A Ukrainian soldier named Serhiy, returning from Russian captivity, has reportedly been found mutilated with swastikas carved into his forehead, as disclosed by Dr. Olexandr Turkevich, who is treating him.
The soldier, blindfolded during the ordeal, claimed Russian soldiers threatened to dismember him, citing accusations of fascism.
No, a very small subset of the Ukranian military was wearing them, being the Azov battalion and some other members of right wing extremist groups that where already paramilitary before the war.
Azov is former militia founded by a right wing nut job that did not even get enough votes in the last election to get any seats in Parliament.
Then Russia invaded, and these Azov folks turned out to be formidable fighters. Also martial law rolled up all military age men and women, so they where now formal military and beggers can’t be choosers. Similar to Wagner and Utkin.
It’s a government of banderaists instated in an American supported right wing coup that has entire nazi battalions in its army’s ranks. Spare me the apologia.
You understand you are still to coward to say what you mean, and you are now pointing towards a fringe militia group that when they ran for political power got 0 seats in Parlaiment in order to justify Russians carving swastikas into people.
Every country has extrimist groups diametrically opposed to the side you want to be on. So pointing at one of those to excuse whatever inhumane thing you want to find acceptable just again emphasises the type of person you are. You madam are a troll, I bid you farewell.
They couldn’t even draw it correctly, this is a religious symbol, if you angle it so it looks like an X in the middle, then you have the Nazis swastika.
I’ve never seen it anywhere but in that movie (not a historian fwiw). So I’m fairly confident that it’s just the Russians being their usual asshole selves.
I just want to draw an important distinction between the Russian government, military leadership, & voluntary/willing soldiery and the average Russian citizen. It would be wrong to call the latter “the bad guys”, but not the former.
Russian here, protested against the war and find it terrifying, not buying official narratives of nazis and NATO threat for a second.
Still remember the 24th of February, 2022. Before the date, we were all like “naive Westerners, Russia will not openly attack Ukraine, that’s so obviously stupid on so many levels, it’s a brotherly nation going through turbulent times, that’s it”. No one could in their sane mind even comprehend something like this. It was unthinkable. No one wanted that aside from a few select extremists, and most people never supported it later on - though propaganda machine did make some progress on the weakest of minds.
And then we wake up that day, on 24th of February, and have a collective “HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK PUTIN WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT OH WE’RE ALL SO SCREWED”. It was a very grim day, and everyone had worries of their own: some, like me, had friends and family in Ukraine, some were afraid of their men being drafted (which did eventually happen in September 2022), others were just terrified of the scale of human suffering it will entail.
Since then, we learned never to trust anything and question everything we believe in. It was a cultural shock like Russia has never seen.
Same day, 24th of February, streets sparked in violent protests, police got extremely brutal - to this day, almost 2 years into the war, police has constant 24/7 presence in the places that were the main anti-war protest venues of my city. It lasted for months, despite police never stopping and detaining extreme numbers of people: courts are still overburdened processing all of them. All until everyone who had integrity and bravery and nothing to lose got in jail.
Putin should pay for all the atrocities he has committed, and that’s something very many Russians will subscribe to.
As a Lithuanian, I actually disagree. We always knew that a day like February 24 would come. We kept telling that to our allies and they thought we were being paranoid.
You have to address the deep sense of Russian imperialism before we can take you seriously. Even the Russians who have lived in my country for 30 years or more have it. “We are Russians” they say. “We want the world; we want it and we won’t stop until we have all of it.”
I also know that people like you exist, and some people resisted, but our collective fear is that people like you are a smaller minority than you would think.
Same here, as a Czech, the Russian narrative that all Slavic people should be united under them doesn’t really help with a good night sleep. I’ve been just waiting for Russia to wage another of its wars for at least 15 years. I’m not happy that I was right, but this was very much expected.
I’m actually all in favor of Slavic unification (as well as any other reasonable and constructive one), but it should certainly NOT be under the leadership of any particular country. I’m super pissed by earlier centuries panslavists trying to cater to Russia in order to gain its favor and influence.
That’s not exactly true, we also watched Krtek and Nu Pogodi in out childhoods, and both nations are considered “glum” (as never smiling) and cynical (and the correlation between being educated and being cynical, sometimes to the point of dark humor), relatively recent urbanisation. Otherwise, yes, of course, things are different, there is almost as much common with Bulgaria or Croatia
I meant something in particular, what you mentioned are things that we have in common with many others. There’s nothing except the language that really makes us part of a group which Russia is also part of.
I’d argue we still have plenty of cultural similarities, not limited to language, and some sort of common identity as Slavs. In many cases, that alone is enough to be a force driving for unification.
Generally though, I just welcome peace and partnership, and unification seems to me like one of the best ways to achieve this - assuming it is voluntary and conflicts are sorted out, of course.
In many cases, that alone is enough to be a force driving for unification.
Well, one “brotherly help” from Russians was enough to cause so much fucking damage that we’re not over it 30 years after it ended.
We have more cultural similarities with Germans or Austrians than we do with Russians. To the point that if you visit Vienna you could easily mistake it for Prague (not taking landmarks into account, of course).
I have no common identity with Russians. Yeah, our languages share the same roots, but that’s all.
All the talk about unification of Slavs is one of the reason nobody likes Russians. No, thank you, we already are in a union (EU) and generally speaking, it’s a much better deal, because we share actual history (good and bad) instead of language roots and a few decades of being occupied (and murdered) by Russians.
I could try to address that disagreement. I’m inclined to assume that you, and citizens of other European countries that had a substantial number of Russians living there, tend to get this impressions exactly from those Russians. Russians who doesn’t live in Russia, and social media related to them. My impression is that they are much more crazy than average Russian living in Russia. The latter are uneducated enough to believe that the west wants to conquer Russia, but the former are idiotic enough to assume they are in some privileged position, and that mist Russians think the same. In reality the rest of Russians don’t have time to indulge in such fantasies and really busy with their lives.
So I’m saying the imperialism exists in a minority of Russians. The irony is that the president is with the minority and that’s why we are in current situation. He got crazy enough with time that he disconnected with majority of the Russians.
I think it’s useless to blame regular Russians in imperialism. But it might be useful to put some pressure on those Russians living outside Russia to make sure they think less about possibility to improve their lives by conquering some country.
A lot of Russians I deal with are young and well adjusted, only the old and the poor believe in Russian propaganda. My hometown, sadly, was home to both. When Lithuanians tell them to go to Russia if they love it so much, they get really quiet though.
The Russians from Russia who afford to travel are also notorious for being annoying and disrespectful tourists throughout Southeast Asia and various other places. Even in online games they stick to each other instead of playing with people from various countries.
I disagree about the Russians in Russia, I think the blame is on Russians, they are the ones who have kept Putin in power for so long. If the Dutch government started taking about retaking Indonesia or Belgian goverment wanted to take Congo back, they would be gone from power tomorrow.
When Lithuanians tell them to go to Russia if they love it so much, they get really quiet though.
Thanks. I think they need to be reminded of that more frequently.
The Russians from Russia who afford to travel are also notorious for being annoying and disrespectful tourists throughout Southeast Asia and various other places. Even in online games they stick to each other instead of playing with people from various countries.
Yes. I’m not sure what can be done about this though, except proper education.
I disagree about the Russians in Russia, I think the blame is on Russians, they are the ones who have kept Putin in power for so long.
I could agree but this is different from the imperialism in my book. At least one big reason for that happening is how well constructed the state propaganda was from the very beginning. It’s like most actors are acting out of fear mostly, while not really being obligated to follow the narrative. And the education problem, of course.
I think one issue with your last argument is that the Dutch and Belgians are democratic and have the ability to remove government officials from power peacefully.
Despite what Russia pretends to be it is not Democratic. It is authoritarian. Putin is the ruler and no Russian can get rid of him by voting, it would have to be a violent revolution or civil war.
That’s much more to expect for an average Russian than simply showing up to a ballot box. Although I don’t excuse their complacency I do understand it.
Lithuania was not democratic in the 80’s and then it became democratic in 1990. All it took was a barehanded unarmed standoff against the Soviet tanks for a night. In a miracle, it only cost 14 lives.
The real problem is not the revolution, it is what comes afterwards. Most Russians do not understand democracy, they don’t understand how western countries function. They don’t have strong institutions or media organisations either. They will have to build those and do what they failed at it back in the 90’s.
Lithuania is often considered very anti-Russia, similar to other Baltic states, as attributed to a history of Soviet occupation and all the outcomes of it, so it’s natural that alarms raised by such country are more easily dismissed. At some point, this really could be paranoia; at another, it stopped being one. The art is in figuring out where one ends and the other begins.
As per imperialism - it is common in almost every country with big territory, population, large economy and military. US (above all), China and other powers have it too. I’m not saying it’s not ugly, I’m just pointing out it’s a general trend that should be approached more systemically - and until then, cultural shifts can only get us so far. I wonder what would it take to remove imperialist tendencies in every place in the world.
I’m not saying this to distract someone; I’m pointing it out to say that the solution to imperialism lies in some sort of global shift and not local cultural effort. Cultures of superpowers will inevitably gravitate towards imperialism, and we need to find a way to stop it at its root.
We are not anti-Russia, we are simply pro-survival. Even before the Soviet occupation, tsarist Russia did a lot to destroy our national identities, in Lithuania, they forbade writing our language in Roman alphabet and hunted smugglers that carried books written in it. The ban and other repressions caused several massive rebellions including 1830s and 1860s ones.
The Tsar later sent his hound, Muravjov, who hanged so many men that the line of gallows went from Kaunas to Vilnius (~90 km). They have put a statue of Muravjov outside of Lithuanian consulate in Kaliningrad. I guess they are going to put a statue of Adolf Hitler outside the Israeli consulate next /s
And imperialism is common among big countries, sure, but it is Russians who enflame their local minorities in neighbouring countries and then rush to save them. And we do have a Russian minority.
My point is, due to all this complicated and violent history, Lithuania will obviously be on a higher alert than many other countries - that’s what I’m saying first and foremost. This means a lot of false alarms, which the rest of the world recognizes, and which is why those early warnings didn’t help.
But thanks for making your point, it is important to the understanding of the problem as well.
Genuine question - could you provide examples of open high-level hostilities Russia has shown to Baltic or other countries related to Russian minorities? Cause from the inside it looks mostly as showing concern over Russians having their culture stripped away in order to force assimilation. Don’t know much on how it’s going in Lithuania in particular, but I have ethnic Russian relatives in Latvia and many of the restrictions imposed, language and cultural, seem very unreasonable and hostile.
Belarus sent a lot of immigrants from 3rd countries to Baltic states and Poland to cause problems for us.
Russian propaganda machine was to blame for enflaming a lot of marginal political movements, like antivax, anti-LGBT and now anti-Ukraine.
Russian backed propaganda machines were cutting up Baltic states and inventing non-existant separatist movements since 2010. But unlike in Ukraine, none of them stuck.
The problem with Russians in the Baltics is how many of them still think that they are either in charge or that Russian army will be back soon. They completely refuse to integrate, refuse to learn our language, our customs, our values, despite living here for over 50 years. In comparison , I spent 9 months in Sweden, I can give directions and haggle in the market in Swedish.
I wonder, though, how many of this is genuine and how much is false politically motivated accusations, which are very often the case in the political landscape of many countries.
Being to blame and being the cause are two very different things.
Also, you know the world is fucked up when immigrants can be used as a weapon. We seriously need to deal with the problem, and not through stricter border control and enforcement. But I digress.
We will never know how large the extent of Russian propaganda and other intelligence activities are, but whenever we have any problems in our country there are always chaos actors linked to Russia. They are always on the lookout for weakness to exploit. Even a local anti-fracking protest had ties to Gazprom.
Honestly, discussing Russia’s economy as large in the same breath as the US and China is a bit disingenuous. US GDP is around 27 trillion USD, China around 18 trillion USD. Russia? 2 trillion USD.
That’s true, and that’s why I selected several criteria here. For its relatively low economic power, Russia has tremendous influence in the region and does act as a superpower due to a large combination of factors.
Mate come on. A person willing to protest the Russian government in Russia does not deserve your vitriol. Even if every Russian except Allero supported everything Putin did, it wouldn't make Allero guilty by association
U make an assumption that Russian elections weren’t rigged for the last 20 years.
Even if the majority of Russians actually voted for Putin, what about the minority of Russians who chose to do the right thing? Do their efforts not count? These people went up against a brutal authoritarian purely because it was the right thing to do (and also knowing that doing so wasn’t going to change anything). Do their efforts not count?
Bruh, remember that time 110% of Russians voted for Putin?
But anyway, in my grandparental comment, I phrased it specifically to not blame anyone who did support Putin as long as they’re not actively engaged in the military. If they’re not causing direct harm, I’m not going to blame people for falling for Russian state propaganda.
Wow thanks for sharing this. Mind if I ask, from your personal perspective/experience, how is the situation now? Did the propaganda work at brainwashing people over the past years?
I’d say at first it did work on a lot of people from TV generation, forming a picture of Ukrainian soldiers as Nazis driven by drugged President who is a puppet of american dementia man, and of Russian soldiers liberating people from insanity.
At its peak, even some of the generally anti-war individuals fell into uncertainty.
But the longer it drags, the less effective propaganda is. War exhausted country’s resources and killed its men, and this becomes clear even to past die-hard supporters of the war. Also, the dissolution of Wagner group made Wagner fans (which constituted a large percentage of pro-war individuals) more bitter towards the military effort.
So in general, the sentiment goes more and more towards “why are we waging this war in the first place” and “how much longer do we have to suffer”
I’m not Russian so I have a limited perspective of this, but I remember people pointing out good indicators that the invasion was really going to happen during the weeks leading up to it, like how the Russian military was setting up field hospitals along the border. Obviously, hindsight makes reflecting on this difficult, and I’m not sure what information was available to Russian citizens at that time.
Explained this in my answer; long story short, the very idea of such invasion was super unthinkable to an average Russian, and, while we’ve seen news from Western media, we discarded them as sensationalist and lacking understanding of the real situation.
But, as we soon figured out, Putin has no issue crossing any red line.
You mean Crimea? While it was a hostile act indeed, it was different. Might be less visible from the outside, again.
Lemme try to explain the difference. Again, no justification, I don’t have a strong stance on Crimea, just how it looks from inside Russia (and Crimea - having lots of relatives and friends from there and been there pre- and post-annexation).
The annexation of Crimea was relatively peaceful (while some Russian soldiers came to the peninsula, it wasn’t a full-scale invasion, no bullet was shot and no bullet was meant to be shot) and went in accordance to the interest of locals, who wholeheartedly overwhelmingly approved the change - and I’m not just sourcing this from Kremlin propaganda and referendum results, I’ve been on the ground and have many contacts in there. The sentiment has somewhat changed over time, but is still moderately pro-Russia. Crimea is also primarily inhabited by ethnic Russians - 67,9% Russians with only 15,7% Ukrainians by the time of annexation in 2014 - which might help to explain such a fierce support (source: Wikipedia). Putin has also taken action against growing conflict between Russians and Crimean Tatars, which, while being heavily controversial, got him even more support from the Russian population majority.
The 2022 invasion was meant from the start as a full-scale war, and was meant to meet resistance and be hostile to the civilian population. Unlike annexation of Crimea, which was more of a political recoloring than anything, this time it was an actual war, with blood, bullets, and flame, and with Russian tanks riding through Ukrainian protesters that wished those tanks to go away. And this is the kind of scenario Russians could not envision. In Russian mentality, Ukrainians, just like Belorussians, are brotherly folks, and going for the kill means betraying the almost sacred bond the nations have. This shows in Russian politics, with leaders constantly trying to tell population it is not a war against brotherly Ukrainians, but rather against Nazis and their leader Zelensky (yep, the guy with Jewish bloodline). But it is bullshit that the majority can still see through, and when the war started, it was a giant shock and, like, something that absolutely, under any circumstances, shouldn’t have happened.
This, exactly, has blinded Russians, myself included, into trusting Kremlin with their “combat exercise” rhetoric. Not that we had (and have) big trust in our government, but going to a real bloody war with Ukraine was too unthinkable to ever seriously consider.
Also, please avoid rhetorical questions in favor of direct ones. I do answer this one because it might be useful for the general context, but it is rude and also ineffective in case you actually want to hear an answer.
Any Zionist is now also openly supporting genocide. That very much makes them the bad guys. The fact you’re being downvoted demonstrates too many people are too fucking stupid to even apply their own morals, because I KNOW they’d all bitch to no end if the “wrong” civilians were killed.
Also it’s a dumb point to push. One terrible regime being bad doesn’t say ANYTHING about a different regime.
It points at American hypocrisy, but you’d have to introduce that topic, not just slam it on the table and declare victory.
Not a fair comparison. The Ukrainian military is actively moving civilians out of combat areas and not choosing to wage guerilla war from densely populated urban centers.
This exactly. One can absolutely debate the methods of IDF, but literally no one could wage war in Gaza with few civilian casualties. Gaza is almost one huge city while Ukraine have massive rural areas around every city. Had Russia waged war in Gaza, they’d have killed at least as many civilians, and in my opinion probably a lot more as well.
Maybe don’t wage war in Gaza then? It is not truly needed, there are ways to combat terrorism without leveling a city. And let’s not forget Netanyahu funded Hamas because they benefit of the war.
This thread is about Russia. I was not the one bringing Israel up.
But no, I don’t think that is a good thing. But it has nothing to do with Israel being “more evil” than Russia. Russia cares zero about civilians and would have killed at least as many had Ukraine been a mostly urban warzone with Russian air superiority. But Ukraine isn’t, so therefore less civilian deaths.
You know, apples and pears are both very closely related fruits that serve very similar culinary functions. Comparing the two is a perfectly valid thing to do.
Out of curiosity, what would have been your recommended response to the 7 October attack? I'm not saying Israel is handling this the right way whatsoever, but I see a lot of people make statements like yours without any specifics.
It’s not about having few civilian casualties, it’s about having fewER casualties. Gaza is extremely densely populated and civilian casualties are pretty much unavoidable, but it doesn’t mean you have to level entire city blocks or bomb the exact places you tell civilians to go. There’s plenty Isreal could do to reduce casualties, they simply won’t.
Again, one can absolutely discuss the methods of the IDF. The point here is simply that you can’t compare Gaza with Ukraine when it comes to civilian casualties.
You can’t compare the actual numbers but you can compare the actions sides take to prevent casualties. Your comment came across as “there’s nothing IDF could do to reduce casualties” when the reality is that they could and they just don’t.
“Came across”? Right. Then I could say bringing up an unrelated conflict, no matter how terrible, in a discussion about what Russia does comes across as a putinist move.
Sure. The other guy is also an ass for bringing up an unrelated topic, and if you had originally said what you just said we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But you chose to continue that unrelated discussion in a way that I’ve taken as defense of IDF actions. So maybe address what I said instead of deflecting.
It was never my intention to come across as defensive towards the IDF. I simply wanted to point out why it doesn’t make sense to compare civilian casualties between the two conflicts. Me saying a war in Gaza would always result in a lot of civilian casualties didn’t mean Israel has done a good job. I’m very sure they could have had quite a lot lower casualties with better tactics, but it would probably still result in high civilian casualties. A war in an area like Gaza will always result in hell on earth.
Meanwhile Russia has every possibility to avoid cities, yet they are still bombing cities pretty much daily despite there being no military activity there. This is again not me defending the IDF. I’m just trying to keep the topic on topic.
I think climate change is one of the biggest issues we are facing today
It doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter what I think. We are way past the point of no return. As far as I can tell, humanity is the villain. I’m hoping the climate apocalypse is enough to wipe us all out for good, to limit the damage we can cause to the natural world. Worst case scenario, we become space faring and spread our plague to other solar systems.
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