Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "Russia Lashes Out As NATO Eases Ukraine's Membership Process; Says 'Don’t Cross Red Line'" video.
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@jimmyc974 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”. The report also claims that the majority of deaths occurred in 2014-2015, when 2,546 and 1,395 died respectively. In subsequent years the number of casualties in the Donbas war has significantly decreased. In 2016, 348 people were killed, in 2017 – 278, in 2018 – 154, in 2019 – 160 people.
In 2020, 44 people died, marking the lowest casualty rate for the entire period of the armed conflict. Although the casualty rate was quite low in 2020, the Kremlin nevertheless began to intimidate its own population with the specter of the “Ukrainian threat” and thereby discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the occupied territories’ residents.
Moreover, UN data also clearly shows that since 2014 the number of civilian deaths in the Donbas has steadily declined on both sides. There has been no escalation of the conflict in recent years, 90% of Donbas civilians died in 2014-2015
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@jimmyc974 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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@jimmyc974 NO GENOCIDE IN DONBAS. From Iranian press:
Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials 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.
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@NAS_Imports What bombardment of Crimea are you talking about?
Russia was concerned that the new government avowedly committed to closer relations with the West put its strategic positions in Crimea at risk. On 22–23 February, Putin convened an all-night meeting with security services chiefs to discuss extrication of the deposed Ukrainian president, Yanukovych, and at the end of that meeting Putin had remarked that "we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia". After that GRU and FSB began negotiating deals with local sympathizers to ensure that when the operation began there would be well‑armed "local self‑defense groups" on the streets for support. On 23 February pro-Russian demonstrations were held in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.
One of the initial Russian disinformation stories was the false allegation of a Corsun Pogrom, which claimed that pro-Maidan Ukrainians stopped several buses with Anti-Maidan protesters on 20 February. Russian media sources described beating and humiliation among the protesters, while a fake news documentary claimed multiple tortured and killed people. No such event actually occurred and when human rights organizations tried to contact the producers of the documentary they found that no such organization existed. Human rights group attributed the fake story to "pro-Kremlin trolls.
In a poll published on 24 February 2014 by the state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center, only 15% of those Russians polled said 'yes' to the question: "Should Russia react to the overthrow of the legally elected authorities in Ukraine?"
Regarding the myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine, this is a clear propaganda narrative that became a cornerstone in pro-Kremlin disinformation, which can clearly be challenged with the issue of a 2015 ban on Nazi and Communist ideologies, and with the far-right groups having limited presence during the Euromaidan protests itself and have suffered defeats in every national election after that, with a united front of all radical right-wing parties in the 2019 parliamentary elections winning only 2.15% of the vote falling far short of the 5% minimum guaranteeing entry into parliament.
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