NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On April 04 2022 06:24 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: I am honestly curious to see if said leaders respond. Especially Merkel whose legacy seems to be slowly sinking. Heck Politico, a couple of days ago, essentially called her a Russian asset.
Slowly but surely, it’s begun to dawn on Germans that Merkel’s soft-shoe approach to Russia — which reached its zenith with the 2015 decision to green light the Nord Stream 2 pipeline despite Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its role in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine — didn’t just open the door for Putin to go further, it effectively encouraged him to do so.
I don't think anybody saw this coming 7 years ago that Putin would go full lunatic. Heck most people didn't see this coming 8 weeks ago.
EDIT: If not for Merkel, Putin would have maybe gone allin back in 2015 already. Who knows
Economic integration is fine and good, getting yourself dependent on a murderous dictator for energy (if you have options) is really bad. If you do it because of irrational fear of nuclear power it's even worse.
I don't have sources for it now, but it seems like something that a lot of people complained about already back then. To me it always seemed - at least since the assassinations of journalists, political opponents etc started - insane to make yourself dependent on Putin's gas. From an environmental and geopolitical point of view a complete disaster. And not that hard to spot. Even this fucking guy got it right (jump to 6:40 to avoid the initial word salad):
Segment from 2:15 to 6:40 is equally important. Trump making the case that Germany buying oil from Russia while not even paying their NATO fees, to protect them from Russia, was unacceptable. The media run this as "Trump wants to weaken NATO".
There are no NATO fees which Germany is not paying.
Trump is also measuring the wrong thing when it comes to NATO contributions. Defence dollars include things like the US fleet defending Taiwan but you’d struggle to argue that was any benefit to the North Atlantic.
The media went with “Trump wants to weaken NATO” because he floated the idea of withdrawal and wouldn’t commit to US honouring NATO obligations.
There’s also historically been some reluctance to an extremely remilitarized Germany because it used to make people nervous. Everyone quite likes having the US “defend” Germany, not because Germany can’t defend itself but because Germany can defend itself.
On April 04 2022 06:24 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: I am honestly curious to see if said leaders respond. Especially Merkel whose legacy seems to be slowly sinking. Heck Politico, a couple of days ago, essentially called her a Russian asset.
Slowly but surely, it’s begun to dawn on Germans that Merkel’s soft-shoe approach to Russia — which reached its zenith with the 2015 decision to green light the Nord Stream 2 pipeline despite Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its role in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine — didn’t just open the door for Putin to go further, it effectively encouraged him to do so.
I don't think anybody saw this coming 7 years ago that Putin would go full lunatic. Heck most people didn't see this coming 8 weeks ago.
EDIT: If not for Merkel, Putin would have maybe gone allin back in 2015 already. Who knows
Economic integration is fine and good, getting yourself dependent on a murderous dictator for energy (if you have options) is really bad. If you do it because of irrational fear of nuclear power it's even worse.
I don't have sources for it now, but it seems like something that a lot of people complained about already back then. To me it always seemed - at least since the assassinations of journalists, political opponents etc started - insane to make yourself dependent on Putin's gas. From an environmental and geopolitical point of view a complete disaster. And not that hard to spot. Even this fucking guy got it right (jump to 6:40 to avoid the initial word salad):
Segment from 2:15 to 6:40 is equally important. Trump making the case that Germany buying oil from Russia while not even paying their NATO fees, to protect them from Russia, was unacceptable. The media run this as "Trump wants to weaken NATO".
There are no NATO fees which Germany is not paying.
Trump is also measuring the wrong thing when it comes to NATO contributions. Defence dollars include things like the US fleet defending Taiwan but you’d struggle to argue that was any benefit to the North Atlantic.
The media went with “Trump wants to weaken NATO” because he floated the idea of withdrawal and wouldn’t commit to US honouring NATO obligations.
There’s also historically been some reluctance to an extremely remilitarized Germany because it used to make people nervous. Everyone quite likes having the US “defend” Germany, not because Germany can’t defend itself but because Germany can defend itself.
I think right now, if Russia were to attack Germany, we actually couldn't do anything about it military-wise. Our military is even more outdated than the Russians because 1. everyone liked Germany not having a working military and 2. it just seemed unnessecary because everyone thought nobody is crazy enough to attack a middle European country ...
On April 04 2022 20:14 Slydie wrote: I really don't get it. The Russians had everything to lose by being unnecessarily brutal to the civilians, and yet they did it, smashing their own storyline of "denazification" to pieces and making sure Ukrainian and international opposition grow stronger. Even some Russians in Ukraine initially supporting the invasion might turn their backs on them now. And then an official claim the Ukrainians use "actors", like that shouldn't be disproven by both incoming investigations and hundreds of witnesses.
Russia is in full self-destruct mode now.
Most, if not all, of the russian propaganda is directed inward. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't, as long as the ordinary rus believes it. Russians are now claiming the massacres were perpetrated by the ukr forces, and nothing indicates that the r public opinion is moving towards supporting ukr.
On April 04 2022 20:42 Silvanel wrote: Baltics and Poland complained about this even before Crimea. I pointed this issue both in European and US threads several times over the years.
As have some prominent Russians such as Kasparov and Khodorkovsky. Kasparov specifically was called a war monger for that opinion. Not reducing our dependence on Russian energy after 2014 has been a massive foreign policy blunder by Europe. Relying for more than 50% of your gas needs on a country which has invaded their neighbouring countries, keeps destabilising them and keeps despots over the world in power is insane.
On April 04 2022 20:14 Slydie wrote: I really don't get it. The Russians had everything to lose by being unnecessarily brutal to the civilians, and yet they did it, smashing their own storyline of "denazification" to pieces and making sure Ukrainian and international opposition grow stronger. Even some Russians in Ukraine initially supporting the invasion might turn their backs on them now. And then an official claim the Ukrainians use "actors", like that shouldn't be disproven by both incoming investigations and hundreds of witnesses.
Russia is in full self-destruct mode now.
Most, if not all, of the russian propaganda is directed inward. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't, as long as the ordinary rus believes it. Russians are now claiming the massacres were perpetrated by the ukr forces, and nothing indicates that the r public opinion is moving towards supporting ukr.
The necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
-Liquidation of the armed Nazi formations (by which we mean any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces), as well as the military, informational, and educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
-formation of people's self-government bodies and militia (defense and law and order) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
-installation of the Russian information space;
-seizure of educational materials and prohibition of educational programs of all levels that contain Nazi ideological attitudes;
-mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, dissemination of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime;
-The listing and publication of the names of those who collaborated with the Nazi regime, and their compulsory work to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for their Nazi activities (among those to whom the death penalty or imprisonment will not be imposed);
-Adoption at the local level, under the curatorship of Russia, of the primary regulatory acts of denazification "from below," banning all types and forms of revival of Nazi ideology;
-Establishing memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, commemorating the heroes of the fight against it;
-Inclusion of a set of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new People's Republics;
-Creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years.
On April 04 2022 06:24 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: I am honestly curious to see if said leaders respond. Especially Merkel whose legacy seems to be slowly sinking. Heck Politico, a couple of days ago, essentially called her a Russian asset.
Slowly but surely, it’s begun to dawn on Germans that Merkel’s soft-shoe approach to Russia — which reached its zenith with the 2015 decision to green light the Nord Stream 2 pipeline despite Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its role in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine — didn’t just open the door for Putin to go further, it effectively encouraged him to do so.
I don't think anybody saw this coming 7 years ago that Putin would go full lunatic. Heck most people didn't see this coming 8 weeks ago.
EDIT: If not for Merkel, Putin would have maybe gone allin back in 2015 already. Who knows
Economic integration is fine and good, getting yourself dependent on a murderous dictator for energy (if you have options) is really bad. If you do it because of irrational fear of nuclear power it's even worse.
I don't have sources for it now, but it seems like something that a lot of people complained about already back then. To me it always seemed - at least since the assassinations of journalists, political opponents etc started - insane to make yourself dependent on Putin's gas. From an environmental and geopolitical point of view a complete disaster. And not that hard to spot. Even this fucking guy got it right (jump to 6:40 to avoid the initial word salad):
Segment from 2:15 to 6:40 is equally important. Trump making the case that Germany buying oil from Russia while not even paying their NATO fees, to protect them from Russia, was unacceptable. The media run this as "Trump wants to weaken NATO".
There are no NATO fees which Germany is not paying.
Trump is also measuring the wrong thing when it comes to NATO contributions. Defence dollars include things like the US fleet defending Taiwan but you’d struggle to argue that was any benefit to the North Atlantic.
The media went with “Trump wants to weaken NATO” because he floated the idea of withdrawal and wouldn’t commit to US honouring NATO obligations.
There’s also historically been some reluctance to an extremely remilitarized Germany because it used to make people nervous. Everyone quite likes having the US “defend” Germany, not because Germany can’t defend itself but because Germany can defend itself.
I think right now, if Russia were to attack Germany, we actually couldn't do anything about it military-wise. Our military is even more outdated than the Russians because 1. everyone liked Germany not having a working military and 2. it just seemed unnessecary because everyone thought nobody is crazy enough to attack a middle European country ...
But your defense theory is based on mutually assured destruction not on winning a conventional war. It's like going to a mountain river with a canoe and then deciding you couldn't use your current supplies to summit the mountain. Of course you can't and that is fine because that isn't your plan.
In regards to Germany and its' NATO commitments, this article was from two weeks ago.
But if the war in Ukraine was a wake-up call, it has also exposed how weak a link the Germans still are in the NATO structure. On the morning of the Russian invasion, Lt. Gen. Alfons Mais, chief of the German army, posted a brutally honest assessment of where German capabilities were.
“In my 41st year of service in peace, I would not have thought I would have had to experience another war,” General Mais wrote. “And the Bundeswehr, the army that I am allowed to lead, is more or less broke. The options we can offer policymakers to support the alliance are extremely limited.”
At the end of the Cold War, when West Germany was still a NATO frontline state on the border to the Soviet empire, it had more than 500,000 soldiers and spent 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product on defense. Today, the reunified Germany has 184,000 soldiers and spends just 1.5 percent of G.D.P. on defense.
“The German military was starved of money for years because we had a strategic partnership with Russia and we didn’t believe we had to defend our territory anymore,” said Ms. Major. “Our soldiers were deployed to help others, whether in Afghanistan or Mali. We were fighting wars of choice. But this is about us and if we are returning to a paradigm of wars of necessity, you need the whole military to be operational.”
There is a shortage of everything from protective vests to thermal underwear. Radio equipment is 30 years out of date. Only one in three warships is ready to deploy — so few that the navy worries it cannot meet all its international commitments.
Even in Rukla, the flagship German NATO mission which has relatively few complaints when it comes to resources, the general scarcity has been felt.
Some of the armored vehicles are five decades old. During international exercises in Lithuania, their equipment routinely made the German units “the weakest link in the chain,” soldiers reported to the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces on their return from tours in Rukla.
Some in Lithuania joke that they would like some “real soldiers” protecting them. In neighboring Poland, Latvia and Estonia, the NATO battlegroups are led by Americans, Canadians and Britons, respectively.
On April 04 2022 20:14 Slydie wrote: I really don't get it. The Russians had everything to lose by being unnecessarily brutal to the civilians, and yet they did it, smashing their own storyline of "denazification" to pieces and making sure Ukrainian and international opposition grow stronger. Even some Russians in Ukraine initially supporting the invasion might turn their backs on them now. And then an official claim the Ukrainians use "actors", like that shouldn't be disproven by both incoming investigations and hundreds of witnesses.
Russia is in full self-destruct mode now.
Most, if not all, of the russian propaganda is directed inward. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't, as long as the ordinary rus believes it. Russians are now claiming the massacres were perpetrated by the ukr forces, and nothing indicates that the r public opinion is moving towards supporting ukr.
The necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
-Liquidation of the armed Nazi formations (by which we mean any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces), as well as the military, informational, and educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
-formation of people's self-government bodies and militia (defense and law and order) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
-installation of the Russian information space;
-seizure of educational materials and prohibition of educational programs of all levels that contain Nazi ideological attitudes;
-mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, dissemination of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime;
-The listing and publication of the names of those who collaborated with the Nazi regime, and their compulsory work to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for their Nazi activities (among those to whom the death penalty or imprisonment will not be imposed);
-Adoption at the local level, under the curatorship of Russia, of the primary regulatory acts of denazification "from below," banning all types and forms of revival of Nazi ideology;
-Establishing memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, commemorating the heroes of the fight against it;
-Inclusion of a set of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new People's Republics;
-Creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years.
You missed the best part, this is the most brain-frying essay I've ever read. You see, Ukrainian Nazism is so perverse that.. it has none of its characteristics:
The peculiarity of modern nazified Ukraine is in amorphousness and ambivalence, which make it possible to disguise Nazism as a desire for “independence” and a “European” (Western, pro-American) path of “development” (in reality – to degradation), to assert that in Ukraine “there is no Nazism , only localized individual excesses”. After all, there is no main Nazi party, no Fuhrer, no full-fledged racial laws (only their truncated version in the form of repressions against the Russian language). As a result, there is no opposition and resistance to the regime.
However, all of the above does not make Ukrainian Nazism a “light version” of German Nazism during the first half of the 20th century. On the contrary, since Ukrainian Nazism is free from such “genre” (essentially political technology) frameworks and restrictions, it freely unfolds as the fundamental basis of any Nazism – as European and, in its most developed form, American racism. Therefore, denazification cannot be carried out in a compromise, on the basis of a formula such as “NATO – no, EU – yes.” The collective West itself is the designer, source and sponsor of Ukrainian Nazism, while the Western Bandera cadres and their “historical memory” are only one of the tools for the Naziification of Ukraine. Ukronazism carries not less, but a greater threat to the world and Russia than German Nazism of the Hitlerite version.
Indeed, good observation. From this (and the deleted article prematurely celebrating Russian victory) it is clear that the ultimate goal is genocide of the Ukrainian people.
On April 04 2022 20:14 Slydie wrote: I really don't get it. The Russians had everything to lose by being unnecessarily brutal to the civilians, and yet they did it, smashing their own storyline of "denazification" to pieces and making sure Ukrainian and international opposition grow stronger. Even some Russians in Ukraine initially supporting the invasion might turn their backs on them now. And then an official claim the Ukrainians use "actors", like that shouldn't be disproven by both incoming investigations and hundreds of witnesses.
Russia is in full self-destruct mode now.
Most, if not all, of the russian propaganda is directed inward. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't, as long as the ordinary rus believes it. Russians are now claiming the massacres were perpetrated by the ukr forces, and nothing indicates that the r public opinion is moving towards supporting ukr.
The necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
-Liquidation of the armed Nazi formations (by which we mean any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces), as well as the military, informational, and educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
-formation of people's self-government bodies and militia (defense and law and order) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
-installation of the Russian information space;
-seizure of educational materials and prohibition of educational programs of all levels that contain Nazi ideological attitudes;
-mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, dissemination of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime;
-The listing and publication of the names of those who collaborated with the Nazi regime, and their compulsory work to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for their Nazi activities (among those to whom the death penalty or imprisonment will not be imposed);
-Adoption at the local level, under the curatorship of Russia, of the primary regulatory acts of denazification "from below," banning all types and forms of revival of Nazi ideology;
-Establishing memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, commemorating the heroes of the fight against it;
-Inclusion of a set of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new People's Republics;
-Creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years.
You missed the best part, this is the most brain-frying essay I've ever read. You see, Ukrainian Nazism is so perverse that.. it has none of its characteristics:
The peculiarity of modern nazified Ukraine is in amorphousness and ambivalence, which make it possible to disguise Nazism as a desire for “independence” and a “European” (Western, pro-American) path of “development” (in reality – to degradation), to assert that in Ukraine “there is no Nazism , only localized individual excesses”. After all, there is no main Nazi party, no Fuhrer, no full-fledged racial laws (only their truncated version in the form of repressions against the Russian language). As a result, there is no opposition and resistance to the regime.
However, all of the above does not make Ukrainian Nazism a “light version” of German Nazism during the first half of the 20th century. On the contrary, since Ukrainian Nazism is free from such “genre” (essentially political technology) frameworks and restrictions, it freely unfolds as the fundamental basis of any Nazism – as European and, in its most developed form, American racism. Therefore, denazification cannot be carried out in a compromise, on the basis of a formula such as “NATO – no, EU – yes.” The collective West itself is the designer, source and sponsor of Ukrainian Nazism, while the Western Bandera cadres and their “historical memory” are only one of the tools for the Naziification of Ukraine. Ukronazism carries not less, but a greater threat to the world and Russia than German Nazism of the Hitlerite version.
It makes sense once you realize what they mean with "Nazism". "Nazism" as the current russian rulers see it isn't actually related to Nazis, WW2, or anything of the sort. Putin would probably be quite happy dealing with Hitler, as there seems to be quite a lot of overlap between the ideology of Putin and what was going on in the early days of the Third Reich.
"Nazism" here is anything anyone does that Putin doesn't like, or anything at all a country or people which Putin wishes to attack does. He just calls it Nazism because he knows people don't like Nazis.
On April 04 2022 20:14 Slydie wrote: I really don't get it. The Russians had everything to lose by being unnecessarily brutal to the civilians, and yet they did it, smashing their own storyline of "denazification" to pieces and making sure Ukrainian and international opposition grow stronger. Even some Russians in Ukraine initially supporting the invasion might turn their backs on them now. And then an official claim the Ukrainians use "actors", like that shouldn't be disproven by both incoming investigations and hundreds of witnesses.
Russia is in full self-destruct mode now.
Most, if not all, of the russian propaganda is directed inward. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't, as long as the ordinary rus believes it. Russians are now claiming the massacres were perpetrated by the ukr forces, and nothing indicates that the r public opinion is moving towards supporting ukr.
The necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
-Liquidation of the armed Nazi formations (by which we mean any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces), as well as the military, informational, and educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
-formation of people's self-government bodies and militia (defense and law and order) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
-installation of the Russian information space;
-seizure of educational materials and prohibition of educational programs of all levels that contain Nazi ideological attitudes;
-mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, dissemination of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime;
-The listing and publication of the names of those who collaborated with the Nazi regime, and their compulsory work to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for their Nazi activities (among those to whom the death penalty or imprisonment will not be imposed);
-Adoption at the local level, under the curatorship of Russia, of the primary regulatory acts of denazification "from below," banning all types and forms of revival of Nazi ideology;
-Establishing memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, commemorating the heroes of the fight against it;
-Inclusion of a set of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new People's Republics;
-Creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years.
You missed the best part, this is the most brain-frying essay I've ever read. You see, Ukrainian Nazism is so perverse that.. it has none of its characteristics:
The peculiarity of modern nazified Ukraine is in amorphousness and ambivalence, which make it possible to disguise Nazism as a desire for “independence” and a “European” (Western, pro-American) path of “development” (in reality – to degradation), to assert that in Ukraine “there is no Nazism , only localized individual excesses”. After all, there is no main Nazi party, no Fuhrer, no full-fledged racial laws (only their truncated version in the form of repressions against the Russian language). As a result, there is no opposition and resistance to the regime.
However, all of the above does not make Ukrainian Nazism a “light version” of German Nazism during the first half of the 20th century. On the contrary, since Ukrainian Nazism is free from such “genre” (essentially political technology) frameworks and restrictions, it freely unfolds as the fundamental basis of any Nazism – as European and, in its most developed form, American racism. Therefore, denazification cannot be carried out in a compromise, on the basis of a formula such as “NATO – no, EU – yes.” The collective West itself is the designer, source and sponsor of Ukrainian Nazism, while the Western Bandera cadres and their “historical memory” are only one of the tools for the Naziification of Ukraine. Ukronazism carries not less, but a greater threat to the world and Russia than German Nazism of the Hitlerite version.
It makes sense once you realize what they mean with "Nazism". "Nazism" as the current russian rulers see it isn't actually related to Nazis, WW2, or anything of the sort. Putin would probably be quite happy dealing with Hitler, as there seems to be quite a lot of overlap between the ideology of Putin and what was going on in the early days of the Third Reich.
"Nazism" here is anything anyone does that Putin doesn't like, or anything at all a country or people which Putin wishes to attack does. He just calls it Nazism because he knows people don't like Nazis.
Also, there is a significant chunk of people in Eastern EU who dislike communism. What Russia currently has is a bit like that, it goes in that direction one at a time. Censorship, mirroring sanctions (self-isolation), repression, sphere of influence, east vs west rhetoric. Communism itself doesn't dictate that but it's what they did to implement it.
This nazi stuff doesn't fly here in Bulgaria. I know literally no one who believes that the Ukraine situation is about "de-nazification", even media doesn't play that propaganda and we have a decent amount of pro-Russia people. That speaks a lot. So, the nazi rhetoric is probably aimed at Germany to discourage you from sanctioning Russia? Obviously, they didn't expect united west. Remember, nazi talk was as early as 24 February or even before.
Finally, I don't think we didn't expect Putin to go full lunatic. We collectively were too blind. I've learnt a lot about Putin after this invasion started: his paranoia, his persistence to come up as firm (trying to imitate Thatcher but in a sinister/KGB way?), him chasing Russian oligarchs in a forceful way at the start of 21st century (this should have been the warning sign for us about his character if you read details in more depth), Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Skripal, Alexander Litvinenko, Nemtsov, Navalny, etc. Rigged elections or no change of power for 2 decades. So many warning signs and I don't even list all here. It's not like it was totally unexpected, we just didn't care enough as a community.
On April 04 2022 20:14 Slydie wrote: I really don't get it. The Russians had everything to lose by being unnecessarily brutal to the civilians, and yet they did it, smashing their own storyline of "denazification" to pieces and making sure Ukrainian and international opposition grow stronger. Even some Russians in Ukraine initially supporting the invasion might turn their backs on them now. And then an official claim the Ukrainians use "actors", like that shouldn't be disproven by both incoming investigations and hundreds of witnesses.
Russia is in full self-destruct mode now.
Most, if not all, of the russian propaganda is directed inward. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't, as long as the ordinary rus believes it. Russians are now claiming the massacres were perpetrated by the ukr forces, and nothing indicates that the r public opinion is moving towards supporting ukr.
The necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
-Liquidation of the armed Nazi formations (by which we mean any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces), as well as the military, informational, and educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
-formation of people's self-government bodies and militia (defense and law and order) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
-installation of the Russian information space;
-seizure of educational materials and prohibition of educational programs of all levels that contain Nazi ideological attitudes;
-mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, dissemination of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime;
-The listing and publication of the names of those who collaborated with the Nazi regime, and their compulsory work to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for their Nazi activities (among those to whom the death penalty or imprisonment will not be imposed);
-Adoption at the local level, under the curatorship of Russia, of the primary regulatory acts of denazification "from below," banning all types and forms of revival of Nazi ideology;
-Establishing memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, commemorating the heroes of the fight against it;
-Inclusion of a set of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new People's Republics;
-Creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years.
You missed the best part, this is the most brain-frying essay I've ever read. You see, Ukrainian Nazism is so perverse that.. it has none of its characteristics:
The peculiarity of modern nazified Ukraine is in amorphousness and ambivalence, which make it possible to disguise Nazism as a desire for “independence” and a “European” (Western, pro-American) path of “development” (in reality – to degradation), to assert that in Ukraine “there is no Nazism , only localized individual excesses”. After all, there is no main Nazi party, no Fuhrer, no full-fledged racial laws (only their truncated version in the form of repressions against the Russian language). As a result, there is no opposition and resistance to the regime.
However, all of the above does not make Ukrainian Nazism a “light version” of German Nazism during the first half of the 20th century. On the contrary, since Ukrainian Nazism is free from such “genre” (essentially political technology) frameworks and restrictions, it freely unfolds as the fundamental basis of any Nazism – as European and, in its most developed form, American racism. Therefore, denazification cannot be carried out in a compromise, on the basis of a formula such as “NATO – no, EU – yes.” The collective West itself is the designer, source and sponsor of Ukrainian Nazism, while the Western Bandera cadres and their “historical memory” are only one of the tools for the Naziification of Ukraine. Ukronazism carries not less, but a greater threat to the world and Russia than German Nazism of the Hitlerite version.
It makes sense once you realize what they mean with "Nazism". "Nazism" as the current russian rulers see it isn't actually related to Nazis, WW2, or anything of the sort. Putin would probably be quite happy dealing with Hitler, as there seems to be quite a lot of overlap between the ideology of Putin and what was going on in the early days of the Third Reich.
"Nazism" here is anything anyone does that Putin doesn't like, or anything at all a country or people which Putin wishes to attack does. He just calls it Nazism because he knows people don't like Nazis.
Besides all the lunacy, that piece does shed some light from what national frustrations this desperate hail mary is borne out of. The part about language is key there, the shrinking of the Russian population and number of Russian speakers is a major source of horror for them. It should be viewed in tandem with statements like this:
During his annual press conference last December, Putin stressed that 146 million people are not enough for the country from a "geopolitical standpoint" and leave labour shortages.
A Ukrainian national identity that goes its own way, divergent from Russia, means losing cultural influence over tens of millions. It means the Ukrainian language naturally drifting further and further apart from Russian in time. It means more and more ethnic Russians in Ukraine getting naturally assimilated with time.
That's how Ukraine having any national identity at all became nazism and denazification means making them "good little Russians" again.
But their solution of beating it into them did more damage to their cause than letting it go would have: a lot of young men died senselessly and more will by the end of it, economic anxiety at home will cause even more damage to fertility, bilinguals in Ukraine are ashamed to speak Russian, Russian expats in Europe are ashamed of the association, being banned from the international community limits their cultural reach. It's the biggest own goal in modern history.
On April 04 2022 20:14 Slydie wrote: I really don't get it. The Russians had everything to lose by being unnecessarily brutal to the civilians, and yet they did it, smashing their own storyline of "denazification" to pieces and making sure Ukrainian and international opposition grow stronger. Even some Russians in Ukraine initially supporting the invasion might turn their backs on them now. And then an official claim the Ukrainians use "actors", like that shouldn't be disproven by both incoming investigations and hundreds of witnesses.
Russia is in full self-destruct mode now.
Most, if not all, of the russian propaganda is directed inward. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't, as long as the ordinary rus believes it. Russians are now claiming the massacres were perpetrated by the ukr forces, and nothing indicates that the r public opinion is moving towards supporting ukr.
The necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
-Liquidation of the armed Nazi formations (by which we mean any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces), as well as the military, informational, and educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
-formation of people's self-government bodies and militia (defense and law and order) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
-installation of the Russian information space;
-seizure of educational materials and prohibition of educational programs of all levels that contain Nazi ideological attitudes;
-mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, dissemination of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime;
-The listing and publication of the names of those who collaborated with the Nazi regime, and their compulsory work to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for their Nazi activities (among those to whom the death penalty or imprisonment will not be imposed);
-Adoption at the local level, under the curatorship of Russia, of the primary regulatory acts of denazification "from below," banning all types and forms of revival of Nazi ideology;
-Establishing memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, commemorating the heroes of the fight against it;
-Inclusion of a set of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new People's Republics;
-Creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years.
You missed the best part, this is the most brain-frying essay I've ever read. You see, Ukrainian Nazism is so perverse that.. it has none of its characteristics:
The peculiarity of modern nazified Ukraine is in amorphousness and ambivalence, which make it possible to disguise Nazism as a desire for “independence” and a “European” (Western, pro-American) path of “development” (in reality – to degradation), to assert that in Ukraine “there is no Nazism , only localized individual excesses”. After all, there is no main Nazi party, no Fuhrer, no full-fledged racial laws (only their truncated version in the form of repressions against the Russian language). As a result, there is no opposition and resistance to the regime.
However, all of the above does not make Ukrainian Nazism a “light version” of German Nazism during the first half of the 20th century. On the contrary, since Ukrainian Nazism is free from such “genre” (essentially political technology) frameworks and restrictions, it freely unfolds as the fundamental basis of any Nazism – as European and, in its most developed form, American racism. Therefore, denazification cannot be carried out in a compromise, on the basis of a formula such as “NATO – no, EU – yes.” The collective West itself is the designer, source and sponsor of Ukrainian Nazism, while the Western Bandera cadres and their “historical memory” are only one of the tools for the Naziification of Ukraine. Ukronazism carries not less, but a greater threat to the world and Russia than German Nazism of the Hitlerite version.
It makes sense once you realize what they mean with "Nazism". "Nazism" as the current russian rulers see it isn't actually related to Nazis, WW2, or anything of the sort. Putin would probably be quite happy dealing with Hitler, as there seems to be quite a lot of overlap between the ideology of Putin and what was going on in the early days of the Third Reich.
"Nazism" here is anything anyone does that Putin doesn't like, or anything at all a country or people which Putin wishes to attack does. He just calls it Nazism because he knows people don't like Nazis.
Also, there is a significant chunk of people in Eastern EU who dislike communism. What Russia currently has is a bit like that, it goes in that direction one at a time. Censorship, mirroring sanctions (self-isolation), repression, sphere of influence, east vs west rhetoric. Communism itself doesn't dictate that but it's what they did to implement it.
This nazi stuff doesn't fly here in Bulgaria. I know literally no one who believes that the Ukraine situation is about "de-nazification", even media doesn't play that propaganda and we have a decent amount of pro-Russia people. That speaks a lot. So, the nazi rhetoric is probably aimed at Germany to discourage you from sanctioning Russia? Obviously, they didn't expect united west. Remember, nazi talk was as early as 24 February or even before.
Finally, I don't think we didn't expect Putin to go full lunatic. We collectively were too blind. I've learnt a lot about Putin after this invasion started: his paranoia, his persistence to come up as firm (trying to imitate Thatcher but in a sinister/KGB way?), him chasing Russian oligarchs in a forceful way at the start of 21st century (this should have been the warning sign for us about his character if you read details in more depth), Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Skripal, Alexander Litvinenko, Nemtsov, Navalny, etc. Rigged elections or no change of power for 2 decades. So many warning signs and I don't even list all here. It's not like it was totally unexpected, we just didn't care enough as a community.
I think most people viewed Putin as a ice-cold, sinister, egoistical, murderous dictator. We just assumed that he was also kind of rational. All of what you described can be explained as some kind of cold, calculating behaviour. Murdering your political opposition in a way that makes it very clear to everyone that they were murdered because they were your opposition is something that, while unethical, can still be explained as a rational move. Rigging elections so that you win, similarly.
People assumed he would continue to be murderous, cold, calculating, but also kind of rational. And you can work with that. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but countries are clearly okay with having working relationships with murderous dictators, as long as they keep their murderousness mostly at home and don't go completely overboard.
That is why the attack on Ukraine was so surprising. Attacking Ukraine was incredibly irrational, as the results clearly show. It would very obviously do much more damage to Russia than the possible gain could ever be worth. Even if it had worked exactly as planned, sanctions would still have wrecked the Russian economy.
On April 04 2022 20:14 Slydie wrote: I really don't get it. The Russians had everything to lose by being unnecessarily brutal to the civilians, and yet they did it, smashing their own storyline of "denazification" to pieces and making sure Ukrainian and international opposition grow stronger. Even some Russians in Ukraine initially supporting the invasion might turn their backs on them now. And then an official claim the Ukrainians use "actors", like that shouldn't be disproven by both incoming investigations and hundreds of witnesses.
Russia is in full self-destruct mode now.
Most, if not all, of the russian propaganda is directed inward. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't, as long as the ordinary rus believes it. Russians are now claiming the massacres were perpetrated by the ukr forces, and nothing indicates that the r public opinion is moving towards supporting ukr.
The necessary initial steps of denazification can be defined as follows:
-Liquidation of the armed Nazi formations (by which we mean any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces), as well as the military, informational, and educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
-formation of people's self-government bodies and militia (defense and law and order) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;
-installation of the Russian information space;
-seizure of educational materials and prohibition of educational programs of all levels that contain Nazi ideological attitudes;
-mass investigative actions to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, dissemination of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime;
-The listing and publication of the names of those who collaborated with the Nazi regime, and their compulsory work to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for their Nazi activities (among those to whom the death penalty or imprisonment will not be imposed);
-Adoption at the local level, under the curatorship of Russia, of the primary regulatory acts of denazification "from below," banning all types and forms of revival of Nazi ideology;
-Establishing memorials, commemorative signs, monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, commemorating the heroes of the fight against it;
-Inclusion of a set of anti-fascist and denazification norms in the constitutions of the new People's Republics;
-Creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years.
You missed the best part, this is the most brain-frying essay I've ever read. You see, Ukrainian Nazism is so perverse that.. it has none of its characteristics:
The peculiarity of modern nazified Ukraine is in amorphousness and ambivalence, which make it possible to disguise Nazism as a desire for “independence” and a “European” (Western, pro-American) path of “development” (in reality – to degradation), to assert that in Ukraine “there is no Nazism , only localized individual excesses”. After all, there is no main Nazi party, no Fuhrer, no full-fledged racial laws (only their truncated version in the form of repressions against the Russian language). As a result, there is no opposition and resistance to the regime.
However, all of the above does not make Ukrainian Nazism a “light version” of German Nazism during the first half of the 20th century. On the contrary, since Ukrainian Nazism is free from such “genre” (essentially political technology) frameworks and restrictions, it freely unfolds as the fundamental basis of any Nazism – as European and, in its most developed form, American racism. Therefore, denazification cannot be carried out in a compromise, on the basis of a formula such as “NATO – no, EU – yes.” The collective West itself is the designer, source and sponsor of Ukrainian Nazism, while the Western Bandera cadres and their “historical memory” are only one of the tools for the Naziification of Ukraine. Ukronazism carries not less, but a greater threat to the world and Russia than German Nazism of the Hitlerite version.
It makes sense once you realize what they mean with "Nazism". "Nazism" as the current russian rulers see it isn't actually related to Nazis, WW2, or anything of the sort. Putin would probably be quite happy dealing with Hitler, as there seems to be quite a lot of overlap between the ideology of Putin and what was going on in the early days of the Third Reich.
"Nazism" here is anything anyone does that Putin doesn't like, or anything at all a country or people which Putin wishes to attack does. He just calls it Nazism because he knows people don't like Nazis.
Also, there is a significant chunk of people in Eastern EU who dislike communism. What Russia currently has is a bit like that, it goes in that direction one at a time. Censorship, mirroring sanctions (self-isolation), repression, sphere of influence, east vs west rhetoric. Communism itself doesn't dictate that but it's what they did to implement it.
This nazi stuff doesn't fly here in Bulgaria. I know literally no one who believes that the Ukraine situation is about "de-nazification", even media doesn't play that propaganda and we have a decent amount of pro-Russia people. That speaks a lot. So, the nazi rhetoric is probably aimed at Germany to discourage you from sanctioning Russia? Obviously, they didn't expect united west. Remember, nazi talk was as early as 24 February or even before.
Finally, I don't think we didn't expect Putin to go full lunatic. We collectively were too blind. I've learnt a lot about Putin after this invasion started: his paranoia, his persistence to come up as firm (trying to imitate Thatcher but in a sinister/KGB way?), him chasing Russian oligarchs in a forceful way at the start of 21st century (this should have been the warning sign for us about his character if you read details in more depth), Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Skripal, Alexander Litvinenko, Nemtsov, Navalny, etc. Rigged elections or no change of power for 2 decades. So many warning signs and I don't even list all here. It's not like it was totally unexpected, we just didn't care enough as a community.
I think most people viewed Putin as a ice-cold, sinister, egoistical, murderous dictator. We just assumed that he was also kind of rational. All of what you described can be explained as some kind of cold, calculating behaviour. Murdering your political opposition in a way that makes it very clear to everyone that they were murdered because they were your opposition is something that, while unethical, can still be explained as a rational move. Rigging elections so that you win, similarly.
People assumed he would continue to be murderous, cold, calculating, but also kind of rational. And you can work with that. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but countries are clearly okay with having working relationships with murderous dictators, as long as they keep their murderousness mostly at home and don't go completely overboard.
That is why the attack on Ukraine was so surprising. Attacking Ukraine was incredibly irrational, as the results clearly show. It would very obviously do much more damage to Russia than the possible gain could ever be worth. Even if it had worked exactly as planned, sanctions would still have wrecked the Russian economy.
Exactly! He was more the evil mastermind of a James Bond movie than the batshit crazy dictator that he really is.
Russian propaganda is making this out as a romantic "us against the world" kinda story and it seems to be working. Earlier in this thread someone postet how the people living in Russia now are even more behind Putin than they were at the start since the evil western people are trying to destroy beloved Mother Russia with sanctions and strenghening Ukraine and whatnot.
On April 05 2022 16:48 Silvanel wrote: If it worked as expected (be over in few days) then sanctions would be smaller and limited in scope.
I agree that it would be much better for Russia if things had gone quickly, although Russia was always anticipating sanctions. I find it unlikely that they didn't compute a near-worst case scenario and find it beneficial anyways before taking the action. I think that Putin's exit plan was always to install pro-Russia leaders (most notably the US) who will remove these sanctions in short order. This is still a very likely outcome in the next two-three years. All this said, the economic return rate on taking over a country must be immensely high. If Russia can successfully control Ukraine and remove sanctions in the next decade, the war is likely to be profitable for Russia in maybe 20 years or so.
Anyhow, the whole war is so pointless, devastating, fucked-up and sad. I continue to hope that Ukrainians can stay safe and strong.
On April 05 2022 16:48 Silvanel wrote: If it worked as expected (be over in few days) then sanctions would be smaller and limited in scope.
I agree that it would be much better for Russia if things had gone quickly, although Russia was always anticipating sanctions. I find it unlikely that they didn't compute a near-worst case scenario and find it beneficial anyways before taking the action. I think that Putin's exit plan was always to install pro-Russia leaders (most notably the US) who will remove these sanctions in short order. This is still a very likely outcome in the next two-three years. All this said, the economic return rate on taking over a country must be immensely high. If Russia can successfully control Ukraine and remove sanctions in the next decade, the war is likely to be profitable for Russia in maybe 20 years or so.
Anyhow, the whole war is so pointless, devastating, fucked-up and sad. I continue to hope that Ukrainians can stay safe and strong.
Is it really so profitable to take over a country?
Western Germany basically got Eastern Germany for free after the fall of the wall, and it still costs us lots of money 30 years later, and it is now also infested with Nazis.
On April 05 2022 16:48 Silvanel wrote: If it worked as expected (be over in few days) then sanctions would be smaller and limited in scope.
I agree that it would be much better for Russia if things had gone quickly, although Russia was always anticipating sanctions. I find it unlikely that they didn't compute a near-worst case scenario and find it beneficial anyways before taking the action. I think that Putin's exit plan was always to install pro-Russia leaders (most notably the US) who will remove these sanctions in short order. This is still a very likely outcome in the next two-three years. All this said, the economic return rate on taking over a country must be immensely high. If Russia can successfully control Ukraine and remove sanctions in the next decade, the war is likely to be profitable for Russia in maybe 20 years or so.
Anyhow, the whole war is so pointless, devastating, fucked-up and sad. I continue to hope that Ukrainians can stay safe and strong.
Is it really so profitable to take over a country?
Western Germany basically got Eastern Germany for free after the fall of the wall, and it still costs us lots of money 30 years later, and it is now also infested with Nazis.
If you care about the people who live there its expensive.
If you just look to exploit resources and keep the region in your area of influence through oppression then I imagine that pushes the costs down a lot
If Putin hates losing population so much, he should stop trying to match the US's military budget and do something about the atrocious quality of life that 95% of russians enjoy. Heart breaking interviews from the previously occupied territoires, one man couldn't find any other term than 'animal' and 'non human' to describe the russian soldiers. He broke down crying rather than to describe what he'd seen.
EPT
