R Johansen
Hindustan Times
comments
Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "Putin's Men Annihilate Ukrainian Unit In Bakhmut | Watch Armoured Vehicles Turn Into Pile Of Metal" video.
There wasn't any real 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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@LostSouLVL The Donbas lie again? Really??
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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Putin are lying about signing a peace deal: 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”
"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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@I_Stand_With_RussiaZOV 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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@I_Stand_With_RussiaZOV 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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@I_Stand_With_RussiaZOV You don't know what the ..uck you're talking about!
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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@I_Stand_With_RussiaZOV 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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@I_Stand_With_RussiaZOV "did you know Nzis is actually 🚫 in Russia"
- 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.
- - A journalist covering the war for Russia’s state news agency has visible tattoos with fascist symbolism, the Moscow Times website reported on Thursday.
The website referred to photos published in the Kievskaya Pravda 2D Telegram channel.
They show Russian journalist Gleb Erve, with fascist and Nazi symbols tattooed on his body and head. These include the emblem of the Italian National Fascist Party, tattooed on the back of his head, and the algiz, or rune of life, commonly used in Nazi Germany on his hand.
The journalist reports on the war, which Kremlin propaganda claims was launched to “denazify Ukraine”, for state news agency RIA Novosti.
Before joining RIA Novosti, Gleb Erve worked in a Moscow tattoo parlour alongside people linked to Nazi movements, the Moscow Times wrote.
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@I_Stand_With_RussiaZOV What has received less coverage than the Ukrainian far right groups, is the Putin regime’s own record of collaboration with far-right extremists. Even as Russian diplomats condemned “fascists” in the Baltic states and Kremlin propagandists railed against imaginary “Ukronazis” in power in Kyiv, the Russian state was cultivating its own homegrown Nazis.
The roots of neo-Nazism in Putin’s Russia
The origins of this relationship date to the late 1990s, when Russia was shaken by a wave of racist violence committed by neo-Nazi skinhead gangs. After Putin’s accession to the presidency in 2000, his regime exploited this development in two ways.
First, it used the neo-Nazi threat to justify the adoption of anti-extremism legislation, a longstanding demand of some Russian liberals. Ultimately, this legislation would be used to prosecute Russian democrats.
Second, the Kremlin launched “managed nationalism”, an attempt to co-opt and mobilise radical nationalist militants, including neo-Nazis, as a counterweight to an emerging anti-Putin coalition of democrats and leftist radicals.
As part of its preparations to confront a potential democratic uprising in Russia, Nashi enlisted football gang members, whose subculture overlapped with the neo-Nazi underground.
During 2005, Nashi’s thugs staged a series of raids on anti-Putin youth groups. The most violent attack, which left four left-wing activists in hospital, led to the arrest of the assailants. They were released after a visit to the police station from Nikita Ivanov, the Kremlin functionary who supervised the regime’s loyalist youth organisations.
The resulting scandal provoked a reconfiguration of “managed nationalism”. While Nashi distanced itself from football gangs, its radical militants migrated to two rival Kremlin proxies, the nationalist “Young Russia” group and the anti-immigration “Locals” group. These organisations became bridges between the neo-Nazi subculture and the Kremlin.
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@I_Stand_With_RussiaZOV In 2008-09, the Kremlin was threatened by Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s efforts to build an anti-Putin coalition of democrats and radical nationalists in Russia. In response, the Kremlin began to work with Russkii Obraz (“Russian Image”, or “RO” for short), a hardcore neo-Nazi group best known for its slick journal and its band, Hook from the Right.
With the assistance of Kremlin supervisors, RO attacked nationalists who were abandoning the skinhead subculture for Navalny’s anti-Putin coalition. In return, RO was granted privileged access to public space and the media.
Its leaders held televised public discussions with state functionaries and collaborated openly with Maksim Mishchenko, a member of parliament from the ruling party. Perhaps most shockingly, RO also hosted a concert by the infamous neo-Nazi band Kolovrat in Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square, within earshot of the Kremlin.
The problem for the Kremlin was that RO’s leader, Ilya Goryachev, was a fervent supporter of the neo-Nazi underground, the skinheads who committed hundreds of racist murders in the second half of the 2000s. The authorities turned a blind eye to RO’s production of a two-hour internet “documentary” titled Russian Resistance, which celebrated these killers as patriotic heroes and called for armed struggle against the regime.
I think we can now state that RUSSIA HAS A MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM WITH NAZISM than Ukraine. Also into the corridors of power.
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@I_Stand_With_RussiaZOV "did you know Nzis is actually 🚫 in Russia"
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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@wolfswinkel8906 1/ Russian soldiers say hundreds of their number are being killed trying to retake newly liberated Andriivka. Even artillerymen are being sent in as infantry in 'meat assaults', "literally [armed] with shovels" and without artillery support.
2/ The Russian Army's 94th regiment is said to be taking the brunt of the fighting as Ukrainian forces advance south of Bakhmut. The wife of one soldier serving with the regiment, a man called Denis, says they are suffering huge casualties.
3/ "He called on Thursday and said that the Ukrainian armed forces were taking Andriiivka and breaking through to Bakhmut," his wife Vera says.
4/ "And they are being thrown into Andriiivka with almost no weapons. He said: roughly speaking, we are coming at them with shovels and no artillery support. There is nowhere to retreat, because behind them are our own men, who will not spare them either.
5/ "Six hundred didn't return from their missions. And all this in just two days. And the official reports tell us that only two or three people were killed."
6/ Posts on Telegram say that the men are experiencing very heavy incoming fire: "the enemy does not stop attempting a breakthrough using cluster munitions." Denis himself says that "the 94th Regiment is being zeroed out [killed] ... our regiment is here to be put down."
7/ He says that its commander, a man named Zaitsev with the callsign 'Rapira', told the men explicitly that they were there to die. "He's a local, either from the DNR or the LNR. We're his third regiment. He left two regiments here, he said that "I'll leave you here too"."
8/ Denis compares Zaitsev unfavourably to his previous commander, who he says was a more humane man. "Our last commanding officer got us out of it. That's what got him fired. That he didn't send his men out to be butchered."
9/ He confirms that there were originally a thousand men in the regiment but their numbers have been reduced to 400 by the constant fighting. "We are constantly thrown into the area of Andriivka, which is processed by the AFU artillery. Basically, we are driven there for meat.
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@wolfswinkel8906 10/ "You give the coordinates to our artillery, what targets we need to work on. And the artillery does not work, because they have no shells." (It's possible that the artillery itself may have been destroyed – Ukraine has been targeting it heavily – rather than lacking shells.)
11/ Coordination with the artillery has broken down, according to Denis. "There's no co-operation with anyone else. Everything is very slow – either the artillery doesn't fire or you have to wait a long time for a shot."
12/ Now the men are being sent on 'meat assaults' which they are not expected to survive. "The orders are to take over [Andriivka], take what's left of it. Rubble, to put it crudely.
13/ "Although [the commanders] themselves know very well, and there is video confirmation, that the enemy is constantly working throughout the village. The AFU artillery is working constantly. They send men into the village, but they will not let them come out.
14/ "This is perfectly well known to everyone. And when you tell the command that this is exactly what is happening in this direction, you are answered "so what?" That's a quote: "So what?""
15/ Retreat is impossible, according to Denis, because commanders have positioned 'blocking units' behind the front line to shoot any retreaters. The men believe that they will be killed whatever happens, by one side or the other.
16/ Denis says that the men "are not in the mood to die for nothing. If there is artillery support, co-operation with other units, and there is no ammunition famine, then everyone is ready to fight. But nobody wants to fight like this."
17/ He blames the commanders' insistence on ordering obviously suicidal attacks on their false claims that they have not in fact lost control of Andriivka. It's likely they've also made such claims to their superiors, in another example of the Russian military's culture of lying.
18/ "They tell us in plain words: go and get a foothold there. And we see that our positions there have not been ours for a long time, so we raise a "bird" [drone]. In fact, it is obvious to the naked eye that our positions there have long since ceased to be ours.
19/ "But the command claims that they are. "We've got 25 men going out on a mission, six coming back. Now we have artillerymen going to the assault. They were told – you don't have ammunition anyway, go with the infantry. And the guys don't know what an assault is.
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@wolfswinkel8906 20/ "Information about our situation does not go anywhere upstairs, it is overridden somewhere on the middle level. That's why we're trying to get the word out now. It's not a good idea to just send people to slaughter.
21/ "Soldiers from other units who don't know us, if you give them our regiment number, they say: "Guys, you are being nullified. That's the way it is."
His wife Vera says that the soldiers and their relatives are afraid to go public with their concerns about the situation.
22/ She says that her mother-in-law "wrote to the group of mothers and wives of the mobilised 94th regiment that our guys are in a difficult situation. That they have no weapons. And she suggested that this information should be "spread" on social networks.
23/ "And everyone jumped on her: don't, they say, don't set everyone up. They're more worried about their salaries than their husbands. They are worried that if the names of the rebels come to light, they will simply be made "missing" and will not receive any payments."
24/ Vera doesn't blame them for this attitude. "I also understand those who are afraid of publicity. If now defamatory information from my husband goes out, if his surname gets publicised, he will simply be recognised as an enemy of the people.
25/ "And then this status will automatically go to the children. My husband is also afraid that it will affect my son."
26/ At home, reports Radio Freedom, "little Fedya, sitting on his mum's lap, taps his finger on the phone. On the screen saver is a picture of a young man with his son on his shoulders."
27/ "Daddy," says the boy.
"Yes, Daddy," Vera nods. "I don't want my son to know his father only from pictures."
Denis's family have not heard from him since his interview on 16 September. On 17 September, Ukraine announced the recapture of Andriivka.
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