Comments by "Olga P." (@olgap.) on "Russia's view on the ICC and war crimes" video.

  1. Unfortunately, true.
    2
  2. You would not find context here. A. P. Nielsen only presents facts that fit into the narrative.
    1
  3. ​ @volkerr.  Well, if staying in own borders makes USA less criminal than Russia, Russia still can say we've never nuked another country. Would it make Russia less criminal than USA? Does either (no changing borders/ no use of nukes) make everything else undone?
    1
  4. Put propaganda instead of analysis and I would totally agree.
    1
  5. Please don't disturb @anderspuck by dehumanising Russians, he is just doing his job.
    1
  6.  @anderspuck  @shanerooney7288 is right, context is important for the topic of this video. There is a narrow edge between analysis and propaganda and you’ve missed the mark (again). Analysis would, for example, mention there are countries sharing same idea of great powers being above the law. Then explain the reasons and name evidences for the statement Russia is, unlike the rest of them, committing war crimes on purpose you named. Instead of that, for any reason, you made it sound like Russia’ attitude towards ICC is unique and based your claim alone on this illusion. Tendency to selective presentation to encourage a particular perception turns your content into propaganda regardless how many valid points you make.
    1
  7.  @anderspuck  Thank you for your reply that very angered me back then, and now, 3 month later, I still don't really know how to disentangle it. I would absolutely agree with you if you were referring to the initial comment. And your reply would have been absolutely fine referring to countless similar comments across your comment section no matter what your video is about. Regarding this particular video and this particular conversation, it reads like a very polite middle finger. You conveniently leave out specific aspects of this video that were criticized. 04:40 You say Russia wants a world order where great powers are above the rules. Isn't it presenting Russia's view on the ICC and war crimes as unique to Russia? @shanerooney7288 and I pointed out it is not. 5:27 You say "(ICC) It's perhaps the paramount example of the type of supranational institution that Russia needs to break down in order to get the world order that they want." So, Russia wants to break down something that did not work in the first place to achive the world oder that already exists?! 6:24 You say "because essentially they need to give the court the middle finger because that is a way to undermine the authority of this court and to enforce a system where the great powers are above the law." Its by far not the first middlefinger given to the court and the system always has been the one where greate poweres are above the law. So, whats the point of this statement? 7:01 You say "They (war crimes) are a way to undermine the international system because it establishes a norm where the great powers are supposed to get away with these sorts of things." Here we go again. There is nothing to undermine and to establish. Greate powers do get away with war crimes. 7:17 "So from a Russian perspective, it's fine to have these rules, but they're for the small states." Not only from Russian perspective. 7:46 "It is a fundamental struggle between conflicting ideas about the world order and how the international system is supposed to work." I can not identify conflicting ideas about the world order. Russia acts according to the international system the way it works. It considers itself being one of great powers and therefore does not bother about consequences of own deeds. Now it gets really interesting. In your reply you describe the rules-based world order as "an illusion that we in the West need to get beyond". In this video you repeatedly claim Russia is trying to destroy the world order you yourself do not believe in. Make it make sense. How do your views as a private person match with what you say as a public person? Isn't encouraging a particular perception despite knowing better exactly what propagandists do?
    1
  8.  @anderspuck  Thank you so much for your very polite and patient response. I am the one to apologize, bringing up anger does not add anything to the discussion, and I shouldn't have done it. In your video you say “Russia wants a world order where grate powers are above the rules, so the rules in the international system are for the small countries.” But the international system has always been this way. Your chain of argument is based on a false premise. To point this out is neither whataboutism nor projecting values into something. The only conflict of ideas taking place is whether the world stays unipolar or will become multipolar. Yes, Russia is aiming to create a multipolar international system. To make your point you’ve replaced unipolar with rule based order. By doing that you made the conflict sound more dramatic than it is. Than the fearmongering language you use, constant repeating that Russia deliberately commits war crimes to fight the world order, making extremely severe accusations of bragging about targeting civilians and civil objects on state TV without any prove or example –all that creates a particular negative perception of Russia. If using false premises to vilify the enemy is not propaganda, then I don’t know what is. With "There is a narrow edge between analysis and propaganda and you’ve missed the mark (again)." I meant that for the most part your videos are very good analytics, there is always a true core, but there are details that turn them into propaganda. By far not everything you do is propaganda to me. It was the last word that would come to my mind to describe your content back than when I started to watch your videos several month prior full scale invasion. And watching your collaborations with other vloggers does not give me this vibe at all. But at some point you’ve changed the purpose of your solo-videos from informing the public to forming public opinion in certain ways. Whatever the reason for this change, there are patterns that, regarding your high level of knowledge and communication skills, your professional background make me think it is your deliberate choice.
    1
  9.  @anderspuck  Thank you for reminding me of Vlad Vexler. Two and a half years ago something put me off from watching his videos, there is a lot to catch up. Interesting how we, watching same content, come to different conclusions. And puzzling to observe you and your hard-core followers acting contrary to his recommendations I absolutely agree with. Belated congratulations on your book! In a military context your definition of propaganda is correct. As a civilian I would rather describe it the way Wikipedia does: “Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts”. The fact of deliberate influence on its own is neither positive nor negative to me. But goals, means and effects matter. I find the means you use questionable and effects partly counterproductive. To be honest, I am very surprised that you find my opinion absolutely strange, because what you are doing fulfills criteria of both definitions. Exaggerated and oversimplified your solo videos (with a few exceptions, though) boil down to “whatever happens is beneficial to Ukraine”. In your bubble the other end of the spectrum “whatever happens is beneficial to Russia” (for the record, does not resonate with me either) is being called out as propaganda. So, why is the one extreme a propaganda and another extreme not? Is propaganda something what only the enemy does? Than, what is the correct term for pushing a particular narrative that own government wants? We could use that instead. I do believe that you are acting with good intentions, but downsides of your off-balance approach make me dislike it. Lack of objectivity repells part of the audience and therefore important messages stay unheard. More important, it can lead to decrease in interest and public support of providing help to Ukraine. If everything is going according to the plan, if Ukraine is winning, then why bother? Thank you for adding details to your chain of arguments in this video, now it is more understandable to me. I am not sure that my point comes across correctly. It is not about what you say, it is about how. Maybe I interpreted into this video more purpose than you intended, but as you say, your videos build on top of each other over time. To me it was intensification of “Why is Russia bombing civilians?”. It is important to remind that a war is more than frontlines. There are numerous reasons why armed forces deliberately commit war crimes. Therefore talking about war crimes and their systemic nature is not vilification of Russians, I am with you on that. But presenting them happening on behalf of ordinary people, with one single purpose of entertainment is. You obviously read comments, so I suppose you to know how “Why is Russia bombing civilians?” was perceived. Perhaps I missed it, but I did not hear you tell it was misunderstood.
    1