Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "Russia's Stark Warning As Kyiv's Fightback Stalls; 'Western Support For Ukraine Will Dry Up...'" video.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 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 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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@PerceivedREALITY999 During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities and armed forces have committed war crimes by carrying out deliberate attacks against civilian target and indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas. The Russian military exposed the civilian population to unnecessary and disproportionate harm by using cluster munitions and by firing other explosive weapons with wide-area effects such as bombs, missiles, heavy artillery shells and multiple launch rockets. As of the beginning of July 2023, the attacks had resulted in the documented deaths of between 9,300 and 16,500 civilians. On 22 April 2022, the UN reported that 92.3% of civilian fatalities were attributable to the Russian armed forces.
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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@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.
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@PerceivedREALITY999 Russia’s Lie Machine Fans Flames of Odessa ‘Massacre’
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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@PerceivedREALITY999 Russia’s Lie Machine. It is seven 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 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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@PerceivedREALITY999 Ian Garner, a historian and analyst of Russian culture: Russia and President Vladimir Putin are preparing the country's youth to "die for the motherland", believes the Canadian historian and author Ian Garner, who has written a book about what he calls "Russia's fascist youth".
- Russia indoctrinates young people with military games, TikTok videos and influencers. Children and young people who have grown up since 2012, when Putin became president again, are much more ideological and isolated from the world than generations before them When we think of young people, we like to think of the hope of the future and of people who want peace and democracy. But those who do not want war in Russia are fleeing or have fled.
They will not die because of ideology, says Garner With Putin as president, everything has become much more ideological, right from childhood. Young people are almost forced to join the state's youth groups, which are becoming more and more militarized. They are constantly told that everything outside Russia is dangerous and will destroy them. It makes me worried - and scared, says Garner.
He points out that teachers and schools are receiving new teaching material where violence and ultra-nationalism become part of everyday school life - that young people who want to do something in their spare time must do so under the auspices of the state.
The scope for what you can do as a young person in Russia is narrowing. - That's very smart. Children and young people are getting more and more ideological and military input. Like a Wagner officer telling you that you have an obligation to join the military and make sacrifices so that Russia can be saved from the so-called scary and dangerous world out there, says Garner. It is especially young people under the age of 19-20 that Garner calls the "Z generation", who are influenced by what he refers to as "fascist ideology". Recruitment is done on TikTok and other social media.
According to Garner, the youth army - which has members aged six to 18 - is the most radical group. Now I meet children who are learning the language of hate and war. It makes me sad and scared. The young people are brainwashed into thinking that everyone outside Russia hates them and wants to crush them, he says The Russian state has, according to Garner, created a world where you are either with us, Russia, or against us. There is no room here for homosexuals, oppositionists, pacifists, Ukrainians - or non-Orthodox Christians, according to Garner.
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@PerceivedREALITY999
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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@PerceivedREALITY999 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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@PerceivedREALITY999 In November 2013, thiousands of Ukrainians flocked to Kyiv’s Independence square to protest then-President victor Yanukovych’s decision to suspend preparations for the signing of an association and free-trade agreement with EU. Over the following months, the protests grew in size and drew more media attention. In February 2014, clashes between protesters and police became increasingly violent when police attempted to clear the square of protesters. The violents led to the deaths of more then 50, maybe over 100 people.
Angry protesters demanded yanukovych’s immediate resignation. Yanukovych fled the same day the agreement was signed. The Ukrainian parliament then voted 328 – 0 to remove Yanukovych from office.
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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