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On February 25 2022 04:48 Artisreal wrote:
Russia claiming de-nazification as a reason for the invasion is super weird because they support so many right wing nuts in Europe and the USA.
Not saying this excuses Russia's moves in any way, but Ukraine definitely has a questionable relationship with their local nazis. They've been whitewashing utterly despicable nazi collaborators with the excuse of 'they were freedom fighters who resisted the soviet occupants' for many years, Azov Battalion that literally adopted an SS division insignia is a part of their national guard, etc.
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Hmm I still think they'd slap some sanctions on Russia back then. It was supposed to be a temporary measure to make the pipeline project look as unprofitable as possible. Considering the European stance it wouldn't make sense to keep the sanctions after the construction was finished.
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On February 25 2022 04:58 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2022 04:48 Artisreal wrote:
Russia claiming de-nazification as a reason for the invasion is super weird because they support so many right wing nuts in Europe and the USA. Not saying this excuses Russia's moves in any way, but Ukraine definitely has a questionable relationship with their local nazis. They've been whitewashing utterly despicable nazi collaborators with the excuse of 'they were freedom fighters who resisted the soviet occupants' for many years, Azov Battalion that literally adopted an SS division insignia is a part of their national guard, etc.
I mean, I get that, I guess. Hence weird and not stronger worded.
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On February 25 2022 04:48 Artisreal wrote:
Russia claiming de-nazification as a reason for the invasion is super weird because they support so many right wing nuts in Europe and the USA.
Well it’s a complete joke of an excuse really.
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There was a point into the Nord Stream 2 sanctions when it became clear that sanctions weren't actually going to be able to stop the pipeline, and the sanctioning of European companies involved in its construction created a lot of bad blood with Europe. The folks in places like Texas that wanted to sell more LNG didn't really care, but Biden probably figured it was worth cutting losses on trying to stop a pipeline that was pretty much over the finish line and couldn't be delayed forever.
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On February 25 2022 05:03 Artisreal wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2022 04:58 Salazarz wrote:On February 25 2022 04:48 Artisreal wrote:
Russia claiming de-nazification as a reason for the invasion is super weird because they support so many right wing nuts in Europe and the USA. Not saying this excuses Russia's moves in any way, but Ukraine definitely has a questionable relationship with their local nazis. They've been whitewashing utterly despicable nazi collaborators with the excuse of 'they were freedom fighters who resisted the soviet occupants' for many years, Azov Battalion that literally adopted an SS division insignia is a part of their national guard, etc. I mean, I get that, I guess. Hence weird and not stronger worded.
That sort of shit makes it a lot easier for Putin to sell whatever insanity he's peddling to his own people, though. Present a bunch of photos of Ukrainian servicemen with SS on their helmets, some pictures of old communist statues defaced with swastikas, something something about Great Patriotic War, and suddenly you've got a seemingly valid excuse to go full Hitler on your neighbor without ever really making anything up. Like, Western media can't even plausibly deny those sorts of things because they are real.
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Isn't the president of Ukraine Jewish? And the PM too if I'm not mistaken. Not saying the Azov Battalion isn't a group of neonazis, but they don't seem like the primary threat to peace and prosperity of Ukrainians right now.
Also if any Russian is worried about fascists in Ukraine then they should hear about this guy Vladimir Putin...
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Northern Ireland27368 Posts
On February 25 2022 04:22 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2022 04:03 Silvanel wrote:
This is something Poland and me specifically warned against multiple times on this very forum. German (European) dependence on Russian oil/gas makes it difficult to pursue independent foreign policy. Trump told Germany, a few years back, that making Putin rich by buying his gas/oil was a danger to European security; the media painted it as abandoning NATO. Here is the clip: https://twitter.com/cernovich/status/1496917092351692810?s=21
I mean we're reposting Cernovich takes in here now? Or Trump ones for that matter.
Yes though, that specific point is correct, but coming as it did amongst a whole backdrop of general skepticism about multilateralism in both rhetoric and action from Trump throughout his candidacy and tenure.
It's not like the media took that particular quote, which indeed does have some validity in it and jumped straight to 'Trump is abandoning NATO' without that other surrounding context.
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On February 25 2022 04:31 ggrrg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2022 03:58 Lmui wrote:Germany hitched their carriage to Russia's horse when they decided to shut down nuclear power by the end of the year, and increase reliance on Russia gas. Supporting Ukraine tanks their own access to gas. The energy dependence on Russia is just too high for them to be able to support Ukraine materially. Even if they delayed the shutdown of Nuclear reactors for a few years, and increased renewables deployment, they'd be reliant on gas for almost 1/4 of their energy needs. Even if they continue to ramp renewables, they can't drop the fossil fuels for another decade (+100tw of renewable capacity in the last 10 years, and it looks like a steady increase). + Show Spoiler +Oil consumption accounted for 34.3% of all energy use in 2018, and 23.7% of Germany's energy consumption came from gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany Show nested quote +On February 25 2022 04:03 Silvanel wrote:
This is something Poland and me specifically warned against multiple times on this very forum. German (European) dependence on Russian oil/gas makes it difficult to pursue independent foreign policy. When I read such comments about nuclear power, I start wondering what you believe nuclear plants run on... good intentions and happy thoughts? Fact of the matter is, the EU basically doesn't mine any Uranium. All of it has to be imported. Now, guess where it is imported from... ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/LgugtQt.png) 20% come Russia, another 20+% come from countries in Russia's sphere of influence. ~0% come from within the EU. Nuclear power does not mean energy independence for Europe by any stretch of the imagination.
I recognize that it's not a good situation for energy independence, but it's a more diversified supply, and easier to stockpile or change suppliers than gas is. It's the work of decades to move away from fossil fuels and starting new fossil fuel partnerships is foolhardy (My uneducated opinion). This article covers the gas side of things in any case:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/how-much-does-germany-need-russian-gas-2022-01-20/
Shit situation which has frozen the largest European power's response to an invasion.
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On February 25 2022 05:08 Oukka wrote:
Isn't the president of Ukraine Jewish? And the PM too if I'm not mistaken. Not saying the Azov Battalion isn't a group of neonazis, but they don't seem like the primary threat to peace and prosperity of Ukrainians right now.
That Ukraine has fascist elements in it is not the same as saying that everyone in government is themselves a fascist. It's probably not the case that they even represent a majority, but if you look closely enough at the country it'll be clear that those elements are more than just a fringe. That a militia like Azov Batallion gets to play a pretty central role in the Ukrainian military force (and while it's the most commonly cited, it's far from the only neo-Nazi militia of relevance) should be a good sign that it's not just a position at the far fringes of society.
These groups played an important, if even now poorly understood, role in the 2013-2014 change of power, and there have been at least a couple of times in which they clashed with government forces in a series of not-so-feasible takeover attempts. They're not as irrelevant as they might be in your average first-world country.
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On February 25 2022 05:31 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2022 05:08 Oukka wrote:
Isn't the president of Ukraine Jewish? And the PM too if I'm not mistaken. Not saying the Azov Battalion isn't a group of neonazis, but they don't seem like the primary threat to peace and prosperity of Ukrainians right now. That Ukraine has fascist elements in it is not the same as saying that everyone in government is themselves a fascist. It's probably not the case that they even represent a majority, but if you look closely enough at the country it'll be clear that those elements are more than just a fringe. That a militia like Azov Batallion gets to play a pretty central role in the Ukrainian military force (and while it's the most commonly cited, it's far from the only neo-Nazi militia of relevance) should be a good sign that it's not just a position at the far fringes of society. These groups played an important, if even now poorly understood, role in the 2013-2014 change of power, and there have been at least a couple of times in which they clashed with government forces in a series of not-so-feasible takeover attempts. They're not as irrelevant as they might be in your average first-world country.
Fair enough, this is a dynamic I've never really understood. I just find the de-nazification talk so out of place when it comes from Putin who is making moves straight out of the Hitler playbook.
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Hopefully Dav1oN and his family are already out of the country. No idea when this takes affect.
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On February 25 2022 05:55 Oukka wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2022 05:31 LegalLord wrote:On February 25 2022 05:08 Oukka wrote:
Isn't the president of Ukraine Jewish? And the PM too if I'm not mistaken. Not saying the Azov Battalion isn't a group of neonazis, but they don't seem like the primary threat to peace and prosperity of Ukrainians right now. That Ukraine has fascist elements in it is not the same as saying that everyone in government is themselves a fascist. It's probably not the case that they even represent a majority, but if you look closely enough at the country it'll be clear that those elements are more than just a fringe. That a militia like Azov Batallion gets to play a pretty central role in the Ukrainian military force (and while it's the most commonly cited, it's far from the only neo-Nazi militia of relevance) should be a good sign that it's not just a position at the far fringes of society. These groups played an important, if even now poorly understood, role in the 2013-2014 change of power, and there have been at least a couple of times in which they clashed with government forces in a series of not-so-feasible takeover attempts. They're not as irrelevant as they might be in your average first-world country. Fair enough, this is a dynamic I've never really understood. I just find the de-nazification talk so out of place when it comes from Putin who is making moves straight out of the Hitler playbook.
For all the concerns about fascism in Ukraine, the response involving a large-scale military operation is definitely out of proportion to an extent well outside of the realm of reason, that much is clearly true. But it definitely should be noted that the fascism problem is real, and it is very often not mentioned or tactically ignored when discussing what Ukraine is actually like. Most people who look closely enough at how that plays out in Ukraine in particular would find it to be deeply unsettling, so the concern is not entirely baseless.
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You are spreading Russian lies. Ukraine is not a fascist country.
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On February 25 2022 05:31 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2022 05:08 Oukka wrote:
Isn't the president of Ukraine Jewish? And the PM too if I'm not mistaken. Not saying the Azov Battalion isn't a group of neonazis, but they don't seem like the primary threat to peace and prosperity of Ukrainians right now. That Ukraine has fascist elements in it is not the same as saying that everyone in government is themselves a fascist. It's probably not the case that they even represent a majority, but if you look closely enough at the country it'll be clear that those elements are more than just a fringe. That a militia like Azov Batallion gets to play a pretty central role in the Ukrainian military force (and while it's the most commonly cited, it's far from the only neo-Nazi militia of relevance) should be a good sign that it's not just a position at the far fringes of society. These groups played an important, if even now poorly understood, role in the 2013-2014 change of power, and there have been at least a couple of times in which they clashed with government forces in a series of not-so-feasible takeover attempts. They're not as irrelevant as they might be in your average first-world country.
central role might be stretching it a bit far, even for your standards
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It was already announced earlier, the only option is to stay and defend the city if required. The main goal is to make sure my family is safe, not afraid for myself at this point.
The good news is that our army does well up to this point, it's hard to imagine what could happen if we didn't get the drones from Turkey and military aid from US/UK/EU, and it'll be great to even more similar gears for defending purposes. At least this is fair since our country has to fight autocracy to defend democracy.
On another topic, here is my 50 cents about nazis in Ukraine. First of all - before events of 2014 we barely had any nazis (mostly in the forms of skinhead gangs etc, just like in most of the countries), but after those events the rise of nationalism was something easy to predict, people were afraid and as we can see there is a particular reason why. And all those groups were considered by the public as a marginal and they will never get a wide support, ever. We are living in a multicultural country, we have no such thing as nazis in a wide sense. As a russian speaking (fluent in both ukrainian & russian) citizen of Kharkiv - I can tell for sure, everything that putin told during his speech is a blatant lie and hypocrisy. Russian speaking citizens of Kharkiv (age varies from 20 to 40 y/o) whom I know will resist from russian peace.
There is simply no reasons for war, it's all because of a single madman
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@Dav1oN I hope you can stay safe and send you my best wishes.
I do not want to downplay the bravery and effectiveness of your army but the air superiority of Russia is overwhelming. Be careful and keep it in mind.
Putin is not mad. He is a supremacist that does not care about someone else's life or wellness. He is simply evil.
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Northern Ireland27368 Posts
On February 25 2022 06:45 Dav1oN wrote:It was already announced earlier, the only option is to stay and defend the city if required. The main goal is to make sure my family is safe, not afraid for myself at this point. The good news is that our army does well up to this point, it's hard to imagine what could happen if we didn't get the drones from Turkey and military aid from US/UK/EU, and it'll be great to even more similar gears for defending purposes. At least this is fair since our country has to fight autocracy to defend democracy. On another topic, here is my 50 cents about nazis in Ukraine. First of all - before events of 2014 we barely had any nazis (mostly in the forms of skinhead gangs etc, just like in most of the countries), but after those events the rise of nationalism was something easy to predict, people were afraid and as we can see there is a particular reason why. And all those groups were considered by the public as a marginal and they will never get a wide support, ever. We are living in a multicultural country, we have no such thing as nazis in a wide sense. As a russian speaking (fluent in both ukrainian & russian) citizen of Kharkiv - I can tell for sure, everything that putin told during his speech is a blatant lie and hypocrisy. Russian speaking citizens of Kharkiv (demography 20-40) whom I know will resist from russian peace. There is simply no reasons for war, it's all because of a single madman
There are pretty sizeable fascist/fascist-adjacent folks in the States, Eastern Europe, Western Europe.
You’ll get all sorts, of course ideally you wouldn’t have fashys floating around in any kind of number, and I’m unsure what the threshold is in terms of population percentage to move from ‘problem we’d rather not have’ to ‘problem we need to seriously do something about’.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Germany_electricity_production.svg/1920px-Germany_electricity_production.svg.png)
