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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

kebabking said:
The39thStep - that's all true, these groups and individuals are pretty vile - but isn't that the absolute living definition of ruthlessness?

The SBU have kept these creeps on as assets when they would probably have quite liked to put them against a wall because their usefulness has outweighed their negatives.

Russian bombers are dropping bombs on a Russian town, the Putin appointed governor of the region has told people who have fled not to return because it's not safe to do so, and news and pictures of this have flashed all over Russia. If you were being ruthless, what's a few gravestones compared to the utter devastation this event has torn into Russian perceptions of their security?

Where's next?
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Neither the Ukrainian Government or the SBU have ever had any intention of putting any of the far right against a wall. They are part of the political scenery and were of course a major block both politically and militarily to Zelensky attempting to make any progress on his manifesto promise about trying to resolve the issues in eastern Ukraine.

As for being expendable of course, they are but the far right are also trapped by their own reputation as being the bravest defenders of Ukraine and the most anti-Russian.In return the far right have also become heroes hence the bring Azov back home and Azov PoWs value on the PoW exchange market.

This event and the previous incursion are sadly just feelgood moments for Western supporters on social media and Ukrainians in the same way as Balkmut is a feelgood moment for many Russians. The political implications of having armed groups of far right , and in this particular case Nazis, in a post war Ukraine have frightening consequences imo. Now that is being ruthless.

.
 
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kebabking said:
From Belingcat:

This Free Russian Leigon or whatever the fuck it is fits solidly into the 'its complicated' bin.

Rather like corruption, it's funny as fuck that some Russians are invading Russia, but these are bad actors (we'll need to see how this plays out, the bloke might be an outlier within the group, he may not), and while they might be useful 'allies' at the moment, they are likely to be tomorrow's adversaries...

Click to expand...

In other words, Ukraine is assisting Russia in the denazification of Ukraine by repatriating Russian Nazis back to Russia.
 
The39thStep said:
Neither the Ukrainian Government or the SBU have ever had any intention of putting any of the far right against a wall. They are part of the political scenery and were if course a major block both politically and militarily to Zelensky attempting to make any progress on his manifesto promise about trying to resolve the issues in eastern Ukraine.

As for being expendable of course, they are but the far right are also trapped by their own reputation as being the bravest defenders of Ukraine and the most anti-Russian.In return the far right have also become heroes hence the bring Azov back home and Azov PoWs value on the PoW exchange market.

This event and the previous incursion are sadly just feelgood moments for Western supporters on social media and Ukrainians in the same way as Balkmut is a feelgood moment for many Russians. The political implications of having armed groups of far right , and in this particular case Nazis, in a post war Ukraine have frightening consequences imo. Now that is being ruthless.

.
Click to expand...
when i saw serhii plokhy last week he said that there are very few fascists in ukraine, that they hadn't managed to get into parliament there as they hadn't achieved the vote necessary (5% or 7%, i forget which)
 
The39thStep said:
Neither the Ukrainian Government or the SBU have ever had any intention of putting any of the far right against a wall. They are part of the political scenery and were if course a major block both politically and militarily to Zelensky attempting to make any progress on his manifesto promise about trying to resolve the issues in eastern Ukraine.

As for being expendable of course, they are but the far right are also trapped by their own reputation as being the bravest defenders of Ukraine and the most anti-Russian.In return the far right have also become heroes hence the bring Azov back home and Azov PoWs value on the PoW exchange market.

This event and the previous incursion are sadly just feelgood moments for Western supporters on social media and Ukrainians in the same way as Balkmut is a feelgood moment for many Russians. The political implications of having armed groups of far right , and in this particular case Nazis, in a post war Ukraine have frightening consequences imo. Now that is being ruthless.

.
Click to expand...

See, I pretty much agree with you - I'm not so convinced about the lack of long term impact of these 'russian partisan' attacks - but yea, I think there are very serious risks with effectively embedding the most extreme far right within (to whatever degree) the Ukrainian body politic and what will become the post-war 'salvation myth'.

Unsavoury, but useful: this is ruthlessness - until it blows up in their faces and is just unwise, but then that's life.
 
I thought yesterday that this action in Belgorod whilst a little amusing, was perhaps not exactly helpful, as it plays into Russia's hands over claims that Ukraine is a terrorist state, as in harboring nazi terrorists, and could bolster support for the war from the Russian people.

17m ago (08:47 GMT) LINK

Russia opens ‘terrorism’ investigation into Belgorod attack​

Russian investigators say they have opened a ‘terrorism’ investigation after what they said was a cross-border attack on Russia’s Belgorod region mounted by what they called Ukrainian armed groups.
On Monday, fighting broke out in the region, which borders Ukraine.
While Kyiv has denied involvement in the attack, Ukrainian intelligence representative Andrii Cherniak said Russian citizens belonging to the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion, were behind the ongoing assaults.
Click to expand...

So, very mixed views on it, it does give Russia another headache, but I am not convinced it's a good idea, both in terms of rallying support in Russia and also possibly making other countries more nervous about sending weapons that are likely being used by these groups.
 
Pickman's model said:
when i saw serhii plokhy last week he said that there are very few fascists in ukraine, that they hadn't managed to get into parliament there as they hadn't achieved the vote necessary (5% or 7%, i forget which)
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True but electoral success isn't the only measure of size, support or influence. They operate within a political culture in which for many Bandera isn't a fringe hero , he is a national hero . That nationalist culture has allowed Councils to name streets after those that collaborated with Nazis. The anti Russification /anti communist drive essentially labels anything left or anti fascist as pro Russian. Ironically without the far right self-defence groups Maidan would have seen more state violence against the demonstrators.

Its complicated and not helped by the attitude of some that in refuting Putins denazification nonsense they effectively whitewashed Ukraines far right and perpetuated Azov propaganda.
 
The39thStep said:
True but electoral success isn't the only measure of size, support or influence. They operate within a political culture in which for many Bandera isn't a fringe hero , he is a national hero . That nationalist culture has allowed Councils to name streets after those that collaborated with Nazis. The anti Russification /anti communist drive essentially labels anything left or anti fascist as pro Russian. Ironically without the far right self-defence groups Maidan would have seen more state violence against the demonstrators.

Its complicated and not helped by the attitude of some that in refuting Putins denazification nonsense they effectively whitewashed Ukraines far right and perpetuated Azov propaganda.
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of course it's not the only measure. for example, the bnp / nf in the 80s and 90s never got anywhere electorally but many of us were out with afa at waterloo or whatnot
 
Artaxerxes said:
Handy primer

Click to expand...


Handy in that trying to construct a clumsy good Russians/bad Russians explanation it omits to say that, other than Ponomarev , the main face of the Free Russia Legion (dedicated more to individual rights and freedoms in Russia) is a chap called Caesar who is an ex member of the Russian Imperial Movement. The RIM was designated by the US State Department as "a Specially Designated Global Terrorists, the first time in history the Department has designated a white supremacist terrorist group."

As for Ponomarev, he is a busy man having, in his own words, a similar role to the National Republican Army as Gerry Adams had to the IRA as well as being the leader of the Free Russian Legion.
 
cupid_stunt said:
I thought yesterday that this action in Belgorod whilst a little amusing, was perhaps not exactly helpful, as it plays into Russia's hands over claims that Ukraine is a terrorist state, as in harboring nazi terrorists, and could bolster support for the war from the Russian people.

17m ago (08:47 GMT) LINK


So, very mixed views on it, it does give Russia another headache, but I am not convinced it's a good idea, both in terms of rallying support in Russia and also possibly making other countries more nervous about sending weapons that are likely being used by these groups.
Click to expand...
It is a good idea militarily in that it makes Russia redeploy troops to it's borders and also psychologically for Ukrainians who can see they are striking back.
The war is already well supported in Russia and there is such a grip on the media it's going to stay that way.
 
cupid_stunt said:
I thought yesterday that this action in Belgorod whilst a little amusing, was perhaps not exactly helpful, as it plays into Russia's hands over claims that Ukraine is a terrorist state, as in harboring nazi terrorists, and could bolster support for the war from the Russian people.


So, very mixed views on it, it does give Russia another headache, but I am not convinced it's a good idea, both in terms of rallying support in Russia and also possibly making other countries more nervous about sending weapons that are likely being used by these groups.
Click to expand...
It has been widely predicted that Ukraine would undertake several ‘feints’ before a larger counter-offensive to draw Russian troops towards or away from particular areas.

By attacking Russia itself, this absolutely requires a response from them, they can’t let this pass and suffer the humiliation, whereas a ‘feint’ within Ukrainian territory could be reacted to weakly without any significant political damage. So it will definitely draw in resources and cause disruption.

On these grounds it seems quite smart, but it is also ‘poking the bear’ and may increase Russian support for the war, allow them to play the ‘they attacked us’ card.
 
sleaterkinney said:
It is a good idea militarily in that it makes Russia redeploy troops to it's borders and also psychologically for Ukrainians who can see they are striking back.
The war is already well supported in Russia and there is such a grip on the media it's going to stay that way.
Click to expand...
it is of course more complicated than that, being as the russians are perhaps held to a rather higher standard than people here. it's hard to remember now, perhaps, that despite the vast anti-war demonstrations in 2003 the majority of this country supported the war in iraq at the time (Memories of Iraq: did we ever support the war? | YouGov), although as noted in the link this declined after the butler report in 2004. here, support for the war was separated from support for the troops - and it's i think fair to say that there will be a similar divide, that the soldiers at the front in ukraine will enjoy more support from the russian population than the actual war itself does. this atlantic council article How strong is Russian public support for the invasion of Ukraine? suggests that support for the war may be more a general patriotism than support for the aims and methods of the russian army. but there are various aspects which make pinning down the level of support for the 'special military operation' tricky to pin down - the risk of being denounced for opposition to it, for example, with nearly 150,000 denunciations for anti-war opinions having been made. the way in which prominent anti-war voices have been shut down and silenced. the people who live nearest the war seem to be the most against it, perhaps being the people who know most about what's going on due to their proximity to the fighting.

the control of the media's in my view a red herring, as it relies on the russians being viewed as credulous. i'd expect that there's a memory of how things were under the soviet union, that the government version of events is not to be completely relied upon: especially considering the length of time the smo has been going on. the level of support the war receives (between 50 and 70% in apparently the most accurate and reliable polls) doesn't seem to me to be too far off what was recorded in britain and america early on in the iraqi debacle: if people can be trusted to voice their honest opinions. for me the most telling sentence in the atlantic council link is the final one - "Nevertheless, the currently available evidence indicates overwhelming acceptance of the invasion, at the very least." which doesn't to me speak to me of great confidence in any of the claimed measures of support. i wonder what domestic intelligence gathering reveals to the russian government, whether there's anything similar to the mass observation of the 1930s and 1940s here.
 
sleaterkinney said:
But why would Russian Nazis fight on the side of the Ukrainians? :confused:
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Have you seen the Red-Brown coalition?

Wierdos who believe mad shit can persuade themselves of any old mad shit - tbh Nazi's fighting for a country with a Jewish president is fairly tame in the 'are these people on Crack?' spectrum...

Some loony US MMA fighter - a Christian Anarcho-Communist apparently, has surrendered his US citizenship, moved to Russia and been accepted as a candidate for Putin's United Russia party because (and I liked this part) he disagrees with US foreign policy of meddling in other countries affairs.

Tilt your head to one side, ask 'the fuck?', shrug your shoulders and get on with life...
 
kebabking said:
Have you seen the Red-Brown coalition?

Wierdos who believe mad shit can persuade themselves of any old mad shit - tbh Nazi's fighting for a country with a Jewish president is fairly tame in the 'are these people on Crack?' spectrum...

Some loony US MMA fighter - a Christian Anarcho-Communist apparently, has surrendered his US citizenship, moved to Russia and been accepted as a candidate for Putin's United Russia party because (and I liked this part) he disagrees with US foreign policy of meddling in other countries affairs.

Tilt your head to one side, ask 'the fuck?', shrug your shoulders and get on with life...
Click to expand...
Yeah just shrug and ignore the Nazis fighting for your side.
 
TopCat said:
Yeah just shrug and ignore the Nazis fighting for your side.
Click to expand...

Can we call both sides employing Nazis absolutely totally shit but lean towards only one side is full on actively invading another one unprovoked after years of fucking about and bombing kids and deploying nerve agents and plutonium abroad?

Ukrainian Nazis are awful human beings, but all Nazis are. So far the war crimes ratio is skewing towards Russia being worse.
 
Artaxerxes said:
Can we call both sides employing Nazis absolutely totally shit but lean towards only one side is full on actively invading another one unprovoked after years of fucking about and bombing kids and deploying nerve agents and plutonium abroad?

Ukrainian Nazis are awful human beings, but all Nazis are. So far the war crimes ratio is skewing towards Russia being worse.
Click to expand...
The only open nazis are fighting for ukraine.
 
TopCat said:
The only open nazis are fighting for ukraine.
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LOL. Meanwhile:

Putin's narrative about 'Ukrainian Nazis'​

So the fact is that many of the claims about alleged "Ukrainian Nazis" are invented, or misleading. But the narrative persists because Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian propagandists are constantly spreading false information.

Even in his speech (here subjected to a DW fact check) shortly before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February, Putin spoke of Russia having to "denazify" Ukraine. So-called denazification is a historical term that has to do with the policy of the victorious Allied powers toward Nazi Germany after World War II. They wanted to rid the country of Nazi influences and remove those associated with the ideology from office.

But the comparison with Ukraine does not hold up, Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies told DW back in February. "The president of Ukraine is a Russian-speaking Jew, who won the last presidential election against a non-Jewish Ukrainian candidate by a huge margin," he said, adding that the talk of Nazism in Ukraine was completely unfounded.

Umland said that although there were right-wing extremists groups in Ukraine, they were relatively weak in comparison with many European countries. "We had a unity front of all the right-wing radical parties at the last [EU] parliamentary elections in 2019, and that unity front received 2.15%," he said.
Click to expand...

www.dw.com

Is there any truth to Russia's 'Ukrainian Nazis' propaganda? – DW – 12/03/2022

Russian propagandists are constantly saying Ukraine is full of Nazis, and posting alleged evidence online. DW's fact-checking team has investigated some of this supposed evidence.
www.dw.com www.dw.com
 
TopCat said:
The only open nazis are fighting for ukraine.
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Lol, have you been paying any attention at all to who is fighting for Russia?

Here's one example:

Alexey Milchakov, a renowned Russian Nazi co-founder and commander of the Rusich branch of Wagner, wounded while fighting in Ukraine last summer.

8591DFA6-F619-4645-8C30-C658FB797D2A.jpeg

In a 2020 video, Milchakov described himself as a "Nazi", stating: "I'm not going to go deep and say, I'm a nationalist, a patriot, an imperialist, and so forth. I'll say it outright: I'm a Nazi."
en.m.wikipedia.org

Alexey Milchakov - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

Perhaps he was misquoted though :D

Article from 2015 from the KHPG: St. Petersburg Neo-Nazi Sadist in Donbas – ‘Russia’s Pride and Glory’
 
Artaxerxes said:
Can we call both sides employing Nazis absolutely totally shit but lean towards only one side is full on actively invading another one unprovoked after years of fucking about and bombing kids and deploying nerve agents and plutonium abroad?

Ukrainian Nazis are awful human beings, but all Nazis are. So far the war crimes ratio is skewing towards Russia being worse.
Click to expand...
The russians haven't deployed plutonium abroad. And the thing about war crimes is it doesn't matter if one side is worse, both sides should be investigated if there are matters referred as such.
 
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strung out said:
Lol, have you been paying any attention at all to who is fighting for Russia?

Here's one example:

Alexey Milchakov, a renowned Russian Nazi co-founder and commander of the Rusich branch of Wagner, wounded while fighting in Ukraine last summer.

View attachment 375887

In a 2020 video, Milchakov described himself as a "Nazi", stating: "I'm not going to go deep and say, I'm a nationalist, a patriot, an imperialist, and so forth. I'll say it outright: I'm a Nazi."
en.m.wikipedia.org

Alexey Milchakov - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

Perhaps he was misquoted though :D

Article from 2015 from the KHPG: St. Petersburg Neo-Nazi Sadist in Donbas – ‘Russia’s Pride and Glory’
Click to expand...
Nitpicking.
 
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