Source: The American Conservative.
Finally, a mainstream source takes the trouble to present evidence of Ukrainian war crimes.
The Mariupol Theater Bombing
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I have to say I tried to follow some of the links.
Jack Posobiec, an incredible right wing liar, was a source.
Russian Pravda another source.
Have at it, but the credibility gap seems quite enormous.
False flags are the modus operandi discussed. They are a lose-lose. The side that commits them loses and the side that declares them loses.
So much carnage, so few witnesses…except for Pravda and it’s ardent subscribers, both financially and emotionally.
PS: Aleksander Dugin is worth checking out. We know him by his work.
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RE: “Russian Pravda another source.”
It does no good to attack information presented to you based on your opinion of the credibility of the source. Your only rational recourse is to demonstrate that the information itself is wrong.
In this case, there are about two dozen sources linked in the article. You are free to research them all and report back to us any specific falsehoods you find. But rejecting the information out of hand without doing the work to substantiate your rejection of it is just lazy.
BTW, are you aware that Pravda has been published by a Greek company since its sale in 1991?
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OK.
BTW just because the publisher is Greek doesn’t change anything. We have Putin supporters right here in the ole US of A.
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Mainstream source?
You really believe that characterization?
Speculation is not “reporting.” It is speculation.
Azov was organized in response to the actions of separatist militias manned and supported by Russia. They have been active in the ongoing war against Russia since 2014. They are experienced and effective. As such, they have been the focus ongoing Russian disinformation. There undoubtedly are some unsavory people in it. There are unsavory people everywhere. And war brings out the worst. But as bad as some of them might be, they are fighting for their homes and country against foreign invaders.
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The American Conservative is as mainstream as National Review.
I don’t buy the argument that the Asov Battalion is good because it is patriotic. If eyewitnesses to their behavior are accusing them of war crimes, the allegation deserves as much scrutiny as allegations of Russian war crimes.
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So, you obviously think that the National Review is mainstream.
I could go two ways with that one.
Either way, TheAmericanConservative.com remains a joke. IMHO.
I did not argue that Azov is “good.” I noted that it is subject to a barrage of disinformation and that, at least it is fighting IN its own country FOR its own country.
Allegations of war crimes by any individual or group require scrutiny. No disagreement there. However, war crimes committed by a nation which is a signatory to the United Nations Charter, has a respected place there, and which is a party to the Geneva Conventions is an order of magnitude worse than the crimes of criminal militiamen.
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RE: “I noted that [Asov] is subject to a barrage of disinformation and that, at least it is fighting IN its own country FOR its own country.”
Disinformation is exactly why I shared the TAC article. The Asov Battalion doesn’t deserve unquestioning support from the U.S. or NATO.
RE: “However, war crimes committed by a nation which is a signatory to the United Nations Charter, has a respected place there, and which is a party to the Geneva Conventions is an order of magnitude worse than the crimes of criminal militiamen.”
There are two things you should know:
Ukraine was one of the original members of the UN and is a party to the Geneva Conventions.
The Asov Battalion is part of Ukraine’s regular army. Any war crimes Asov commits are war crimes of Ukraine.
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Thanks for sharing.
I did know that Ukraine is a member of the United Nations. But thanks anyway.
The Asov militia is NOW (since the invasion) under the control of the Ukraine National Guard – part of the gendarmerie – not the Army. But I agree, with that being the case, the Ukraine government takes responsibility for their conduct.
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This kind of blows up most of your defense of the Putin unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/599419-us-determines-russia-has-committed-war-crimes-in-ukraine
These are serious charges. And as noted by SECSTATE Blinken, it is up to a court of law to determine the validity of the charges. But you don’t file charges like this unless you have the information to back it up.
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It may be a shot across the bow for Russian officers ordered to directly attack civilians.
“We were only following orders” is not a defense.
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The efforts by some to root out possible Nazis sprinkled throughout Ukraine is obviously a Putin tactic. After all, his justification was framed by “de-Nazification so there must be some Nazis. Somewhere. Somehow.
That would be like attacking the US because of the Proud Boys and their brethren gangs like Oathkeepers, 3%’ers.
Yes, we have violent jerks. No, they are not what we are. But we do see them enough to have lots of videos that can be used to make it seem they are pervasive. We even have Congressmen who go to the rallies and conferences of their supporters. They are also jerks, but somehow we elected them, so they are what they are.
The fact that they can still protest and operate is a testament to our freedoms and rights, but no endorsement of their ideology. Similarly, Zelensky and his administration are probably tolerating their Nazis as they would other a**holes so long as they can hold a gun and shoot at invading Russians.
So I guess the harping about a few Ukrainian Nazis will make Putin look better through the echo chamber as his feckless army gets decimated while they try to wipe out civilians to force a “humanitarian” surrender.
I think that since the Ukrainians are fighting for their very lives as well as freedom from a dictator’s boot on the neck, we might see a vigorous prosecution of defense, even brutal at times. This is not, as I have mentioned before, a protest against masks or CRT that inspired attempts at kidnapping and killing a sitting governor or trying to “arrest” congressmen and a VP over phony ballot issues.
(And proof that our gangs have way too much time on their hands.)
So I will continue to disagree with and call out Russian propaganda when I see it.
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RE: “So I will continue to disagree with and call out Russian propaganda when I see it.”
If Putin said the sky is blue, would you be guilty of Russian propaganda for saying the same thing?
I remember when it was impossible to discuss the Charlottesville protests in any rational way because the mere mention of neo-Nazis drove liberals into paroxysms of derangement. Now, liberals refuse to believe that neo-Nazis even exist in Ukraine. And this despite the undeniable historical record that shows a clear line of descent from WWII to the present.
Such regrettable blindness is exactly why I post evidence of war crimes and immorality on the part of Ukrainian forces. I’m ashamed of my government for supporting the criminal element in Ukraine, and I think others would be, too, if they knew about it.
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I think I agreed that there were some Nazis among a small, tiny really, element of the Ukrainian defense forces.
Do you think that Putin should be exonerated because there are maybe some Nazi wannabes in Ukraine? And for that reason he has every right to murder civilians?
You have lots of them voting Republican. Should we ban the GOP because of those folks?
That is regrettable blindness and you should be ashamed of them and anyone who supports them. “Stand by…” DJT, 2020.
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RE: “Do you think that Putin should be exonerated because there are maybe some Nazi wannabes in Ukraine?”
Taking your premises at face value, no I do not agree that Putin should be exonerated.
On the other hand, I do not agree with your premises. I do not agree, for example, that the neo-Nazis problem in Ukraine can be dismissed as just “some Nazis wannabes.”
RE: “You have lots of them voting Republican. Should we ban the GOP because of those folks?”
I think a statement like that is boneheaded. Real neo-Nazis in the U.S. are an almost infinitesimal fringe element, except in the imagination of U.S. liberals.
I really wish you would try to think more clearly: Is being adamantly anti-Putin really worth being pro-Ukrainian neo-Nazi?
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“ Is being adamantly anti-Putin really worth being pro-Ukrainian neo-Nazi?”
That is not an either/or situation.
I can support Ukraine defense forces whether or not 900 out of 250,000 are saints, Nazis, thieves, bigots or ne’er-do-wells. If your home is on fire, do you question the personal proclivities of the firemen? Particularly if about 1/3rd of 1 percent of all firefighters might be unsavory and they might not even be part of the responding crews.
The Putin response would be to kill all the fireman to get the few bad apples and then tell the gullible that they were all Nazis.
That is what is happening here, IMO.
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The Ukrainian forces were guilty of war crimes the moment they started sheltering combatants among the civilians.
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“The Ukrainian forces were guilty of war crimes the moment they started sheltering combatants among the civilians.”
And you know they did this how? Is that the excuse Putin is selling for his criminal conduct of the war?
There is very little reason to believe that the indiscriminate bombings, missiles, and artillery strikes pouring into Ukrainian cities are targeting military units. It is an obvious attempt to achieve through criminal terror tactics what they could not achieve in the field of battle.
I thought Trump allowed you people to show your true colors. I was wrong. It took Putin to show how very dark those true colors are.
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RE: “And you know they did this how?”
The TAC story at the top of this thread, for one. You might also view some of the videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos
I could cite other sources, but the puzzle for doubters is to prove they are false under fog-of-war conditions.
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Patrick Lancaster does not even pretend to be objective. He has a long record of support for the separatist militias trying to pull Ukraine apart. I watched a couple of his intensely anti-Ukraine pieces. Pure propaganda probably funded by Putin since his attempt to get money through GoFundMe fizzled.
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Epistemic closure.
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“…but the puzzle for doubters is to prove they are false under fog-of-war conditions.”
No, sorry, but the onus is on you to prove your assertions beyond TASS and other Russian sources.
Otherwise you and your sources are just parroting the Putin line of propaganda.
Again.
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RE: “No, sorry, but the onus is on you to prove your assertions beyond TASS and other Russian sources.”
I didn’t cite TASS or Russian sources in creating this thread. I cited The American Conservative, a mainstream U.S. publication founded by Pat Buchanan, a former speech writer for a U.S. president.
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Really. Cite?
The Ukraine army has driven Russian forces back in several instances. You keep thinking Red Dawn or Hamas.
The Ukraine army is meeting Russians head on, not from apartment complexes. They are not the beer bellied gangs we have fighting masking and CRT. They are committed citizens fighting for their lives and their country.
Russian military strategy as shown in the past is to shoot, destroy and pillage without regard for civilians except as targets.
That Red Pocket is brimming with Putin apologists and admirers.
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RE: “The Ukraine army is meeting Russians head on, not from apartment complexes.”
No, you are misinformed.
You should go back and read the post in this forum that featured Col. Macgregor:
Or, you can read this more recent military assessment:
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/larry-c-johnson-the-ukrainian-army-has-been-defeated-whats-left-is-mop-up/
If I were you, I wouldn’t believe the sources that inform your opinions of battleground realities in Ukraine.
Russia is executing classical military doctrine that U.S. media doesn’t understand. The Ukrainian army is doomed.
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When you find evidence supporting your Putin cheerleading on something other than such joke and/or Russian websites, let us know.
Actual news organizations such as Reuters, AP, WAPO, NYT, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and WSJ are all reporting the same thing – a disaster for the Russian military. At least 7,000 dead Russians – probably a lot more and more than we lost in twenty years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least 40,000 dead, MIA or wounded. STILL not a single major city controlled. Five dead general officers. Heads rolling back in Moscow along with an attempted lock-down of truthful information.
This is not “executing classical military doctrine.” This is a military disaster delivered to Russia by a skilled, disciplined, and motivated defense.
No matter the final outcome of the military action, Putin and Russia have already lost the war. Its principle war aim – the cheap assimilation of a whole country (“genius” per Trump) – has failed. It has strengthened, not weakened, NATO. It has caused Germany to re-militarize. It has caused more countries to seek closer relationships with NATO. It has wrecked its economy, its currency, and its reputation as a formidable power. A disaster far worse than Afghanistan and it was that disaster that ended the USSR.
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…”I wouldn’t believe the sources that inform your opinions of battleground realities in Ukraine.”
Based on what YOU have been posting and the links you have used, I would recommend you take a real long look in a mirror.
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When the journalists you employ start walking away, you might have a credibility issues.
Yes the article is paywalled and I wish it weren’t. But some of the relevant quotes are below.
“It was only this month, after President Vladimir V. Putin invaded Ukraine, that Mr. Likin resigned as the longtime art director for Channel 1, the Russian state television network that is a major player in the Kremlin’s sprawling propaganda apparatus. He insisted that he was “not a politician,” but that the invasion meant he was now part of an operation with a “life-exterminating” agenda.
“In Russia, television is made for people who for one reason or another are too lazy to use alternative sources of information,” Mr. Likin said in a phone interview, reflecting on his audience. “These are simply people who lack education, or who lack the habit of analysis.””
“Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has led some Russians who long worked for the government to cut ties with it, a sign of how the Kremlin is struggling to keep society fully unified behind the war. Thousands have been arrested protesting the invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands have fled the country, and on Wednesday, Mr. Putin’s climate envoy, Anatoly Chubais, became the first senior government official reported to have quit since the invasion began on Feb. 24.
“Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has led some Russians who long worked for the government to cut ties with it, a sign of how the Kremlin is struggling to keep society fully unified behind the war. Thousands have been arrested protesting the invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands have fled the country, and on Wednesday, Mr. Putin’s climate envoy, Anatoly Chubais, became the first senior government official reported to have quit since the invasion began on Feb. 24.
“Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has led some Russians who long worked for the government to cut ties with it, a sign of how the Kremlin is struggling to keep society fully unified behind the war. Thousands have been arrested protesting the invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands have fled the country, and on Wednesday, Mr. Putin’s climate envoy, Anatoly Chubais, became the first senior government official reported to have quit since the invasion began on Feb. 24.”
“All of Russia’s national television networks are controlled by the Kremlin, and while their influence has declined with the rise of YouTube and social media, they remain the public’s single main source of news. About two-thirds of Russians relied on state television last year to get their news, down from 90 percent in 2014, according to surveys by the Levada Center, an independent Moscow pollster.”
“Government-sponsored polls claim that most Russians support Mr. Putin’s invasion, though analysts caution that people are even less likely to answer surveys truthfully at a time of war. Years of propaganda on Russian television, Ms. Agalakova now recognizes, prepared the ground for war, in particular by subverting Russians’ remembrance of their country’s World War II sacrifice into support for the Kremlin’s current policies.
“Of course, when the concept of Nazism is thrown into society, as though it is literally in our backyard in Ukraine, everyone reacts instantly,” Ms. Agalakova said, referring to the Kremlin’s false claims that Russia is fighting Nazis in Ukraine. “This is a shameless game. This is a fraudulent game.””
Say what you want, but when the ones paid to spread false narratives start quitting, you have to wonder about whose truth IS truth.
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