Ukraine reacts to fears of Russian invasion as troops build up at the border

[His Divine Shadow]

Ah well if the wind blows in winter they'll be fine. If not they made their bed.

[KraytKing]

Is this one different? Is this what war felt like in 1991, 2001, 2003, and 2010?

This is my first. I've never been one of the "make love not war" types, but after a few hours crawling through footage of this conflict, I think I might have become one. This is brutal. Cities being burned, tanks on both sides left smoking ruins. It is horrifying to watch from the perspective of civilians caught in the crossfire, but it also just seems so pointless. Every clip of a burned out Ukrainian tank is matched by a ruined Russian tank. Nobody is even winning, despite all the bloodshed.

Fuck Putin for doing this. Fuck the American people for going along with it every time we do it, unlike the Russians.

[Col. Crackpot]

Jews are fleeing the Russian “de-nazification” forces en masse. Remember, Russian forces were sent with the expressed purpose of de-nazifying the country with the democratically elected Jew as president.

Zelenskyy is Jewish? Dang, I had no idea - we really are everywhere, aren't we?

Many Jews occupied the Pale (what is now Ukraine, Belarus, Poland) since Catherine the Great times. My father in law’s grandparents were from Kremenchuk. Many a tale was told about Great Grandpa Hymie. Though I think family lore of him fighting off programs and running with the Mensheviks are greatly exaggerated. His siblings stayed when he emigrated to New York. They didn’t survive the 40’s.

[Crazedwraith]

Fuck Putin for doing this. Fuck the American people for going along with it every time we do it, unlike the Russians.

Pretty sure there were plenty of anti-war protests in the US about Afganistan/Iraq etc.

Of course they weren't risking as much as the russians when protesting.

[Col. Crackpot]

https://www.newsweek.com/holocaust-muse ... 2467?amp=1

And while we are on the topic, tho Holocaust Museum isn’t buying the denazification bullshit and is accusing Putin of exploiting the holocaust to justify the invasion.

[Broomstick]

Jews are fleeing the Russian “de-nazification” forces en masse. Remember, Russian forces were sent with the expressed purpose of de-nazifying the country with the democratically elected Jew as president.

Zelenskyy is Jewish? Dang, I had no idea - we really are everywhere, aren't we?

Many Jews occupied the Pale (what is now Ukraine, Belarus, Poland) since Catherine the Great times. My father in law’s grandparents were from Kremenchuk. Many a tale was told about Great Grandpa Hymie. Though I think family lore of him fighting off programs and running with the Mensheviks are greatly exaggerated. His siblings stayed when he emigrated to New York. They didn’t survive the 40’s.

Yes, that is the story of my family as well. I suspect a few of them might have been in relatively good situations as they hailed from St. Petersburg, but others were more shtetl and rural, some had settled in the Duchy of Warsaw, some further south. Regardless, they considered themselves Russians as well as Jews, speaking Yiddish and Russian in the home (and probably a few other languages, depending on where they were living at the time).

Hard to confirm any of it - my grandmother wrote down what she could remember before she died, but the records and the villages were all destroyed in the 1940's.

None of them that stayed in Europe survived WWII. The only part of the family that survived were those kicked out by the Tsar around 1890-1900.

[Col. Crackpot]

In the interest of transparency and being mindful of not appropriating Jewish culture, I myself was raised catholic. My grandparents are Irish. My wife is Jewish and therefore so is my daughter.

[Col. Crackpot]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... pters.html

Costly few days for Russia.

Now there are reliable reports of the Ukrainians taking out an IL-76 full of VDV over Kyiv with a previously hidden S-300. That’s an entire company of paratroopers and a $50 million airplane.

VDV hasn’t exactly covered themselves in glory this war. Sounds like they got “market gardened” at the Kyiv airport too before it eventually fell.

[Solauren]

Could be the Ukraine has been preparing for a Russian invasion for a number of years now.... Say, since the fall of the USSR?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Could be the Ukraine has been preparing for a Russian invasion for a number of years now.... Say, since the fall of the USSR?

I get the feeling the Ukranian commanders have been saying this to their troops:

[Broomstick]

Sounds like they got “market gardened”

Er.... what? I seem to have lost something in translation there....

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Er.... what? I seem to have lost something in translation there....

Named after the failure that was Operation Market Garden, where paratroops from the US and Britain got their rears handed to them and gave the Germans the entire operation plan in the process.

Could be the Ukraine has been preparing for a Russian invasion for a number of years now.... Say, since the fall of the USSR?

Er, their IADS would have been better prepared if that was the case, given that Yugoslavia was preparing for such an eventuality (and why NATO was having fits in suppressing Serbia in general).

[Col. Crackpot]

https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1497 ... 33570?s=21

Kazakhstan rejects Russia’s request for military assistance in Ukraine.

[Col. Crackpot]

https://youtu.be/9umvJFIRUdY

I’ve seen this posted half a dozen times in various places the past two days. Worth sharing here.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

It should be noted that Russia is likely to start misinformation and memetic weapon campaign. So be careful out there and double-check your sources.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1497 ... 33570?s=21

Kazakhstan rejects Russia’s request for military assistance in Ukraine.

Not sure what help Kazakhstan could provide even if they wanted to, Belarus is Russia's only ally in the region.

[Col. Crackpot]

https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1497 ... 33570?s=21

Kazakhstan rejects Russia’s request for military assistance in Ukraine.

Not sure what help Kazakhstan could provide even if they wanted to, Belarus is Russia's only ally in the region.

Cannon fodder. “Coalition of the willing” legitimacy.

It is especially Interesting as the Russians just helped them break up the riots in Almaty last month. Now the Kazakhs tell them to pound sand.

Very nice!

[Elfdart]

So, to be clear...

Putin himself announced he's sending troops into the two territories he claims now as independent republics. My question is, if he already had troops there, is it really an invasion? It's like when Obama sent troops to Syria, then Il Douchebag sent more. Does that mean Trump "invaded" Syria, or that he was just maintaining the status quo? If Biden sends more men to Syria, does that count as three invasions?

If this seems like semantics-whoring, it's not. The media have been hair-on-fire hysterical about Putin's "INVASION OMG!" of two regions that he's already had troops and heavy equipment parked in for eight years.

Are we all on the same page that now Russia is invading Ukraine?

That is a very good question. Though it would appear that Elfdart anti imperialist creds only apply when it doesn’t involve an empire he likes. Don’t waste your breath.

Oh bite my ass.

I didn't think Putin would do it unless he stacked a shitload more men at the border, given his M.O. with his other attacks. Apparently, he decided Ukraine's armed forces were even weaker than Georgia's (where he waited for a 3-1 ratio in his favor before attacking).

I've been pondering this statement. Is it ever morally justified to support/defend Nazis?

Well... we've had Nazis in the US since the 1930's. The rule here is that they can believe whatever they like but they can't use their beliefs to break the law or harm others without consequences. If they can live in civilization with others - not liking the neighbors but not harming them either - then they are just as much citizens as anyone else.

The Nazi fanboy in Idaho who watches Elsa She-Wolf of the SS in his basement is not in any way comparable to the Azov Battalion, which has been incorporated into Ukraine's armed forces, and is armed and supplied by the US government:

I'll just point out that in this particular instance it is NOT the Nazis starting a war, invading the neighbors, and shooting at people. I don't like the Nazis, but in this case they are not the troublemakers.

Right Sector, Azov and Svoboda began the fighting in 2014. Putin simply turned it up to 11. I don't think a full-fledged invasion (or even a punitive raid) is justified just to whack a few thousand neo-Nazis -just as I didn't think Belarus was in the right for forcing down a jetliner just to collar a neo-Nazi fan of Oskar Dirlewanger.

It is in the interest of everyone to somehow discourage nations from invading other nations. Regardless of how big and powerful the invader is. Regardless of whether or not we share beliefs with the victims or even like them.

Unfortunately, the only thing that deters predatory countries is fear of getting blasted by the victims or the victims' friends.

There are authoritarian countries in the world, there are still monarchies and dictators. This will be the case for the foreseeable future. We will need to deal with them in the future whether or not we agree with how they run their nations or like their belief systems. Agreeing to respect each other's borders is definitely a step in that direction. Again, in this case it's not the "Nazis" that are starting a war. Look at who the real villain is here.

Putin is respecting Ukraine's border just like Uncle Sam has respected the borders of [I'm too fucking tired to list all the countries we've invaded -but you get my point]. He was looking for an excuse to paste Ukraine for so much as thinking about hooking up with NATO and the neo-Nazi militias gave him a dandy one. Remember when the Crawford Caligula claimed Iraq was in cahoots with Bin Laden and used that as his excuse to gang rape the country? Well in Putin's case, the Ukrainian government really was in league with neo-Nazis. He has no legal or moral right to blow the shit out of Ukraine, but he got a great propaganda excuse delivered gift-wrapped. Peter Hitchens sums it up perfectly here:

PETER HITCHENS: Granny gets her gun - from a bunch of shamelss neo-Nazis... not that the BBC would ever tell you
If the BBC found a group of neo-Nazis among some student Tories, or among Trump supporters in the USA, they would surely tell us about it, hot and strong.

Quite right too. In fact, the Corporation’s horror and disgust at such people is one of the few things I absolutely share with them.

So why did they last week repeatedly broadcast an entire news item, featuring a group of undoubted, shameless neo-Nazis, actually wearing SS insignia on their clothes – and not even notice?

The film starred a sweet old great-grandma, Valentina Konstaninovska, in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

She was getting lessons from soldiers in how to fight off the Russians with an AK-47 burp gun. Pictures of the doughty 78-year-old also featured in several newspapers last Monday.

But it was only in the film that you could see the shoulder-flashes worn by the soldiers. These display a sinister, jagged symbol called the ‘Wolfsangel’. This is an explicitly Nazi emblem, originally used by Hitler’s ‘Das Reich’ Waffen SS division. This unit is still famous for murdering 200 people in Serbia, for a massacre of 920 Jews in Minsk, now in Belarus, for hanging 99 people in retaliation for French Resistance operations in Tulle. But above all it is notorious for the mass murder in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, in which the SS men machine-gunned or burned to death 642 civilians, including women and children. The Wolfsangel can be seen in archive pictures of the Das Reich division’s tanks.

The patches worn by their Ukrainian fans also carry the word ‘Azov’ and so proclaim that they are members of the ‘Azov Battalion’. Who? An FBI investigator said in 2018 that the Azov Battalion was a ‘paramilitary unit… known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and the use of Nazi symbolism’.

Its defenders now bleat that it has been absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard. This was the pathetic excuse offered by the BBC when I asked them how they had come to fail to report the truth. Bilge. If these men are permitted to wear this repulsive, shameful badge it is easy to work out who is the boss in this relationship. If they were even slightly under the control of civilised people, they would certainly not be allowed to do so, even if their shaven heads were still full of poison and filth.

No proper army would have them at all, even in the direst need. Is it really possible that, in the BBC’s vast and costly apparatus of reporters, editors, producers, fact-checkers and bureaucrats, not one person spotted the problem? If so, we are dealing with Olympic-level incompetence. But it is my suspicion that something else is going on. The generation that kept the BBC relatively impartial is fast dying off. Those who remain have accepted a large number of contentious opinions as facts.

One of these opinions is the ridiculous cartoon idea that Russia is like Mordor in Lord Of The Rings, an utterly evil country ruled by a Dark Monster. And that Ukraine, its current enemy, is by contrast a shining Utopia, pluckily defending itself against the orc-like hordes of Moscow. This explains why the BBC were so keen to use this film, in which a Brave Granny Gets Her Gun. ‘Brave Granny Gets Her Gun From Some Neo-Nazis’ is not quite the same, is it?

One of the roots of the Russia-Ukraine problem is, alas, the existence of some very crude and nasty factions of Ukrainian nationalism, many of them unblushing neo-Nazis. Of course there are plenty of perfectly civilised Ukrainian patriots, but bigoted racialist thugs have an influence way beyond their numbers in that country.

That is why so many Russians living in Ukraine have often felt excluded and have yearned to be ruled instead from Russia.

And that explains a lot of other things now going on.

Ukraine is, in fact, much like Russia in its corruption, political sleaze, oligarchs, dirty money and dodgy politics. It is not especially free and the rule of law is absent. And, as you now know in detail, there are quite a few Nazis. If we are going to interfere in this very complex problem, then we are going to need to tell each other the truth about it.

[Col. Crackpot]

Elfdart:

- The Americans did it first so boo boo
- Gotta de nazify the country with the Jewish president.

Congrats you are now an imperialist apologist. It’s ok, I was one once. You can be cured. One day at a a time bro. One day at a a time.

Question, is Canada Nazi country too? With those truckers and all?

[ray245]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... pters.html

Costly few days for Russia.

Now there are reliable reports of the Ukrainians taking out an IL-76 full of VDV over Kyiv with a previously hidden S-300. That’s an entire company of paratroopers and a $50 million airplane.

VDV hasn’t exactly covered themselves in glory this war. Sounds like they got “market gardened” at the Kyiv airport too before it eventually fell.

Why are you using the daily mail of all things as a source?

[Elfdart]

Elfdart:

- The Americans did it first so boo boo
- Gotta de nazify the country with the Jewish president.

Congrats you are now an imperialist apologist. It’s ok, I was one once. You can be cured. One day at a a time bro. One day at a a time.

Question, is Canada Nazi country too? With those truckers and all?

Strawman much?

[ray245]

Elfdart:

- The Americans did it first so boo boo
- Gotta de nazify the country with the Jewish president.

Congrats you are now an imperialist apologist. It’s ok, I was one once. You can be cured. One day at a a time bro. One day at a a time.

Question, is Canada Nazi country too? With those truckers and all?

I'm not sure if you're reading what he said. He didn't say Russia is in the right for invading Ukraine. If anything, he simply said both the invasion of Ukraine and the incasion of Iraq are wrong.

That's a fairly consistent tone to adopt if you're an anti-imperialist.

As for the Nazis, I don't think he is saying Russia's excuse about de-nazifying Ukraine is legitimate. He's simply saying most Western media ignored the far-right influence in Ukrainian politics and are treating them as if they are some liberal progressive democrats fighting against evil Russia.

Instead, it's simply better to think of both Russia and Ukraine as both being far-right oligarchic regime fighting each other. Russia is still in the wrong for invading, but it's not a simple good-vs-bad fight that it is being portrayed as.

The whole good vs bad narrative is something distilled for a simple 5 year old. Just like the daily mail readers.

[ray245]

Elfdart:

- The Americans did it first so boo boo
- Gotta de nazify the country with the Jewish president.

Congrats you are now an imperialist apologist. It’s ok, I was one once. You can be cured. One day at a a time bro. One day at a a time.

Question, is Canada Nazi country too? With those truckers and all?

Strawman much?

He reads the daily mail. I don't think reading comprehension is his strong point.

[Ralin]

Putin is respecting Ukraine's border just like Uncle Sam has respected the borders of [I'm too fucking tired to list all the countries we've invaded -but you get my point]. He was looking for an excuse to paste Ukraine for so much as thinking about hooking up with NATO and the neo-Nazi militias gave him a dandy one. Remember when the Crawford Caligula claimed Iraq was in cahoots with Bin Laden and used that as his excuse to gang rape the country? Well in Putin's case, the Ukrainian government really was in league with neo-Nazis. He has no legal or moral right to blow the shit out of Ukraine, but he got a great propaganda excuse delivered gift-wrapped. Peter Hitchens sums it up perfectly here:

I think you overestimate how great of a propaganda excuse that is because I think you overestimate how many people care about it. Maybe it's being played up more domestically, I dunno.

[ray245]

Putin is respecting Ukraine's border just like Uncle Sam has respected the borders of [I'm too fucking tired to list all the countries we've invaded -but you get my point]. He was looking for an excuse to paste Ukraine for so much as thinking about hooking up with NATO and the neo-Nazi militias gave him a dandy one. Remember when the Crawford Caligula claimed Iraq was in cahoots with Bin Laden and used that as his excuse to gang rape the country? Well in Putin's case, the Ukrainian government really was in league with neo-Nazis. He has no legal or moral right to blow the shit out of Ukraine, but he got a great propaganda excuse delivered gift-wrapped. Peter Hitchens sums it up perfectly here:

I think you overestimate how great of a propaganda excuse that is because I think you overestimate how many people care about it. Maybe it's being played up more domestically, I dunno.

Well if lying about WMD in Iraq managed to convince a large part of the Western public to support the invasion, there's no reason why the neo-nazi propaganda won't work as well.

Although social media might make it more difficult, as evident by Russia shutting down Facebook.

Unlike seeing the Iraqis as just "dirty brown people" in the eyes of your average white American, Ukrainians being basically the same people in many ways (i.e. sharing a language and much of their history) means all those social media post about Ukrainian civilians being pointlessly killed and all the social media post about Ukrainians fighting for their homeland means it's harder for Kremlin to control the narrative.

It's like the equivalent of US invading Canada. No matter how hard you tried to sell the invasion, it's going to be hard for people to support such an invasion because of cultural ties and etc.