Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "100 Back-To-Back Bombings In Belgorod But Russia Wards Off Any Casualties | Details" video.
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@MarkNOTW World101: What does fascism mean? (my "check" paranthesis)
Many experts agree that fascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism (check), militarism (check), and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual citizen (check). This model of government stands in contrast to liberal democracies, which support individual rights, competitive elections, and political dissent. In many ways, fascist regimes are revolutionary because they advocate the overthrow of existing systems of government and the persecution of political enemies (check).
However, when it advances their interests, such regimes can also be highly conservative in their championing of traditional values related to the role of women, social hierarchy, and obedience to authority (check). And although fascist leaders typically claim to support the everyman, in reality their regimes often align with powerful business interests. (check)
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On 5 July 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that most of the civilian casualties documented by her office had been caused by the Russian army's repeated use of explosive weapons in populated areas. Bachelet said that the heavy civilian toll from the use of such indiscriminate weapons and tactics had become "indisputable". From 24 February 2022 to 30 June 2023, OHCHR assessed that 90.5% of all civilian fatalities were killed by explosive weapons with wide area effects, and that 84.2% of them were recorded on the Ukrainian-controlled territory. El País estimated that by March 2023 the Russian forces were firing at a rate of between 600,000 and 1.8 million shells per month.
The agency indicated that the attacks damaged medical facilities, including 50 hospitals. As of August 2022, there have already been hundreds of cases of Russian use of cluster munitions in at least 10 out of 24 regions of Ukraine.
Although the Russian side denies accusations of using cluster munitions in residential areas, international and non-governmental organizations have reported such attacks. By the beginning of April, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies were reporting cluster munition shelling in Kharkiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Donetsk, Odesa, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. By July 1, Cluster Munition Coalition reports shelling in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions. Testimony from independent weapons experts confirmed that a number of cluster rounds were dropped on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. This is proved by photos and videos of eyewitnesses of the events, as well as journalists on the ground.
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Human Rights Watch has extensively documented how Russian officials and their proxies used coercive measures to forcibly transfer Ukrainian civilians, including those fleeing hostilities, to Russia or Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
We have also documented the forced transfer of children and the war’s devastating impact on children in residential institutions.
Although the new report, issued under the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism, acknowledges uncertainty regarding exact numbers, its conclusions are certain: Ukrainian children were forcibly deported to Russia or transferred within Russian-controlled territory. This constitutes a war crime.
It also concluded that forcibly deported Ukrainian children had been subjected to “numerous and overlapping violations” of their rights. The report noted that forcibly deported children were placed in an unfamiliar environment far removed from Ukrainian language, culture, customs, and religion.
It also found that many such children were exposed to military training and “to pro-Russian information campaigns often amounting to targeted reeducation.” The report also underscores how changes in Russian law enabled authorities to swiftly give Russian citizenship to Ukrainian children, facilitating their guardianship and adoption by Russian families in Russia, even though many of the children may have living relatives, including in Ukraine.
The report found that Russian authorities didn’t promote the return of Ukrainian children to their home country or the reunification of Ukrainian children separated from their families. In fact, the report says, Russia seems to be creating obstacles for reunification. Russia has no centralized list of transferred children. Additionally, the children are repeatedly moved from place to place, and sometimes referred to by Russian, not Ukrainian, names.
Even if Ukrainian families manage to locate a child, they encounter numerous logistical and financial difficulties in returning that child to Ukraine.
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Ever since the early years of his reign, Putin has made no secret of his bitterness over the Soviet collapse, which he has always viewed as a Russian defeat.
In 2005, when he famously referred to the disintegration of the USSR as “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” he stressed that it was a tragedy for “the Russian people” and the millions of Russians who suddenly found themselves living beyond Russia’s borders in newly independent countries such as Ukraine.
Putin went even further in 2021, lamenting the fall of the USSR as “the collapse of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union.” In other words, he regards the entire Soviet era as a continuation of the Czarist Russian Empire, and sees the settlement of 1991 as anything but final. Putin’s sense of historical injustice has led to an unhealthy obsession with Ukraine, which he insists is an inherent part of historical Russia that has been subjected to artificial separation. He is fond of claiming that Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”), and took the unusual but revealing step in July 2021 of publishing a lengthy essay arguing against the legitimacy of Ukrainian statehood.
This fixation has been further fueled by fears that the emergence of a democratic Ukraine could serve as a catalyst for similar changes inside Russia itself. Putin remains haunted by the pro-democracy uprisings that swept Central Europe in the late 1980s while he was a young KGB officer in East Germany, and views modern Ukraine’s embrace of democracy as a direct threat to his own authoritarian regime. It is no coincidence that in the buildup to last year’s invasion, Putin began referring to Ukraine as an intolerable “anti-Russia.”
Over the past 13 months of full-scale war, Putin’s imperial objectives in Ukraine have become increasingly evident. He has compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great, and has repeatedly spoken of returning historical Russian lands while attempting to annex four partially occupied Ukrainian regions representing almost 20% of the war-torn country. Meanwhile, his army has imposed brutal policies of russification throughout occupied Ukraine, complete with summary executions, forced deportations, the suppression of Ukrainian national symbols, and widespread use of torture against anyone deemed a potential opponent of Russian rule.
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However, Russia violates the Minsk agreements on a regular basis.
The Minsk Agreements are a basis for political resolution of the conflict in Donbas. They have been violated by the Russian Federation on a regular basis. Point 10, for example, calls for the withdrawal of all foreign armed formations and military equipment from the two disputed regions, Donetsk and Luhansk: Ukraine says this refers to forces from Russia, but Moscow denies it has any forces there. (Later Putin admitted there were russian forces.)
Signing of the first documents in September 2014 followed direct incursion of the Russian regular troops in Donbas and intense hostilities near the city of Ilovaysk — the place of one of the most shameful crimes, committed by the Russian Army in Donbas.
At least 366 Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 429 were wounded there while leaving the city in the so-called “green corridor” under the guarantees of commanders of Russian troops. In violation of the Minsk Memorandum, Russian troops and Russia-backed illegal armed formations seized 8 pieces of land 1696 km² in area, which had to be on the Ukrainian government-controlled territory according to the line of contact, defined by the Memorandum.
Debaltseve is one of the most telling examples of how Russia violates the Minsk Agreements. Combined Russian-terrorist forces attacked and seized the city and the outskirts on 16–18 February 2015, immediately after the Minsk Package of measures, establishing the comprehensive ceasefire since 15 February, had been signed.
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The Minsk agreements did not address the root cause of the conflict. It was stipulated, so to speak, that there was or had been some kind of ethnic conflict between Russians and Ukrainians in Ukraine, and that this was the reason for the outbreak of violence. And by settling this alleged ethnic conflict, the conflict could be pacified. THIS WAS PURE FICTION.
The ethnic conflicts that existed in Ukraine were no more serious than ethnic tensions in many other countries. Moreover, the dividing lines in this conflict, if one insists on understanding them in ethnic terms, are incredibly blurred. This is not about the Russian versus the Ukrainian language or Ukrainian versus Russian national identity.
Nor is it about religion, not even in the slightest. At most, one could find something like an eastern Ukrainian Donbas identity. But this regional identity of the Donbas is not much stronger than strong regional identities in other countries. What this conflict is fundamentally about is RUSSIA WANTING TO EXERT INFLUENCE OVER THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY ORIENTATION OF THE GOVERNMENT IN KYIV.
In the Minsk agreement, however, this fiction of an ethnic conflict was constructed instead, although Russia actually had no particular interest in obtaining any autonomy rights for eastern Ukraine, for Russian-speaking or ethnically Russian Ukrainian citizens.
Russia was not really interested in these issues, but Ukraine was not at all eager to grant such rights either, for fear of a supposed fifth column.
However, Moscow was not only concerned with what was happening in the Donbas, but above all with what was happening in Kyiv. The Ukraine conflict is about the orientation of Ukraine, pure and simple.
But the Minsk agreement addresses completely different issues. That’s why the process didn’t work. Moreover, a major blockage has been Russia's insistence that it is not a party to the conflict and therefore is not bound by its terms. Point 10, for example, calls for the withdrawal of all foreign armed formations and military equipment from the two disputed regions, Donetsk and Luhansk: Ukraine says this refers to forces from Russia, but Moscow denies it has any forces there. (Later Putin admitted there were Russian forces.)
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@PerceivedREALITY999 - The "Bucha massacre" was the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war by the Russian Armed Forces during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photographic and video evidence of the massacre emerged on 1 April 2022 after Russian forces withdrew from the city.
According to local authorities, 458 bodies have been recovered from the town, including 9 children under the age of 18; among the victims, 419 people were killed with weapons and 39 appeared to have died of natural causes.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the unlawful killings, including summary executions, of at least 73 civilians in Bucha. Photos showed corpses of civilians, lined up with their hands bound behind their backs, shot at point-blank range, which ostensibly gave proof that summary executions had taken place.
An inquiry by Radio Free Europe reported the use of a basement beneath a campground as a torture chamber. Many bodies were found mutilated and burnt, and girls as young as fourteen reported being raped by Russian soldiers. Ukraine has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate what happened in Bucha as part of its ongoing investigation of the invasion to determine whether a series of Russian war crimes or crimes against humanity were committed.
Russian authorities have denied responsibility and instead claimed that Ukraine faked footage of the event or staged the killings itself as a false flag operation,] and have claimed that the footage and photographs of dead bodies were "fake news". These assertions by Russian authorities have been debunked as false by various groups and media organizations. Eyewitness accounts from residents of Bucha said that the Russian Armed Forces carried out the killings.
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bjornsjostrom3800 Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the Euromaidan in Ukraine in 2014. There was no coup, nor a western orchestrated protest in Ukraine.
The demonstrations which began in Kyiv in November 2013 – called "Maidan", or "Euromaidan" – were a result of the Ukrainian people's frustration with former President Yanukovych. The protesters' demands included constitutional reform, a stronger role for parliament, the formation of a government of national unity, an end to corruption, early presidential elections and an end to violence.
Ukraine's government changed its relations toward Russia after the latter illegally annexed Crimea, which is part of Ukraine, through a non-recognised referendum, announced on 27 February 2014, and held on gunpoint on 16 March 2014. The UN described it as not valid and stated that it could not serve as a basis for any change in the status of the peninsula. In its turn, the EU continues to strongly condemn this violation of international law and has responded by imposing restrictive measures against the Russian Federation.
The prehistory of the 2014 revolution includes the “Orange Revolution” of 2004-05, in which massive protests on the Maidan against an (actual) stolen election that handed Yanukovych the victory over pro-Western rival Viktor Yushchenko ended with Ukraine’s Supreme Court throwing out the results and with Yushchenko winning the re-vote. (During the campaign, Yanukovych had been explicitly backed by Putin and had flown to Moscow for several meetings with his patron; meanwhile, Yushchenko had nearly died from dioxin poisoning in an apparent assassination attempt.)
In 2010, an ostensibly new and improved Yanukovych, now advised by Paul Manafort—, later Donald Trump’s campaign chair and Russiagate star—prevailed over Yushchenko, whose popularity had been undercut by failed reforms and bickering with allies.
Yanukovych’s victory had been achieved by a clever rebranding as a modern liberal democratic leader who would ensure Ukraine’s integration into Europe while also preserving good relations with Russia. In particular, he promised to pursue a free trade agreement with the European Union, seen as putting Ukraine on the path to EU membership.
Vladimir Putin responded with what Jacobin’s Marcetic aptly calls “a one-man good-cop, bad-cop routine,” wielding both the carrot of a no-strings loan and the stick of punitive trade measures to strong-arm Yanukovych into backing out of the agreement. In November 2013, Yanukovych reneged on the deal, sparking massive protests dominated by the slogan, “Ukraine is Europe.”
“Europe” was not just about trade or job opportunities but, in the words of one activist featured in the book, “a question of values: the value of freedom of choice, the value of dignity.” Shore asserts that, despite the participation of Ukrainian nationalists, the “Euromaidan” was an extraordinary example of interethnic and interreligious cooperation between different groups brought together by common liberal values.
Yanukovych’s violent response to the Maidan demonstrations—sending brutal riot cops to disperse the protesters and ramming through a package of repressive legislation—only spurred on the protests.
By the time Yanukovych had signed a Europe-brokered deal with opposition leaders agreeing to give more power to the parliament and hold new elections later in the year, nearly a hundred Maidan protesters were dead at the hands of the Berkut riot police—48 of them in a half-hour-long massacre by snipers on February 20 (based on extensive video footage, by the Center for Human Rights Science at Carnegie Mellon University concluded that the victims were indeed shot by Berkut members.) —and many Maidan activists saw the deal as a betrayal. The crowd cheered nationalist speakers who demanded Yanukovych’s immediate removal and threatened violence. The parliament moved to impeach him, and on February 22 the beleaguered Yanukovych fled to Russia, where he has lived ever since. There is evidence that he had been preparing his flight and moving his property for days if not weeks before his departure.
Since Yanukovich ouster, Russian state sponsored media have frequently claimed that the Maidan Revolution was in fact a coup orchestrated by Western powers. The claim is that US had spent USD 5 billion to fund the uprising against Yanukovych. The real story is that V. Nuland said that US had invested more than 5 billion in Ukraine since their independence in 1991. To support democracy-building programs and institutions. To build health-care systems and a wide area of activities, including nuclear nonproliferation efforts. NOT to provoke the uprising in 2014, as the false Russian propaganda tells.
The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, also carried out a disinformation campaign reframing Maidan as a coup perpretated by armed nationalists. GRU created fake personas made to look like ordinary Ukrainins on Facebook and Vkontakte. These accounts called demonstarters “fascist”, “westerners” and “Nazis”, and voiced fears of what perotesters would do to Pro-Russia citizens.
Other fake personas made physical threats against Yanukovych’s political allies and posted articles claiming that they lived in Klyiv and that what happened there was a violent coup.
To this day, Russian state media are still referring to the Maidan Revolution as a “Western backed coup”.
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bjornsjostrom3800 The Minsk agreements did not address the root cause of the conflict. It was stipulated, so to speak, that there was or had been some kind of ethnic conflict between Russians and Ukrainians in Ukraine, and that this was the reason for the outbreak of violence. And by settling this alleged ethnic conflict, the conflict could be pacified. THIS WAS PURE FICTION.
The ethnic conflicts that existed in Ukraine were no more serious than ethnic tensions in many other countries. Moreover, the dividing lines in this conflict, if one insists on understanding them in ethnic terms, are incredibly blurred. This is not about the Russian versus the Ukrainian language or Ukrainian versus Russian national identity.
Nor is it about religion, not even in the slightest. At most, one could find something like an eastern Ukrainian Donbas identity. But this regional identity of the Donbas is not much stronger than strong regional identities in other countries. What this conflict is fundamentally about is RUSSIA WANTING TO EXERT INFLUENCE OVER THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY ORIENTATION OF THE GOVERNMENT IN KYIV.
In the Minsk agreement, however, this fiction of an ethnic conflict was constructed instead, although Russia actually had no particular interest in obtaining any autonomy rights for eastern Ukraine, for Russian-speaking or ethnically Russian Ukrainian citizens.
Russia was not really interested in these issues, but Ukraine was not at all eager to grant such rights either, for fear of a supposed fifth column.
Moscow was not only concerned with what was happening in the Donbas, but above all with what was happening in Kyiv. The Ukraine conflict is about the orientation of Ukraine, pure and simple.
But the Minsk agreement addresses completely different issues. That’s why the process didn’t work. Moreover, a major blockage has been Russia's insistence that it is not a party to the conflict and therefore is not bound by its terms. Point 10, for example, calls for the withdrawal of all foreign armed formations and military equipment from the two disputed regions, Donetsk and Luhansk: Ukraine says this refers to forces from Russia, but Moscow denies it has any forces there. (Later Putin admitted there were Russian forces.)
However, Russia violates the Minsk agreements on a regular basis.
The Minsk Agreements are a basis for political resolution of the conflict in Donbas. They have been violated by the Russian Federation on a regular basis. Point 10, for example, calls for the withdrawal of all foreign armed formations and military equipment from the two disputed regions, Donetsk and Luhansk: Ukraine says this refers to forces from Russia, but Moscow denies it has any forces there. (Later Putin admitted there were russian forces.)
Signing of the first documents in September 2014 followed direct incursion of the Russian regular troops in Donbas and intense hostilities near the city of Ilovaysk — the place of one of the most shameful crimes, committed by the Russian Army in Donbas.
At least 366 Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 429 were wounded there while leaving the city in the so-called “green corridor” under the guarantees of commanders of Russian troops. In violation of the Minsk Memorandum, Russian troops and Russia-backed illegal armed formations seized 8 pieces of land 1696 km² in area, which had to be on the Ukrainian government-controlled territory according to the line of contact, defined by the Memorandum.
Debaltseve is one of the most telling examples of how Russia violates the Minsk Agreements. Combined Russian-terrorist forces attacked and seized the city and the outskirts on 16–18 February 2015, immediately after the Minsk Package of measures, establishing the comprehensive ceasefire since 15 February, had been signed.
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bjornsjostrom3800 Keep clapping for your russian nazis!
A statement signed by more than 300 historians who study genocide, Nazism and World War II said Putin’s rhetoric about de-Nazifying fascists among Ukraine’s elected leadership is “propaganda.”
“We strongly reject the Russian government’s cynical abuse of the term genocide, the memory of World War II and the Holocaust, and the equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression,” the statement says.
“This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive to the memory of millions of victims of Nazism and those who courageously fought against it, including Russian and Ukrainian soldiers of the Red Army.
“Neo-Nazi, far right and xenophobic groups do exist in Ukraine, like in pretty much any other country, including Russia,” Finkel said. “They are vocal and can be prone to violence but they are numerically small, marginal and their political influence at the state level is non-existent. That is not to say that Ukraine doesn’t have a far-right problem. It does. But I would consider neo-Nazi groups IN RUSSIA A MUCH BIGGER problem and threat than the Ukrainian far right.”
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@PerceivedREALITY999 “HIDING BEHIND WOMEN AND CHILDREN”: CIVILIANS USED BY RUSSIA AS HUMAN SHIELDS DURING OCCUPATION OF CRIMEA
27.02.2019
On 21 February 2019, a new submission was sent to the International Criminal Court regarding the use of civilians during the capture of strategic targets in the Crimean Peninsula by Russian soldiers in 2014. The submission was prepared by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union NGO (UHHRU) and the Regional Center for Human Rights NGO (RCHR) in cooperation with the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
The authors established that Russian Federation’s forces were not only intentionally and deliberately moving civilians closer to the facilities of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, but were also standing behind these people during the blocking and capture of these facilities. Under such circumstances, Ukrainian soldiers were unable to use force to defend against the attacks.
These human shields were made up of 4 categories of civilians, among them Crimeans with pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian views, civilians brought from Russia to take part in the peninsula’s occupation, as well as representatives of the Cossacks and the so-called “Crimean Self-Defense”.
“There were also people among the civilians that did not belong to neither of the above categories. For instance, we established that Serbian Chetniks were involved in the assaults,” says Maksym Tymochko, UHHRU lawyer. “Based on our information, at least 10 military facilities belonging to the Armed Forces of Ukraine were captured in this manner with the use of at least 1,000 civilians.”
Particularly indicative is the capture of the naval base in the town of Novoozerne, carried out with the use of at least 300 people, men and women as well as adolescents and the elderly.
Among the civilians used as human shields were people with pro-Russian views whose participation was encouraged as well as those who gathered in front of military targets as a result of threats or blackmail. “In such cases, the occupying power is required to prevent the presence of civilians in potentially dangerous places. Furthermore, representatives of the Russian Federation should have refrained from using civilians for protecting their own armed forces”, summarizes Vitaliy.
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THERE WAS NO GENOCIDE IN DONBAS.
From Iranian press: Vladimir Putin regularly drone on about the alleged “genocide of the Donbas population”. Today, this myth sits at the core of the Kremlin’s propaganda. Putin has used this myth to justify Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. " Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years” Putin said in his address announcing the war.
Both Ukraine and the occupied Donbas territories have suffered casualties because of the HOSTILITIES THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION has been conducting there since 2014. But Russia has insisted for these eight years and tried to convince the world that the actions of Ukraine’s Armed Forces in Donbas “are aimed at destroying the population of Donbas” and are not a struggle for Ukraine’s territorial integrity. And despite the UNTRUTHFULNESS of the argument, Russia’s propaganda machine has nevertheless managed to convince the Russian audience of this, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is “an act of retaliation for Donbas”.
As it happens, official United Nations data suggests that the 14,000 casualty figure that Putin has used does not only refer to civilians. During Russia’s 2014-2021 military operations against Ukraine, 14,500 people died in the Donbas war. Of that 14,000, 3,404 were civilians, 4,400 were Ukrainian servicemen and 6,500 were Russian militants. The figure Putin operates with, is the total number of casualties incurred in the Donbas war by both sides.
The Russian Federation both armed the separatists and sendt unmarked soldiers. Russia initially denied that there were Russian military forces in Donbas, but on 17 April 2014 Vladimir Putin finally confirmed the presence of the Russian military. Alexander Borodai, Prime Minister of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, stated that 50,000 RUSSIAN citizens fought in the Donbas up to August 2015.
THESE SOLDIERS are the ones that the Ukranian government fought against, NOT “shelling of innocents in Donbass”, which Russian propaganda will tell you.
Data obtained from the reports of the so-called “Commissioner for Human Rights in the Donetsk People’s Republic” show casualty figures even lower than those of the United Nations. In a 2020 report the total losses of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) since the start of the war in Donbas are estimated to be 4,959. This is the figure that is officially recorded by the DPR “legislature”.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 "Russia doesn't indiscriminately shell civilians. Russia targets the Ukrainian military."
The Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Adedeji Ebo, May 2023: “After almost 15 months of the Russian Federation’s military offensive into Ukraine, suffering, loss, displacement and destruction continue to form part of an unbearable routine”, said Mr. Ebo. “In addition to the thousands of civilians killed and injured, the destruction of essential critical infrastructure and services is particularly alarming.
In the beginning 4 months of the war, The Russians destroyed over 300 bridges in Ukraine. Homes, schools, roads, and bridges have been destroyed and damaged”, he continued. “Attacks on energy infrastructure have interrupted power, heating, drinking water supply and sewage facilities, as well as mobile and internet communications. Hospitals and health facilities have been attacked, killing and injuring healthcare workers and disrupting essential services. Explosive remnants of war have resulted in widespread land contamination rendering land unusable for agriculture, while impeding the movement of people.”
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@PerceivedREALITY999 "Russia doesn't indiscriminately shell civilians. Russia targets the Ukrainian military."
Moscow denies attacking Ukrainian civilians, but the recent torrent of strikes on Kyiv suggest a concerted strategy with clear objectives. Russian missiles and drones rained down on the Ukrainian capital 17 times in May. That's equivalent to a near non-stop rate of once every two days. While Moscow was hit by a rare attack on Tuesday, Russia's relentless strikes point to a concerted campaign to bombard Ukrainian civilians.
But why do this? The Kremlin denies deliberately targeting civilians - which can be considered a war crime under international law - however the UN estimated in May that more than 24,000 non-combatants had been killed since fighting began last February.
Russian strikes have also been documented against hospitals, schools, maternity wards, theatres - the grim list goes on. "It's terror bombing," Dr Jade McGlynn, Research Fellow in War Studies at King's College London, told Euronews. "The purpose is to make Ukrainians feel unsafe and place them under considerable psychological pressure." Behind Russia's "terror" campaign lies a clear objective, says McGlynn.
"The ultimate intention is to break the will of the population so that they will at some point give in and accept Russia," she explained, claiming it was personally "directed" by the Russian President. "Putin believes the West will give up and Ukrainians will just be grateful for an end to the terror." "Civilians have always been targeted in all of Russia's wars," said McGlynn. "It's long been understood that civilians are collateral damage."
"They've never had much care for individual human life." Ahead of the Second Chechen War in 1999, Russia launched a devastating bombing campaign against breakaway Chechnya, reducing vast areas to rubble and forcing at least 100,000 to flee their homes. Russian airstrikes have also hammered rebel-held areas in Syria's ongoing civil war, with Human Rights Watch describing them as "reckless, indiscriminate and deliberately targeting civilians".
In Ukraine, McGlynn says Russia's willingness to indiscriminately bombard civilian areas stems from a colonial view of the country. "For Russia, there are two types of Ukrainians: The good little brother/ sort of sidekick who speaks Russian... and the bad Ukrainians who embrace Ukrainian identity." "That's who they want to destroy".
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Aljazeera: Putin targets Ukrainian civilians because he could in Syria. The Syrianisation of the Ukraine war is no coincidence. Russia got away with it once — and believes it will again.
In 2015, when Russia began its military intervention in Syria, it seemed that the barbarism in the region was too significant for the international community to turn away from. Abundant reports by United Nations commissions, as well as accountability, human rights, and humanitarian organisations, documented war crimes with pictures, videos, and firsthand testimony.
The world has watched countless incidents of missiles destroying hospitals or mutilated Syrian children covered in dust and blood being pulled from the rubble of destroyed apartment buildings. By some accounts, the documentation of war crimes in Syria is the strongest evidence since the crimes of the Nazis in World War II. And yet, the international community failed to act. No one was held accountable.
Syria was a test case for the resolve of the world on how to respond to a brutal aggressor that justifies attacking civilians and hospitals. Inaction in Syria gave Putin the green light to start another brutal war to swallow another big chunk of territory from his neighbor, Ukraine.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 It doesn't matter how many lies the Kremlin regime are spreading. The evidence of the Bucha massacre speaks for itself.
On September 23, a United Nations-appointed panel of independent experts released a statement:
concluding that Russian Federation forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, an announcement that follows an earlier U.S. Government assessment, released in March. In the 27 towns and settlements they visited, the UN-appointed panel saw the remnants of torture and executions and documented evidence of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape, based on testimonies from brave survivors, government officials, and other witnesses. While inspecting mass graves, they also found that the Russian Federation perpetrated many of these atrocities against children and the elderly.
Since Putin launched his unjustified full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has spuriously claimed Russian forces were liberating the Ukrainian people, while in reality committing war crimes against the country’s civilians. In Bucha and Irpin, retreating Russian forces left behind hundreds of bodies of innocent civilians in the streets, and Ukrainian women bravely came forward to tell of the abuse and sexual violence they experienced. And in just the last week, 440 bodies of men, women, and children were exhumed from mass graves in Izyum. In such a short time, Putin and his army have committed atrocities against the Ukrainian people that will leave voids and scars for generations. And sadly, we continue to hear even more harrowing stories from innumerable Ukrainians across the country who themselves have been victims of, or witness to, interrogations, detainments, torture, and forcible deportations to remote areas of Russia.
As President Biden said just a few days ago to the UN General Assembly, “this war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people.” The world must unite against the Kremlin’s shameless inhumanity and hold those responsible for these atrocities accountable.
At USAID, we will continue working with the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian civil society to document Russia’s human rights abuses. With our support, these organizations have already documented more than 15,000 incidents, and handed over their evidence to authorities for further investigation. As Putin prolongs his invasion, we will continue this vital work so that the Ukrainian people can one day seek the justice they deserve.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 Feb -14 “coup”: It already started in nov -13.
First there was an attempted coup by the russians. They put pressure on president Yanukovych to not sign an already negotiated political association and free trade deal with EU. When people heard about this scam, they gathered in the streets. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of Russians and oligarchs, police brutality, and human rights violations. Ressive anti-protest laws fuelled further anger.
In January and February 2014 further protests resulted in the government’s resignation. On 21 February, Yanukovych and the parliamentary opposition signed an agreement to bring about an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections. The next day, 22 February, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0.
Russia then occupied and annexed Crimea, with “little green men” (Russian masked soldiers). More “little green men” together with Russian armed pro-Russian separatists seized government buildings and proclaimed the independent states of Donetsk and Luhansk, sparking the Donbas war.
The Russian Federation initially denied that these were Russian military forces, but in April 2014 Vladimir Putin finally confirmed the presence of the Russian military. Alexander Borodai, Prime Minister of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, stated that 50,000 RUSSIAN citizens fought in the Donbas up to August 2015.
THESE SOLDIERS are the ones that the Ukraninan government fought against, NOT “shelling of innocents in Donbass”, which Russian propaganda will tell you.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 UN report details summary executions and attacks on individual civilians by Russian troops in northern Ukraine from February to April:
(7 December 2022) – In the initial weeks of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian armed forces summarily executed or carried out attacks on individuals leading to the deaths of hundreds of civilians, the Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner said today. A UN Human Rights report based on the work of the Mission details how Russian troops killed civilians in Ukrainian towns and villages across the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions of Ukraine from 24 February until 6 April 2022.
Bogner said the summary executions examined in the report may constitute a war crime. “There are strong indications that the summary executions documented in this report may constitute the war crime of willful killing,” she said.
The report explains how killings of civilians were not confined to specific locations, although some areas were more affected than others. In the town of Bucha near Kyiv, which was under the control of Russian troops from 5 to 30 March, the Mission documented the killing of 73 civilians (54 men, 16 women, 2 boys and 1 girl) and is in the process of corroborating an additional 105 alleged killings.
Summary executions often followed security checks by Russian armed forces. “A mere text message, a piece of camouflage clothing, or a record of previous military service could have fatal consequences,” Bogner said.
The report states that the UN has, so far, documented the violent deaths of 441 civilians (341 men, 72 women, 20 boys and 8 girls) in the three regions in the initial 6 weeks of the Russian invasion alone. The report cautions that the actual figures are likely to be considerably higher as work is still ongoing to corroborate an additional 198 killings that occurred in the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions of Ukraine occupied by Russia in the initial stages of the ongoing armed attack against Ukraine.
Apart from the summary execution of civilians, the report covers cases when Russian troops launched attacks that did not respect the principle of distinction between military objectives and civilians, and failed to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians. “Civilians were targeted on roads while moving within or between settlements, including while attempting to flee the hostilities,” Bogner said.
The report examines 100 killings in more detail. Of the number, according to the report’s assessment, 57 amounted to summary executions (48 men, 7 women and 2 boys). Thirty of those took place in places of detention while the remaining 27 victims were killed on the spot, shortly after coming under the control of Russian forces.
“Russian soldiers brought civilians to makeshift places of detention and then executed them in captivity. Many of the victims’ bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to their heads,” said Bogner.
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Feb -14 “coup”: It already started in nov -13.
First there was an attempted coup by the russians. They put pressure on president Yanukovych to not sign an already negotiated political association and free trade deal with EU. When people heard about this scam, they gathered in the streets. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of Russians and oligarchs, police brutality, and human rights violations. Ressive anti-protest laws fuelled further anger.
In January and February 2014 further protests resulted in the government’s resignation. On 21 February, Yanukovych and the parliamentary opposition signed an agreement to bring about an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections. The next day, 22 February, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0.
Russia then occupied and annexed Crimea, with “little green men” (Russian masked soldiers). More “little green men” together with Russian armed pro-Russian separatists seized government buildings and proclaimed the independent states of Donetsk and Luhansk, sparking the Donbas war.
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THERE WAS NO GENOCIDE IN DONBAS.
From Iranian press: Vladimir Putin regularly drone on about the alleged “genocide of the Donbas population”. Today, this myth sits at the core of the Kremlin’s propaganda. Putin has used this myth to justify Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. " Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years” Putin said in his address announcing the war.
Both Ukraine and the occupied Donbas territories have suffered casualties because of the HOSTILITIES THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION has been conducting there since 2014. But Russia has insisted for these eight years and tried to convince the world that the actions of Ukraine’s Armed Forces in Donbas “are aimed at destroying the population of Donbas” and are not a struggle for Ukraine’s territorial integrity. And despite the UNTRUTHFULNESS of the argument, Russia’s propaganda machine has nevertheless managed to convince the Russian audience of this, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is “an act of retaliation for Donbas”.
As it happens, official United Nations data suggests that the 14,000 casualty figure that Putin has used does not only refer to civilians. During Russia’s 2014-2021 military operations against Ukraine, 14,500 people died in the Donbas war. Of that 14,000, 3,404 were civilians, 4,400 were Ukrainian servicemen and 6,500 were Russian militants. The figure Putin operates with, is the total number of casualties incurred in the Donbas war by both sides.
The Russian Federation both armed the separatists and sendt unmarked soldiers. Russia initially denied that there were Russian military forces in Donbas, but on 17 April 2014 Vladimir Putin finally confirmed the presence of the Russian military. Alexander Borodai, Prime Minister of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, stated that 50,000 RUSSIAN citizens fought in the Donbas up to August 2015.
THESE SOLDIERS are the ones that the Ukranian government fought against, NOT “shelling of innocents in Donbass”, which Russian propaganda will tell you.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 There wasn't any realistic deal in Turkey.
Johnson said this to his own parliament: There is absolutely no sign that Russia wants to reach a deal with Ukraine, and it could not be trusted even if one was on offer, Boris Johnson has told the Commons.
And he was right, Russia had broken all the agreements so far, including Minsk. The former prime minister warned against a "land for peace" deal, and said he doubted Volodymyr Zelensky or any Ukrainian government would agree to any such compromise.
(While in 2014-2017 the implementation of the Minsk Accords could have led to a negotiated reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine under international supervision, the international situation and Russia’s intentions have changed. In fact, by late 2021 Russian authorities had all but integrated the breakaway republics into the Russian political, military and economic space, precluding any meaningful possibility of the region’s peaceful reintegration into Ukraine. Whilst the Ukrainian leadership pursued a ceasefire in Donbas from the summer of 2020, the Kremlin used it as a bargaining chip to put pressure on Zelensky’s government and to create a flimsy pretext for an invasion. Zelensky’s last-ditch attempts to return to the negotiations in late 2021 were rejected by Putin, who tore up the Minsk Accords by recognising the independence of the breakaway regions. Thus, instead of a roadmap to future peace, the Minsk Accords had largely become a military-diplomatic tool in the hands of Russian leadership to legitimise regime change and the dismemberment of Ukraine.)
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@PerceivedREALITY999 Russia and Ukraine never signed a peace agreement In 2022.
People are sharing a video of Russian President Vladimir Putin showing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa a document, claiming that Russia signed a peace agreement with Ukraine in the spring of 2022! This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by Vladimir Putin himself, and propagated by his supporters to diminish support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
- On 7 April 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Moscow rejected a draft peace deal from Ukraine, saying that it contained “unacceptable” elements that deviated from proposals that both sides’ negotiators had earlier agreed on.
- July 19 : Dmitry Medvedev said that “Russia will achieve all its goals. There will be peace – on our terms”
- On September 14, 2022, Reuters reported that Vladimir Putin rejected a provisional deal, in which Ukraine agreed to stay out of NATO. His own chief envoy on Ukraine, Dmitry Kozak, told him that the deal would remove the need for Russia to pursue a large-scale occupation of Ukraine, and recommended that Putin adopt the peace deal.
However, PUTIN DECIDED TO REJECT the provisional peace agreement Kozak hammered out with the Ukrainians, and pressed ahead with his “special military operation”.
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Russia and Ukraine never signed a peace agreement In 2022.
People are sharing a video of Russian President Vladimir Putin showing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa a document, claiming that Russia signed a peace agreement with Ukraine in the spring of 2022! This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by Vladimir Putin himself, and propagated by his supporters to diminish support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
- On 7 April 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Moscow rejected a draft peace deal from Ukraine, saying that it contained “unacceptable” elements that deviated from proposals that both sides’ negotiators had earlier agreed on.
- July 19 : Dmitry Medvedev said that “Russia will achieve all its goals. There will be peace – on our terms”
- On September 14, 2022, Reuters reported that Vladimir Putin rejected a provisional deal, in which Ukraine agreed to stay out of NATO. His own chief envoy on Ukraine, Dmitry Kozak, told him that the deal would remove the need for Russia to pursue a large-scale occupation of Ukraine, and recommended that Putin adopt the peace deal.
However, PUTIN DECIDED TO REJECT the provisional peace agreement Kozak hammered out with the Ukrainians, and pressed ahead with his “special military operation”.
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Russia’s Lie Machine:
Most of the propaganda themes used by Russia to try to justify its invasion of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine dated back at least as far as the 2004 “Orange Revolution.” They took on a whole new dimension following the Euromaidan revolution of 2013-14, reaching a level so extraordinary that the head of one state TV channel reportedly said that they made Cold War disinformation look like “child’s play”.
Portrayals of the new government in Kyiv as a “fascist junta”, supported by anti-Semitic hordes and waging genocide against Russian-speakers did however hit major obstacles. Prominent Ukrainian Jewish figures took out full-page adverts in several international newspapers to debunk such claims and condemn Russian aggression.
On several occasions, Jewish or other ethnic minorities issued public statements dissociating themselves from fake ethnic groups claiming persecution. There was further incontrovertible evidence that the rampant fascism narrative was nonsense.
In May 2014, the two Ukrainian far-Right presidential candidates together received a mere 2% of the popular vote. While there are certainly far-Right groups in Ukraine, and the authorities often fail to respond adequately to racist or homophobic attacks, the scale of the problem remains small. Despite this, any report about the far-Right or anti-Semitism in Ukraine is far more likely to hit the headlines than stories about similar trends in Russia, or about Russia’s extensive links with far-Right groups in European countries.
The problem is, however, that most people have no idea that they are being deceived and would simply not think to verify the information they receive if they watch Russia’s state-funded RT (formerly Russia Today), assuming this to be a Russian version of the BBC or Deutsche Welle.
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Russia’s Lie Machine Fans Flames of Odessa ‘Massacre’:
It is several years since 48 people died during disturbances and a terrible fire in Odessa. The flames were still smoldering when Russia first began presenting the conflagration as a massacre by Ukrainian nationalists. This has continued regardless of several investigations, by the bipartisan 2 May Group; the Council of Europe’s International Advisory Panel and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Each has found that the earlier disturbances began when a large group of pro-Russian activists attacked a peaceful march in support of Ukrainian unity. From then on, weapons were used by both sides and six people were killed. Toward evening, pro-Ukrainian activists headed towards Kulikove Pole Square intending to destroy a tent camp set up by pro-Russian activists. The latter responded with gunfire and Molotov cocktails from the roof and windows of the Trade Union building. All independent reports agree that with Molotov cocktails being thrown both at and from the building, it is impossible to determine the source of the fire which caused the death of 42 pro-Russian activists.
Selective coverage was evident from the outset. All Russian video footage treated Ukrainian “radicals” as the perpetrators of the earlier riots. No mention was made of the shooting and Molotov cocktails from inside the building, nor of the pro-Ukrainian activists who risked their safety to rescue people from the building. Russian footage instead showed a pro-Ukrainian activist firing a pistol at the building, failing to note that the man was returning fire coming from the building’s windows and that his pistol contained blanks.
Two years after the Council of Europe’s report, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that, “Ukrainian nationalists drove defenseless people into the Trade Union building and burned them alive”. This knowingly false story has now been peddled around the world, with generously financed exhibitions and carefully selected “witnesses” taken on tours of European countries.
It is a story that is known to have cost even more lives, with many of the young men who volunteered to fight for the Kremlin-backed insurgents in eastern Ukraine citing the alleged “Odessa massacre” as a catalyst.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 "Zelensky, Poroshenko, Merkel and Hollande admitted that Ukraine had no intention to honor the Minsk agreements." You are lying again, is it a habit of yours?
Russiapost/republicru: In December 2022, Angela Merkel, in an interview with Die Zeit, said that the Minsk agreements “bought time” for Ukraine to strengthen its army: “it was obvious to us that the conflict would only be frozen without the problem being solved,” though thanks to the agreements Ukraine won “precious time.” Later, the former chancellor was echoed by former French President François Hollande, who noted the strength of the Ukrainian army and attributed that to the Minsk agreements.
Moscow was predictably delighted by these comments, DISTORTING them to make it seem that Merkel and Hollande had perfidiously been preparing Ukraine for a new war with Russia, even though they had only been talking about a well-used window of opportunity by Kyiv. The resurgent topic of the Minsk agreements demonstrates the cognitive chasm separating today’s Russia and the West, which calls into question the durability of any future peace negotiations. Nevertheless, Putin broke the Minsk agreements right after it was signed
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Disinformation: Ukraine was committing genocide in Donbas for eight years.
Verdict: FAKE NEWS
In order to pursue its expansionist goals in Ukraine, Russia also unleashed information warfare against Ukraine simultaneously with its military aggression. Moreover, it was the “pretext” based on disinformation and falsehoods which Putin used to launch his invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
On 24 February 2022, Putin stated that the goals of the full-scale war, which he calls a “special operation,” are to “protect the population from genocide as well as denazify and demilitarise Ukraine together with the protection of those people who were abused and subjected to genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.” Putin made similar statements at the session of the Human Rights Council in December 2021, saying that “what is happening in Donbas now very much reminds us of genocide.” Russian MFA spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, also made a statement of similar content on 18 February 2022: “The situation [in Donbass] does not resemble a genocide. No, it does not resemble a genocide… It is a genocide…”
The claim that Ukraine was committing genocide in Donbas has become a main propaganda message not only for the Kremlin and Kremlin-run media but in other pro-Russian sources as well. The aim of this disinformation is to proclaim Russia’s actions in Ukraine as legitimate and completely disregard any Kremlin-directed blame. In fact, there is not a single international document or conclusion of any relevant international organisation whatsoever that would confirm Moscow’s allegations. That Putin and the Kremlin are unable to prove that genocide indeed took place in Donbas is confirmed by the fact that Russia has never officially appealed to the UN Genocide Prevention Office or any other international institutions over the issues of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
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Every opposition politician in russia are either killed or in jail on false charges. Even journalists have been killed and jailed. Still you are supporting this terrible regime!!
Russia arrests priests:
- "Brothers and sisters in Christ are now killing Christians. It is impossible to live with this fact." For this statement, made in a sermon in the church, the Russian priest Ioann Burdin was arrested.
Zona Media reports that Burdin is one of the first to suffer under a new law, which criminalised calls for the end of the war. The Russian priest says that he finds it irreconcilable that Russian Christians are killing Ukrainian Christians. "For me, this is about the same as if I would come to our Church and stab someone who is praying because I did not like what he was saying. We cannot break the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" so easily."
Burdin is a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian village of Karabanovo in the Kostroma region. During one of his sermons, he announced that he would pray for the war's end. According to him, however, that was not the point of his sermon. "It is a deeper call to people to retain humanity in their hearts; so that they do not feel hatred for either Ukrainians, Russians or the Americans."
Burdin's statements, however, led to his arrest. He was summoned to the police station, heard and charged with "discrediting" Russia's war in Ukraine, Dagen reports. The new law made it illegal to question the Russian invasion. Violating this legislation can lead to imprisonment or a fine.
- A Russian priest now faces up to 10 years behind bars for declaring that troops waging war on Ukraine are going to hell.
The charges against Ioann Kurmoyarov, a former priestmonk of the Russian Orthodox Church and doctor of theology, come as the Kremlin seeks to stifle dissent over the war, with numerous high-profile musicians and writers recently charged under a new law against spreading “false information” about the Russian military.
The charges against him stem from a video he posted on social media in March responding to Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov’s claim that even if the war in Ukraine leads to a nuclear strike, Russians will “go to heaven.”
“I would like to disappoint everyone who believes in this ‘fake,’” Kuromaryov said, adding that those who “unleash aggression” do not wind up in heaven. “Ukraine did not attack Russia,” he said. “You will not be in any heaven, you’ll be in hell.”
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- The "Bucha massacre" was the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war by the Russian Armed Forces during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photographic and video evidence of the massacre emerged on 1 April 2022 after Russian forces withdrew from the city.
According to local authorities, 458 bodies have been recovered from the town, including 9 children under the age of 18; among the victims, 419 people were killed with weapons and 39 appeared to have died of natural causes.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the unlawful killings, including summary executions, of at least 73 civilians in Bucha. Photos showed corpses of civilians, lined up with their hands bound behind their backs, shot at point-blank range, which ostensibly gave proof that summary executions had taken place.
An inquiry by Radio Free Europe reported the use of a basement beneath a campground as a torture chamber. Many bodies were found mutilated and burnt, and girls as young as fourteen reported being raped by Russian soldiers. Ukraine has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate what happened in Bucha as part of its ongoing investigation of the invasion to determine whether a series of Russian war crimes or crimes against humanity were committed.
Russian authorities have denied responsibility and instead claimed that Ukraine faked footage of the event or staged the killings itself as a false flag operation,] and have claimed that the footage and photographs of dead bodies were "fake news". These assertions by Russian authorities have been debunked as false by various groups and media organizations. Eyewitness accounts from residents of Bucha said that the Russian Armed Forces carried out the killings.
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@peaceb4 Why was the coup deadly? Because of the snipers that the russian friendly president has placed to shoot the protesters.
There has been no lacking of real peace talks from Ukraine, but from russia. putin has denied all realistic peace talks. After all, his mission is to restore the Soviet Union. So why would he want peace!? A free and independent Ukraine stands in the way of his wet dream.
- July 19, 2022 : Dmitry Medvedev said that “Russia will achieve all its goals. There will be peace – on our terms”
"No negotiations are possible until the Kyiv govt has been replaced with a russian one" = medvedev
- On September 14, 2022, Reuters reported that Vladimir Putin rejected a provisional deal, in which Ukraine agreed to stay out of NATO. His own chief envoy on Ukraine, Dmitry Kozak, told him that the deal would remove the need for Russia to pursue a large-scale occupation of Ukraine, and recommended that Putin adopt the peace deal.
However, PUTIN DECIDED TO REJECT the provisional peace agreement Kozak hammered out with the Ukrainians, and pressed ahead with his “special military operation”.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 - Wagner Group recruits people with Nazi tattoos for war in Ukraine
The Wagner Group recruits mercenaries through the Russian social media VKontakte; and due to the shortage of personnel, drug dealers, citizens hiding from the police, and people with Nazi tattoos are accepted for "work".
Source: video of the Sistemy investigative project
- Wagner Boss Cites Tattoo in Colleague’s Nazism Scandal.
Dmitry Utkin, one of the Wagner founders, have nazi tatooes. In 2016, he was hosted by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
“In order to defeat Nazism, you must try it on yourself,” Prigozhin said in response to a report that a Wagner Group official flaunts his admiration for the Third Reich.
Sources close to Wagner cited by Dossier say Utkin used the nickname “Wagner” precisely for its reference to Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer, Richard Wagner. He was also reportedly known to discuss the path of a “true Aryan” and openly don clothing accessories that featured a swastika.
- According to a German intelligence report, at least two neo-Nazi groups are fighting alongside Moscow in Ukraine, despite the Kremlin's claim to be 'denazifying' its southwestern neighbor.
- A video, published in December 2020, showed two nattily dressed Russian men. I’m a Nazi,” said one of the men, Aleksei Milchakov, who was the main focus of the video published on a Russian nationalist YouTube channel. “I'm not going to go deep and say, I’m a nationalist, a patriot, an imperialist, and so forth. I’ll say it outright: I’m a Nazi.”
Aside from being a notorious, avowed Nazi known for killing a puppy and posting bragging photographs about it on social media, Milchakov is the head of a Russian paramilitary group known as Rusich, which openly embraces Nazi symbolism and radical racist ideologies.
Along with members of the Russian Imperial Movement, a white supremacist group that was designated a "global terrorist" organization by the United States two years ago, Rusich is one of several right-wing groups that are actively fighting in Ukraine, in conjunction with Russia’s regular armed forces or allied separatist units.
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