Video posted online by Ukrainian forces showed elderly women and mothers with small children bundled in winter clothing being helped as they climbed a steep pile of debris from the sprawling Azovstal steel plant’s rubble, and then eventually boarded a bus.
Just don’t ask who herded them into the steel plant and threatened to shoot them if they left, comrades.
Sviastoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, which is helping defend the steel plant
‘Defend’ is a nice way of saying ‘neo nazis with civilian hostages’.
Dennis, Gold Medalist In Unnecessary Snark
Pelosi visits Ukraine
Someone needs to tell Zelenskyy to lock the liquor cabinet.
PJF
Just don’t ask who herded them into the steel plant and threatened to shoot them if they left, comrades.
‘Defend’ is a nice way of saying ‘neo nazis with civilian hostages’.
What made them change their minds, Steve?
Harry Haddock's Ghost
Steve will, of course, be providing us with unquestionable evidence of his statements from magic sources not available to normal mortals. Or just be making a couple of “jokes” about Slavs or something.
Tell us Steve; approximately what percentage of the Azov Regiment are card carrying neo-nazis? All of them? 99.99%? What – gives us the inside info. And some more of those funny ‘comrade’ gags. They are really funny. Do you type them in a comedy accent as well?
philip
I just assume there are two Steves. There’s amusing ranter Steve, and there’s mail order bride Steve. Not the same person.
Steve
PJF – I tried replying to your question, but (I think) the spam filter ate my comment. Lemme try again…
Steve
(1) what changed their mind?
We won’t know, but the Russians have been asking them to release the civvies for weeks. The I-Can’t-Believe-They’re-Not-Nazis have been asking for an evacuation to Turkey.
Presume some sort of give and take was agreed, the situation down there is very bad by all accounts so possibly food and medicine was exchanged, possibly Azov can just no longer spare any food for their definitely-not-hostages. The media isn’t particularly interested in the details either way.
But NB –
(2) This isn’t all the civvies, there’s still plenty down there according to Ukie and Russkie sources.
Steve
So, (3) we could be like HHG and convince ourselves hundreds of civilians willingly decided to camp out in the bowels of a steel factory, with their children, and lots of armed men who unironically venerate national socialist war criminals from WW2, for several weeks, with dwindling food and medicine, refusing multiple offers to leave the combat zone, or…
(4) the interviews (from Russian media) of people who’ve gotten away from Azov, and common sense, are telling us the truth and they are/were being kept as hostages
Dennis, Wandering To The Mosque
I just assume there are two Steves. There’s amusing ranter Steve, and there’s mail order bride Steve. Not the same person.
Quite the leap of faith there.
Interested
Leaving aside that there is much we don’t know, a vast history that few of us truly understand, and frauds and liars on all side, there are some facts and inferences that can reasonably be drawn from those facts.
Putin started this war but NATO wanted it, and various governments including ours and those of the US and leading EU states have done everything they can to prolong it.
Adam Schiff said in 2020 in the U.S. Senate: ‘The US aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”
Last week Philip Breedlove, ex Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, gave an interview to the New York Times where he said, ‘I think we are in a proxy war with Russia. We are using the Ukrainians as our proxy forces.’
Lindsay Graham is on video promising the Ukes everything they want in 2016. The 2014 coup was probably (definitely) CIA inspired.
The lockstep nature of the response from western governments and our media and social media (Facebook deciding it’s ok to support Nazis as long as you make clear you’re supporting them in the fight against Russia only?!) suggests to me that this has been hoped for, if not engineered, and that the media has been given the line to take.
Harry Haddocks Ghost dancing on the head of a pin around the question of the precise number of Nazis in the Azov end of the Ukrainian military is strange: how much shit would you want in a tub of ice cream before you decided not to eat it?
I draw the line at ‘any visible amount of shit’, and it’s not like the open Nazis, with their open Nazi regalia, and flags, and insignia, and allegiances, and large marches in Kiev, and major internet presence (allowed on YouTube, naturally), are invisible to Zelensky and his government, or our government, or Harry Haddocks Ghost.
That’s Zelensky’s government, by the way, which has locked up the opposition and done lots of other very unsavoury things.
None of this means that Putin is a good egg (he’s not, he’s appalling), nor that a lot of innocent people are not dying (they are), nor that the war is not a grave military mistake and an immoral act (it is).
But it is also true that Ukraine and NATO could have given him what he asked for, which was a neutral Ukraine, and they chose not to.
The interesting question to me is why not? NATO was set up to counter the Red Army, which… hasn’t existed for nearly 40 years.
Might it not have been more sensible, from the point of view of western taxpayers who are now pouring billions of dollars, pounds and euros into the frying pan without ever being asked if they think it is a good idea, to have adopted a more conciliatory approach?
As it is we have lurched from one 20-year military disaster in Afghanistan into God knows what this will become.
One thing is for sure, it is not making me or my family safer, or any of yours, and even if we don’t wind up in a nuclear war – perhaps unlikely, but by no means impossible, and a lot more likely than it was a year ago – some percentage of those billions of dollars-worth of arms which are now being hosed into the Ukraine are going to turn up in London and elsewhere.
At least the vast majority of the billions of pounds worth of munitions that we are selling to Saudi in order that they can kill 300,000 people in Yemen (many if not most of them women, children and non-combatants) are likely to stay in that particular powderkeg.
I will leave it to PJF and others to explain why our actions there are moral, because I have lengthy experience of the Middle East and I can’t do it.
But hey! Stand with Ukraine! Paint your house blue and yellow because the same cunts in the media and politics whom you distrust on everything else (if you have any sense at all) are telling you to do so
Harry Haddock's Ghost
the interviews (from Russian media)
Beyond parody.
Interested
All of that long screed above is really by way of saying this war makes no sense unless you take Putin at face value, and accept that (rightly or wrongly) he was genuinely concerned about having a nuclear armed NATO on his border, and you consider that the West is run by kleptomaniac lunatics who all have a lot of shares in arms companies, and who all fuck up everything they touch one way or the other.
I wouldn’t have said a lot of that five years ago, but that was five years ago when I was young and naive.
dearieme
The West is run by people who brought you lockdowns, school closures, face masks, the vaccines, and two years of the NHS doing eff all.
But we can trust them on Ukraine/Russia. Or, indeed, if they should reassess their incentives, Russia/Ukraine.
Tim the Coder
“Putin started this war “
Arguable. It’s been going since 2014, at least.
But shelling,bombing and killing civilians is bad, right?
Apparently not, it’s perfectly OK when being done by the good guys.
(See US drone strike on a Dad taking his kids home in Kabul, and a thousand other similar horrific actions. But all OK, ‘cos we’re the good guys, right?)
Why was so much of the UAF (and all these supposedly neo-Nazi packs) in the East prior to the invasion? What truth is there, if any, in the claims the Russian actions just pre-empted an escalation of Ukrainian violence against their own civilians?
Why are those in the Donbas so desperate to escape Ukrainian rule?
Or is that just Russian provocation?
How would any of us know, trust the media to tell you anything straight?
You don’t have to be a Putin shill to distrust all the lies in the media – on both sides.
Nor is it a Christmas panto, with one side being ‘Boo Hiss’ and the other being the Fairy Godmother. Both lots are awful.
The conflict has been going on a long while.
What you should be asking is this: Why is the West (or it’s ruling elite, anyway) suddenly so interested?
Where was the interest in 2014? Or any year since?
Where was the (manufactured/fake) outrage in the media about shelled villages when Ukie was doing it to Ukie?
What purpose is being served in fighting yet another proxy war with Russia?
Europe stands to be devastated by it’s energy supply and self-imposed oil/gas embargoes (“I’ll hold my breath until you give in!”)
Russia and Ukriane will suffer dreadfully.
So who is gaining? Qui bono?
And how convenient the timing, just as the Great Covid scare is fading.
I am reminded of the Iran/Iraq war, when both the West and the Soviets had an interest in keeping it going as long as possible. Shame about the poor sods whose countries were hosting it. This one smells the same. Who put them up to it?
Harry Haddock's Ghost
Harry Haddocks Ghost dancing on the head of a pin around the question of the precise number of Nazis in the Azov end of the Ukrainian military is strange: how much shit would you want in a tub of ice cream before you decided not to eat it?
I draw the line at ‘any visible amount of shit’, and it’s not like the open Nazis, with their open Nazi regalia, and flags, and insignia, and allegiances, and large marches in Kiev, and major internet presence (allowed on YouTube, naturally), are invisible to Zelensky and his government, or our government, or Harry Haddocks Ghost.
Not my point. The AR’s roots in neo-nazi ideology are undeniable. They were also one of the few effective fighting units until recently. Thus, just as many who joined the Communists in Spain weren’t card carrying Communists, many have joined the AR to fight. But it still suits Putin, and Steve with is farcical explinations, to paint them all as Nazi storm troopers whom the Russians are saving greatful Ukrainians from. I’m under no illusions whatsoever of their roots and original ideology.
Now, onto your other point – why is Putin so right to be worried about a nuclear armed NATO on his border now, but not when that border was somewhere else? Not that he *had* any such thing (although, due to his stupidity, soon may well have with previously neutral states clamouring to join) but the point stands – the USSR butted right up to NATO for years; what is it that now makes it reasonable for him to think he needs to invent loads of Nazi supermen and invade a sovereign country?
You guys believe in sovereign countries, right? Because all the ‘poking the bear’ arguments make it look like you don’t.
Bloke in the Fourth Reich
Why would civilians go hide in underground bomb shelters when their city is being bombed?
BniC
Another example of why everything has become polarised
It’s quite possible to not support either side and wonder what’s in it for everyone else as the reality is that politics is full of self-serving bastards, as the old saying goes countries don’t have allies/enemies just interests
The media pushing one side over the other does tend to mean that being cynical about the whole thing tends to mean picking holes in one narrative over another as that’s the only narrative we are being given
SadButMadLad
+1000 for interested and tim the coder’s comments
Karelian freedom-fighter
Is it true that Zelensky’s net worth is north of $500 million after only about 3 years in politics?
Dennis, Offender of Krauts, Frogs and other Wogs
I have to admit, it’s fun to watch wogs try to puzzle out the morality (or lack thereof) involved in an unprovoked attack by one nation against another.
You go, girls! Let me know what you decide!
Tim Worstall
It’s not $500 million. And it’s not since entering politics. He was a comic, film start and producer before entering politics, recall?
Boganboy
Must admit TtC, that I always felt that the West gained the major advantage from the Iran-Iraq war.
As for the Russia-Ukraine mess, I’d have tried to co-opt the Russians after the fall of the Soviets, so I suppose I swing to Steve’s side of the spectrum.
But a lot of the wars after the end of the Cold War have seemed pretty pointless to me. Perhaps it’s simply that I’m an xenophobe. I don’t think foreigners are worth the bother of burning alive.
Interested
Harry
Ah, my mistake.
When you said “Tell us Steve; approximately what percentage of the Azov Regiment are card carrying neo-nazis? All of them? 99.99%?” I made the mistake of assuming that you were asking Steve to identify the percentage of the Azov Regiment which is card carrying neo-nazis.
(The answer, notwithstanding your ridiculous excuse-making, seems – from freely available sources that you can easily google – the vast majority of them.)
Harry Haddocks Grandad’s Ghost: “Here, what percentage of the SS are card carrying Nazis? Hmmm? Hmmm? Checkmate, loser!”
Interested
Tim the Coder
‘Arguable. It’s been going since 2014, at least.’
Yes, I meant the current shit. If you go back far enough in those parts you’ll find it’s been going on since a long time before then.
bloke in spain
Neo-Nazis! Neo-Nazis! Neo-Nazis!
They’re are no Nazis. They went mythic a generation ago. The only people interested in killing all the Jews these days are the Muslims & liberals. Although the liberals would rather someone else did the dirty work. They’re figments of the imagination. Something you call people when you don’t like they’re culture or politics.
There are people who are fiercely nationalistic. Fiercely nationalistic because not being fiercely nationalistic gets your country overrun & subjugated by your fiercely nationalistic neighbours. So topically that’s the Ukrainians, The Finns (who are armed to the teeth),the Russians & the Israelis, to name four. The Germans were but they castrated themselves after ’45. And it’s that fierce nationalism got harnessed by the Nazis in Germany & the Communist party in Russia.
Flags & symbols? From the perspective of people over that side of Europe C20th history doesn’t look nearly as cut & dried as it does further west. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Finland had the Winter War & gave Russia a bloody nose at enormous cost & sacrifice. Ukraine got the Holodomor. Lithuanian father of a friend managed to be in the Lithuanian army then the Russian army then the German SS. He was being investigated for war crimes as a concentration guard when he died in the 80’s. His only real crime was surviving.
Maybe the flags & symbols mean different things to them than they do you
PJF
The AR’s roots in neo-nazi ideology are undeniable.
Even worse, they were football thugs.
Karelian freedom-fighter
“It’s not $500 million. And it’s not since entering politics. He was a comic, film start and producer before entering politics, recall?”
Did you audit his financial assets? Must’ve been a two-bit actor since I’ve never heard of his films, I assume Ukrainian film industry is pretty shite. Anyway, I bet he’s making like a bandit, although if he was worth 500 mill he would’ve fucked off long time ago.
john77
@ Karelian Freedom Fighter
That you have never heard of him means nothing, absolutely nothing, unless he is a Finnish or Russian (from European Russia, not Siberia). There are English-speaking (well, American) film-actors/stars who are multi-millionaires that I have never heard of until my wife comments about them.
By the way Tim is not an auditor – I gather that he has higher standards as well as having know-how in economics rather than accountancy.
bloke in spain
No PJF. Nazi not neo-Nazi. The are no neo-Nazis apart from a few nutters There are some aspects about the Nazis were very appealing. Appealing enough the Nazis got to rule Germany. They are still appealing. Why wouldn’t they be? Not everyone’s a limp wristed white western liberal. Give it another couple of generations they’ll be naming football teams after them. It doesn’t mean they’ve taken on board the entire thing. Symbols are very powerful. Think of the Vikings. Why would people want to be identified with the Vikings? They murdered raped & pillaged. But a lot of people do. Because the symbolism starts to represent different things
PJF
– “Putin started this war “
Arguable. It’s been going since 2014, at least.
Well yes, it was Putin who started it back then when he invaded Ukraine. The real shit started when gobs of gas were discovered under Kramatorsk in 2010, after which simmering Russian-speaking resentments were stoked, by Russia, right up to eleven.
– Why was so much of the UAF (and all these supposedly neo-Nazi packs) in the East prior to the invasion?
Defending their territory from further loss from Russia and Russian occupied zones of Ukraine. You know, getting ready for the invasion.
– What truth is there, if any, in the claims the Russian actions just pre-empted an escalation of Ukrainian violence against their own civilians?
What truth was there, if any, in the claims the German actions just pre-empted an escalation of Czech violence against their own civilians?
– What you should be asking is this: Why is the West (or it’s ruling elite, anyway) suddenly so interested?
Where was the interest in 2014? Or any year since?
I don’t need to ask the same questions as you because I’m not ignorant. The interest isn’t new or sudden; the West has been interested in Russia’s interest in Ukraine all along. Oh dear, so the media hasn’t brought it sufficiently to your attention and you’ve been otherwise distracted to notice things like airliners being shot down. This doesn’t apply to everybody.
– What purpose is being served in fighting yet another proxy war with Russia?
Weakening them whilst avoiding a direct war.
– Europe stands to be devastated by it’s energy supply and self-imposed oil/gas embargoes
Except “Europe” (Germany) isn’t yet embargoing Russian oil and gas, and won’t until it is able to do so. Those few countries that have directly or indirectly cut themselves off were already on course to do so, and have made alternative arrangements.
– Russia and Ukriane will suffer dreadfully.
Ukraine is going to be fucked over either way, isn’t it? It seems only fair that its fucker overer is fucked over too. Not nearly enough, unfortunately. The sanctions and embargoes are only pretend compared to what should and could happen.
PJF
– I will leave it to PJF and others to explain why our actions there are moral . . .
Lol, why the fuck should I attend to your deviation? I impolitely decline your impolite invitation.
Morals? At this level it’s “interests”, not morals. Speaking of which, I don’t for a minute believe you give the slightest shit about 300,000 whereverers. Leftie style argument-by-posturing should be left to lefties.
PJF
No PJF. Nazi not neo-Nazi.
Why are you addressing that to me? The only reference I made to Azov was a joke about their football hooligan past (which is true, btw).
Just to be clear, I don’t care whether Azov are Nazis, neo-Nazis, dressing-up-box Nazis or boy scouts maligned as Nazis. They’re an effective fighting force against the Russian invasion and that’s good enough for this context.
We joined up with filthy communist bastards all over to beat the actual Nazis. The enemy of my enemy is my temporarily useful ally.
PJF
. . . from Russian media . . .
Oh, come on Steve. If you want to go there then you should be talking about all the GNATO agents caught up in the siege and pulling the strings. Apparently there’s a senior American general down there. Russian propaganda is hilarious, don’t hold back.
Pcar
@Steve, May 3, 2022 at 1:57 pm
Agree. But not hostages, used as human shields there and across Ukraine
Free passage for civilians announced weeks ago by Russia. Plus, Russia told Azov: ‘Lay down your arms and walk out, we will let you go free’ – BBC World Service
@bis
MSM 2022: Nazis in Ukraine? It’s Russain propoganda
Oh, there were Nazis in Ukraine, but they all left in Jan 2022 apparently
Adam Schiff said in 2020 in the U.S. Senate: ‘The US aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”
No doubt PJF will deny it happened, demand citation,…
‘Israel to increase military, civilian aid to Ukraine’ (Jerusalem Post)
But…but…but…NAZIs!
Nazi and quasi-nazi regalia and tattooing are equally to be found on the Russian side, and at least Ukraine has the excuse that they invoke such images because the actual Nazis sought to destroy genocidal Bolshevism.
This is no different from Finland allying itself with the Nazis purely to defend itself against the USSR after the democracies failed to deliver meaningful assistance.
Russian troops commit mass atrocities in Ukraine, but look a shiny thing!
Flubber
Steve mate, you can take a horse to water and all that.
The west wanted this war – it was inevitable from the moment Biden won the election and put the ubercunt Victoria Nuland back in her old job.
the 14,000 civilians killed in the Donbass over the last eight years are an irrelevant detail to this lot.
The fact that the Ukie Nazis were massing for an onslaught is an irrelevant detail, and that’s how they ended up in Azovstal surrounded by the Russkies.
Nah. TV says PootinManBad.
wat dabney
“the Ukie Nazis”
Oh dear.
Chester Draws
I love how the Ukraine are responsible for all the deaths in the breakaway republics.
I hope you guys are on record as opposing Britsh efforts to fight the IRA, on the basis it caused multiple deaths. Those IRA people had every right to rebel, violently, and be left to win by that twisted logic.
Any country that doesn’t oppose breakaway portions doesn’t survive very long.
Interested
@PJF
– I will leave it to PJF and others to explain why our actions there are moral…
Lol, why the fuck should I attend to your deviation? I impolitely decline your impolite invitation.
Morals? At this level it’s “interests”, not morals. Speaking of which, I don’t for a minute believe you give the slightest shit about 300,000 whereverers. Leftie style argument-by-posturing should be left to lefties.
Lol, my ‘deviation’ wasn’t ‘impolite’. I simply asked why – if you’re as concerned for the people of the Ukraine as you pretend to be – you’re not similarly concerned for the people of the Yemen, who are being killed in vastly greater numbers by a government every bit as fascist and repressive and ugly as that of Russia, with the encouragement of, and using munitions supplied on the authority of, western governments including our own.
That doesn’t strike me as too hard a question to answer – for an honest person, arguing in good faith. You could just have said, ‘I am, that’s bad too.’ (That’s my position.)
But then, you do actually answer: you don’t believe war is a matter of morality, such as to concern us about vast numbers of deaths of ‘whereverers’, but of ‘interests’.
OK. I agree that for the governments and the media it is, indeed, all merely a matter of interests. That explains why they can support Saudi and oppose Putin at the same time.
But that’s the point. The government and their media lickspittles and enablers are trying to pretend that they believe that Ukraine is a moral matter, and so are you – why else would you be so emotionally invested, so spittle-fleckedly determined to attack anyone who merely states the obvious and uncontroversial facts that the situation is complicated, that there were ways to avoid this war which were not taken, that some western arms manufacturers are making fortunes out of this, that there are dodgy people on all sides, and that the openly-censored and censoring western media and western governments are perhaps not to be entirely trusted?
This is a question only you can refuse to answer. Lol.
Your pretend concern on this issue is obviously as ersatz as that of our governments, the media, and the people hanging Ukrainian flags from their back bedrooms, or inserting them into their Twitter biogs.
But the governments and the media are clearly making a lot of money out of it all, and the flag-inserters at least have the excuse that they are stupid and have had a number done on them by cleverer people.
What explains you? (I don’t rule out stupidity.)
Just to be clear, I don’t care whether Azov are Nazis, neo-Nazis, dressing-up-box Nazis or boy scouts maligned as Nazis.
Ah, good to know.
Tim the Coder
@PJF “What truth was there, if any, in the claims the German actions just pre-empted an escalation of Czech violence against their own civilians? “
Godwin alert! 🙂
Actually, that is exactly so. The first slice taken by the monoglobular corporal was the recovery of a bit of Germany, full of Germans, which had been maliciously ‘carved out’ by the Versailles treaty and was being royally f*cked-over by its new owners. That one was justified, and even the British Gov privately agreed (although not the French).
The second slice was much less justified, but did indeed seek to intervene in a Czech-Slovak division that was escalating. The GB/French leaning industrialised Czech land did not get on with the agrarian Slovakian land, and the Slovaks had their own Nazi party and brewing insurrection. Plenty of trouble before That Man came along.
And GB and France both agreed that was no cause for war. Though a bl**dy big alert for next time.
The Czech-Slovak division was never healed: decades of iron fist repression kept the matter brewing until the collapse of the SU allowed release. To their enormous credit, the Czechoslovakians managed a peaceful split. An object lesson totally ignored by that other Versailles-created fake country next door.
The Ukraine-Russian hatred goes back atleast to the Holomodor and other Stalin interventions. By moving populations wholesale he hoped to break down national allegiance and create a single Soviet Union: what we would nowadays call an experiment in Multi-culturalism.
A nation can only be one people, so the result of the SU’s removal is a lot of “countries” without a national people and identity. Yugoslavia times 100. Well done Stalin. But also coming soon to many Western “multicultural” experiments.
The Ukraine ran a ‘freedom insurrection’ aka ‘terrorist campaign’ into the 1950’s. With peoples intermixed out of any relation to lines on a map, armed conflict is inevitable.
But why should we intervene on one side or the other? We criticise the Austrian chappie for doing just that, don’t we?
And our experience of Western armed intervention in the Middle East has been unbroken success. Well, no, not much!
“It seems only fair that its fucker overer is fucked over too”
Why hate the Russian people? What have they done? I have sympathy for the poor Russian civilians and the Russian squaddies, as much as for all the Ukrainian people (except the paramilitary thugs, and the Western mercenaries who went on what they thought was yet another raghead turkey shoot. They can rot).
Yes, Putin and his close associates are guilty, but we haven’t even managed to hang our own war criminals yet, so what chance visiting the same upon Putey-Blairski? Vengeance will need to await the pearly gates and high speed down-elevator.
Even the Russian generals are a bit cleft stick. Nice career. Then the boss tells you to do this. Ah. In theory, Nuremburg, illegal orders. All that. Well not applied in the West. See Iraq. Syria. Libya. Afghanistan. etc. The total of hanged Western generals equals the numbers of hanged Bushes & Blairs.
And if the military do turn around and say ‘No!’, then doesn’t the West get all upset about the military coup? See Burma and just about everywhere in South & Central America. And Africa.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
And what really gets my goat is that the lies in the media are so obvious and amateur. They aren’t even trying. What contempt for the people they claim to be “informing”.
Russia and Ukraine have a long history of bad blood. Let then resolve their differences. The West can offer humanitarian support to rebuild afterwards. But there is no Western interest at stake to defend, and a great deal to risk if western intervention leads the the conflict spreading, as it will. Moldavia and Romania are soon to be involved. And supply routes in Eastern Poland.
Whose Next?
Tim the Coder
@Chester Draws “Any country that doesn’t oppose breakaway portions doesn’t survive very long”
I’m guessing you’re American?
I’d argue the opposite. A country is a single people, and if a division is strong enough for a breakaway movement, the country will destroy itself fighting it.
I’d see that more as a dick-waving contest by an insecure politician. See Catalonia, or indeed, your own recent unpleasantness. Never let anyone say Lincoln let a good crisis go to waste!
A better approach is to let things split, on good terms, and be gracious if a reverse is requested. See Scotland, Czechslovakia, or indeed, the example you quote: Ireland.
Ireland had a strong independence movement, and this was granted by the Brits, soon after WW1 (despite the breakaway faction openly backing the Kaiser).
The problem was/is that the island is populated by two separate peoples, and the Northern part wished to remain British – and still do.
The IRA were an attempt to force the rule of the South Ireland lot upon the North Ireland lot, against their freely demonstrated wish. Until they became an armed drug dealing & protection racket business, anyway.
Religion was only an attribute of the two tribes, not a cause.
Should NI ever vote to secede from UK, and/or join RoI, then they will be free to do so (atleast, as per the Brits. The EU may refuse). But the IRA has poisoned that well, so it’s unlikely any time soon.
Attempts to suppress secession by force only lock down the pressure release valve.
Flubber
Way dabney – you’re a moronic cunt
Jim
My view is that the Ukraine/Russia conflict is being brought to you by the same people who a) declared (on utterly trumped up evidence) that Trump was in pocket of the Russians, b) spent 3 years attempting to over turn a democratic referendum result, and c) have spent the last 2 years using all their considerable State mandated powers to enforce lockdowns and get as many people jabbed as possible with an experimental auto-immune disease causing ‘vaccine’.
As such if those people told me the sky was blue I’d be outside checking, and wondering exactly was in it for them to say so.
PJF
No doubt PJF will deny it happened, demand citation,…
…Oh dear
Argumentum Loserdeum: a straw man with extra sadness
PJF
Godwin alert!
Lol, seriously?
Godwin’s law: As an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1
Steve dropped a “Nazi” in the very first comment, and it was used at least thirty times before my point in question, not including quotes.
About as alert as a camp guard in Hogan’s Heroes.
Pcar
@Flubber
+1 ubercunt Victoria Nuland was behind the ousting of Ukraine president and replacing him with a US puppet and notably said “Screw the EU” if they objected
@Chester
Brain dead comparrison. UK fought the IRA , not every person who was an RC, nor did we bomb and artilleray shell RC districts
@PJF
Nothing to say on Schiff or Newland?
PJF
Newland had a good take on the EU. That OK?
Charles
@Tim the Coder
Your summary of the creation of an independent Ireland and the division of the island is seriously wrong. Parts of the six counties had a majority in favour of being part of Ireland but were forced to remain in the UK.
Pcar
@PJF
That OK?
No, it’s weasely. You throw around denials of facts and insult others. Then when you’re called out you go silent. Why not show some strength and say “OK, I’m sorry, I was wrong”?
@Charles
Nothing stopped the nationalist enclaves moving to RoI, many Unionists did by moving to NI. Instead, from day 1 ira etc started attacking NI leading to bridge & road closures. That’s why RUC now Blair’s NI Police were always armed
aodjoadjf
Here’s some important information to find if you’re going to mention the neo-Nazis in the Azov Battalion…
1. How many Ukrainians are in the Azov Battalion? What percentage are they of the entire Ukrainian military?
2,500 (highest estimate); 1.3% of entire active Ukrainian military (196,600 active personnel)
*This is not counting 900,000 reserve personnel, or all Ukrainians available for military service, who could be conscripted – over 11 million.
*Number of Azov members is estimated to be closer to 900 in 2022.
2. How many Ukrainians are in the military? What percentage are they of the entire Ukrainian population?
Active personnel (196,600) are 0.4% of the total population. Highest estimate of 11,149,646 available for military service are 25% of the total population.
3. How many Azovs are neo-Nazis? What percentage are they of the Azov Battalion?
Highest estimate given is around 20% (500 people), although this number was admittedly given by an Azov member. Even if this estimate is lower than the actual count (in which case, why wouldn’t they just say there are zero Nazis?), 2,500 white supremacists in the entire Ukrainian armed forces does not make a great case for writing off the entire country. In fact, there are at least a few Jewish members who add a Star of David over the original insignia, and a Jewish billionaire funded the militia at one point, so hard to believe it’s 100% neo-Nazi.
It is true that these guys are not saints, and there are a few reports of them committing the war crimes of rape, torture, looting and unlawful detention. No one is defending that. The point is that this is no more than 1.3% of the Ukrainian military and no more than 0.006% of the overall population. Putin’s original excuse for invading was that the Azov Battalion was a big enough threat to justify a “denazification” of the entire country. Not sure why that led to millions of non-Nazis having to flee to Poland if Putin is only focusing on the minuscule amounts of white supremacists. If there were that much of a Nazi problem in Ukraine, I’d meet at least one of them in New York City. We have a shit ton of Ukrainians here. I’ve certainly met a lot of anti-Semitic people from Arab countries here, so it’s only logical.
One can say that the Azov battalion is brutal and even bloodthirsty toward their targets, but the only thing neo-Nazi I’ve seen about them are the symbols and some of the rhetoric. I’m not seeing any footage of them destroying synagogues or harassing Hasidic Jews in the street. I know some Europeans get their knickers in a twist over the sight of a swastika (I have two German friends and I know what their education system did to them), but I’d personally feel a lot more unsafe as an ordinary citizen in Ukraine or Russia if I knew the Chechen and Syrian mercenaries were coming to my town. They actually go around killing Jews, as well as homosexuals and infidels. The Chechens murdered 333 people in a school in Beslan, in their own country, with over half of the victims under the age of 18. Two years before, the Chechens killed 170 people in a theater in Moscow. Putin sent both Chechens and Syrians to Ukraine to kill all Ukrainians, not simply soldiers or Nazis. So some people will be more upset about that than a few scary-looking badges.
aodjoadjf
Fun fact, Nazi symbols have been popular among Japanese teenagers in recent years.
Their education system has glossed over a bit of WWII history, so swastikas are like Hello Kitty stickers to them. Kind of like when Americans get Japanese back tattoos that translate to “spicy tuna roll.”
Invade Japan now?
PJF
Why not show some strength and say “OK, I’m sorry, I was wrong”?
I was only wrong in your imagination, Pcar. I didn’t say anything about Schiff or Newland, so (presumably because I live rent free in your head at the moment) you entirely invented a scenario in which I did:
I suppose that once there has been a populist movement or idea it’ll never fully disappear, even if was really bad and was soundly defeated. There will always be flared trousers.
aodjoadjf
The Anti-Defamation League condemned Patrol 36, characterized the group as marginal, and urged Israeli citizens to not stigmatize the community of Russian Jews in Israel in reaction to the incident.
So, maybe it’s also not wise to stigmatize invade the entire country of Ukraine. Not saying we should be best buddies with them, or even pick a side, but it’s absurd to see what’s happening to civilians there and think “Yeah, they had it coming.” I think some of the first-world just gets bored and wants to see a good ol’ fashioned turf war. That’s what happens when you take all the violence and gore out of movies.
Charles
@Pcar
I’m not referring to nationist enclaves, but areas on the border in Armagh, Fermanagh, and Tyrone which had nationist majorities but were made part of Northern Ireland
Pcar
@PJF
I know you didn’t, because I pre-emptively called you out with facts as I knew you’d deny it if someone said it
I really can’t see what your point is. Is the video fake? Is the Newland leak fake?
Your posts and replies to others all centre on “Russia Bad, Ukraine Good, Nothing to do with NATO expansion. Anyone who disagrees is a Putin supporter”
Yes, you replied, for once, but incoherent, fact free and meaningless
@Charles
Don’t know, I will need to check. I’m from Co Down
PJF
I really can’t see what your point is. Is the video fake? Is the Newland leak fake?
Lol, I have made no point regarding Newland or whatever was on that video. You’re arguing with your own straw man.
. . . as I knew you’d deny it if someone said it . . .
It appears mind reading and crystal ball gazing are in your imaginary tool set. It’s not so much that you’re wrong, it’s that you’re not quite right.
Your posts and replies to others all centre on “Russia Bad, Ukraine Good, Nothing to do with NATO expansion. Anyone who disagrees is a Putin supporter”
And misrepresentation is in your actual toolset. Actually, I think it is your actual toolset.
aodjoadjf
Two and a half months in, and I still have yet to see the people bringing up the Azov Battalion even mention the Chechens.
Would it kill you to mention that the Chechen mercenaries aren’t the types of people you bring home to Mum and Dad? Just a hint of objectivity? Something as simple as “Yeah, Putin calling up the Chechens and Syrians was a bit of a dick move as well” would suffice.
The fact that you don’t even cast any judgment toward those murderers may be why your argument seems a bit propagandized. Even if you thought the invasion was somehow justified, it’s still okay to not be fond of the Chechen army. The only reason you would leave out that pesky detail, is if you were such an amateur at supporting your argument that you can’t afford to cede any valid points to your opposition. That is, unless your entire argument is weak to begin with.
Just five simple words, “The Chechens are also bad.” Can you manage that?
Pcar
@PJF
Are you Starmer’s puppet master? Lots of words, obfuscation, denials however facts few and far between. Then when facts providided you go silent as Starmer did yesterday
@aodjoadjf
If that’s aimed at me, you misfired. I’ve never said invasion was right, I maintain Putin was backed into a corner by NATO and fought back before last door closed. USA would have invaded Cuba if USSR hadn’t pulled back
Chechen, Syrian and other mercaneries & volunteers are fighting on both sides. However, they are very different to the Ukrainian SS Azov Battalion militia which since 2014 has been funded, housed, armed and equiped by Ukraine Gov’t and by NATO, inc UK training and equiping them
Yes, The Chechens are bad
I’m disapointed how niave so many are and still gullibly accept everything Gov’t, politicians & msm says despite all we’ve learned about their lies and hypocisy during Brexit Ref, Global Warming and the Covid Pandemic Flu
Border was a logical compromise to keep some geographic continuity whilst abandoning some communities on Both sides of border
Apparently only one side went to war from day 1, the other reluctantly accepted and moved on. 100 years later and the war continues
PJF
Then when facts providided you go silent as Starmer did yesterday . . .
Lol, I come back in here looking for a link and I find you’ve returned to the thread after three days absence and are accusing me of going silent. You sad twat.
Dzve18
I hope there is peace between Ukraine and Russia soon.
Pcar
@PJF
Some of us have weekend breaks. Had a great time at Miami GP if you’re interested. Sad twats like you obviously don’t
Video posted online by Ukrainian forces showed elderly women and mothers with small children bundled in winter clothing being helped as they climbed a steep pile of debris from the sprawling Azovstal steel plant’s rubble, and then eventually boarded a bus.
Just don’t ask who herded them into the steel plant and threatened to shoot them if they left, comrades.
Sviastoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, which is helping defend the steel plant
‘Defend’ is a nice way of saying ‘neo nazis with civilian hostages’.
Pelosi visits Ukraine
Someone needs to tell Zelenskyy to lock the liquor cabinet.
Just don’t ask who herded them into the steel plant and threatened to shoot them if they left, comrades.
‘Defend’ is a nice way of saying ‘neo nazis with civilian hostages’.
What made them change their minds, Steve?
Steve will, of course, be providing us with unquestionable evidence of his statements from magic sources not available to normal mortals. Or just be making a couple of “jokes” about Slavs or something.
Tell us Steve; approximately what percentage of the Azov Regiment are card carrying neo-nazis? All of them? 99.99%? What – gives us the inside info. And some more of those funny ‘comrade’ gags. They are really funny. Do you type them in a comedy accent as well?
I just assume there are two Steves. There’s amusing ranter Steve, and there’s mail order bride Steve. Not the same person.
PJF – I tried replying to your question, but (I think) the spam filter ate my comment. Lemme try again…
(1) what changed their mind?
We won’t know, but the Russians have been asking them to release the civvies for weeks. The I-Can’t-Believe-They’re-Not-Nazis have been asking for an evacuation to Turkey.
Presume some sort of give and take was agreed, the situation down there is very bad by all accounts so possibly food and medicine was exchanged, possibly Azov can just no longer spare any food for their definitely-not-hostages. The media isn’t particularly interested in the details either way.
But NB –
(2) This isn’t all the civvies, there’s still plenty down there according to Ukie and Russkie sources.
So, (3) we could be like HHG and convince ourselves hundreds of civilians willingly decided to camp out in the bowels of a steel factory, with their children, and lots of armed men who unironically venerate national socialist war criminals from WW2, for several weeks, with dwindling food and medicine, refusing multiple offers to leave the combat zone, or…
(4) the interviews (from Russian media) of people who’ve gotten away from Azov, and common sense, are telling us the truth and they are/were being kept as hostages
I just assume there are two Steves. There’s amusing ranter Steve, and there’s mail order bride Steve. Not the same person.
Quite the leap of faith there.
Leaving aside that there is much we don’t know, a vast history that few of us truly understand, and frauds and liars on all side, there are some facts and inferences that can reasonably be drawn from those facts.
Putin started this war but NATO wanted it, and various governments including ours and those of the US and leading EU states have done everything they can to prolong it.
Adam Schiff said in 2020 in the U.S. Senate: ‘The US aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”
Last week Philip Breedlove, ex Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, gave an interview to the New York Times where he said, ‘I think we are in a proxy war with Russia. We are using the Ukrainians as our proxy forces.’
Lindsay Graham is on video promising the Ukes everything they want in 2016. The 2014 coup was probably (definitely) CIA inspired.
The lockstep nature of the response from western governments and our media and social media (Facebook deciding it’s ok to support Nazis as long as you make clear you’re supporting them in the fight against Russia only?!) suggests to me that this has been hoped for, if not engineered, and that the media has been given the line to take.
Harry Haddocks Ghost dancing on the head of a pin around the question of the precise number of Nazis in the Azov end of the Ukrainian military is strange: how much shit would you want in a tub of ice cream before you decided not to eat it?
I draw the line at ‘any visible amount of shit’, and it’s not like the open Nazis, with their open Nazi regalia, and flags, and insignia, and allegiances, and large marches in Kiev, and major internet presence (allowed on YouTube, naturally), are invisible to Zelensky and his government, or our government, or Harry Haddocks Ghost.
That’s Zelensky’s government, by the way, which has locked up the opposition and done lots of other very unsavoury things.
None of this means that Putin is a good egg (he’s not, he’s appalling), nor that a lot of innocent people are not dying (they are), nor that the war is not a grave military mistake and an immoral act (it is).
But it is also true that Ukraine and NATO could have given him what he asked for, which was a neutral Ukraine, and they chose not to.
The interesting question to me is why not? NATO was set up to counter the Red Army, which… hasn’t existed for nearly 40 years.
Might it not have been more sensible, from the point of view of western taxpayers who are now pouring billions of dollars, pounds and euros into the frying pan without ever being asked if they think it is a good idea, to have adopted a more conciliatory approach?
As it is we have lurched from one 20-year military disaster in Afghanistan into God knows what this will become.
One thing is for sure, it is not making me or my family safer, or any of yours, and even if we don’t wind up in a nuclear war – perhaps unlikely, but by no means impossible, and a lot more likely than it was a year ago – some percentage of those billions of dollars-worth of arms which are now being hosed into the Ukraine are going to turn up in London and elsewhere.
At least the vast majority of the billions of pounds worth of munitions that we are selling to Saudi in order that they can kill 300,000 people in Yemen (many if not most of them women, children and non-combatants) are likely to stay in that particular powderkeg.
I will leave it to PJF and others to explain why our actions there are moral, because I have lengthy experience of the Middle East and I can’t do it.
But hey! Stand with Ukraine! Paint your house blue and yellow because the same cunts in the media and politics whom you distrust on everything else (if you have any sense at all) are telling you to do so
the interviews (from Russian media)
Beyond parody.
All of that long screed above is really by way of saying this war makes no sense unless you take Putin at face value, and accept that (rightly or wrongly) he was genuinely concerned about having a nuclear armed NATO on his border, and you consider that the West is run by kleptomaniac lunatics who all have a lot of shares in arms companies, and who all fuck up everything they touch one way or the other.
I wouldn’t have said a lot of that five years ago, but that was five years ago when I was young and naive.
The West is run by people who brought you lockdowns, school closures, face masks, the vaccines, and two years of the NHS doing eff all.
But we can trust them on Ukraine/Russia. Or, indeed, if they should reassess their incentives, Russia/Ukraine.
“Putin started this war “
Arguable. It’s been going since 2014, at least.
But shelling,bombing and killing civilians is bad, right?
Apparently not, it’s perfectly OK when being done by the good guys.
(See US drone strike on a Dad taking his kids home in Kabul, and a thousand other similar horrific actions. But all OK, ‘cos we’re the good guys, right?)
Why was so much of the UAF (and all these supposedly neo-Nazi packs) in the East prior to the invasion? What truth is there, if any, in the claims the Russian actions just pre-empted an escalation of Ukrainian violence against their own civilians?
Why are those in the Donbas so desperate to escape Ukrainian rule?
Or is that just Russian provocation?
How would any of us know, trust the media to tell you anything straight?
You don’t have to be a Putin shill to distrust all the lies in the media – on both sides.
Nor is it a Christmas panto, with one side being ‘Boo Hiss’ and the other being the Fairy Godmother. Both lots are awful.
The conflict has been going on a long while.
What you should be asking is this: Why is the West (or it’s ruling elite, anyway) suddenly so interested?
Where was the interest in 2014? Or any year since?
Where was the (manufactured/fake) outrage in the media about shelled villages when Ukie was doing it to Ukie?
What purpose is being served in fighting yet another proxy war with Russia?
Europe stands to be devastated by it’s energy supply and self-imposed oil/gas embargoes (“I’ll hold my breath until you give in!”)
Russia and Ukriane will suffer dreadfully.
So who is gaining? Qui bono?
And how convenient the timing, just as the Great Covid scare is fading.
I am reminded of the Iran/Iraq war, when both the West and the Soviets had an interest in keeping it going as long as possible. Shame about the poor sods whose countries were hosting it. This one smells the same. Who put them up to it?
Harry Haddocks Ghost dancing on the head of a pin around the question of the precise number of Nazis in the Azov end of the Ukrainian military is strange: how much shit would you want in a tub of ice cream before you decided not to eat it?
I draw the line at ‘any visible amount of shit’, and it’s not like the open Nazis, with their open Nazi regalia, and flags, and insignia, and allegiances, and large marches in Kiev, and major internet presence (allowed on YouTube, naturally), are invisible to Zelensky and his government, or our government, or Harry Haddocks Ghost.
Not my point. The AR’s roots in neo-nazi ideology are undeniable. They were also one of the few effective fighting units until recently. Thus, just as many who joined the Communists in Spain weren’t card carrying Communists, many have joined the AR to fight. But it still suits Putin, and Steve with is farcical explinations, to paint them all as Nazi storm troopers whom the Russians are saving greatful Ukrainians from. I’m under no illusions whatsoever of their roots and original ideology.
Now, onto your other point – why is Putin so right to be worried about a nuclear armed NATO on his border now, but not when that border was somewhere else? Not that he *had* any such thing (although, due to his stupidity, soon may well have with previously neutral states clamouring to join) but the point stands – the USSR butted right up to NATO for years; what is it that now makes it reasonable for him to think he needs to invent loads of Nazi supermen and invade a sovereign country?
You guys believe in sovereign countries, right? Because all the ‘poking the bear’ arguments make it look like you don’t.
Why would civilians go hide in underground bomb shelters when their city is being bombed?
Another example of why everything has become polarised
It’s quite possible to not support either side and wonder what’s in it for everyone else as the reality is that politics is full of self-serving bastards, as the old saying goes countries don’t have allies/enemies just interests
The media pushing one side over the other does tend to mean that being cynical about the whole thing tends to mean picking holes in one narrative over another as that’s the only narrative we are being given
+1000 for interested and tim the coder’s comments
Is it true that Zelensky’s net worth is north of $500 million after only about 3 years in politics?
I have to admit, it’s fun to watch wogs try to puzzle out the morality (or lack thereof) involved in an unprovoked attack by one nation against another.
You go, girls! Let me know what you decide!
It’s not $500 million. And it’s not since entering politics. He was a comic, film start and producer before entering politics, recall?
Must admit TtC, that I always felt that the West gained the major advantage from the Iran-Iraq war.
As for the Russia-Ukraine mess, I’d have tried to co-opt the Russians after the fall of the Soviets, so I suppose I swing to Steve’s side of the spectrum.
But a lot of the wars after the end of the Cold War have seemed pretty pointless to me. Perhaps it’s simply that I’m an xenophobe. I don’t think foreigners are worth the bother of burning alive.
Harry
Ah, my mistake.
When you said “Tell us Steve; approximately what percentage of the Azov Regiment are card carrying neo-nazis? All of them? 99.99%?” I made the mistake of assuming that you were asking Steve to identify the percentage of the Azov Regiment which is card carrying neo-nazis.
(The answer, notwithstanding your ridiculous excuse-making, seems – from freely available sources that you can easily google – the vast majority of them.)
Harry Haddocks Grandad’s Ghost: “Here, what percentage of the SS are card carrying Nazis? Hmmm? Hmmm? Checkmate, loser!”
Tim the Coder
‘Arguable. It’s been going since 2014, at least.’
Yes, I meant the current shit. If you go back far enough in those parts you’ll find it’s been going on since a long time before then.
Neo-Nazis! Neo-Nazis! Neo-Nazis!
They’re are no Nazis. They went mythic a generation ago. The only people interested in killing all the Jews these days are the Muslims & liberals. Although the liberals would rather someone else did the dirty work. They’re figments of the imagination. Something you call people when you don’t like they’re culture or politics.
There are people who are fiercely nationalistic. Fiercely nationalistic because not being fiercely nationalistic gets your country overrun & subjugated by your fiercely nationalistic neighbours. So topically that’s the Ukrainians, The Finns (who are armed to the teeth),the Russians & the Israelis, to name four. The Germans were but they castrated themselves after ’45. And it’s that fierce nationalism got harnessed by the Nazis in Germany & the Communist party in Russia.
Flags & symbols? From the perspective of people over that side of Europe C20th history doesn’t look nearly as cut & dried as it does further west. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Finland had the Winter War & gave Russia a bloody nose at enormous cost & sacrifice. Ukraine got the Holodomor. Lithuanian father of a friend managed to be in the Lithuanian army then the Russian army then the German SS. He was being investigated for war crimes as a concentration guard when he died in the 80’s. His only real crime was surviving.
Maybe the flags & symbols mean different things to them than they do you
The AR’s roots in neo-nazi ideology are undeniable.
Even worse, they were football thugs.
“It’s not $500 million. And it’s not since entering politics. He was a comic, film start and producer before entering politics, recall?”
Did you audit his financial assets? Must’ve been a two-bit actor since I’ve never heard of his films, I assume Ukrainian film industry is pretty shite. Anyway, I bet he’s making like a bandit, although if he was worth 500 mill he would’ve fucked off long time ago.
@ Karelian Freedom Fighter
That you have never heard of him means nothing, absolutely nothing, unless he is a Finnish or Russian (from European Russia, not Siberia). There are English-speaking (well, American) film-actors/stars who are multi-millionaires that I have never heard of until my wife comments about them.
By the way Tim is not an auditor – I gather that he has higher standards as well as having know-how in economics rather than accountancy.
No PJF. Nazi not neo-Nazi. The are no neo-Nazis apart from a few nutters There are some aspects about the Nazis were very appealing. Appealing enough the Nazis got to rule Germany. They are still appealing. Why wouldn’t they be? Not everyone’s a limp wristed white western liberal. Give it another couple of generations they’ll be naming football teams after them. It doesn’t mean they’ve taken on board the entire thing. Symbols are very powerful. Think of the Vikings. Why would people want to be identified with the Vikings? They murdered raped & pillaged. But a lot of people do. Because the symbolism starts to represent different things
– “Putin started this war “
Arguable. It’s been going since 2014, at least.
Well yes, it was Putin who started it back then when he invaded Ukraine. The real shit started when gobs of gas were discovered under Kramatorsk in 2010, after which simmering Russian-speaking resentments were stoked, by Russia, right up to eleven.
– Why was so much of the UAF (and all these supposedly neo-Nazi packs) in the East prior to the invasion?
Defending their territory from further loss from Russia and Russian occupied zones of Ukraine. You know, getting ready for the invasion.
– What truth is there, if any, in the claims the Russian actions just pre-empted an escalation of Ukrainian violence against their own civilians?
What truth was there, if any, in the claims the German actions just pre-empted an escalation of Czech violence against their own civilians?
– What you should be asking is this: Why is the West (or it’s ruling elite, anyway) suddenly so interested?
Where was the interest in 2014? Or any year since?
I don’t need to ask the same questions as you because I’m not ignorant. The interest isn’t new or sudden; the West has been interested in Russia’s interest in Ukraine all along. Oh dear, so the media hasn’t brought it sufficiently to your attention and you’ve been otherwise distracted to notice things like airliners being shot down. This doesn’t apply to everybody.
– What purpose is being served in fighting yet another proxy war with Russia?
Weakening them whilst avoiding a direct war.
– Europe stands to be devastated by it’s energy supply and self-imposed oil/gas embargoes
Except “Europe” (Germany) isn’t yet embargoing Russian oil and gas, and won’t until it is able to do so. Those few countries that have directly or indirectly cut themselves off were already on course to do so, and have made alternative arrangements.
– Russia and Ukriane will suffer dreadfully.
Ukraine is going to be fucked over either way, isn’t it? It seems only fair that its fucker overer is fucked over too. Not nearly enough, unfortunately. The sanctions and embargoes are only pretend compared to what should and could happen.
– I will leave it to PJF and others to explain why our actions there are moral . . .
Lol, why the fuck should I attend to your deviation? I impolitely decline your impolite invitation.
Morals? At this level it’s “interests”, not morals. Speaking of which, I don’t for a minute believe you give the slightest shit about 300,000 whereverers. Leftie style argument-by-posturing should be left to lefties.
No PJF. Nazi not neo-Nazi.
Why are you addressing that to me? The only reference I made to Azov was a joke about their football hooligan past (which is true, btw).
Just to be clear, I don’t care whether Azov are Nazis, neo-Nazis, dressing-up-box Nazis or boy scouts maligned as Nazis. They’re an effective fighting force against the Russian invasion and that’s good enough for this context.
We joined up with filthy communist bastards all over to beat the actual Nazis. The enemy of my enemy is my temporarily useful ally.
. . . from Russian media . . .
Oh, come on Steve. If you want to go there then you should be talking about all the GNATO agents caught up in the siege and pulling the strings. Apparently there’s a senior American general down there. Russian propaganda is hilarious, don’t hold back.
@Steve, May 3, 2022 at 1:57 pm
Agree. But not hostages, used as human shields there and across Ukraine
Free passage for civilians announced weeks ago by Russia. Plus, Russia told Azov: ‘Lay down your arms and walk out, we will let you go free’ – BBC World Service
@bis
MSM 2022: Nazis in Ukraine? It’s Russain propoganda
Oh, there were Nazis in Ukraine, but they all left in Jan 2022 apparently
2018
US is Arming Neo-Nazis in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Uf7aooxvE
2018
Out of Control: Ukraine’s Rogue Militias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMMXuKB0BoY
2021
Inside A White Supremacist Militia in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy910FG46C4
@Interested, Tim the Coder
Good posts, agree
Adam Schiff said in 2020 in the U.S. Senate: ‘The US aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”
No doubt PJF will deny it happened, demand citation,…
…Oh dear
https://youtu.be/wGvO8b-tiaM?t=255
‘Israel to increase military, civilian aid to Ukraine’ (Jerusalem Post)
But…but…but…NAZIs!
Nazi and quasi-nazi regalia and tattooing are equally to be found on the Russian side, and at least Ukraine has the excuse that they invoke such images because the actual Nazis sought to destroy genocidal Bolshevism.
This is no different from Finland allying itself with the Nazis purely to defend itself against the USSR after the democracies failed to deliver meaningful assistance.
Russian troops commit mass atrocities in Ukraine, but look a shiny thing!
Steve mate, you can take a horse to water and all that.
The west wanted this war – it was inevitable from the moment Biden won the election and put the ubercunt Victoria Nuland back in her old job.
the 14,000 civilians killed in the Donbass over the last eight years are an irrelevant detail to this lot.
The fact that the Ukie Nazis were massing for an onslaught is an irrelevant detail, and that’s how they ended up in Azovstal surrounded by the Russkies.
Nah. TV says PootinManBad.
“the Ukie Nazis”
Oh dear.
I love how the Ukraine are responsible for all the deaths in the breakaway republics.
I hope you guys are on record as opposing Britsh efforts to fight the IRA, on the basis it caused multiple deaths. Those IRA people had every right to rebel, violently, and be left to win by that twisted logic.
Any country that doesn’t oppose breakaway portions doesn’t survive very long.
@PJF
– I will leave it to PJF and others to explain why our actions there are moral…
Lol, why the fuck should I attend to your deviation? I impolitely decline your impolite invitation.
Morals? At this level it’s “interests”, not morals. Speaking of which, I don’t for a minute believe you give the slightest shit about 300,000 whereverers. Leftie style argument-by-posturing should be left to lefties.
Lol, my ‘deviation’ wasn’t ‘impolite’. I simply asked why – if you’re as concerned for the people of the Ukraine as you pretend to be – you’re not similarly concerned for the people of the Yemen, who are being killed in vastly greater numbers by a government every bit as fascist and repressive and ugly as that of Russia, with the encouragement of, and using munitions supplied on the authority of, western governments including our own.
That doesn’t strike me as too hard a question to answer – for an honest person, arguing in good faith. You could just have said, ‘I am, that’s bad too.’ (That’s my position.)
But then, you do actually answer: you don’t believe war is a matter of morality, such as to concern us about vast numbers of deaths of ‘whereverers’, but of ‘interests’.
OK. I agree that for the governments and the media it is, indeed, all merely a matter of interests. That explains why they can support Saudi and oppose Putin at the same time.
But that’s the point. The government and their media lickspittles and enablers are trying to pretend that they believe that Ukraine is a moral matter, and so are you – why else would you be so emotionally invested, so spittle-fleckedly determined to attack anyone who merely states the obvious and uncontroversial facts that the situation is complicated, that there were ways to avoid this war which were not taken, that some western arms manufacturers are making fortunes out of this, that there are dodgy people on all sides, and that the openly-censored and censoring western media and western governments are perhaps not to be entirely trusted?
This is a question only you can refuse to answer. Lol.
Your pretend concern on this issue is obviously as ersatz as that of our governments, the media, and the people hanging Ukrainian flags from their back bedrooms, or inserting them into their Twitter biogs.
But the governments and the media are clearly making a lot of money out of it all, and the flag-inserters at least have the excuse that they are stupid and have had a number done on them by cleverer people.
What explains you? (I don’t rule out stupidity.)
Just to be clear, I don’t care whether Azov are Nazis, neo-Nazis, dressing-up-box Nazis or boy scouts maligned as Nazis.
Ah, good to know.
@PJF
“What truth was there, if any, in the claims the German actions just pre-empted an escalation of Czech violence against their own civilians? “
Godwin alert! 🙂
Actually, that is exactly so. The first slice taken by the monoglobular corporal was the recovery of a bit of Germany, full of Germans, which had been maliciously ‘carved out’ by the Versailles treaty and was being royally f*cked-over by its new owners. That one was justified, and even the British Gov privately agreed (although not the French).
The second slice was much less justified, but did indeed seek to intervene in a Czech-Slovak division that was escalating. The GB/French leaning industrialised Czech land did not get on with the agrarian Slovakian land, and the Slovaks had their own Nazi party and brewing insurrection. Plenty of trouble before That Man came along.
And GB and France both agreed that was no cause for war. Though a bl**dy big alert for next time.
The Czech-Slovak division was never healed: decades of iron fist repression kept the matter brewing until the collapse of the SU allowed release. To their enormous credit, the Czechoslovakians managed a peaceful split. An object lesson totally ignored by that other Versailles-created fake country next door.
The Ukraine-Russian hatred goes back atleast to the Holomodor and other Stalin interventions. By moving populations wholesale he hoped to break down national allegiance and create a single Soviet Union: what we would nowadays call an experiment in Multi-culturalism.
A nation can only be one people, so the result of the SU’s removal is a lot of “countries” without a national people and identity. Yugoslavia times 100. Well done Stalin. But also coming soon to many Western “multicultural” experiments.
The Ukraine ran a ‘freedom insurrection’ aka ‘terrorist campaign’ into the 1950’s. With peoples intermixed out of any relation to lines on a map, armed conflict is inevitable.
But why should we intervene on one side or the other? We criticise the Austrian chappie for doing just that, don’t we?
And our experience of Western armed intervention in the Middle East has been unbroken success. Well, no, not much!
“It seems only fair that its fucker overer is fucked over too”
Why hate the Russian people? What have they done? I have sympathy for the poor Russian civilians and the Russian squaddies, as much as for all the Ukrainian people (except the paramilitary thugs, and the Western mercenaries who went on what they thought was yet another raghead turkey shoot. They can rot).
Yes, Putin and his close associates are guilty, but we haven’t even managed to hang our own war criminals yet, so what chance visiting the same upon Putey-Blairski? Vengeance will need to await the pearly gates and high speed down-elevator.
Even the Russian generals are a bit cleft stick. Nice career. Then the boss tells you to do this. Ah. In theory, Nuremburg, illegal orders. All that. Well not applied in the West. See Iraq. Syria. Libya. Afghanistan. etc. The total of hanged Western generals equals the numbers of hanged Bushes & Blairs.
And if the military do turn around and say ‘No!’, then doesn’t the West get all upset about the military coup? See Burma and just about everywhere in South & Central America. And Africa.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
And what really gets my goat is that the lies in the media are so obvious and amateur. They aren’t even trying. What contempt for the people they claim to be “informing”.
Russia and Ukraine have a long history of bad blood. Let then resolve their differences. The West can offer humanitarian support to rebuild afterwards. But there is no Western interest at stake to defend, and a great deal to risk if western intervention leads the the conflict spreading, as it will. Moldavia and Romania are soon to be involved. And supply routes in Eastern Poland.
Whose Next?
@Chester Draws
“Any country that doesn’t oppose breakaway portions doesn’t survive very long”
I’m guessing you’re American?
I’d argue the opposite. A country is a single people, and if a division is strong enough for a breakaway movement, the country will destroy itself fighting it.
I’d see that more as a dick-waving contest by an insecure politician. See Catalonia, or indeed, your own recent unpleasantness. Never let anyone say Lincoln let a good crisis go to waste!
A better approach is to let things split, on good terms, and be gracious if a reverse is requested. See Scotland, Czechslovakia, or indeed, the example you quote: Ireland.
Ireland had a strong independence movement, and this was granted by the Brits, soon after WW1 (despite the breakaway faction openly backing the Kaiser).
The problem was/is that the island is populated by two separate peoples, and the Northern part wished to remain British – and still do.
The IRA were an attempt to force the rule of the South Ireland lot upon the North Ireland lot, against their freely demonstrated wish. Until they became an armed drug dealing & protection racket business, anyway.
Religion was only an attribute of the two tribes, not a cause.
Should NI ever vote to secede from UK, and/or join RoI, then they will be free to do so (atleast, as per the Brits. The EU may refuse). But the IRA has poisoned that well, so it’s unlikely any time soon.
Attempts to suppress secession by force only lock down the pressure release valve.
Way dabney – you’re a moronic cunt
My view is that the Ukraine/Russia conflict is being brought to you by the same people who a) declared (on utterly trumped up evidence) that Trump was in pocket of the Russians, b) spent 3 years attempting to over turn a democratic referendum result, and c) have spent the last 2 years using all their considerable State mandated powers to enforce lockdowns and get as many people jabbed as possible with an experimental auto-immune disease causing ‘vaccine’.
As such if those people told me the sky was blue I’d be outside checking, and wondering exactly was in it for them to say so.
No doubt PJF will deny it happened, demand citation,…
…Oh dear
Argumentum Loserdeum: a straw man with extra sadness
Godwin alert!
Lol, seriously?
Godwin’s law: As an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1
Steve dropped a “Nazi” in the very first comment, and it was used at least thirty times before my point in question, not including quotes.
About as alert as a camp guard in Hogan’s Heroes.
@Flubber
+1 ubercunt Victoria Nuland was behind the ousting of Ukraine president and replacing him with a US puppet and notably said “Screw the EU” if they objected
@Chester
Brain dead comparrison. UK fought the IRA , not every person who was an RC, nor did we bomb and artilleray shell RC districts
@PJF
Nothing to say on Schiff or Newland?
Newland had a good take on the EU. That OK?
@Tim the Coder
Your summary of the creation of an independent Ireland and the division of the island is seriously wrong. Parts of the six counties had a majority in favour of being part of Ireland but were forced to remain in the UK.
@PJF
No, it’s weasely. You throw around denials of facts and insult others. Then when you’re called out you go silent. Why not show some strength and say “OK, I’m sorry, I was wrong”?
@Charles
Nothing stopped the nationalist enclaves moving to RoI, many Unionists did by moving to NI. Instead, from day 1 ira etc started attacking NI leading to bridge & road closures. That’s why RUC now Blair’s NI Police were always armed
Here’s some important information to find if you’re going to mention the neo-Nazis in the Azov Battalion…
1. How many Ukrainians are in the Azov Battalion? What percentage are they of the entire Ukrainian military?
2,500 (highest estimate); 1.3% of entire active Ukrainian military (196,600 active personnel)
*This is not counting 900,000 reserve personnel, or all Ukrainians available for military service, who could be conscripted – over 11 million.
*Number of Azov members is estimated to be closer to 900 in 2022.
2. How many Ukrainians are in the military? What percentage are they of the entire Ukrainian population?
Active personnel (196,600) are 0.4% of the total population. Highest estimate of 11,149,646 available for military service are 25% of the total population.
3. How many Azovs are neo-Nazis? What percentage are they of the Azov Battalion?
Highest estimate given is around 20% (500 people), although this number was admittedly given by an Azov member. Even if this estimate is lower than the actual count (in which case, why wouldn’t they just say there are zero Nazis?), 2,500 white supremacists in the entire Ukrainian armed forces does not make a great case for writing off the entire country. In fact, there are at least a few Jewish members who add a Star of David over the original insignia, and a Jewish billionaire funded the militia at one point, so hard to believe it’s 100% neo-Nazi.
It is true that these guys are not saints, and there are a few reports of them committing the war crimes of rape, torture, looting and unlawful detention. No one is defending that. The point is that this is no more than 1.3% of the Ukrainian military and no more than 0.006% of the overall population. Putin’s original excuse for invading was that the Azov Battalion was a big enough threat to justify a “denazification” of the entire country. Not sure why that led to millions of non-Nazis having to flee to Poland if Putin is only focusing on the minuscule amounts of white supremacists. If there were that much of a Nazi problem in Ukraine, I’d meet at least one of them in New York City. We have a shit ton of Ukrainians here. I’ve certainly met a lot of anti-Semitic people from Arab countries here, so it’s only logical.
One can say that the Azov battalion is brutal and even bloodthirsty toward their targets, but the only thing neo-Nazi I’ve seen about them are the symbols and some of the rhetoric. I’m not seeing any footage of them destroying synagogues or harassing Hasidic Jews in the street. I know some Europeans get their knickers in a twist over the sight of a swastika (I have two German friends and I know what their education system did to them), but I’d personally feel a lot more unsafe as an ordinary citizen in Ukraine or Russia if I knew the Chechen and Syrian mercenaries were coming to my town. They actually go around killing Jews, as well as homosexuals and infidels. The Chechens murdered 333 people in a school in Beslan, in their own country, with over half of the victims under the age of 18. Two years before, the Chechens killed 170 people in a theater in Moscow. Putin sent both Chechens and Syrians to Ukraine to kill all Ukrainians, not simply soldiers or Nazis. So some people will be more upset about that than a few scary-looking badges.
Fun fact, Nazi symbols have been popular among Japanese teenagers in recent years.
Their education system has glossed over a bit of WWII history, so swastikas are like Hello Kitty stickers to them. Kind of like when Americans get Japanese back tattoos that translate to “spicy tuna roll.”
Invade Japan now?
Why not show some strength and say “OK, I’m sorry, I was wrong”?
I was only wrong in your imagination, Pcar. I didn’t say anything about Schiff or Newland, so (presumably because I live rent free in your head at the moment) you entirely invented a scenario in which I did:
https://www.timworstall.com/2022/05/is-she-this-bad/#comment-1220670
Since you appear to be susceptible to your own bullshit, you should be extra careful about what you believe from others.
Fun fact, Nazi symbols have been popular among Japanese teenagers in recent years.
More giggles (they’re everywhere):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrol_36
I suppose that once there has been a populist movement or idea it’ll never fully disappear, even if was really bad and was soundly defeated. There will always be flared trousers.
The Anti-Defamation League condemned Patrol 36, characterized the group as marginal, and urged Israeli citizens to not stigmatize the community of Russian Jews in Israel in reaction to the incident.
So, maybe it’s also not wise to
stigmatizeinvade the entire country of Ukraine. Not saying we should be best buddies with them, or even pick a side, but it’s absurd to see what’s happening to civilians there and think “Yeah, they had it coming.” I think some of the first-world just gets bored and wants to see a good ol’ fashioned turf war. That’s what happens when you take all the violence and gore out of movies.@Pcar
I’m not referring to nationist enclaves, but areas on the border in Armagh, Fermanagh, and Tyrone which had nationist majorities but were made part of Northern Ireland
@PJF
I know you didn’t, because I pre-emptively called you out with facts as I knew you’d deny it if someone said it
I really can’t see what your point is. Is the video fake? Is the Newland leak fake?
Your posts and replies to others all centre on “Russia Bad, Ukraine Good, Nothing to do with NATO expansion. Anyone who disagrees is a Putin supporter”
Yes, you replied, for once, but incoherent, fact free and meaningless
@Charles
Don’t know, I will need to check. I’m from Co Down
I really can’t see what your point is. Is the video fake? Is the Newland leak fake?
Lol, I have made no point regarding Newland or whatever was on that video. You’re arguing with your own straw man.
. . . as I knew you’d deny it if someone said it . . .
It appears mind reading and crystal ball gazing are in your imaginary tool set. It’s not so much that you’re wrong, it’s that you’re not quite right.
Your posts and replies to others all centre on “Russia Bad, Ukraine Good, Nothing to do with NATO expansion. Anyone who disagrees is a Putin supporter”
And misrepresentation is in your actual toolset. Actually, I think it is your actual toolset.
Two and a half months in, and I still have yet to see the people bringing up the Azov Battalion even mention the Chechens.
Would it kill you to mention that the Chechen mercenaries aren’t the types of people you bring home to Mum and Dad? Just a hint of objectivity? Something as simple as “Yeah, Putin calling up the Chechens and Syrians was a bit of a dick move as well” would suffice.
The fact that you don’t even cast any judgment toward those murderers may be why your argument seems a bit propagandized. Even if you thought the invasion was somehow justified, it’s still okay to not be fond of the Chechen army. The only reason you would leave out that pesky detail, is if you were such an amateur at supporting your argument that you can’t afford to cede any valid points to your opposition. That is, unless your entire argument is weak to begin with.
Just five simple words, “The Chechens are also bad.” Can you manage that?
@PJF
Are you Starmer’s puppet master? Lots of words, obfuscation, denials however facts few and far between. Then when facts providided you go silent as Starmer did yesterday
@aodjoadjf
If that’s aimed at me, you misfired. I’ve never said invasion was right, I maintain Putin was backed into a corner by NATO and fought back before last door closed. USA would have invaded Cuba if USSR hadn’t pulled back
Chechen, Syrian and other mercaneries & volunteers are fighting on both sides. However, they are very different to the Ukrainian SS Azov Battalion militia which since 2014 has been funded, housed, armed and equiped by Ukraine Gov’t and by NATO, inc UK training and equiping them
Yes, The Chechens are bad
I’m disapointed how niave so many are and still gullibly accept everything Gov’t, politicians & msm says despite all we’ve learned about their lies and hypocisy during Brexit Ref, Global Warming and the Covid
PandemicFlu@Charles
Quick search and I read this as it’s RoI
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/how-was-the-irish-border-drawn-in-the-first-place-1.3789571
Border was a logical compromise to keep some geographic continuity whilst abandoning some communities on Both sides of border
Apparently only one side went to war from day 1, the other reluctantly accepted and moved on. 100 years later and the war continues
Then when facts providided you go silent as Starmer did yesterday . . .
Lol, I come back in here looking for a link and I find you’ve returned to the thread after three days absence and are accusing me of going silent. You sad twat.
I hope there is peace between Ukraine and Russia soon.
@PJF
Some of us have weekend breaks. Had a great time at Miami GP if you’re interested. Sad twats like you obviously don’t