pro-Russian shill? "I note you weren't saying that the Ukrainians were being subject to a genocide last week, comrade? Suspicious."
Is this the level we've sunk to? Should I present a sideshow of times I've proven my loyalty to the Ukrainian cause in my posting history? Come on.
No I'm saying there's a difference between the horror of conventional war and the horrors of mass deportation and extermination I.e genocide. Which there is.
I'm explicitly avoiding media that shows mass graves, piles of corpses (of clearly non-soldiers) and dead children, but from previous experience I know that seeing that sort of stuff just makes me incredibly sad and then mind-numbingly angry.
Perhaps fencingax has been looking at them and you haven't and this is where the friction is coming from.
But if a nation attacks another with the stated goal of destroying all trace of said nation even existing, its language and history, denying that its people are even a people and planning to make that happen with any means necessary, I'm content to call that genocide and not clutter up the thread about war with a technical discussion
Saying "yeah this probably all happened but it's really fucking serious I'd like to see some independent confirmation" does not equate to holocaust denial. Obviously. I mean I'll be honest, every bit of news that comes out of Ukraine needs some independent confirmation because its a war, chaotic and messy, that's standard and reasonable
I really have no other places online that I can get the information that is in this thread, good, solid information, without also risking exposing myself to images that I do not want to see.
Asking that posts detailing the rape and murder of women and children, detailing the mass executions and gravesites, and the other ethnic cleansing/genocidal atrocities that are going on in Ukraine at the hands of Russia be maybe kindly put behind a spoiler isn't some deep or onerous request.
Maybe others are ok with seeing those first and second hand images and descriptions, but not everybody is and it's not completely out of line to ask that we err on the side of not causing anxiety and nightmares in people that we are ostensibly at least calling acquaintances if not friends.
It's outright infuriatingly patronizing of you to think that my asking for assistance in protecting mine and others mental health is a place for you to tell me to protect my mental health.
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And today
https://ria.ru/20220404/provokatsiya-1781612350.html
DNR militia claims that Kiev "may repeat same provocation they did in Bucha in other settlements... do not pay it any attention..."
Dear God, just how many war crimes did Russia pile up and why??
Sitting now, looking back at my life - did honest work, never pretended to support Putin, always voted for opposition parties, but all I can think of "could've I've done something more? can I even do something now?". A random news tidbit: a man in Moscow was arrested for quoting Tolstoy in poster, according to police Tolstoy works are considered extremist now...
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
But let's go on ahead and look over the definition of genocide as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, shall we?
Now note the word ANY in there, but let's see how many we're hitting. Definitely have A, B, and C. The constant and unending accusations of rape certainly qualify as D, and E is questionable, but considering the forced deportations out of Mariupol etc I'm fairly sure that's just gonna be a matter of time.
Putin has already declared, multiple times, that he intends to destroy the concept of Ukraine. That is, he wants to destroy the idea of Ukraine as a separate people. All of those above acts we've seen have been in service of the official policy of erasing Ukrainians as a people.
So if an event that hits, confirmed, 4/5 points where any work so long as they are in service of the erasure of a people, and will more than likely hit the 5th point isn't a genocide, then what, precisely, is? What else is needed other than the acts that literally define a genocide as genocide needed for something to be called a genocide?
Is this some kind of "it's not actually bribery unless the briber and the bribed both agree in writing is a bribe and the money is delivered in a giant bag with a dollar symbol on it" situation?
What else do we need, if someone saying they want to erase a people and then doing everything in their power to erase a people isn't enough? What is this quality that we do not already have?
EDIT: And if "independent confirmation" requires more than multiple news agencies confirming it independently, what exactly would that independent confirmation look like?
I was agreeing with you in terms of spoiler tags with images, just making a suggestion on top. Of course you can do whatever you want, it goes without saying
Then I dunno, give yourself a break? I'm not your enemy here
I think Putin is attempting genocide.
Your post is lacking one point, though: The intent. All five points are likely (guaranteed for the first 3) to occur during any war. For genocide, it has to be with the intent of exterminating the people, not "merely" as part of "regular" acts of war. "Mass number of people are being killed" is not definitionally a genocide without that intent.
And, to be clear, the intent is there.
Edit: MechMantis did bring up intent, which I somehow managed to overlook. Mea culpa.
That is 110% the intent. To destroy Ukraine as a people, to return them to being plain ol Russians, because Ukrainians are a myth that must be destroyed.
So clearly there's something else missing for some people and I'm really curious as to what
There's gonna be a lot more. I expect every Ukrainian city Russia controlled to be like Bucha or worse.
Repressions in Russia are gonna get worse, too, I think.
And the only thing that can change that is if we pass some unspoken threshold of how many dead Ukrainians are acceptable for the world to put their own lives at risk.
That's not to say that the world has not tried to back Ukraine in as many ways (some quite strong!) as they think they can get away with. Arms, training, volunteer soldiers, and destroying Russia's economy are all helping the nation of Ukraine survive. But in the end, Putin has nukes and Ukrainian lives are forfeit because of it
Added: Personally I hate this, and I wish we had intervened already. I respect that other people don't want to die, but unlike Ukraine we have the luxury of choice in that regard, and in my heart I feel that obligates us even more to save others
You are right. I overlooked that, and I apologize.
Seriously, just stay safe. Selfishly, I want to continue hearing your views on what's going on, but I also honestly don't think there is anything the average Russian citizen can do without being arrested or disappearing. The state just has too much control and enough willing participants in that control. I worry about people like you just like I worry about the Ukrainians.
By Oz Katerji, a British-Lebanese freelance conflict journalist and filmmaker, according to his Insta bio. There are a lot of destroyed tanks and APC's in posts after the initial tweet.
I have a question though. I know the later text says it has rained heavily on them, but these still look very rusted to me. I wonder if that is a consequence of the paint being blasted off.
Edited because I used technical jargon. lol
Edit2: Someone in the Fark thread mentioned this, which sounds plausible:
So NATO needs to be in this for the long haul, and they need to start preparing for it now.
That being said: This video is SFW but extremely upsetting. Seriously consider avoiding it for your own mental health if needed.
Not just plausible according to a forensic engineering company.
This guy, already posted several times in earlier threads, is summarizing some stuff:
Jesus Christ it’s just madness. Like just how absolutely invented this hatred is. The use of the word nazi, the fact that they are talking about the guilt of Ukrainians for not standing up to their nazi leaders, when Russia hasn’t stood up to Putin. It’s so ridiculously Orwellian.
It looks like their plan is going to be just focus on brutalising and oppressing the east while they can. I hope Ukraine can push them right the fuck out back to Russia.
Just so evil and rotten. And so eager to be evil and rotten
An op-ed for state news agency RIA Novosti titled "What Russia should do with Ukraine" by pundit Timofei Sergeitsev has created quite a stir today
The rhetoric is truly horrific, even by the standards of what I'm used to seeing from pro-Kremlin media
"The Banderite elite must be liquidated, its reeducation is impossible. The social 'swamp' [Ukrainian civilians] which actively and passively supports it must undergo the hardships of war and digest the experience as a historical lesson and atonement"
Remember how I said a couple of times that Russia will still have nukes when they commit crimes against humanity, and that they will still have nukes when they start committing systematic rape, and that they will still have nukes when they start thinking about doing it in other nations, and that sooner or later we in the West will have to start thinking about killing Russian forces in Ukraine to make them stop committing genocide even though Russia has nukes?
The Russian Federation is the fourth reich. The hysterically extensive horrors visited upon them by Germany in WWII has scarred them too badly, and now they have become what they hate, just like how the worst serial killers in history almost always suffered horribly during their formative years.
But Putin wants an out from the war and if we send in troops to Western Ukraine, start sending Ukraine much more armaments, institute a no-fly zone and tell Russia "Anything that enters west Ukrainian territory and airspace will be vaporized, we will defend ourselves from airstrikes and missiles, but if you get a hit in, it won't be seen as an act of war and won't trigger Article 5" he will slink away and he can spend the rest of his life blaming the nazi-LGBT westerners rather than Russian incompetence for not seeing any gains. Sure, Russians will want to kill all of us forever for denying them their blood and loot, but they already hate us for sanctioning them, criticizing them and sending Ukraine weapons. They have already decided we are all Nazis and once we secure Ukraine the only thing they will be able to do to hurt us would lead to their obliteration. But if they get anything they see as a win out of this, they will try again.
In case anyone else is confused about point 6, Stepan Bandera...
So it's continuing with the theme that anyone in Ukraine that is opposed to Russia or pro-Ukrainian independence is a NAZI.
It's still new enough that it seems batshit. We still remember six months ago this narrative didn't exist. Give it a year or so and the Russians stuck in the unrelenting propoganda stream will be convinced they were always at war with Eurasia.