The times they are a crazy-ee. One candidate is shot but the other is the one felled. After the prolonged despondency over Joe Biden as their 2024 champion, in a burst of celebratory relief, newly-energised Democrats are rallying behind Kamala Harris as his replacement who represents the future to Trump’s disreputable past. Not so fast. The Democratic liberal elite march to the battle hymn “I am victim, hear me whine”, even from a child of privilege. The handover from Joe from Scranton to Kamala from California symbolises not just the baton passing to the next generation, but also a Democratic party more concerned today with environmental and social justice activism than its historic mission to protect the jobs and raise the living standards of workers.
I’ve been speculating since January that the Democrats would wait until after the Republican convention had confirmed Trump before forcing out a clearly impaired Biden. This would allow the party powerbrokers to nominate the candidate of their choice without the messy untidiness of a contested primary. The strategy owes much to Harris’s flawed candidacy as an electoral liability with a record of failing upwards. She was elected Attorney General of California, a deep blue state, in 2010 with less than 1% margin when other candidates won landslide victories. Her 2020 primary run collapsed with spectacular swiftness. In 2020 and 2024 combined she won exactly zero delegates in two runs to be the Democratic presidential nominee. She wasn’t chosen as Biden’s running mate based on past achievements and known potential, but because she ticked all the identity boxes. Kamala Devi Harris is a diversity pick thrice over: a woman, a black and a South Asian. The very same traits bullet-proofed her against being passed over in 2024. Yet the multitude of security failures that gave an amateur assassin multiple shots at Trump show the deadly consequences of elevating diversity criteria above merits and competence.
Not only does Harris present as a diversity candidate in violation of the merit principle, she is the candidate anointed by the D.C. elite backed by the Democratic-adjacent media, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy donors, rather than chosen by voters as the party’s standard-bearer. Saving democracy means protecting the Democratic party’s right to rule. Democratic voters who have been gaslit for years and were given an unqualified candidate, are now assigned a candidate they didn’t rightfully elect in a primary and told to laud Biden’s selfless gesture in stepping aside. Trump noted at a campaign rally on July 24th that the 14 million primary votes for Biden have been transferred to Harris without voter consent. Biden’s withdrawal was not a noble act of sacrifice but a brutal palace coup against a stubborn and delusional President. The announcement was made not from the Oval Office but on X from Biden’s personal account during a period of zero public appearances following an unspecified medical emergency. The Harris coronation was orchestrated by a ruling elite, terrified of losing the holy trinity of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives due to the belated public exposure of Biden’s decline. Yet we are told that Trump is the great white threat to American democracy.
Both parties are busy trying to define Harris with respect to her organising principle of politics and who she is as a person. Trump will paint her as a failed and unpopular Vice President who knifed her boss to steal a nomination she could not win in an open primary. As possibly the Democrats’ weakest and wokest candidate, she offers a target-rich record along four attack lines.
- She is a California progressive-radical Leftist who supports slavery reparations, racial and gender identity, elimination of private health insurance, cuts to police budgets, BLM rioters, decriminalisation of illegal immigration and health insurance coverage for the border-crossers (powerful ‘root causes’ of the problem), sweeping state diktats on what to drive and eat in pursuit of Net Zero, and federally legislated abortion almost to full term. How does she reconcile her passionate support for women’s choice and opposition to end Hamas’s hold over Gaza?
- Her transactional record as a San Francisco and California prosecutor who opposed criminal justice reform, cut corners in disclosure requirements that led to over 1,000 cases being dismissed, flipped and flopped between tough on law and order who was harsh on blacks committing drug crimes and wanted to punish parents for their kids’ truancy, and a soft-on-crime persona. Like Groucho Marx, Harris has her foundational principles and if voters don’t like them, why she has many others in her ethics cupboard.
- She cannot disown the administration’s policy failures: the porous southern border under ‘border czar’ Harris, inflation, student debt cancellation, the shambolic Afghanistan withdrawal, heightened geopolitical tensions in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia, and, as someone who interacted with Biden on a regular basis, the insistence that his visibly fading health and cognition were A-okay until suddenly they weren’t. Biden can’t even manage reading from a teleprompter without gaffes and stumbles including reading aloud the prompts to pause, repeat a word, etc. He mumbled and stumbled in his address to the nation to explain why he withdrew. Matt Orfalea has posted a six-minute ‘sharp as a tack’ compilation on X. What did Harris know about Biden’s failing health and when did she know he was no longer fit to serve? Can she explain why Trump’s age is a problem in the context of her continuing support for Biden even though he is a few years older and clearly less physically fit and mentally agile?
- Her addiction to word salads, speaking mannerisms and condescending speeches. While Biden is famous for gaffes, fabulism, mental blackouts and physical stumbles, Harris matches him for inauthenticity, kookaburra cackles, babbling word salads and kindergarten teacher homilies. Her abrasive management style caused a high staff turnover in her 2020 primary run and then again in the Vice President’s office.
Gerard Baker wrote in the Times that Harris “is the product of the modern elite” who “deploys her status as a woman and an ethnic minority to portray herself… as a victim of structural racism and sexism. Which makes her, in fact, the perfect Democratic candidate”. As the Democrats become the party of elites, the “deplorables” are drifting to the Republicans. The Harris honeymoon based on sharp age, gender and race product differentiation from Trump could have a short shelf life. The Democrats’ switcheroo changes the election dynamics but not the candidates’ relative strengths and shortcomings. The road to Kamalot has many a pothole to upset the apple-cart. In the first set of Trump-Harris head-to-head RealClear Politics poll averages on July 25th, Trump was ahead by 1.7% nationally, 3.8% in five battleground states, 23 points in the betting odds and 312 to 226 in electoral college delegates. The election is still Trump’s to lose – not that he can’t.
Ramesh Thakur is a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Emeritus Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University. This article was first published by Spectator Australia.
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Struggling to see the point of this article.
Really disappointed in the DS’s total lack of scepticism with regards to this. After two years of lies from our government and MSM we are supposed to believe everything that now comes out of their mouths?
Most sceptics have their particular blind spots. The Cold War jingoism of the anti-Russian campaign appeals to a certain type of conservative/right winger.
Hilariously, nothing learned over covid. Nothing at all.
It’s worse than Covid! At least then in places like the comments section of the Telegraph you got some nuanced views, now it is literally all ‘Russian are evil murdering **** Let’s kill them!’
You would do well to learn about automated bots run by the 5 Eyes – they are just churning out these propaganda lines again and again and again.
And where will that attitude end? WW3? Fermi’s paradox played out?
In my own limited experience I’ve found it is the conservative types who tend to question the narrative in contrast to those who accept it. I don’t know any conservatives who stand with Ukraine.
I do know a few willing to entertain the broader currents driving things, not the least of which is the encroachment of NATO and the mishmash of woke, rainbow gay claptrap the eastern types comprehensively reject.
There are complexities here with conservatism versus “right wing populism” (I do not use “populism” as a term of abuse – I see it as legitimate resistance to elite misrule).
If you want to find a conservative of the kind I describe (vulnerable to the appeal of jingoist Cold War nonsense), look no further than our host here, and a couple of other admin types here who have posted on the topic above or below the line. Also, of course, the bulk of the mainstream conservatives and “Conservatives” who have media pulpits.
Though imo in a couple of prominent cases it’s their personal proclivities that incline them to hatred of the Russian culture and government.
MI6 boss criticised for tweet about LGBT rights
Don’t underestimate the influence of culture war issues on these matters.
I get it. I’ve just noticed conservatives in my own sphere aren’t buying a word of it, including Russian propaganda.
I suspect that’s a function of the kind of people you associate with, probably (in a good way).
Unfortunately this is behind a paywall, but the abstract sums it up nicely:
Russia as an international conservative power: the rise of the right-wing populists and their affinity towards Russia
“Empathy with Russia, if not a common cause, is challenging the ideational structures and division of Europe.After the Cold War, the capitalist-communist divide was recast as a liberal democracy–authoritarian divide, which is now undermined by populists’ view of the world split along a national-patriotism versus cosmopolitan-globalism divide where Russia transitions from being an adversary to an ally.“
An opportunity missed. Or more accurately, one not advantageous to western neocons.
Very interesting piece. Thanks for sharing.
I’d also add one observation. Russia responded to the Ukraine issue as a nation-state. Some of us sense much of the developments over the last few decades are weakening the concept of the nation-state in favour of some nominal global arrangement.
I’m sure that is part of the attraction. As we are repeatedly told to ignore or even destroy our own culture and history many feel unsettled by this even if they can’t quite articulate why. The more solid sense of solidarity in eastern countries reminds us this is unnatural.
You just have to be run of the mill common sense to agree quite a lot of the time with Russians. Nothing to do with being ‘right wing’ or ‘conservative’, just sick and tired of all the green nonsense, the feminazi imperialism and the absolute hatred of white heterosexual males over 40.
So they don’t believe anything..Is that it?
When do you go off duty?
They have to bring up the culture war issues because there is now so much repressive legislation being implemented in the West that the culture war issues are all that’s left, they can’t criticise other human rights issues.
I have to admit to being an early supporter of the Iraq war and I swallowed all the lies Blair and Bush told us. I wasn’t interested in politics at the time so not the least informed of any governments duplicity.
Thankfully, unlike many, I learned a painful lesson from history and now savagely interrogate every government decision with an eye as to who a particular course of action will benefit most.
The last 20 years or so have taught me that, at every turn, unfolding events are nothing but state sponsored theft. The UK needn’t be burdened with crippling debt. If we all ran our households as the government runs the country’s finances, we would all be in jail.
If by now, anyone still believes Russia or China is more corrupt, or even as corrupt that the west, then they really need some psychiatric care.
This article states, with unexpressed incredulity, that Russians are largely in favour of war in Ukraine. Judging by the political mess they see the west in, not least that a geriatric POTUS with declining cognitive health was installed in the Whitehouse, they must consider their version of Democracy a raging success.
I must confess I wasn’t taken in by Iraq, but would admit it was more instinct than reason. The large protests which had no effect left more of a mark. And of course this was New Labour who by then were obviously using the disguise of the traditional Labour Party to usher in some disturbing ideas.
But the notion we are democratic, fair minded and sensible, and China and Russia are hotbeds of corruption is wearing thin. There is some truth to it, petty corruption is less common here. But the idea our society us the pinnacle of greatness is laughable.
I live in Oldham. Petty corruption is rife. One look at the Council’s accounts confirms this.
Basically, if public money is involved, corruption will be occurring.
End of!
But are you compelled to be corrupt?
I’ve worked in the public sector. Those drawn to such professions are more apt to passively take on behaviour of the culture they are immersed in. The reason they are there is their passiveness, the attraction of a safe job.
I still maintain that the British people typically reject petty corruption and theft in a way many other cultures do not.
The British public overtly condemn petty theft and corruption whilst covertly engaging in it themselves.
I have lived in Hong Kong. Chinese New year was/is an exercise in ‘corruption’ with little red packets of money (lots of money) exchanged to ensure a productive New Year. What little interest in tax the authorities took was/is never a concern.
The UK government terrorises the population, destroying creativity and entrepreneurship by criminalising the slightest financial exchange not passing through the taxman.
Meanwhile, often serious physical crimes against individuals e.g. assaults, rapes, theft etc. go uninvestigated by the police. I know this is the case, I’m also an ex cop.
The country is now in the unenviable position of the middle class shouldering a 50% Tax burden whilst the institutions that we pay for are falling apart e.g. health, social care and policing.
Clearly our energy policy has been destroyed by successive governments and we are now being instructed by our government as to what type of cars we will drive, what fuels we will use for heating, when and if we can leave our own homes etc. and yet major financial crime is rampant.
Our governments persistently assures us they will learn from their lessons, before the next scandal, which they assure us they will learn from.
Our problem isn’t petty crime, our problem is major corporate and governmental crime which continues unabated because no one is prosecuted for taking the country to war, spending billions on PPE that is wasted or spunking billions on Nightingale hospitals which were not used.
Until our Tax system is reformed and our top heavy government and civil service slashed, this corruption will continue to escalate.
Maybe in Oldham, not true where I live in NW London. The local council is, if not the most efficient in the UK, in the top 5. It does the basics brilliantly, controls costs ruthlessly and doesn’t waste money on vanities or fripperies.
I must say, our Conservative local government in Dartford isn’t too bad either.
You need to know Oldham to understand.
No ‘Diversity Czar’ or declarations of a ‘Climate Emergency’?
It was pretty obvious soon after 9/11 that the USA were going to go to war with Iraq, even though they knew Saddam had done nothing on 9/11. It was impossible to believe the propaganda if you had followed US news in early 2002. It was already being widely reported that the USA had decided on war in Iraq after war in Afghanistan.
Yup – why didn’t the USA bomb the shit out of Saudi Arabia – it was Saudis who flew planes into the Twin Towers.
Instead they bombed Afghanistan – who had nothing at all to do with 9/11!
Furthermore they trained to fly in Florida!
But not Boeing jet liners.
On the face of it that’s a good question, but….
Bin Laden was Saudi and so were many of his supporters but he was operating from Afghanistan, with the direct knowledge and assistance of the Taliban.
The attacked Iraq on behalf of Israel. It was all decided at the Bush/Blair/Israel Camp David meeting.
Do you mean biological Conservatives or those who identify as Conservatives like most of the Parliamentary Conservative Party and many of its members in the general population?
Like your style, sir.
I don’t think gay stuff has anything to do with Ukraine-Russia tensions. I would hazard a guess that the Azov Battalion hates ‘poofs’ just as much as they hate Russians….
Of course. Makes it all the funnier to see people like David Starkey supporting people who would likely give him the (perhaps apocryphal) Edward II treatment if they had their druthers.
The culture war issues are not Ukraine-Russia, they are US sphere-Russia, as highlighted by the humiliating Tweet I referenced from the head of our intelligence service.
Starkey is certainly a strange one. I don’t think his public utterings have ever made much sense.
Are you and your friends standing against Ukraine, then?
Are you fighting for Ukraine?
https://www.unz.com/jcook/liberals-are-adopting-an-old-soviet-tactic-painting-opponents-as-mentally-ill/
Some good points on that and the Canadian vaxxed/Ukraine support correlation poll and subsequent diffamation of the unvaxxed aka ‘conservatives’.
Day 1: Talk about irrelevant stuff.
Day 5: Repeat irrelevant stuff.
Day 10: Point out that irrelvant stuff has been repeated.
Day 15: Repeat the irrelevant stuff has been repeated.
Day 20: Goto 1.
What was the point?
Aside: In contrast to Xi’s Kill them all with cotton pads! Corona propaganda campaign, I find the Russian one rather refreshing.
‘Russian propaganda machine is not going at full blast…’
It’s not going anything in the ‘free’ World because the ‘free speech’ loving West has banned Russia media. And of course the ‘free speech’ loving West bans its own if they do not promote the approved narrative.
Has it?
Or you just making stuff up?
“Do you support [the] actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine?” is a stupid question anyway, even leaving aside linguistic considerations of the absence of definite and indefinite articles in Russian. Your average person in Russia is going to know enough about the position in the Ukraine to know that that’s a stupid question.
“Do you support this year’s entry by the Russian armed forces into parts of the Ukraine outside of the Donbas?” would be a better question.
If you want to see what the Russian public are likely seeing then watch Russia Today
https://rumble.com/vwbbjn-putin-announces-special-operation-in-donbass-special-coverage.html
https://www.rt.com/on-air/
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/RTlivestream:8
The Ukrainian Nazis are going to be fighting the Russian Nazis now!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/08/russia-send-notorious-neo-nazi-mercenaries-ukraine/
Nazis everywhere.
I am struggling to see why you are so upset with this benign study. The DS doesn’t only print articles with one perspective, thank God. That’s not skepticism. That’s simply the mirror image of the MSM, which is no better than the MSM itself.
I’m not upset with it as such, I just don’t think it is particularly sceptical. It’s very much following the MSM narrative, but this time presenting us with survey stats. Who on this website would take YouGov survey results as the absolute truth? Yet this article assumes that the stats coming from the Russians (who lest us not forget, are BAD) are correct.
The fact that there are over four times as many comments on this piece suggests people would like the Russian invasion, or more specifically the West’s response, to be looked at more sceptically.
Are you saying you believe the Russian propaganda?
I’m saying there is our propaganda, their propaganda, and then somewhere in the middle is the truth.
Being sceptical in an attempt to find out the truth doesn’t mean you have switched from one set of propaganda to another.
Indeed, the same dummies that screeched for lock downs and mask wearing are the same dummies calling for Russian blood.
Zero understanding of science, and it appears zero understanding of history, even current history, where only a few years ago the press were slating the Ukraine for being very naughty.
Boris is a POS for breaking lock down rules, but apparently a hero for visiting the Ukraine.
We are surrounded by simpletons!
I tend to agree.
I’m sure that the attitude of many Russians might have been swayed by the contumely heaped on them and their culture by the usual suspects in the UK (and elsewhere) arts and media.
Sacking Russian conductors and banning Russian books and music is the same sort of hysterical drivel that fuels the whole gender-self-ID fiasco.
Doesn’t surprise me. Many who came to view covid as BS have slipped straight back to automatic MSM narrative believers.
Telling them it is not as simple as Russians Bad, Ukrainian Nationalists Good just gets a blank stare as if I’m pissing on their party – I guess I am.
Something about learning from history there.
Perhaps their opinion poll companies are as bent as ours
Probably, though if the Levada Centre is bent (and I don’t doubt it), it isn’t bent in favour of Russian conservatives or the Russian government:
Russian Justice Ministry source explains recognizing Levada-Center NGO a “foreign agent”
The source claims the non-commercial organization “had received most of its foreign financing from the United States”
The source claims the non-commercial organization “had received most of its foreign financing from the United States”
Surprise surprise!
“However, it’s still possible that support for the war is overstated. ”
Yes, for humans there’s always a desperate lingering hope.
“We conducted the list experiment among a sample of 3,000 Russians whom we recruited on the online platform Toloka. Toloka is the Russian equivalent of the US-based Amazon MTurk platform, which has frequently been used by political scientists for conducting experiments. The respondents on the platform are not a perfect mirror image of Russian society, of course. They tend to be younger, more urban, and better educated (Table 1). As such, our respondents are likely more liberal than the population average, meaning that our estimates may represent a lower bound of support for the war.”
Very much so, I suspect.
There are very sound reasons for supporting this war if you are Russian, and further, the US sphere propaganda view of Putin as a hated dictator is basically a lie. It doesn’t appear likely now that the desperate hope of the US aggressors and their dupes, including, based on their own words, the authors of this study, that the US will achieve its longstanding goal of regime change in Russia will come to pass.
What’s more, Russians have seen all the evidence of Ukrainian atrocities that have mostly been kept out of our mainstream media, and also seen the hatred and contempt with which they are viewed by US sphere bigots.
I doubt that’s going to incline them to support the westernising tendencies in Russian politics again any time soon.
As I noted earlier, in the future, as the US sphere’s confrontation with its real rival, China, becomes ever more vital, people will write international relations articles asking: “Who lost Russia?” And the answer is: the neocons, NATO warmongers and anti-Russian fanatics, and all their dupes, who thought the only way to win Russia over was to crush them into submission.
My understanding from the few Russian nationals I know is that they do not see this as a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but as the West continually and increasingly provoking Russia and Russia responding in a measured way.
That’s my impression as well. And they are of course correct in that view. It’s only the systematic propaganda of our elite class and mainstream media that means very few over here recognise that reality.
But I believe the appalling behaviour of the Ukrainian ultranationalists is probably changing that view quite a lot, in Russia.
It’s very important for more and more ordinary western people to talk with more and more ordinary Russians. That way the propaganda won’t work. It took me two conversations with a Ukrainian from Kiev to learn about the ethnic diversities in Ukraine, something most UK citizens wouldn’t have a clue about. I had that conversation around the time of the Maidan….
“It’s very important for more and more ordinary western people to talk with more and more ordinary Russians.”
I have met some Russians and were impressed at how civilised they were. If Russia got its act together and had a go at turning itself into a decent country and open for tourism, it could go far. People are scared that if they go to Russia they may not be allowed back out.
People are scared that if they go to Russia they may not be allowed back out.
Are they really?
Re Putin being a hated dictator. What we very much overlook in the West is that Putin brought stability to Russia following ten turbulent years of a total system collapse and the lawlessness of the Yeltsin years. The vast majority of people living in Russia will remember, if not the end of Communism then definitely the 1990s. Putin put an end to all that.
Absolutely – but then the prostitutes in politics and the media never cared about truth, they only care about power and money.
Indeed. A previous regular poster on TCW was a man called Rhod, who ran a business in Russia and had a Russian wife. He often provided corrections to the MSM-induced impressions of what Russians thought about Putin and other things.
I think I speak for many on here when I state…
What will the shortage of cooking oil have on the health of the Scots?
Cold turkey?
Plummeting sales of deep-fried Mars Bars?
At least Buckie and Irn Bru are UK-made, so they won’t have to manage without them!
But there’s no problem with the SNP’s state control of Scotland.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/nicola-sturgeons-secret-state
Excellent link. Thanks for sharing. Horrifying stuff. But at some level the Scots revel in their slavery. I’ve seen it firsthand. The SNP have a very receptive audience.
Westminster could do something about it, but don’t because they are at least as incompetent/corrupt.
I came to the conclusion that what the SNP get up to rather suits Westminster; hence the lack of reaction to it.
The crazy Krankie throws Westminster a lifeline time and again. MPs must love her.
The Scots voted for Nicola, why should Westminster bother about their self-inflicted misery?
I agree, other than we are paying for it.
The worst crime of the SNP is that in 15 years of occupation, they have not attracted a single major industry to the country. Despite having cheap land, a terrific transport infrastructure and some of the best deep water ports in the world.
It’s also one of the safest places in the world thanks to Faslane, one of the most surveilled military installations in the world. What foreign aggressor would waste nuclear ordnance on an empty naval base? Any suggestion of nuclear conflict and every submarine in the western fleet would be put to sea.
No sign of any Braveheartism when I was there a few weeks ago – all nappied up. One clown even tried having a go at me for not wearing one. He got ‘the look.’
Cracking piece in the once commendable Speccie – for a change.
Russia still has a fifth column of Atlanticists in high places who are in thrall to the West.
Putin is slowly replacing them.
If the Russian public and shown the facts and not the propaganda from West friendly Russian media then the support for the Special Military Operation will be very high.
It is a shame that people in the West are so easy to brainwash.
Sadly Mr Young has gone full “believer” on this subject despite much evidence to the contrary regarding the history and abuses, must be all that time hanging around The Spectator offices
I wonder if the latest Ukrainian outrage in The Donbass will sober our Establishment up ?
I wonder how many in the UK believe the anti Russian propaganda ?
The establishment are behind it. No sobering up required.
How many in the UK believe the anti-Russian propaganda? Almost all of them I am afraid. I know an unthinking zombie who cancelled his family holiday to Turkey bacause they are “too pally with Putin”. It’s not even worth trying to argue against that level of brainwashing. People like that are the same as the people that enabled Hitler.
Nope. If 14,000 dead over 8 years of the Kiev puppet regime blitzing The Donbass (including heavy air strikes against its own citizens) has simply been ignored, there is no hope for any acknowledgement let alone rational discussion. I sincerely hope Russia take off the rose tinted glasses and just get on and militarily do what needs to be done to allow the people of East Ukraine to get back to something resembling a normal life (probably under Russian protection).
Meanwhile don’t lose track of the steady growth of Ursula’s 4th Reich over the channel, and her regime’s promise yesterday of fast tracking Ukraine into the EU this summer while she is sauntering around (Thunderbirds style) with Zelensky in Ukraine trying not to get their respective strings entangled.
LOL Brilliant!
Zelensky in high heels.
150% cringe
This will give Sturgeon ideas.
“Pull my finger!”
No, I would suggest we all know where that fingers been.
“I wonder how many in the UK believe the anti Russian propaganda ?”
Well start with all the gullible morons that bought the Covid narrative (@65%);
add those that didn’t fully buy it but got the shot so they could travel or appease their friends or relatives (@20%);
add the conservatives that were sceptical of lockdowns and shots but think it’s a cock up not a conspiracy (@10%);
subtract those who suspect western interventionism and militarism are always behind global conflicts (-@10%)
Id sooner where a badge protesting against vaccines than a Russian pin lapel right now. At least with the former I didn’t run the risk of getting physically attacked..
add the conservatives that were sceptical of lockdowns and shots but think it’s a cock up not a conspiracy (@10%);
Within that 10% there is a minority who only pretend it’s a cock up, for reasons of expediency you understand.
The Sun just published this photo of a Ukrainian religious official blessing the dead.
Watching is a Ukrainian SBR goon with SS Galizien stamped on his official fatigues.
This references a Ukrainian Waffen SS unit from WWII.
This is who TY supports.
Sort of off topic, but nevertheless related, just a thought for a possible future article ABL.
Do Europeans support Ukraine joining the EU? Do Europeans support Ukraine joining the EU under an accelerated process? Do EU policians support an unelected German politician once again indicating that Europe is Germany’s personal playground and seemingly making up rules on entry all by herself, without the input of the 26 other member states?
Would Europeans support being dragged into a full-on war for a country they know and hitherto cared little about? A most relevant question, as that seems to be exactly where we are, IMO intentionally, being led by the EU and the US. All well and good for parliamentarians to stand clapping to a video screen like trained circus seals and to put little yellow and blue flag emojis on their social media, a completely different story when bodybags start getting sent westward and standards of living plummet.
Speaking of propaganda – the way that Ukraine’s ultra-rapid accession to the EU is being presented as a done deal, all agreed and cheerfully accepted by everyone is beyond disingenuous.
“Do Europeans support Ukraine joining the EU?“
Easier access to Europe for skinheads with swastika tattoos and black market, US-supplied Javelins and Stingers in their car boots, and US military training in how to use them?
What’s not to like?
Wonder if they’ll team up with Merkel’s previous invitee’s from ‘Syria’ (the majority of whom seemed to have come from Africa, but hey ho), quite a few of whom also appear to dislike the West. I guess all that lovely-jubbly US weaponry flowing out of Ukraine into a borderless Europe would at least put a stop to attack-by-truck at Christmas markets.
Well, it seems they’ve long respected each other’s “effectiveness”. Here’s an old clip Maajid Nawaz posted yesterday:
“WATCH:
Adviser to Ukrainian president Zelensky’s chief of staff, Oleksiy Arestovich, appears on video GLORIFYING ISIS TORTURE videos & mentions their “cruelty for show” as “a wise strategy””
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1509264478801735688
Certainly many of the recorded actions by Ukrainian ultras are clearly operating from the jihadi playbook.
It doesn’t matter, Ukraine will effectively be a member of the burgeoning EU 4th Reich in a few months, according to the EU’s statement yesterday confirming it will be fast tracking its application. Ursula is already in Ukraine this week meeting with Zelensky – so that means it’s a done deal.
Meanwhile popular protests on the street continue against rising prices and Russian sanctions in various EU countires (Spain, Greece, Italy etc) but few are being reported in the UK. The times they ARE a changin’.
Would you describe Sajid Javid as ‘European’? He has a British Passport and was born in Rochdale.
Is Rishi Sunak ‘European’? His wife isn’t, when it comes to paying taxes in the UK!
(although she’s more than happy to apply for & receive furlough money for her companies out of the pockets of the British taxpayers).
That kind of technique in surveys has been known since George Gallup in the 1950s. Everybody in the advertising and influence world knows it.
Academics can be so funny sometimes. There is a story about Fischer Black, the academic economist who helped produce the “Black-Scholes” (or “Black-Scholes-Merton”) model for pricing financial options. He left academia to take up a job at Goldman Sachs, where the head of trading, who was obviously aware of his work, greeted him with the words “Let me tell you something. You don’t know sh*t about options.” (Ouch.)
Generally speaking, the populations of both Russia and the Ukraine understand the position in the Donbas (where war has been going on for the past eight years) much better than populations in the west do. They also understand the Russian and Ukrainian identity thing much better, which so many earnest western readers have tied themselves in knots about.
(For a comparison – how many French people who talk about Northern Ireland or Scotland make howling errors? Most of them. The same is true about people from the USA. Many English people too find it hard to wrap their heads around the whole Irish and British identity thing in Northern Ireland. You will be hard-pressed to find even a single article in the London-based media where the author shows an understanding of why the DUP favoured a strong Brexit, for example. But everyone in Northern Ireland knows. It’s because the DUP believe that both the European Union and the Republic of Ireland are fronts for the Roman Catholic church.)
While asking whether people in Russia support the war, why not ask whether people in the Ukraine support it? Or whether they want the Donbas to be in the Ukraine, or the Ukraine in NATO, or what they think of the Ukraine’s pro-Israeli president and the Ukrainian government’s (no longer paramilitary) neo-Nazi Azov regiment? Ask them whether it would be fine with them for the Ukraine to recognise the sovereignty and independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics as part of a peace agreement. Most would probably say yes. “Just end this f***ing war.”
“While asking whether people in Russia support the war, why not ask whether people in the Ukraine support it?“
We all know the answer to that. As the academics involved make absolutely clear in their writing, they are not in any way objective or neutral observers. They are openly biased, and what’s more, think that there;’s nothing wrong with their bias and nobody would view it as in any way problematic.
After all, in their circles, who would want anything other than Russian defeat?
After all, in their circles, who would want anything other than Russian defeat?
They will be disappointed, but defiant. Russian successes (in defying sanctions, for instance) will be painted as defeats; because they must be defeated, and what must happen will and does happen.
In societies where image and representation are everything, the painstaking search for truth has become quaint – and grossly under-funded.
All polls are biased because many people give the answer they think they ‘should’ or us expected for whatever reason.
If I were Russian, I would support this war.
If I knew and understood the recent history of Ukraine, the nature of its government and the behaviour of its armed forces and the West’s involvement there, I’d also support the Russians position.
You don’t have to be a Russian.
I support it.
Not because I have any stake in it nor because I speak a word of Russian or knew anything about the situation there until this whole mess started.
I support it because every country has a right to defend itself against an Empire that encroaches on its border with nuclear weapons and bioweapons – a Coalition of the Willing formed from Nazis and jihadis notwithstanding.
I support it in spite of the snivelling, bemasked eunuchs in this country draped in upside down Ukraine flags whinging about macroaggressions they have no understanding of. They’d love the Russians to be as subjugated as they are, so they can go to the same slave jobs for the same corporations owned by the Beast System they’ve spent their miserable lives building.
The Russians aren’t having it and they’re prepared to die for it. I say good on them and the least I can do is say I’ll continue to believe this and say I believe it no matter what the opinion polls say.
Love this!
Over the past 2 years we have seen the power of state propaganda and threats to convince people that illogical and extreme actions are necessary. No doubt the Russian state machinery, which has much more experience with such propaganda, is using the same techniques as it has in the past to brainwash its citizens into thinking this a justifiable and limited military operation. Mass formation psychosis drove the majority of our population to support blatant injustices against its members. If half of Russians don’t support the war then I’d say they are doing better than we are to resist government mind games.
Not sure that they need to create too much of their own propaganda. We do it so effectively for them! All the Russians need to do is broadcast a BBC news show or one of the political “debate” shows and prefix it with “look at what horseshit the Brits are feeding their population”. That’s all anyone with a functioning brain needs to see, to understand how dangerous and rabid the west has become.
Tell them about the insults to Russian composers and writers (including ones long dead) and the bullying of their musicians and sportspeople.
They might well decide that West is filled with deranged lunatics who hate Russians on principle.
That, of course, is already happening. These hate-filled barbarians are giving Putin ammunition.
A more pertinent question for this article is:
Do the WEF, Trilateral Commission, IMF, World Bank, Tavistock Institute, City of London, Blackrock, Vanguard, Rockefeller and Rusty my dog support this theatre of war?
Btw, Rusty says only if the war results in a Loving Brave New Word instead of a Totalitarian New World Order
Well, I think it’s safe to say the US sphere mainstream media would be piping a rather different tune if they didn’t….
Indeed. It’s not just whether they support it, was it their strategic goal?
I’ve tried to stay neutral over this one as there are very unsavoury characters on both sides. Also I understand there is a history of hatred between the ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians which is probably very complex to understand, going back many years if not centuries.
I had a friend at school who’s father was Ukrainian and fought for the Germans in WW2 as he wanted to fight and kill Russians.
Also 2 years of lies and propaganda has made me hyper sensitive to anything the MSM and politicians say.
More than 5 million Ukrainians fought side by side with Russians against Nazi Germany, as members of the Soviet army or as partisans. More than 300 served as generals and marshals.
The hatred is overwhelmingly coming from Ukrainian Nazis, a minority of the population. They have been supported and trained by certain Americans, who should hang their heads in shame.
Putin has prepared the ground for this invasion over many years. He has long portrayed Ukraine as not a real state, controlled by corrupt politicians (yes, this from the reputedly richest man in the world who even built his own palace on the quiet).
He demonises them as Nazis – and then sends in his Wagner Group, the Nazi wing of the Russian armed forces.
Russians don’t get to see any atrocities. They just see troops handing out food parcels. All civilian casualties are dismissed as false flag. It’s ridiculous – they routinely claim zero collateral damage. That just can’t happen, even if you’re really trying.
It’s funny how according to Russia, in every war they fight the other side always spend their time bombing their own side in false flag ops, instead of actually fighting the Russians.
I understand why Russians believe this. It’s all they’ve been fed for a decade, and anyway it’s dangerous to permit yourself to think anything else.
But I don’t see why we in the UK should give it a moment’s credibility.
thank you for taking the trouble to refute all the Putin appeasers and apologists, much more politely than I feel capable of; it is getting a bit tedious though. however sceptic one may be, in wartime I regard most things as likely to be propaganda or military misinformation, I cannot work out how they are all so confident that no Russian could possibly have committed any atrocities. on that the truth will come out though
Who are you referring to? Most reasonable people prefer to wait for the evidence rather than jump to conclusions.
I’ve lost count of how many face-to-face interviews I’ve seen/heard with witnesses of atrocities. How is that not evidence?
You can say they’re all lying if you want but it’s still evidence.
Here’s some of exactly that kind of “evidence”. Perhaps you are too young to remember it.
Nayirah Kuwaiti girl testimony
Of course, your straw man notwithstanding, few if any sceptics claim there is “no Russia collateral damage” – that would be literally stupid, and few if any even claim there are “no Russian atrocities”.
The objection is to people like you trying to use atrocities, some doubtless real and others undoubtedly faked or misattributed, to try to demonise the already grossly slandered “enemy”, to shroud-wave in order to whip up support for your war, that we have no business being involved in.
I do remember the Kuwaiti girl case. But this was one incident a long time ago (and not even done by a western government).
There are plenty of very recent examples of Russian lies – and direct from the government.
But the Russians do, alongside many other demonstrably false statements. I don’t understand how you can pick your way between the clearly untrue and the merely wild.
You said ‘where’s the evidence of Russian atrocities’, when clearly there’s lots of evidence. Lack of evidence is not the problem. The problem is, you have decided all these hundreds of people are lying (multiplied many times because many other countries are recording similar accounts).
You only ask for evidence from one side.
“I do remember the Kuwaiti girl case. But this was one incident a long time ago (and not even done by a western government).”
As I pointed out, there’s a long track record establishing a practice of lies and atrocity allegations used to manufacture support for confrontations and wars.
“But the Russians do, alongside many other demonstrably false statements. “
But few if any sceptics do, as I wrote. (I suspect few even amongst Russians would try to claim that there was never any Russian collateral damage – certainly none with any knowledge of war).
“You said ‘where’s the evidence of Russian atrocities’,”
No, I didn’t. As is so often the case you try to answer a point which is not the one made. Supposed evidence from one side is not enough to rush to judgement. That you seek to do so merely confirms your propagandist intent.
Indeed, that you seek to use the incidents to whip up support for your preferred side and not out of any genuine concern for justice, confirms that intent.
I know it’s stupid but that’s the official line.
What evidence do you have that 100s of witnesses, journalists and crew are lying? I’m talking about Ukraine, not Iraq or any other war.
Nobody is presenting anything here – not one poster.
“I know it’s stupid but that’s the official line.”
I’ll believe that when you produce an official Russian government statement to that effect, and not before.
“What evidence do you have that 100s of witnesses, journalists and crew are lying? I’m talking about Ukraine, not Iraq or any other war.
Nobody is presenting anything here – not one poster.”
As I pointed out, there is a track record of lying and misrepresenting and fabricating atrocities and other lies in order to push war fever, on the part of the US sphere regimes.
Anyone honest knows that – you just seek to pretend not to know it for the purpose of the particular war you want to push
Beyond that, I’m really not interested in details of particular collateral damage or atrocity stores – in themselves, they have no bearing on the rights and wrongs of the overall conflict. They are significant in terms of the way they are used and the effects the stories have, but nothing good is served by obsessing about them individually. That merely makes you open to emotional manipulation – except in your case I think the emotional manipulation is the intent.
It would be useful for us to judge the veracity of your claims if you would post a link or two to these interviews. I am sure you will tell us to search for ourselves (standard response to request for detail) but I would find it good to judge what you say is specific evidence if I had more than your word for it.
They are new ones every day:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61038811
Suffice it to say your interpretation of evidence and mine differ. I found that account implausible and riddled with inconsistencies.
Firstly, this is just one of many.
Secondly, on what basis can you assert she’s lying, other than pure supposition?
Bear in mind that’s she’s a real person, people are going to know her.
I didn’t assert that she was lying – you need to look up the meaning of implausible. I don’t doubt that she is a real person but I can’t see how the fact of her being known to people will affect her story since they are unlikely to be reading an English language account on the BBC.
Because if she’s lying about her family being killed, someone’s going to know it. Why would she do that? Why would all the other witnesses do that?
If you don’t think she’s lying, I don’t know what you’re trying to say.
“Why would she do that?”
You’re right: nobody has ever lied for money.
Didn’t you look up implausible?
Do you really not understand that no-one is going to sanction her even if she is lying through her teeth. She will say it was for her country and everyone around her will congratulate her for her war effort.
You really have to be naive to take such a simplistic view of a complex situation, especially since a side that realises it is losing will use any tactic to avoid defeat. The protests are growing ever louder as defeat becomes more certain.
Sooner or later you are going to have to be a big boy and take it on the chin.
So, your only reason to disbelieve her is that she’s Ukrainian.
That’s it.
As all witnesses are going to be Ukrainian, you don’t have to listen to any of them!
Unless they say something you already agree with.
You really are scraping the barrel making up what I said. Just read it again. Read it out loud because that often helps when you have poor comprehension skills. By the way you haven’t accused me of being a Russian trolly yet.
Yep, you’re saying we can ignore her because she’s just a patriotic Ukrainian.
That’s the sum total of your evidence that she’s lying.
You really are hard work. I am looking for corroborative evidence to back up her story and I didn’t say she is lying. You may be struggling with the language, but not believing someone is not the same thing as saying they are lying – they may be mistaken for numerous reasons, they may have a false memory, they my not want to admit they were wrong. I won’t go on but life in my world is not the same as tne black and white world of Planet Fingal.
Well, corroborative evidence would include where she was, who she was with, graves of her family, the cellar where she was kept etc, etc.
Wow, one interview hosted by an untrustworthy state news organisation
There are new ones almost every day. How come you’ve not been seeing them?
You trust Putin’s state media, but not media in the democratic world?
“the democratic world”
Just stop this nonsense.
Look, if you’ve got a point, make it. If you don’t know what a democracy is, it’s not my fault.
No, I don’t trust any media at face value.
However, in a “democratic world” I would expect to see both sides of the argument and be allowed to make my own mind up.
This is no longer permitted in the West.
Rubbish, just look at all the stories linked to on this website which you have access to.
Now in Russia, you could say that and have a fair point.
Actually you’ll find a lot of the links on here were finally reported when it couldn’t be suppressed any longer, usually about 6 months or more after the “conspiracy theorists” were discussing it.
There aren’t many stories or channels which are outright banned here. Are you honestly claiming that Russian media is freer than ours?
I’m not sure why you’re so obsessed with Russia as the benchmark for a so-called UK liberal democracy. It’s a ludicrous comparison given the history of both countries.
One thing I have noticed though, is that articles on, say, RT are far more logic-driven than articles on the BBC which are more emotion-driven.
This is probably reflective of the calibre of politicians. Whatever you may think of how Russia is governed, Putin and Lavrov are intelligent and have gravitas. Meanwhile we have Johnson and Truss. Enough said.
Putin isn’t stupid but invading Ukraine was an outstandingly stupid decision. He had far more options before.
He may get some battlefield success in the short term, who knows. But long term he has messed up his economy, lost his best customer for his only product, hugely boosted NATO spending and efficacy, and probably recruited Finland and Norway to NATO.\
(Not to mention killing 10s of thousands of people and potentially creating millions of refugees in a new Palestine problem).
That’s some legacy!
Putin’s first job – his primary job – is to take care of national security.
If he believed there was an existential threat and had tried all diplomatic routes without success, then – as Mearsheimer predicted – it was always going to end in conflict.
There was no better time to take action – the West had just terrorized its own citizens for two years, destroyed their economies and the de facto US president a senile old man whose family was heavily involved in dodgy dealings in Ukraine.
NATO is arguably more united but the cosying up of Russia and China, with indirect support from India, Pakistan, Iran, Brazil etc. may be more impactful than you think.
Let’s see how it ends before judging it as stupid.
Actually Putin’s first job is to keep Putin in power. Nothing like a good old patriotic war and the chance to lock up all your opponents that are left.
As I already said, the invasion has seriously damaged both Russia’s security and its economy. The scale of the coming economic crisis could be enough to topple him, who knows. Either way the country is much, much worse off.
Anyhow, it’s bed time for me.
The scale of the economic crisis in the West might make Russia’s look like a picnic.
Mostly self-inflicted as well.
I’ve seen countless interviews which claim that Ukrainians are committing the atrocities.
You must be watching a lot of Russian news.
This war has been fought entirely on Ukrainian territory. No Russian civilians have been involved. While some atrocities will undoubtedly have been committed against captured Russian soldiers, this is tiny compared to Russia’s opportunity.
“this is tiny compared to Russia’s opportunity.”
Revealing choice of “opportunity”.
It’s a bleak world.
You can’t commit atrocities against civilians if you don’t have any civilians to commit them against.
Right: you’re saying that there’s no moral difference between the two sides when it comes to treatment of civilians or prisoners.
I’d pretty much agree with that.
I’m sure the Ukrainians have committed crimes as well, but that’s not the question.
So far, the self-proclaimed sceptics of this website refuse to believe any account of Russian atrocities, but accept everything about the Ukrainians.
Um…isn’t that what they call bias?
My view: Russian Russians and Ukrainians are ethnically and culturally almost identical.
The main difference is in religion, but that’s a dividing line inside Ukraine.
Neither are us.
It really doesn’t matter to us where the borders are.
So let them get on with it.
States are defined by self identity, not ethnicity.
Ukrainians don’t want to be ruled by Putin.
Their state is recognised by the US and Russia itself.
You haven’t dealt with any of my points.
You’ll get used to the fact he sidesteps anything difficult, then just regurgitates more Western propaganda
What direct evidence do you have that the eyewitnesses are lying?
Already responded.
Evidence they’re not lying?
Evidence they’re not incentivised?
Evidence that there are hundreds?
How can that be proved about anyone, at any time?
How can that be proved about anyone, at any time?
That can be proved, but I’m certainly not going to spend hours doing it for you (not least because you’re not actually interested in the answer). I have seen or heard at least 20 individual accounts from witnesses over the last few weeks. In each case, there was a reporter plus crew to substantiate things. Multiply that by all the news channels from other countries which are also there, and that’s a lot of people.
Precisely, none of these things can be proved.
Hence why it then comes down to the reliability of the media source. The West’s MSM are proven liars – even when it involves terrorising their own people over the last two years – and they’ve reporting only one possible narrative (again). It’s the same playbook.
So i’m entitled to remain sceptical.
Besides, are you really suggesting the West’s MSM will roll out anybody to say how bad the Ukrainian Nazis have been and not the Russian soldiers? It wouldn’t be allowed.
Do you actually watch the BBC or equivalent? There have been a couple of alleged Ukrainian army atrocities and they have shown them.
It’s not good enough to say that because they lie sometimes, they must so much that it’s not worth listening.
Whereas Russian media is state owned and anything that criticises Putin is shut down.
I actually stopped watching the BBC news many years ago but unfortunately I don’t fit your usual stereotype.
I’m a liberalist, voted remain (on economic grounds), pro-immigration, internationalist.
That my causes have been hijacked is very sad.
But I learnt many years ago that the BBC has no desire to tell the truth, just convey a narrative. And it’s probably the most smug, emotionally-driven and righteous news outlet in the world.
That’s fine, but you can’t reasonably criticise the BBC for biased Ukrainian coverage when you don’t actually watch it.
I can’t avoid notifications on various devices and the headlines are enough to get the gist. I also see their stories ripped apart on outlets trying to provide some balance (ie. UK Column).
I had a look at UK Column. So many things wrong with the contributors, but too much to go into.
I see it has its own spectrum of conspiracy theories it supports. Perhaps you agree with them, or perhaps you have another set.
It’s so hard to get your head round it from the outside. So many different groupings.
I do find the area interesting. IMO this is dangerous to democracy, because it undermines confidence in the system.
What is interesting is that you and perhaps many others think that what you’re doing is defending freedom.
It reminds me of the QAnon supporters who stormed the Capitol and called themselves ‘patriots’.
For me, the strong support for Putin here is a part-proof that it’s your philosophy that’s destructive, not mine. People’s scepticism about ‘MSM’ ends up with them supporting naked propaganda channels and outright autocrats – just because they’re on the other side.
Once you’ve believed in one false flag attack, you have to believe in the next one too, for consistency.
None, except what lavrov tells them.
Your only point is that you want Russians to kill Ukrainians.
Funny, the Russian speaking people in the Ukraine didn’t want to be ruled by thuggish nationalists who harassed them and made their language second class in their own country, but when they tried to exercise their self determination they were murdered and told their children would be forced to live in caves – by President Poroshenkp himself!
What do you think Putin will do if he’s charge of the country? Back to compulsory Russian.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with whether the Ukrainian witnesses are telling the truth or not.
So the best solution is for the country to be partitioned, since the Ukrainian nationalists have made it clear by their refusal to abide by the Minsk Accords and their 8 year campaign of murder that they have abdicated any right to control the country as it was set up.
That’s what should have resulted from the Russian operation, and that’s what will almost certainly be the end result.
All that is in dispute is how harsh the terms will be for Ukraine and what the blood price will be.
Well that’s the russian line.
“So far, the self-proclaimed sceptics of this website refuse to believe any account of Russian atrocities, but accept everything about the Ukrainians.”
That seems likely to be projection on your part, as it’s your partners in the media who report every allegation against the Russians as though it’s truth and ignore most allegations against the Ukrainians.
Show me where anyone here is agreeing that the reported atrocities are true.
It’s their way of thinking.
“My enemy’s enemy is my friend”
Since they hate all western government, democratic, media, they have to back the other side.
Reason doesn’t apply.
You have become disconnected from reality. Which russian civilians have been harmed?
It is worse, they are committing acts against their own.
Are you Lavrov?
The fact that you pretend not to know that significant parts of the Ukrainian forces see the Russian-speaking part of the Ukrainian population in the east of the country as collaborators at best and sometimes as untermenschen and are effectively an occupying force in many places, reduces your credibility on this topic below zero.
The issue isn’t about opportunity, but attitude. Russia went in declaring that Ukrainians and the Ukrainian military are brothers and that casualties are to be kept to a minimum as far as possible consistent with achieving the mission. The only Ukrainians regarded as criminal were those carrying swastikas and equivalents.
The Ukrainians, on the other hand, pushed largely by the aforementioned swastika etc brigades, chose to make this a war of hatred, and have demonstrated the kind of hatred that has always motivated atrocity.
Though the hatred has always been there on the Ukrainian side. Consider Poroshenko’s words 8 years ago, addressed to Russian speakers who refused to accept becoming second class nationals in their own country:
“We will have work and they won’t. We will have pensions and they won’t. We will have benefits for pensioners and children, they won’t. Our children will go to school and day care, their children will stay in caves. Because they can’t do anything. And this is how we will win this war.”
That is a President whipping up ethnic hatred in his people.
Here he is saying it, if you aren’t familiar:
https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/modern-day-censorship/documentary-donbass-2016-western-ukrainian-children-will-go-to-school-eastern-pro-russian-children-will-be-in-caves/
To remind you, I’m asking what grounds you have for saying all the witnesses describing Russian atrocities are lying.
You can say the Ukrainians are also committing atrocities. But on what grounds do you only believe the Russians?
I don’t say “all the witnesses are lying”. I say there’s a pattern of past behaviour that makes it overwhelmingly likely many of them are, or they are mis-attributed or out of context, or otherwise misleading.
I don’t “only believe the Russians”. I’ve repeatedly said to you that both sides are almost certainly causing collateral damage and probably engaging in atrocities, because that’s what happens in wars.
What I object to is you trying to use these allegations in a grossly one sided manner to try to emotionally manipulate people into backing the side you support.
It’s disgusting behaviour, frankly, a repudiation of reason, made no better by the fact that it is wall to wall what we have pushed on us by our mainstream media and political and cultural elites.
I haven’t tried to use the atrocities for anything yet. Can’t get past first base of getting people to admit they happened.
Congrats, you’ve taken the first baby steps by saying some are real.
What is interesting about the Russian atrocities is how quickly they began – even in the first few days. That’s surprising because they were supposed to see themselves as liberators.
You might have thought this was Wagner Group rather than regular soldiers, but it looks more widespread than that.
Many soldiers north of Kyiv just went straight into rape and pillage mode, and sat around in Ukrainian houses getting pissed – until obliged to retreat.
So the Ukrainian froces just let the Russians sit there just north of their capital and didn’t attack them. Now we are getting to the truth. The Ukes don’t even have sufficient forces to irritate the invaders on their door step.
There’s a frontline, and there’s behind the lines. Russians getting pissed was behind the lines.
I thought the Ukrainians were picking off the Russians from the sidelines. Don’t you remember you or your pals kept telling us the Russian advance had been stopped and the convoy was a sitting duck.
Nope, there’s a frontline. The convoy was stop start because it was ambushed.
Lavrov?
“Congrats, you’ve taken the first baby steps by saying some are real.”
I didn’t say “some are real”, I said some probably are – we don’t know. And I said that to you in one of my first posts to you here. It’s mere common sense.
Well Mark, the default position of most members of this website is to disbelieve anything that criticises the Russians, especially if it appears in the democratic press.
Anything that comes from autocratic states however is to be trusted, especially if it comes from random westerners with a dodgy background.
“the democratic press.”
What?
News media in democratic countries.
Switzerland occasionally does an impression of a democratic country.
But that’s it.
“the democratic press.”
Haha, that really says it all – totally brainwashed
News media in democratic countries. It exists. There are democratic countries. They have media.
Keep digging….
Sorry Drapes, I’m going to have to leave it unless you say something intelligible.
“Many soldiers north of Kyiv just went straight into rape and pillage mode, and sat around in Ukrainian houses getting pissed – until obliged to retreat.”
A propagandist and a fantasist
Given the choice of people who were there and experienced it, versus you, a keyboard warrior with a penchant for conspiracy theories, I’m inclined to believe the witnesses.
Me? Surely you should be seeking evidence from Russian sources if you want to get both sides?
But you can’t handle a counter narrative can you?
I do look for Russian sources.
But there’s not much point in asking a Russian why you believe what you believe.
Oops, misread.
Because they mean different things, and one is more relevant to the question.
The consumers of Russian propaganda are primarily Russians, who are fooled and most of the fools who live in this site.
The Russians have an excuse but the sceptics should be ashamed of their intellect and morals.
You must be very stupid to believe such interviews as must your 6 approvers.
Mayo, these types don’t need evidence.
I do need evidence – evidence to show that all these hundreds of witnesses, journalists and the crews that support them, are all lying.
And I want to know why we don’t have any whistleblowers for the 100s of false flag attacks alleged by Russia over the years.
You only ask for evidence from one side.
The whole establishment of the UK lied about Covid, which included 100s of reporters
The media took a host of different views, so that doesn’t make sense.
In any case, as I have said before, many reports about covid can only be statements of opinion and prediction, not historical fact.
Eyewitness reports in Ukraine are statements of what has actually happened, to the person telling you about it.
I do feel you should be able to see the difference.
It only took someone of average intelligence to see that the politicians and public health “experts” were lying through their teeth about the Covid narrative.
There wasn’t a host of different views – that’s ridiculous.
Three eyewitnesses can see a car accident and have three different version of events. It’s the most unreliable source of information.
Especially when there’s an incentive to see what happened in a certain way.
This kind of endless relativism would be offensive enough if you actually applied it to all sides of the argument. But you don’t. You gravitate to Putin’s view on Ukraine, and probably some fringe view on covid treatment, as so many people here do.
In fact, you’re amazingly trusting…when it suits.
It’s not Putin’s view though.
Experts in the field – Mearsheimer, Kissinger – predicted all of this years ago.
There are very few reasonable people commenting on this site.
What you are actually saying is that you will reject the information that doesn’t agree with your view.
Nope, that’s what you and your Western pals believe in.
Hence the removal of RT news – scared of counter narratives, just like Covid, because your narratives are so piss weak under scrutiny
Putin has removed all media that challenge him and won’t even let people call it a war.
But you call Putin’s Russia an autocracy and the UK a liberal democracy so that’s a pitiful response.
Putin is an autocrat who has reduced Russian democracy to the point of non existence.
UK democracy isn’t perfect (if perfect is even possible) but it is free by international standards and regularly delivers a change of government.
It’s disappointing when people don’t understand or value the freedoms they have in the UK versus Russia. But hey, if that’s what you think, there’s nothing I can do about it.
“regularly delivers a change of government”
Which pursue exactly the same policies.
The only topic when I can remember any serious disagreement is foxhunting.
Which the globalists couldn’t give a toss about, so disagreement is allowed.
So there’s no difference between a nationalised industry and a private one? No difference between open immigration and closed immigration? No difference between low tax and high tax?
Just because you don’t get whatever weird government you want, doesn’t mean they’re all the same.
“It’s disappointing when people don’t understand or value the freedoms they have in the UK versus Russia”
Don’t lecture me on freedom – i’ve been on the front line fighting for it over the last two years, against a tyranny based on a pack of lies.
“UK democracy isn’t perfect (if perfect is even possible) but it is free by international standards”
Up to March 2020 I would have agreed on that. But this war on our freedom is here to stay and it’s people like you that are the cheerleaders of the tyranny.
You have a view about covid, you’re allowed to express it. Ok, you haven’t succeeded in making it a majority view. There are plenty of things I don’t like as well.
I respect some of the arguments about covid. But when I see how many people here also turn out to believe in a bunch of other conspiracy theories, that undermines the whole argument.
Logically, there shouldn’t have been a correlation between lockdown sceptics and vaccine sceptics. They’re completely different arguments from a scientific point of view. No reason why you couldn’t back one but not the other.
And then it turns out there’s also a very strong correlation with Putin apologists. Where on earth did that come from?
And then you start to hear all the ‘world elite’ and ‘great reset stuff’, and you know you’re never going to climb out of this pit again.
The Covid/vaccine tyranny isn’t finished yet. For sure they might rebadge it, but they’ve seen how they can justify tyranny and they will use it again when the time is right.
The sad thing is that you can’t see what is going on (how about the WHO openly saying they should control the response to global pandemics?) and unless we stand up for freedom now, we’re going to lose everything that was great about this country and, in fact, the Western world.
Do you not think it odd that countries would take this route given the harms it is doing to their own citizens and economies? There has to be a reason for this so enter the “conspiracy theories” – although the Great Reset is very much an open plan, and ecological fascism is gradually creeping in.
This is not Putin causing this, it is the West. He is spot on about how duplicitous they are and his enemy just happens to be mine. If you want to call that being an apologist then so be it.
We’re digressing way off now, but what the hell.
I assume you’re a vaccine sceptic – if Putin is not part of the Reset, why did Russia push out a vaccine?
Is Xi part of the conspiracy? He’s the lockdown king, and a vaccine pusher as well.
Well some here believe the whole Ukraine situation is orchestrated and part of the wider picture anyway. I’m not persuaded by this, but am not ruling it out completely.
The vaccines are a money-making scam of course. To have multiple mass vaccination programmes for such a discriminating virus is ludicrous, and Russia and China must know this.
But they certainly aren’t going to use the West’s product and they can make money from their own. It also gives them a justification to increase power over their citizens where they see fit, although I think that’s more China than Russia.
At the start it wasn’t clear whether any vaccine would work, so I hardly think it’s surprising there were multiple attempts.
Russia and China were under no obligation to use anyone’s vaccine, so that is a strange line of argument.
They did it because they thought they were necessary. Not sure how that fits into your wider conspiracy theory.
Indeed their support for Putin seems very strong and irrational.
Projection.
The Russians were very quick in wanting to raise the Bucha allegations at a UN Security Council but the UK was just as quick to block it.
Only one narrative is allowed in the West.
Nope. All they wanted was for the UN to look into false flag allegations, to help Russia’s image.
It’s the same thing the Russians say about every single incident they’re involved in, in every war, in every country.
Surely you don’t believe them.
I wasn’t there so can’t say.
But I do know the West have lied through their teeth whilst terrorizing their own people over the last two years.
And the US/UK have a history of instigating this type of false flag.
So who should we take notice of? I’ve listened to a number of wide ranging opinions including, for example, those of Scott Ritter, a former US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, who has considerable expertise on Russian affairs.
Ritter’s analysis aligns far more closely with the Russian version of events than it does to that given by the west.
You don’t think it’s possible that you are the one that’s being misinformed given what we now know about previous events?
To stage so many false flag attacks is hard beyond belief. Also we’re now talking about different opponents – they say it about every war.
Also, now we’ve had so many direct witness reports from people who were under Russian occupation, you’d also need to believe that 100s if not 1000s of journalists and crew are ‘in on it’,along with the witnesses themselves of course.
Russian evidence to support their claims is very slender. They have been caught so many times faking news themselves.
And of course, you need multiple units from the Ukrainian army or previous Russian opponents to be the actual perpetrators.
It’s incredibly implausible and I do struggle to understand why anyone would keep believing these claims, again and again.
W know from bitter experience that telling lies is a standard tool in the US sphere security state playbook, from the Kuwaiti Princess fraud used to get up the Gulf War in 1991, via fantasy WMDs in Iraq, ridiculous “chemical attacks” and “poisonings” that make absolutely no sense for the alleged perpetrators to have done them but serve the purposes of the neocon warmongers perfectly, to the disgraceful fantasy of the Russiagate fraud.
These people clearly have essentially unlimited budgets, access to top level security state assets, established tools and practices, and enthusiastic cooperation for the mainstream media (just like the cooperation the same people gave to the covid panic.
You believe them, or claim to do so, because you clearly desperately want to back the Ukrainian side in the conflict. But the track record is clear, for anyone not sharing your partisan bias.
Objectively, Russia came into this war with very small forces and limited objectives – that’s indisputable without dishonesty, and with clear orders and intentions to minimise casualties, consistent with achieving operational goals.
Honest analysts recognise those facts and accept that war, especially in built up areas, involves civilian casualties. Screaming “atrocity at every supposed collateral damage is the opposite of honesty.
When dead civilians are found or a civilian target is hit, the honest thing to do is to wait for proper investigation, and not to try to use it as war propaganda as you and your side are doing.
Once again, you’re bringing up examples from many years ago of borderline evidence. It was the Kuwait government that faked the girl’s testimony, not Ukraine.
More importantly, while it’s possible to fake a testimony here and there, it’s borderline impossible to do it 100s of times – and under extremely difficult conditions.
Basically, you’re asking me to believe that 100s of witnesses, journalists and crew are all knowingly and deliberately faking stories. A huge operation.
And not a single person is whistleblowing it.
This is supposed to be a website for sceptics!
No, that’s just you trying to be clever.
There’s no need to choreograph everything, all you need is people willing to play along. Genuine accounts of suffering mis-attributed, corpses and horror stories laid out before journalists and politicians willing to be uncritical – like all the US sphere mainstream media and political class, pretty much. Most of whom have reported atrocities, attributed them to Russia, and called for increased sanctions or weapons (or whatever they were pushing for beforehand anyway), all before they’ve had any chance to investigate anything.
Because they aren’t really interested in the truth, any more than you are. They only care how the story can be used to push their agenda.
And of course, as I pointed out, there will be genuine collateral damage cases and probably atrocities as well, attributable to the Russians, as to the Ukrainians. No army in history, probably, of any significance has engaged in major warfare without causing collateral damage and engaging in atrocities. Certainly the US military has had its full share in the past two decades.
Let’s go back to WW2. How many times did we investigate whether it really was the Germans we were fighting?
The trouble is that no one here seems to be watching or listening to any news, except random stuff on the internet.
What you claim requires 100s if not 1000s of witnesses, journalists and crew to be complicit in a massive deceit. And not one of them is a whistleblower.
Or, the easier thing to believe it seems to me, is the Russian troops really are kicking the crap out of civilians, because they’ve been taught to believe they’re all Nazis and anyway, it’s fun.
First, that’s not what the Russians were “taught to believe” – that’s a flat lie. Most Russians I’ve heard from have had generally positive things to say about Ukrainians in general (nazis aside, obviously). That seems to be hanging only now, as a result of the Ukrainian behaviour in this war.
Second, no, what you need for these kinds of lies is a credulous an cooperative media, to make sure that only the right kinds of evidence is reported, in the right ways. And that’s exactly what we have, as we’ve seen during the covid panic, and previous warmongering periods
Lots of stuff about other subjects.
But still no evidence from anyone here to support accusations that Ukrainian witness reports of atrocities are faked.
The reasons for presuming that to be a possible scenario in some or all cases have been pointed out to you repeatedly.
The issue is not whether one side can produce claimed “evidence”, the issue is whether the totality of the evidence after due impartial investigation, stands up a particular conclusion.
But you knew that, and you are not interested in the truth, you are only interested in what you can use to manipulate opinion in the direction you want it to go.
Not really sure what you’re arguing here.
I have seen/heard a large number of interviews with Ukrainians describing Russian abuses.
However, members of this website dismiss them wholesale, at the same time as trusting anything critical of Ukraine coming from the Russian side.
People argue a pattern of behaviour, but then give examples of things other countries have done.
Overall, the message here is that we should only trust autocratic regimes, while assuming that anything coming from a democratic media must be false.
Bizarre.
A bizarrely self-serving misrepresentation of the position on your part, certainly. Here’s a better summary;
You want people to believe every story that reflects badly in the Russians in order to push them to give more support to the side you clearly desperately want to win, and you don’t care what the truth is.
Here’s what’s really important, again:
In war all militaries cause collateral damage and commit atrocities. Those are tragedies for the people involved, but don’t reflect on the rights and wrongs of the overall conflict. Seeking to use them, as you and the Ukrainians do, as manipulative propaganda is despicable.
Rubbish, I don’t believe every story, but they are very numerous so it doesn’t affect the main message.
Collateral damage is not the only thing going on here. A bomb may accidentally kill civilians – but if you aim at a hospital, school or apartment block, I call that deliberate.
Further, the torture and abuse of Ukrainians inside the occupied territories is not collateral damage. It’s a war crime, straight up.
Mostly just evasion here
It’s not collateral damage.
Did you even read my comment before you wrote your “reply”?
To repeat: the Russians aren’t just involved in collateral damage. Torture and rape is not collateral damage.
Still pretending not to see what I wrote, even when you quote it, I see.
Sorry Mark, I have no clue what you’re asking, so I’ll leave it there.
That’s great. Do you mean that you are going to PO?
This is just blatant acceptance of the Russian propaganda.
Since when is 150000 troops “very small forces”?
Your last line says a lot about you. When you say “your side” to the few here that think Russian’s invasion is wrong, you are declaring “your-own side’s” unwavering support for all the murder and mayhem.
“This is just blatant acceptance of the Russian propaganda.
Since when is 150000 troops “very small forces”?”
When it’s up against 209,000 (armed forces), 102,000 (paramilitary), and 900,000 (reserves) – using Wikipedia for simplicity. NATO trained and equipped, and with full NATO satellite, technological and information war backing.
Were you really ignorant of the force correlation here? Did the BBC, Telegraph, Spectator etc not give you that info?
The usual requirement for sustained offensive operations is at least a 2 to 1 superiority.
“Your last line says a lot about you. When you say “your side” to the few here that think Russian’s invasion is wrong, you are declaring “your-own side’s” unwavering support for all the murder and mayhem.”
Not sure why you think that’s some kind of “gotcha”. I wrote explicitly that imo the Russian use of force is probably justified here.
And no, the responsibility for the suffering rests with those who chose to use the Ukraine as a tool to try to “overextend and unbalance” Russia, as discussed in the RAND study of a couple of years ago (2019), and all those insisting on fighting a hopeless war for a bad cause:
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB10000/RB10014/RAND_RB10014.pdf
Geopolitical cost-imposing options
Top: Provide lethal aid to Ukraine
Likelihood of success in Extending Russia: Moderate
Benefits: High
Costs and Risks: High
Summary: “Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit
Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But
any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to
Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to
increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing
commitment without provoking a much wider conflict
in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have
significant advantages.”
Some amongst the US regime oligarchs clearly decided that high risk/high return was the way to go in attacking Russia, given the active ongoing NATO-isation of Ukraine over the past few years, and the huge amounts of lethal aid that were in fact supplied between 2019 and the beginning of 2022.
I don’t think there’s a single military analyst anywhere who’s claiming that Ukraine has the military advantage here.
No honest military analyst would deny that the Russians went in with very small forces, relative to what would be required for a war of conquest and occupation, either.
Circa 180k troops plus an overwhelming advantage in equipment is not small. It’s more than double our entire army including logistics.
In Putin’s view, 100 men should have been enough because everyone is actually pro Russian.
Yes, the advantage in heavy and standoff weapons makes up for the huge manpower disadvantage.
But as a UK “Professor of military studies” pointed out on Spectator TV a few weeks back, if they had intended to occupy the Ukraine they would have needed of the order of 1m men.
Clearly this was a limited operation to destroy the Ukrainian war machine, secure Crimea and Donbass, and impose a reasonable peace on a Ukraine which had refused to be reasonable for 8 years.
Yes, but Putin made the fundamental mistake of believing his own bullshit. He thought Ukrainians wanted to be invaded.
Doubtless they hoped for a better response from the Ukrainian military in particular (which would have resulted in a far better outcome for the Ukraine, without a doubt), but no leadership goes into an operation of this size assuming that his intelligence’s best scenario will play out as hoped.
The idea the Russians didn’t have a plan B is not just US propaganda, but stupid US propaganda for thick people.
Putin is reacting to events, but calling it Plan B is a little kind. He totally misread the Ukrainian response (and thereby sacrificed some elite Russian forces by parachuting them into unsustainable positions).
Then he failed to take Kyiv or kill Zelensky.
Now he’s defaulting to what he should have gone for in the first place if he was to do anything – which is to seek an enlarged breakaway region.
Unfortunately he’s also looking to grab most or all of the coast, even though it’s not a Russian region. This guarantees the war can’t end, unless it’s with Putin’s defeat or overthrow.
This is mostly fantasy.
The Russians will have had a plan B for if they got no cooperation form the Ukrainians (in fact they reportedly had a fair amount in places like Kherson and Melitopol), and that’s what we’ve seen in operation.
Clearly no intent to capture Kiev, because no forces even close to sufficient for that were committed. No indication of any intention to kill Zelensky – why would they want to do that? They need him alive to sign a peace deal.
As far as we can tell, the intention was to pin and then destroy the far bigger Ukrainian military so as to secure the Crimea and rest of the Donbass and probably Odessa, plus whatever land is needed to secure those areas. Then they can take their time waiting for the Ukrainians to give up tantrumming and come to terms
Undoubtedly the Ukrainian response will mean they will do much more damage and probably seek more security assurances than they would have otherwise.
That’s what you get when you let Washington use you as a regime change tool, and rely on assurances from them that “we got your back”. Just ask Georgia.
All looks pretty much on track from here.
The advantage of being a one man state like Putin is that you can say whatever happens is what you meant to happen.
Of course they meant to get Kyiv, that was clear from day one. No point in capturing an airport in Kyiv if you’re attacking the Donbass.
Russia isn’t a “one man state”. That’s your propaganda lie.
“Of course they meant to get Kyiv, that was clear from day one. No point in capturing an airport in Kyiv if you’re attacking the Donbass.”
Again, this is not just a lie but a stupid one. It’s self-evidently not the case that they ever intended to assault Kiev, from the fact they never deployed forces remotely sufficient to do that.
It’s open to debate whether they hoped to take advantage of military cooperation with Ukrainian groups and that didn’t transpire, or that the assault on Gostomel was merely ancillary to the diversionary operation against Kiev.
That’s strange, because all the Russia trolls at the time were gloating over their 40 mile column.
Putin has many faults, but he’s not stupid. Did he drive his army up the road to Kyiv and back for fun? Nope.
Kiev is a city of 3m people. There weren’t remotely enough forces there to assault it. Not sure what you think the fabled column proves, except that the Ukrainian military had already been degraded far enough to be unable exploit sitting ducks.
Again, unless you’ve got some kind of special reason to like Putin, I don’t why you bother with this line of argument. You believe almost all the other stuff yet still acknowledge that this was a failed attack.
But hey, believe what you want. It’s a free country.
Unlike Russia.
We are told by military analysts that an attacking force needs a significant numerical advantage against a dug in defensive position. The numbers and the nature of their position means that the military advantage lay with the Ukrainians just with their regular army alone, and the Russian force would be nowhere near enough to maintain an occupation even if they overcame the superior numbers.
The reason we are hearing more and more claims of war crimes by Russia is because the Ukrainians don’t have much left to fight a conventional war any more, and are ramping up propaganda becase words are cheap and easy to manufacture.
They do, but it helps if you have a massive advantage in artillery, plans, missiles and tanks.
The invading force against Iraq was much smaller than Saddam’s forces in both wars.
The most elaborate hoax I ever saw was by Russia over MH17. As you may remember they came up with 6 or more completely different explanations, even though they contradicted each other. One of them tried to claim that it was shot down by a Ukrainian Sukhoi fighter. The problem was, the plane can’t climb to the necessary height.
So Russia Today put together a video showing the reporter in the same model of plane (provided by the Russian defence ministry) climbing to 30k ft or whatever it was. Great tv!
Except that it turned out, the only reason they could do it was because they stripped out everything from the plane, including the armament. Total lie – and even the Russians now say it was a missile (last time I checked).
Must have cost a fortune to put together, shows RT in cahoots with the government, and the government caught in a huge, knowing lie.
“One of them tried to claim that it was shot down by a Ukrainian Sukhoi fighter. The problem was, the plane can’t climb to the necessary height.”
Utter nonsense!
What good is a combat aircraft, especially one that was developed as a fighter for interception duties, if it can’t bring down another aircraft?
This isn’t WWII, they carry these things called missiles, that when launched fly much faster and farther than the aircraft itself.
Your ignorance in this field alone and the fact that you believe the drivel fed to you speaks volumes.
MH17 was a Boeing 777, with a service ceiling of 43,100 ft (13,100 m) or in idiot speak maximum altitude, not that a civilian airliner would be flying anywhere near that high.
Ukrainian Sukhoi SU-27 service ceiling 62,000 ft (19,000 m) so it could have even intercepted with guns if it wanted to.
Are you really claiming that a modern fighter aircraft has a lower ceiling than a commercial airliner?
Yes, it’s in the manual, the Russians wrote it, and the RT report also affirmed it.
You read Russian AND coincidentally have a copy of the manual?
To repeat, the plane has an official operational ceiling and absolutely no one is arguing about that except you.
What they did was to try to prove that the plane could operate above its official ceiling.
But it was a fake.
Wrong, I called you out on it.
No response?
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/04/09/do-russians-support-the-war/#comment-773414
Everything you have said regarding these aircraft is demonstrably false.
Don’t know what you’re on about, every aircraft has an operational ceiling. That wasn’t was in dispute. What they tried to prove was that the plane could operate above the official height.
You sure that wasn’t the Ukrainian ceiling for their Sukhois?
Same plane. Both Russia and Ukraine had them
Oh dear, the propagating fantasist caught out yet again
Official height of what? The SU-27 can fly higher than a 777, so what is this crap you are talking about with regards to “Russian propaganda”, it is cold hard facts.
Jane’s All the World Aircraft gives the capability of up to 73,000ft with a 1000kg load.
NATO and those it trains specialise in false flags, but they still can’t do them in a realistic fashion despite years of practice. So now when the “Russia is losing” narrative has gone pear-shaped, the dodgy false flags are being duly wheeled out.
NATO has been a purveyor of false flags since its inception and those who are interested can research its Operation Gladio.
http://www.truthmove.org/content/operation-gladio/?hc_location=ufi
Alleged false flag operations from the past, even if they were true, are not evidence of false flag ops in Ukraine.
So far, people are disbelieving all these witnesses based on….nothing.
A supposed witness is just a person claiming something.
Like Boris Johnson claiming he had no idea about any parties.
It is very easy for people to lie when it serves their purpose.
Yes, but there are so many. When a mother comes on tv telling us how her husband was killed and she saw one of her children had their head blown off – and how she was afterwards kept with her surviving child in a bunker for 20 days under appalling conditions – lots of this is verifiable. And that’s just one witness.
What evidence do you have that she or any other witness is lying? You haven’t got any.
All you’re saying is, she could be lying. But for some reason, you’re asking me to believe Putin, who is sitting in Moscow, but not 100s of witnesses on the spot.
“Yes, but there are so many.”
Lots of eminent people said masks and lockdowns were a good idea. Didn’t make it so.
argumentum ad populum is still a logical fallacy.
People who favoured mask wearing were expressing an opinion, right or wrong.
People who are reporting, say, watching their husband being executed in front of them are telling us what they saw with their own eyes.
These things are worlds apart.
No one here has presented any direct evidence to prove all these witnesses are lying.
Just nothing!
“People who are reporting, say, watching their husband being executed in front of them are telling us what they saw with their own eyes.
These things are worlds apart.”
They are precisely the same – unless you are an hysterical emotional being rather than a reasonable logical one (ie able to use reason).
There is a reason witnesses are cross examined in court and eye witness accounts require corroborating evidence.
You will of course have watched the videos of the Ukrainian military executing Russian POWs in cold blood. Yet there is a distinct lack of calls for them to be hanged for war crimes on the front of the papers, or Zelensky to be marched to the Hague.
War is a tissue of lies and it is in these circumstances that innocent until proven guilty must be maintained as the guiding principle.
Justice will prevail in time as long as we follow due process.
Being convinced that masks make positive difference is an opinion, based on their interpretation fo the evidence.
Reporting an actual event that happened to you has a wholly different value both in law and, frankly, common sense.
I’ve got to say, this kind of defence might hold up on Sceptics Anonymous, but out in the cold light of day…
You know nothing about the law.
It is pretty much impossible to know nothing about the law.
Try to think before you throw insults.
Have you heard about corroborating evidence.
Yes, but none has been presented as yet.
Also, we need some core evidence to be corroborated. So far it’s just prior assumption.
That’s just one ‘uncorroborated’ witness.
You just can’t help but trip yourself up with your nonsense.
Apparently she was the only witness at the time.
She was the only one I saw interviewed, but she was one of many in the cellar.
And other people are believing these “witnesses” based on ….nada.
Why should I believe anyone who says anything?
But you do believe. Anything that criticises Ukraine, or the West, that you believe.
These idiots believe any thing or any body that is against accepted understanding.
Their acceptance of Russian propaganda is a huge example of this trait.
I’v been reading a book about Gladio, there doesn’t appear to be a limit to the atrocities NATO would commit in order to secure its objectives.
Zero to do with Ukraine.
You can’t comprehend the present unless you appreciate the past.
‘Our side’ are very often the baddies.
Please don’t tell me you think Putin’s hands are clean.
I’m not asking you to disbelieve Putin based on the past, but on the present. No one has presented any direct evidence to justify claiming that all these people are lying.
You haven’t produced evidence of anything other than your idiocy.
Not really any content in your comment.
It shows what they are capable of, so it is clearly relevant.
Putin has shown himself capable of anything, but you won’t allow that as evidence.
No one here has presented any direct evidence at all to show all these hundreds of people are lying.
You’re just saying it.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t made a single comment about Russian war crimes in Ukraine as, not being retired, unemployed or a paid government stooge, I haven’t had time to look into this: it doesn’t affect me in the way the covid scam does so I concentrate my reading and commenting on that issue
I’m just saying that it is entirely reasonable and relevant to point out that western governments have a huge history of lying to their people.
“Yeah,OK, so they’ve lied in the past about other issues, but there’s no way they’d lie about this in 2022”
Even if all the alleged lies and crimes of the US (another country) were true, this does not substitute for evidence that these ordinary Ukrainian people are lying.
Does it not trouble you that not one single poster on this site can prove that any of these witnesses are lying?
I’m just asking for a bit of evidence. Is that so bad?
“Even if all the alleged lies and crimes of the US (another country) were true”
So you don’t believe that western governments lie and kill?
Grow up.
Of course they lie and kill, but not necessarily in all the cases that conspiracy theorist allege, This is too much to get into here.
“not one single poster on this site can prove that any of these witnesses are lying”
How could anybody in the UK yet be in a position to do that? How many of us who aren’t of Eastern European ancestry even speak the language?
(I have a very small Russian vocabulary from reading Jane’s Fighting Ships 1974/75: bolshoy protivo lodochny korabl means large anti-submarine ship. I reckon that puts me ahead of almost everybody)
Absolutely, no one on this site has any right to claim all these people are lying.
They especially don’t have the right to reject Ukrainian on the ground witnesses, while trusting Lavrov and Putin.
Yet that’s what they’re doing.
But there’s cui the edge: it doesn’t make sense for the Russians to have murdered civilians in areas they didn’t intend to permanently hold.
It does make sense for the Ukrainians to murder “collaborators” and then claim the Russians killed them.
And you can’t possibly know that they are real people rather than crisis actors.
Is that you Lavrov?
In a comment above I’ve told you to look up Patrick Lancaster videos on BNT. Ukrainian forces (i.e. the Azov Battalion) are committing and have been committing atrocities against pro-Russian civilians for almost a decade.
PL is actually one the ground in Ukraine. Also look up Eva Bartlett.
See videos which include Scott Ritter. Here’s a recent tweet. Ukraine missile blamed on Russia.
https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter/status/1512417753872932870
Pentagon officials say no evidence that Putin was intending to use chemical weapons.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014
Another intended false flag attempt perhaps?
Lancaster is paid by the Russian government. Just because Russia can get together a few useful idiots, we don’t have to believe them.
All this stuff about the Azov Battalion, but silence on Putin’s Nazis, the Wagner Group.
The subject is the invasion of Ukraine, not the war in the Donbass.
I’m asking for evidence that all these witnesses are lying, and what justification there is to assume that.
“Lancaster is paid by the Russian government. Just because Russia can get together a few useful idiots, we don’t have to believe them.”
Now it’s up to you to produce some evidence. Not that who pays him would make any difference to the testimony he elicits. What right have you to deny the testimony of his witnesses while demanding we prove yours wrong or accept them all?
“All this stuff about the Azov Battalion, but silence on Putin’s Nazis, the Wagner Group.”
Because Wagner Group are irrelevant – just the Russian equivalent of Blackwater. Whereas Azov and the rest of the ultranationalist thugs form a significant part of the Ukraine’s military and governance, with political connections right to the top, US military training and equipment, and the established power to intimidate politicians right up to the President.
“The subject is the invasion of Ukraine, not the war in the Donbass.”
All the same thing, basically.
“I’m asking for evidence that all these witnesses are lying, and what justification there is to assume that.”
You’ve been given the justification, repeatedly.
“Lancaster is paid by the Russian government”
Evidence?
And the witness link you presented before is from an organisation paid by the British government
Fingal doesn’t provide evidence, just lies. Paid troll.
People on this site have very little knowledge or judgement. Their understanding of fact is very weak and is easily overridden by their urge to disagree with any accepted understanding of events.
Look up videos by Patrick Lancaster on BNT. He has scores of interviews with Ukrainian-Russian citizens who have been used as shields by Ukrainian forces. This, though, is just a continuation of the atrocities which have been taking place for the past 8 YEARS.
Also there is an assumption that every misdirected missile is from the Russian side.
https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter/status/1512417753872932870
https://twitter.com/SergeRousskikh/status/1512570338089050112
The MSM lie and the public fall for it. They’ve been lying about Russia for 20 years. False flag attacks have been used regularly to justify intervention., e.g. Syria.
I have seen some of his videos. He’s an employee of the Russian government.
Proof?
All BBC reporters are effectively employees of the British government
It’s not “effective”. They are employees of the British Government.
Show me direct evidence that these so-called witnesses were not incentivised to say what they said?
And stop saying hundreds unless you’re going to produce evidence of hundreds.
When you produce some evidence, other than the BBC etc., rather than demand evidence from others, perhaps people might take you seriously. As it stands, you are a running joke.
I have, liar.
Finally a rational response.
The vast majority of the commenters on here seem to be strongly in favour of Putin’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine and all the suffering it has brought.
Why is do they have this view?
Because they have been brainwashed by each other on this site, to reject everything stated by western governments and media, and believe the opposite. It seems to be a guiding principle for them.
Impossible to understand.
“Finally a
rationalresponse that takes my side of the issue.”“Putin’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine and all the suffering it has brought“
The use of force is perfectly justifiable, in principle, to anyone but a pacifist (but such a person has no place in grown up discussion of international affairs). Whether it is in fact so justified in this particular case is a matter for discussion. Imo, it probably is, given the context, and the suffering is the responsibility of the actors in the US and in the Ukrainian regime and military who brought us to this situation, entirely needlessly and for bad motives.
But I’m neither a pacifist nor a deluded fool who thinks “my side” can do anything and if the other side reacts then they are entirely to blame.
“Why is do they have this view?
Because they have been brainwashed by each other on this site, to reject everything stated by western governments and media, and believe the opposite. It seems to be a guiding principle for them.
Impossible to understand.”
Obviously impossible to understand if you refuse to listen to the points made.
As for doubting things claimed by US sphere governments and media, have you been living in a cave for the past three decades, and especially the past two years?
‘As for doubting things claimed by US sphere governments and media, have you been living in a cave for the past three decades, and especially the past two years?’
With his comrade, Fingal!
Was it his cave or….Fingal’s Cave?
Curious that a name meaning “white stranger” would be chosen for this excursion.
Is it a reference to White Russians? Those White Russians, during the Civil War, were of course notorious for their atrocities – particularly against Jews, whom they regarded as automatically being associated with Bolsheviks.
A lot of anti-Russian hostility was bred from White Russians, like those in the Aufbau Vereinigung, who received funding from Henry Ford. Alfred Rosenberg, after all, was the head of the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs all the way from 1933 to 1945 – after his early years as a subject of the Tsar.
The historically obtuse simply absorbed the message that Russians were bad and/or stupid. All of them. No need to consider their opinions or their records.
Or was the name chosen because Fingal (or Fionn) acquired knowledge by having a thumb stuck in his mouth, from which he sucked?
Probably the latter.
“Impossible to understand.”
If you think that after the last two years then you really are braindead
Hi tree,
I think your observation is an interesting one – not least because in part it describes me. So, I have to ask myself: are you correct in your assertions?
” . . .The vast majority of the commentators on here seem to be strongly in favour of Putin’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine and all the suffering it has brought. . . “
I suspect you’re wrong, here’s why. Speaking personally, I think Putin is not justified in his invasion of Ukraine and that he should call a ceasefire and withdraw his troops immediately. I’ll wager that most (not all – but most) subscribers to this forum think likewise. They, like me, also think that Blair was unjustified in invading Iraq. However, Blair had his ‘reasons’ (cough) which he justified to his domestic audience. In the same way, Putin has his ‘reasons’ (cough) which he justifies to his domestic audience. There’s really very little difference between them, except that Blair gets a knighthood and Putin may end up being prosecuted for war crimes. The point is that they’re both as bad as one another. In fact, there’s a strong case to be made that Putin’s ‘reasons’ for invading Ukraine are based on validated facts (NATO expansion, Azov battalion, 14k killed in Donbas etc.) whereas Blair’s reasons were nothing more than flaky so-called intelligence that turned out to be completely false.
“. . . Because they have been brainwashed by each other on this site, to reject everything stated by western governments and media, and believe the opposite. It seems to be a guiding principle for them. . .”
Here you have a point. Undoubtedly, among DS subscribers there’s a case to be made for confirmation bias and playing to the gallery etc. Where I think you’re mistaken is your assertion that I/they believe the opposite. Not true. When the unholy trinity of western politicians of all hues, so called ‘experts’ and MSM all sing from the same hymn sheet, I’m on red alert. My BS antenna goes ballistic. So yes, I not only question – but am inclined to disbelieve – what the BBC et al want me to believe. I naturally reject their agenda. However, that’s a very, I repeat VERY (apologies for shouting) different kettle of fish from believing and embracing everything that Putin and Russian state media would have me believe. Like I say, I don’t believe any of them, they are all rotten to the core.
Perhaps you can point out some posts that suggest the author thinks Russians should get out of Ukraine. You will find it very difficult, as almost nobody says such a thing.
Conspiracy theory 1*. Trump colluded with Russia (impeached) – No he didn’t.
Conspiracy theory 2. Trump incited an insurrection (impeached) – No he didn’t
Conspiracy theory 3. UK Government didn’t party during lockdown – Yes they did.
Conspiracy theory 4. Lockdowns work – No they don’t.
Conspiracy theory 5. Covid Zero is possible – No it’s not.
Conspiracy theory 6. NetZero is cheap – No it’s not.
Conspiracy theory 7. ‘Vaccines’ are safe – No they’re not.
Conspiracy theory 8. Vaccines are effective – No they’re not.
Conspiracy theory 9. I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman- Yes he did.
Conspiracy theory 10. Hunter Biden’s laptop is fake news – No it’s not
Conspiracy theory 11. Nightingale hospitals were vital – No they weren’t.
Conspiracy theory 12. Ferguson’s covid computer models are credible – Bwahahahahaha………
Conspiracy theory 13. Climate computer models are credible – Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha……………….
Conspiracy theory 14.Hancock is an honourable politician – Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Conspiracy theory 15. Boris Johnson is an honest politician – STOP, MY RIBS ARE SORE!!!!!!
Conspiracy theory 16. WMD’s are real – Lesson 1. Never believe a government.
Conspiracy theory 17. “Because they have been brainwashed by each other on this site, to reject everything stated by western governments and media” – Correct!
If you are stupid not to interrogate governments on every word they utter, you should be consigned to an institution.
Similar words to be expressed by the current President of the Unites States very soon. Conspiracy theory 18?
*This list is a sample and by no means exhaustive.
We don’t concoct conspiracy theories, the government does. We just debunk them.
Well you pretty much proved my point, with you answer.
You just disagree ….. Not using a thinking process, though
More drivel from the 77th/HMG propagandist.
Not one mention of NATO or Donbass. And a significant downplaying of Ukrainian Nazis.
Shocking analysis, but intentional.
Not mentioned, because not relevant to the veracity of Ukrainian witnesses in the liberated territories.
And you should stop downplaying the Nazi Wagner Group. I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned them.
I think they support the de facto partitioning of Ukraine. From the coverage they receive the war is going very well indeed.you would never know it here due to intense censorship, but in Russia, the picture is that the Joint Forces Operation, a large slice of Ukraine’s army is being systematically annihilated around Kramatorsk.
Well. you are an enthusiastic supporter of Putin, his aims (whatever they are) and his mass murdering tactics.
Does this text have any purpose beyond asserting that people in so-called same-sex relationships really ought to have access to tax breaks originally intended to support families with children of their own?
If someone wants an opinion on that: The state should not recognize marriage at all. That two (or fifteen) people make a most solemn promise to each other that they will or won’t have sex under certain circumstances they don’t generally intend to keep ought to be their private business.
Are you confused about the subject?
That’s more than a bit rich, coming from you.
Noah usually puts in a good word for the vaccines as well.
‘By compring the average number of statements selected by the two groups of respondents, the researchers were able to estimate support for the war in Ukraine without asking directly. For example, if the average in the left-hand group was 2.5, and the average in the right-hand group was 2, it could be inferred that 50% of respondents support the war.’
Well were one to infer such a thing there would be something amiss with one’s thinking gear. Imagine a list with three statements everyone would agree with and another with four similar statements. The average for the first list would be 3 and the average for the second would be 4. Before the two figures could be compared meaningfully the averages would have to be divided by the number of statements on each list.
From a report I read in the Spectator yesterday it appears that the Russian army is facing imminent defeat. I wonder how that will be spun in the Russian newspapers?
LOL! Well if it happens, no doubt they’ll have to find a way to spin it.
Is that what you think is going to happen?
I’d offer to make a bet with you, but defining the terms would be tricky.
“Russian authorities have arrested thousands of people for taking part in public protests.”
So has Australia, the point being?
Indeed and I bet they didn’t seize the protesters bank accounts like in Canada.
Similar in NZ and the UK where people got their heads kicked in by the filth if they dared protest against our own totalitarian governments.
Do you know what totalitarian means?
you’re not very good at this 77th Bgd thing are you Pt Tree….
Perhaps you need to lean over and talk to Cpl Fingal or Sgt Squire Western.
As I suggested before, I think tree is a janitor in a 77th brigade mess. He jumps on their computers when they aren’t looking.
And makes point that upsets the crackpots on this site.
“Totalitarianism is a form of government that attempts to assert total control over the lives of its citizens. It is characterized by strong central rule that attempts to control and direct all aspects of individual life through coercion and repression.”
Pretty much what the countries above imposed over the last two years I’d say.
So your dislike of lockdowns leads you to support Russia’s invastion of Ukraine?
Don’t worry, it seems to be the basis of most sceptics’ reasoning on the subject. A logical vacuum…
I think your comment is what’s known as a shameless non-sequitur.
Haaretz reports that Ms Elena Bulina the CEO of Yandex is relocating to Israel because she “… cannot work for a country which is at war with it’s neighbour”.
Who’s going to tell her?
That’s different, that is an ethnic cleansing.
They’re not bombing Syria?
Where is she relocating from? Ukraine?
Is it just me…but isn’t a more important poll, “Do the Ukrainians back Zelenskyy?”
of course I presume that this wouldn’t be asked EVER because it might give the answer that I for one suspect would be a big fat NO!
The problem with your opinion is that it is wrong. He has very strong backing from the vast majority of Ukranians.
The clear majority of Brits believe that covid19 is a real disease and that lockdown and warp speed jabs were a good idea all because of State propaganda so people can be programmed to believe all sorts of b0ll0[ks can’t they.
Only idiots believe COVID-19 doesn’t exist.
Homosexual paedophile,
Thereis nothing in the total death stats that suggests it exists.
Your debate skills seem to have crashed through the floor.
“crashed through the floor”
Is that a euphemism for what your sort get up to?
That’s what you have been told by your idiot peers.
Even bigger idiots imagine it evolved from bats.
The inference that Russian polls should not be relied upon, implies that ours should , and that ours aren’t somehow state run or controlled. Right!
Food for thought for the Tobys&co.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-11-27/us-war-machine/
“REVEALED — The UK military’s overseas base network involves 145 sites in 42 countries.
The UK is not only a satellite of the US empire, it is a lynchpin of the western imperial war economy….
Subsequent Labour leaders, most notably Tony Blair, learnt the Wilson lesson: never, ever take on the “defence” establishment. The chief role of the UK is to serve as the US war machine’s attack dog. Defying that allotted role would be political suicide.
By contrast to Wilson, who posed a threat to the British establishment only in its overheated imagination, Corbyn was indeed a real danger to the militaristic status quo….
Corbyn never had control over how the Brexit debate was framed. Helped by the corporate media, Dominic Cummings and Johnson centred that debate on simplistic claims that severing ties with Europe would liberate the UK socially, economically and culturally. But their concealed agenda was very different. An exit from Europe was not intended to liberate Britain but to incorporate it more fully into the US imperial war machine.
Which is one reason that Johnson’s cash-strapped Britain is now promising an extra £16bn on “defence”. The Tory government’s priorities are to prove both its special usefulness to the imperial project and its ability to continue using war – as well as the unique circumstances of the pandemic – to channel billions from public coffers into the pockets of the establishment.”
3 great background articles.
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/april/06/biden-wants-all-the-points-due-a-wartime-president-without-actually-going-to-war
https://thesaker.is/sit-back-and-watch-europe-commit-suicide/
https://thesaker.is/the-dollar-devours-the-euro/
In the runup to the 2011 attack on Libya, it was hard to find anybody online who supported it, but the opinion polls showed 80% support in the UK. So it happens here too
…and the opinion polls may have been right, the 80% being people who watched lots of television and read the print versions of the newspapers. I knew people like that who supported it.
Chapter 1 of Tim Marshall’s 2015 book ‘Prisoners of Geography’ explains clearly why Ukraine is of strategic significance to Russia, and warns of future conflict arising from the eastwards expansion of NATO:
‘For the Russian foreign policy elite, membership of the EU is simply a stalking horse for membership of NATO, and for Russia, Ukranian membership of NATO is a red line’.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this is a war that could, and should, have been avoided.
Well, you could equally say that for Hitler, the presence of Jews in Europe was a threat to civilisation.
Just because Putin has a motive, it doesn’t mean it’s justified.
I don’t think Hitler was bothered about Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews.
A somewhat minor point, even if true.
No, but dismissing Russia’s concerns has led to a tragedy. It’s simply a fact of life that some countries, by dint of their their proximity to major powers, have constraints on their foreign policy. Can you imagine how the US would react if Canada or Mexico wanted to join a defensive military alliance with Russia or China?
I have sympathy with the argument that NATO expansion was a mistake, but the trouble is that Putin has done so much to encourage it. He sent jets to buzz neutral Sweden and Finland. He wages cyber war on Estonia and stirs up trouble with ethnic Russians there and in Moldova. And of course, he actually invaded Georgia and Ukraine (in 2014 as well as now).
NATO’s biggest recruiting sergeant is Vladimir Putin.
NATO expansion began before Putin was even in office. Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic were invited in 1997, and in 1999 NATO issued “Membership Action Plans” for Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
Putin became Acting President when Yeltsin resigned on 31st Dec 1999.
Yes, but that doesn’t excuse threats to neutral states and the rest.
Nor does it excuse the proxy governments that Russia maintained in Ukraine at the time, and Belarus to this day.
Putin’s view is that Russia’s neighbours have no higher status in life than to be buffer states for Russia itself.
He has never accepted or respected their independence, and then wonders why they don’t like him.
No, his view is that they cannot expect to sign up to a menacing, hostile military alliance with a track record of military aggression and a culture of hatred of Russia. Not unreasonable, and a lot less than the US would do in similar circumstances.
Similarly the US has a long track record of interfering in states’ governments around the world economically. politically and militarily, and much more bloodily and geographically remote than Russia ever has. But you selectively ignore that and pretend Russia’s behaviour is unacceptable, much as the US and UK think they can invade other countries or bomb people around the world just in case they might threaten their security in some trivial manner, but if Russia resorts to force then it’s “unacceptable”, “a war crime” and “a threat to the global rules based order” (sic!).
Shameless!
NATO is utterly incapable of launching a proactive offensive against Russia, because there’s no legal basis for it. It would require a vote in every member. The idea that 30 populations would vote to invade Russia is laughable.
NATO was sliding gently into irrelevance and oblivion until Putin revived it.
Anyway, none of this has anything to do with my point about the veracity of eye witness accounts.
“NATO is utterly incapable of launching a proactive offensive against Russia, because there’s no legal basis for it. It would require a vote in every member. The idea that 30 populations would vote to invade Russia is laughable.“
NATO launched an outright illegal war of aggression against Serbia. Just requires the right circumstances and propaganda.
And it’s not a matter of what is formally allowed, NATO is a US tool and in reality the US can get up to all kinds of dirty tricks in and from NATO soil.
Of course you know that, you just try to pretend that Russia’s position is unreasonable.
“NATO was sliding gently into irrelevance and oblivion until Putin revived it.”
LOL! NATO was not only expanding, it was increasingly being used for military operations, increasingly out of theatre, such as Afghanistan and Libya. In June 2021 NATO announced its intention to become an anti-China tool as well:
“We will engage China with a view to defending the security interests of the Alliance.”
It was the opposite of “sliding into irrelevance and oblivion”. But you knew that, it’s just that truth is not a concern for you.
“Anyway, none of this has anything to do with my point about the veracity of eye witness accounts.”
This was addressed to your lie about NATO expansion being a response to Putin’s behaviour. Obviously.
How many countries has NATO invaded, versus how many has Russia invaded?
The relevant question is how many countries has the US attacked or subverted, because NATO is just a tool for the US, which is the real problem.
What do you mean, it’s not relevant how many countries NATO has invaded? That’s the whole point!
No, the whole point is that Russian is threatened by NATO in the Ukraine because it is a military tool for the US. Obviously.
Sigh. The US can’t order NATO to attack anyone.
Members will respond to an Article 5 violation, but that’s it.
You can’t use fact in opposition to the digested russian propaganda.
What facts do you have?
Is that real facts or your more favoured “alternative facts”?
As you haven’t produced any facts, ever, just one might start a meaningful discussion. But that’s not what you’re here for, is it?
Brilliant.
That many of you seem to support the Russian invasion and deny the atrocities committed, in spite of the clear evidence.
You then believe the opposing propaganda from a regime that jails people for using the word invasion.
Your obsession with opposing the western governments and media has led you to a dark place.
Countries join NATO.
The USA places missiles on their territory.
The USA can launch those missiles without the consent of those countries.
This isn’t really about NATO, and the US can deploy missiles in non NATO countries, if that’s what’s agreed.
Putin likes to pretend that all the European members of NATO are just synonymous with the US. But they’re not.
Putin argues it’s ok for him to have missiles on Europe’s borders, but not ok for us to have missiles on our borders.
Not without invading them you moron!
That’s what NATO membership required you utter imbecile.
Putin argues it’s not OK to ring Russia with nuclear weapons when Russia has not one, single overseas military base.
He is perfectly entitled to place what ordnance he likes, where he likes, within his borders – not Europe’s borders as you perversely imply.
The abuse is becoming a central theme, when you can’t express your view properly.
Pot, kettle.
You’re being more than a little disingenuous, but of course you get paid for being so.
NATO is funded by the US. Trump only managed to get Germany to pay its fair share because it knew what was going to happen in Ukraine.
you can give Putin credit for that change of policy. Invading European countries tend to be noticed.
The US calls the shots, don’t attempt to evade the issue simpleton.
Codswallop. Did you clear up the Serbia matter, Which NATO member did Serbia attack?
Ukraine is not in NATO and was never likely to be.
Well that your russian propaganda line of argument.
Usual playground argument from tree. Your Mum smells………
Pathetic.
Grammar!
No that’s a diversionary question, used when you can’t find an example of NATO attacking somebody.
Serbia.
NATO has never invaded another country.
It bombed Serbia.
Weapons of mass destruction.
You are factually wrong on most points you made.
Refute most points he made then, factually.
What about Serbia. NATO bombed it for 83 consecutive days.
One of the challenges facing to “sceptics'” line on NATO aggression arguement is the fact that it has never attacked anyone.
It only exists because of the aggressive ways of Russia.
NATO is America you clown. most members don’t pay their fair share so America figures it can do as it wishes.
Keep the abuse flowing…
It’s not abuse, it’s compliments.
You do our best.
You seem to be a Russian propaganda consumer and relay station.
Aaaaand….you’re a puerile simpleton judging by that comment.
Back to the playground.
Keep the abuse flowing..
It’s not abuse, it’s compliments.
When did NATO last invade somewhere?
You keep repeating a question that’s already been answered. Stop boring us with your inanities.
Russia threatens other states?
When his country is ringed by NATO bases bristling with ICBM’s?
Vary good Fingal.
Since when is Russia ringed by NATO?
I really can’t believe you asked a question as stupid as that…
On second thoughts, I can.
“Weapons of mass destruction”
“He sent jets to buzz neutral Sweden and Finland”
“to buzz”
What do you mean by that?
Because as long as they didn’t enter Swedish or Finnish airspace that’s not just perfectly legal but also something that we do.
They do enter their airspace.
You demand evidence so I’ll do the same.
Yes, but I asked first and you haven’t given any yet.
(Google Sweden etc – you’ll find it easy enough – this is off topic).
I haven’t made any claims that require evidence.
Ok, to repeat: I have asked anyone to explain how they can automatically reject all the eyewitness reports of Russian atrocities which we have seen in recent weeks.
The default response from most people is to say they’re fakes and lies.
I’m asking: on what basis can they say that?
I’m not responsible for what anybody else says.
I asked for evidence and your feeble response was “google it”, as if google could be trusted.
Um – google isn’t a person. It leads you to sites which you believe or not believe.
Like this one.
It leads you to approved sites.
You must know this.
Look, there are so many guys with so many conspiracy theories here. I’ve no idea which ones you subscribe to.
The sites contain pics, videos and interviews with real people, which existed in the real world before they found their way onto the internet.
We were talking about Russian planes invading Swedish and Finnish airspace.
You’re trying to change the subject.
No, I was asking on what basis people here dismiss all the eyewitness reports as faked.
MH17 is an example of Russian fake news, but it’s not the core topic.
You’re just plain lying now.
I have to conclude that you’re just as much a government paid shill as plank.
You sound like lavrov.
You sound like a homosexual paedophile.
I think you have shown your true nature here. It isn’t a god thing.
Run out of rubbish arguments?
He’s a congenital, compulsive liar.
Why did your planes invade their airspace?
On what basis can you say they’re not?
Provide evidence they were not incentivised to say it.
And provide evidence there are hundreds.
That would be camerawitnessed reports………….
Correct.
It wasn’t a mistake, it was deliberate.
Like no NATO jets or bombers have ever buzzed Russia.
Gosh, their Sinclair computers must be important.
That’s a difficult one to refute, other than America armed the Mujahedeen, then bitched when they changed their name and turned those arms against America. Not $80Bn worth mind you.
But the west can invade Iraq despite UN resolutions at the time and nothing is done.
Putin didn’t invade Ukraine in 2014 muppet. A puppet government was installed by America and the EU in 2014, muppet. South East Ukraine (the Russian speaking part of the country) asked for Russia’s support because they were being ethnically cleansed.
There will be no new NATO members.
Yes this argument is often trotted out by Putin apologists. Usually word for word.
You’re accusing members of British and US parliament of being Putin apologists?
You need to join Pt. Tree for a mouse polishing session.
The Jews in Europe didn’t have access to nuclear weapons.
Every motive is justified.
By Russia not invading Ukraine.
The problem with articles like this is that it stirs up the “sceptics’ poor standard of reasoning and reveals their underlying character.
They have taught each other to disbelieve anything that is accepted as correct by the vast majority of people. To support this, they will enthuse about the opposite argument, no matter how incredible that argument is.
In this case, the massive majority believe russian propaganda, which means they support Russian state behaviour, which in turn means they support the killing it has brought.
You have had a long shift haven’t you.
Take a load off and have a cuppa. Don’t forget you’ve got to polish that mouse for the Sunday review by the Co. Commandant tomorrow ….
Overtime.
You didn’t need the “f” in shift.
That would be because, like you, the “vast majority of people” are gullible enough to trust governments. We don’t disbelieve, we test, then we examine.
Clowns like you blunder along in your complete faith in our government, and lead us into wars. You believe the media, which feeds on your gullibility, and makes you pay for it to boot. That bit really does make me laugh, you pay to be lied to.
Funny that. There are no Russian broadcasters or media in the UK and the US, so it’s not possible for anyone in the west to be brainwashed by Russian propaganda because there is none.
There is, however, lots of western propaganda. Most of us here consider that, look for the other side of the story (there is always another side to a story donchanow?) and attempt to balance the argument.
What we are faced with is rabid dogs like you who only swallow the western propaganda, and we end up with a litany of conspiracy theories concocted by you, but you call us conspiracy theorists because we don’t believe them. You are a complete giggle, so I shall repeat:
Conspiracy theory 1*. Trump colluded with Russia (impeached) – No he didn’t.
Conspiracy theory 2. Trump incited an insurrection (impeached) – No he didn’t
Conspiracy theory 3. UK Government didn’t party during lockdown – Yes they did.
Conspiracy theory 4. Lockdowns work – No they don’t.
Conspiracy theory 5. Covid Zero is possible – No it’s not.
Conspiracy theory 6. NetZero is cheap – No it’s not.
Conspiracy theory 7. ‘Vaccines’ are safe – No they’re not.
Conspiracy theory 8. Vaccines are effective – No they’re not.
Conspiracy theory 9. I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman- Yes he did.
Conspiracy theory 10. Hunter Biden’s laptop is fake news – No it’s not
Conspiracy theory 11. Nightingale hospitals were vital – No they weren’t.
Conspiracy theory 12. Ferguson’s covid computer models are credible – Bwahahahahaha………
Conspiracy theory 13. Climate computer models are credible – Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha……………….
Conspiracy theory 14.Hancock is an honourable politician – Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Conspiracy theory 15. Boris Johnson is an honest politician – STOP, MY RIBS ARE SORE!!!!!!
Conspiracy theory 16. WMD’s are real – Lesson 1. Never believe a government.
Conspiracy theory 17. “Because they have been brainwashed by each other on this site, to reject everything stated by western governments and media” – Correct!
If you are stupid not to interrogate governments on every word they utter, you should be consigned to an institution.
You have illustrated my point very well.
You have little self-awareness or self-respect to carry on like this. It’s almost sad. (Do you understand the meaning of the word ”illustrate”, by the way?)
You should look up the word conspiracy in a dictionary. But wait, would you believe the dictionary? It’s quite mainstream.
There is a vacancy for a village idiot you could apply for, somewhere.
Have you looked up the word yet?
Conspiracy – “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful”. You will need to explain what is secret on a public forum.
Gosh! You really ARE a silly billy!
The problem is that you don’t interrogate, you simply state the opposite.
If that were the case, it would be a step up from simply accepting everything a known lying government tell me.
Clearly, I’m a step higher than you, at the very least.
It is sad that you think your rationale makes sense.
Do you disbelieve, 100% of what all western governments and media outlets say?
Is that your guiding principle?
Have you considered what it would take for them to collude as effectively as you seem to believe they do?
The media have received £500m from the government in COVID advertising alone. https://www.aqueous-digital.co.uk/articles/why-is-the-government-spending-320-million-on-covid-19-media-buying-services-in-2021-22/ How can that not be a corrupting influence?
The media is more than happy to go after the government and the lying politicians.
You really are the most arrogant, posturing individual that has ever popped up on this site! Still – I suppose it lightens the mood to have a person who pretends to be ill-informed and ignorant. An agent provocateur perhaps (if it were more intelligent).
“Overall, it seems that most Russians do support the war, although their level of support is somewhat overstated in opinion polls.”
For a smart person, Noah Carl, this is a pretty stupid thing to write.
There is no one in Russia that is stupid enough to give a truthful answer to a pollster on pretty much any question just as there is not in China. Face it, polls where an anonymous caller or someone who stops you on the street will elicit no truthful answers as it is far too risky for the population to do so and they all know it.
The veracity of polling is suspect everywhere today as people in the US, UK and most of the world are now savvy enough to give conditioned responses and not truthful ones. This is why political polling is so often wrong.
Is there anyone, other than academics, and journalists, that still believe any polls?
What’s worrying is the level of support for the war on this site.
Whatever the MSM push , believe the exact opposite. WMD’S anyone?
At least someone accepts their own methodology.
The problem is that if it makes you back Putin, it is cannot be defended.
I wouldn’t like you defending me. You don’t sound a particularly well balanced and robust person.
Does this website has the correct name, I wonder? After reading several articles on Ukraine Russia topic, the idea is not that different from MSM: good Ukraine, bad Russia, end of story. What’s the point of publishing them then? We can just read BBC.
‘Daily believer’?
Hi again you lot! I haven’t posted here for months, since just before the mask mandate was abolished, so thought I’d put my head round the door.
I support the incursion 100% and I’m not even Russian, but I can completely understand why it had to be done. I wouldn’t want a neonazi state on England’s western flank either.
Just sayin’, Dungford!!!!
Perhaps they were being advised by Mr Yougov Zahawi.
The USSR at least had a reputation for some sophistication in its tyranny-pursuing intelligence operations. The current Kremlin regime’s external pro Ukrainian invasion propaganda campaign (presumably coordinated by the SVR Foreign Intelligence Service) can be characterised as one of primitive, easily seen through and contradictory nonsense. For example:
The ‘mainstream media’ in the West is inherently corrupt and wrong on any major issue; therefore its general condemnation of Russia’s mass destruction and murder (sorry, ‘Special Military Operation’) in Ukraine proves that the onslaught is in fact justified and to be supported.
At the same time:
The (vastly more state controlled) ‘mainstream media’ in Russia is completely uncorrupt and reliable and therefore its support for the invasion (sorry, Special Military Operation’) – again proves that it is justified and to be supported.
Must try harder – including over the numerically impressive but persuasively redundant and self-defeating activity on these boards.