Ukraine Conflict - Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit

[xzar_monty]

17 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

The similar was always teached here as well after 1989, unfortunately last 13 years or so, the Russian and neo-nazi propaganda started to be tolerated by state apparatus and also by our media, just to get clicks, and now is the situation, that 30%+ of people here support Russia, and believe, that Bucha and Kramatorsk incidents are staged by Ukraine to smear Putin's name...

Where is "here", by the way?

[Elerond]

15 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

@Elerond  were you aware of this?

yes

[xzar_monty]

20 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Well most of the Russian commanders were alive during the disaster, this just underlines the fact, that Russia's worst enemy was always Russia

Poor education that centers around denial ("we haven't done anything wrong") and revisionism ("actually it went like this, not like that") tends to produce something like this. I.e. people who do not understand the past and are totally unaware of the dangers it has caused in the present. The Chernobyl incident is as concrete an example of this as you can get: there is nothing abstract (like, political thinking) about a group of people ordered to dig trenches in a deadly area. Actual people are actually digging in a place that will actually kill them.

The current Russia is also a perfect example of how important it is to have an opposition, politically. Even if it can sometimes degenerate into a farce (as in the US, occasionally, in the very recent past), the dialogue or even outright political hostility between the government and the opposition is extremely healthy for a country. If there is no opposition, the government isn't challenged, and if it remains unchallenged long enough, its thinking will deteriorate -- sometimes even, as in Russia right now, to a level that really doesn't qualify as proper thinking anymore.

Edited April 10, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Gorth]

34 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

The current Russia is also a perfect example of how important it is to have an opposition, politically. Even if it can sometimes degenerate into a farce (as in the US, occasionally, in the very recent past), the dialogue or even outright political hostility between the government and the opposition is extremely healthy for a country. If there is no opposition, the government isn't challenged, and if it remains unchallenged long enough, its thinking will deteriorate -- sometimes even, as in Russia right now, to a level that really doesn't qualify as proper thinking anymore.

Which brings me back to a post I made not long ago... your government should always be challenged. Questioned. Examined. it's motivations cross examined. Held accountable. If not, you have willingly given away your rights (cue: death of a system run by the people).

[xzar_monty]

14 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Which brings me back to a post I made not long ago... your government should always be challenged. Questioned. Examined. it's motivations cross examined. Held accountable. If not, you have willingly given away your rights (cue: death of a system run by the people).

Precisely. I work in an industry where all my work goes through a two-level examination process before anything is published. It is wonderful. This is how it should be. The critical feedback I receive does occasionally hurt my feelings, but this means nothing: it is the end result that matters, and I always encourage my reviewers to be as thorough as possible and as harsh as they need to be. Because once my work is published, it is out there for anyone and everyone to see and criticize. I better be prepared.

In an interview, the author Margaret Atwood once spoke about her editor and mentioned what an unflinching critic that person was. The interviewer was somewhat surprised and wanted to know whether the editor never simply deferred to Atwood's reputation and let things go unchallenged. Atwood's reply: "No. Because she's a good editor."

All of the above absolutely needs to applied to the political spectrum as well.

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Where is "here", by the way?

Slovakia.

[Malcador]

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Looks like it was just a Russian propaganda, that they seized it. Allegedly, this happened day after they released that statement.

 

Not sure that disproves it, they have to be there to get hit by a mortar, which could have decent range. Is annoying to figure out the situation there, though.

 

Cheerleady, as you'd expect but was interesting regardless - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/ukraine-war-marines-front-lines-1334770/

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Malcador

[Mamoulian War]

Reports on more atrocities committed by Russian army . This time in the Kharkov Area. There is at least one positive note added to the report. Ukrainian army destroyed 2 BTGs, and 60 more survivors of these BTGs has surrendered on March 30.

According to Ukrainian Attorney General, 1222 confirmed killed citizens in the Kyiv region during the Russian occupation

https://t.me/ukrpravda_news/14017

Edited April 10, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[xzar_monty]

42 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

According to Ukrainian Attorney General, 1222 confirmed killed citizens in the Kyiv region during the Russian occupation

There is no limit. During the night of September 29, 1714, Russians killed approximately 800 people on just one Finnish island, with axes.

Actually there is a limit. The Russian army will not slaughter more people than there are.

[Mamoulian War]

20 hours ago, 213374U said:

Yep, I read about that. Have you watched the video?

 

More info about Alexey Bychkov, apparently, Russians made the first positive thing during this conflict and detained him.
 

 

[Lexx]

Russia is only ok with war crimes that aren't recorded on video.

[Mamoulian War]

2 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Russia is only ok with war crimes that aren't recorded on video.

Well, they are ok even with the recorded one, because they were all staged by Ukrainians...

/sarcasm off

[213374U]

2 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

More info about Alexey Bychkov, apparently, Russians made the first positive thing during this conflict and detained him.

Right. I asked before if you had seen the video -- you haven't. Have you at least read a detailed summary of what goes on in it? Seen captures? Are you familiar with dedovschina?

[xzar_monty]

6 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Right. I asked before if you had seen the video -- you haven't. Have you at least read a detailed summary of what goes on in it? Seen captures? Are you familiar with dedovschina?

Why is dedovschina relevant here? My first thought would be that you might be suggesting he is doing something that has been done to him, but I am not saying that, I would like to hear your take on why it's relevant. And I am honestly curious.

(I have not seen the video, nor do I intend to watch it. I also have no interest in any summary more detailed than the one I've already read, nor am I interested in captures.)

[Mamoulian War]

12 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Right. I asked before if you had seen the video -- you haven't. Have you at least read a detailed summary of what goes on in it? Seen captures? Are you familiar with dedovschina?

As I said, I have not seen it, despite one of our journalists have provided the links to the material... And as monty said, I am not planning to watch it as well. The journalist has good enough resumé to believe him, what he said about the incident, without me needing to see such ****ing insane **** which this guy has done...

[213374U]

8 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Why is dedovschina relevant here? My first thought would be that you might be suggesting he is doing something that has been done to him, but I am not saying that, I would like to hear your take on why it's relevant. And I am honestly curious.

(I have not seen the video, nor do I intend to watch it. I also have no interest in any summary more detailed than the one I've already read, nor am I interested in captures.)

Because I've read "reports" that this kind of video is a product of the kind of endemic hazing prevalent in the Russian armed forces -- which is consistent with the guy putting the camera to his face and stating his full name before starting. There's more going on in the video than just the baby being molested, such as the perpetrator putting a knife up his ass or putting a mascara brush into his mouth that had previously gone into his butthole.

Take that as you will. I have no clue if that's actually the case or not, or when and where the video was in fact recorded.

<insert obligatory "I'm not defending or excusing anything yadda yadda" disclaimer>

[xzar_monty]

3 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Because I've read "reports" that this kind of video is a product of the kind of endemic hazing prevalent in the Russian armed forces

That wouldn't surprise me. The Russian armed forces are apparently an extraordinarily vicious place for anyone to be in -- which partly explains the morale problems the invading army seems to have. Plenty of conscripts commit suicide because of the cruelty they are subjected to in the army. Russia is someting of a totalitarian state, and has been for quite some time. This nearly always means that all the institutions are very, very cruel. Schools, too, but the armed forces and prisons in particular.

There's a delightful picture right there: this kind of stuff is what the Russians do to their own people, in times of peace.

[213374U]

4 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

There's a delightful picture right there: this kind of stuff is what the Russians do to their own people, in times of peace.

Yes. The implication here is that the baby in the video could actually be his own child, or a relative. Dedovschina isn't a phenomenon unique to the Russians, sadly. We used to have a fairly serious suicide problem in the army here before going from a conscripted to a fully professional army, and hazing was identified as a key factor.

But again, the possibility that this was somehow demanded of him is just conjecture. It may certainly be that he's just a sick ****. The picture simply isn't complete, and anyone suggesting that it is should provide evidence.

 

[rjshae]

From the West's perspective the broad Russian plan to take Ukraine appears to have been defeated for the moment and their adventurism contained. I suspect the goal now is to deter future such wars of conquest by Putin, presumably making it sufficiently costly that Russia will settle for a stable compromise.

The question in the aftermath is whether to continue the punitive economic sanctions in the hope of bringing down Putin's government. Such may require broader negotiations to settle. Additional negotiation leverage may be provided by a major commitment from the West to broadly implement clean energy programs and to encourage long-term economic and military development of Ukraine (as a deterrent).

[xzar_monty]

26 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Yes. The implication here is that the baby in the video could actually be his own child, or a relative. Dedovschina isn't a phenomenon unique to the Russians, sadly. We used to have a fairly serious suicide problem in the army here before going from a conscripted to a fully professional army, and hazing was identified as a key factor.

Where was this? In other words, who are "we"?

[213374U]

18 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Where was this? In other words, who are "we"?

I'm Spanish. Used to be a lot of carryover crap from back when the military establishment was the main source of the regime's political power in the country, and it took a long while to really modernize and grow out of it. We've come a long way in the last ~25 years and the worst is now in the past, but it's not completely fixed. Senior officers are still mostly untouchable.

[Sarex]

https://t.me/ukraina24tv/25835

Wow that's low. They bombed a guy who was in an outdoor ****ter. Used a precision missile even. Wonder who was the target.

[Lexx]

Maybe they misidentified it with something else?

[Sarex]

Kind of looks like a s300 if you look at it at an angle.

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

https://t.me/ukraina24tv/25835

Wow that's low. They bombed a guy who was in an outdoor ****ter. Used a precision missile even. Wonder who was the target.

To quote the great philosopher Blackadder

"You'd shoot a man in the back?"

"I'd shoot a man if he was on the job.

It was just a shame he was awake"

5 hours ago, Malcador said:

Not sure that disproves it, they have to be there to get hit by a mortar, which could have decent range. Is annoying to figure out the situation there, though.

Yeah, if being hit by a mortar is a measure of control then Ukraine has literally no control in Mariupol since the range is ~3.5km for even a small one.

The spotter is a drone too, so can't draw any conclusions from that either.

The port itself is at this point pretty obviously in Russian hands and relatively secure since they're staging a lot of media stuff there.