Hacker News Reader

> - Ukraine has enlisted openly white supremacist neo-nazi's in their national guard to fight Russia in the east.

If you are a male in Ukraine, you are essentially enlisted at this point. Heck, prisoners are being released to fight.

I believe those are relatively recent developments. The Azov Battalion by contrast have been active members of Ukraine's national guard since at least 2014.

Coincidentally there is war in Ukraine since 2014.

> - Ukraine has enlisted openly white supremacist neo-nazi's in their national guard to fight Russia in the east.

While they continue to fight for the sovereignty of a nation headed by a Jewish president I can see how they could be useful. Soldiers often aren't nice people. Most countries have at least a few hundred of these types of neo-Nazis.

No other country that is allied with western liberal democracies openly employs Neo-Nazis in any capacity to my knowledge, other than Ukraine.

Please share examples if you have them. It should be easy if, as you say “most countries have at least a few hundred.”

I’m struggling to understand how I am the minority here calling out what I always thought was a widely agreed principle on HN i.e. Nazis = bad.

Nazis are not the good guys and fighting alongside Nazis, even if convenient, is wrong. A few weeks ago this statement would have been so obvious as to be redundant on HN.

What if we win the war but lose our moral compass?

How do you explain to your kids that Nazis are bad except sometimes they are useful so not always bad?

> Ukraine has enlisted openly white supremacist neo-nazi's in their national guard to fight Russia in the east

[Citation needed]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion

There's Azov batallion, but Russia has its own Wagner group. None of that is an excuse to invade another country and shell civilians of course.

Today I learned. Just so we are clear, do we both agree that supporting Nazi soldiers is a bad thing no matter which side?

Also, it seems we both agree that invading another country and shelling civilians is also wrong, whether it is Russia or the US or others waging wars of aggression.

I'm with you on all points. Nazis are bad, of course. Invasions are bad. The reason I cared to comment is because Ukrainian Nazis are used as justification for the invasion in Russia.

But nazis exist in many countries, and are given legitimacy in many countries. In Ukraine they're paramilitary, in Russia they're a mercenary force, in Germany they sit in parliament (AFD), in US they have obvious affiliation with the political party that is in power half the time (and have strong legal protections for both their speech and guns).

All of that can be used as excuses to forcefully "denazify" a country, like Russia is doing now, but none of that are actually good reasons to invade those countries or deny any of those countries the right for independence, not even close.

If I may add my two cents: I disagree that supporting $BADGUY soldiers is always bad.

It's conceivable that in some situations, it seems likely to result in the less-evil outcome.

Case in point, suppose you had a neo-nazi unit offering to take out a Russian artillery battery that was shelling civilians. Do you refuse to truck them to that vicinity because you find them repugnant?

Life is full of hard choices; doubly so in war.

Would it change anything in your eyes to know that the Azov Batallion has been shelling civilian Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbas region since 2014?

I am firmly of the position that no Nazi is a good Nazi. I am surprised to find myself in the minority here but based on the downvotes it is clear that my position is not a popular one.

> Would it change anything in your eyes ...

Not really. The example I chose was already hypothetical, and not necessarily apropos to the current situation in Ukraine. The additional context you provided doesn't change my basic point that there's a calculation to be made.

> I am firmly of the position that no Nazi is a good Nazi.

I think we may be discussing two different things. I wasn't talking about the moral standing of individual Nazis. I was talking about the moral calculation of temporarily collaborating with them to possibly achieve a better outcome than not collaborating with them.

Extending the earlier example, suppose there's just one neo-nazi, who's offering to go on a suicide mission that will take out 1000 Russian artillery batteries, saving 500,000 Ukranians. And nobody but you would know, so the neo-nazi's actions couldn't even potentially inspire others.

Would you entertain the possibility that that is a good trade-off? If yes, then you might be agreeing that there's a calculation to be performed. If no, then I'd wonder why you'd find it preferable to let 500,000 Ukranians die. (I'm not calling you a moral monster. I'm just trying to lay things out that shows there's an actual dilemma.)

It seems you had to stretch the details of your example well beyond the range of possibility in order to make your case.

Yes, I would would most certainly agree to support such an individual in the implausible scenario you just described.

However under those circumstances I would argue that the soldier is no longer a Nazi, but in fact he is now a Nazi defector - so not the same thing.

I am very glad to see how difficult it still is for folks on HN to support Nazis, even when they fight for Ukraine against the Russians.

I don’t support Nazis - never have - not even Ukrainian Nazis. I think it is hypocritical to do so and from your comment neither do you I believe.

Azov is 400 people on a population of 44 million.

It's not even worth mentioning.

Ps. Wagner group is > 6000.

Ps2. Every country has some dumbass neonazi's somewhere.

I mentioned it because the AZOV Battallion are official paid members of Ukraine’s National Guard and have been since before 2014. I think that makes it worth mentioning.

How many other countries (that the West defends) can claim to have openly employed neo-Nazis officially by the Government for as long as Ukraine?

I am old enough to remember when an entire Canadian trucker convoy protest movement was smeared as Nazis because 1 protester held 1 nazi flag on the 1st day of a 24 day protest before being asked to leave by other protesters.

Checks notes - That was only a couple weeks ago.

Now it seems that so many are willing to look the other way or even apologize for employing literal Nazis with guns simply because these Nazis are fighting for the ‘right’ side.

For the record, it is OK to support Ukraine’s right to defend itself, while also denouncing the decision to employ Nazis.

A few weeks ago, I would have expected nothing less from HN. Suddenly it seems the rules have changed?

Shaking my head, I don’t understand.

> this is a war with no heroes

pretty sure i seen some heroes.

How sure are you that at least some of that wasn't manufactured propaganda? You do realize that propaganda works for both sides and it can be hard to identify in the fog of war. All I am saying is that it pays to be skeptical in these troubling times.

i saw a man running into a crumbling building that was mortared to hell to get their neighbors children out.

That is fantastic and that man is most certainly a hero, no argument.

That said, my question was about how certain you were that at least some of the heroic acts you read or watched, were not some form of propaganda? Call me cynical but as soon as the conflict started I started investigating claims from both sides and I learned that a significant amount of what we heard early in this invasion turned out to be false propaganda.

Examples:

- Figher Ghost Ace turns out to be a myth https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/03/02/ukraines-figh...

- Israel TV Channel shows Star Wars Tie Fighter crash landed in Ukraine https://www.nytimespost.com/israeli-tv-channel-runs-live-foo...

- According to Reuters/MSNBC/US Officials - There is no evidence Russia attacked nuclear reactors in Ukraine. https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-usa-nuclear-e...

You won't find 100% correctness even in peace time. That doesn't mean you can throw your hands in the air and assume that information from both sides of the conflict is on average equally (un)trustworthy.

There's tons of evidence to show the horrors of what Russia is doing in Ukraine, and stuff like the ghost of Kyiv is just a morale boost for Ukrainians and is utterly irrelevant.

So yes, you should of course be sceptical, but no amount of honest and fair scepticism will paint Russia's invasion in a significantly better light.

I don't expect you to watch this full video but will leave it here for anyone who is curious about the broader context for this conflict.

TL;DR: The war didn't start last week. It has been ongoing since 2014 and involves horrible acts from both sides.

No, they don't average out and unfortunately we may never know what the 'truth' is here.

I won't pretend to have all the answers, but I will say after watching the video, the situation appears to be much more complicated than it is being depicted on western media.

Curiosity Stream: Why Russia is invading Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE

That is a decent factual YouTube video but it is laser focused on the title - what does Russia get out of invading Ukraine. There is no discussion at all of atrocities or moral controversies... Does the advertised curiosity stream series go into more details on that?

> Does the advertised curiosity stream series go into more details on that?

Not that I can find. They seem to be focused on military strategy and geopolitics. Their other videos are about the reasons behind other modern military conflicts.

I mean then we can't really use that video to judge or corroborate the morality / atrocities of the sides. And even for economics and politics, there is no analysis of balance or tradeoffs, just an exposition of what Russia wants. The video is still good information for those unaware, but only in the realpolitik sense, not as a source of moral or value judgements about the situation.

I’ve never voted for a politician who voted for the Iraq war. If other Americans had the same stance, our politicians would stop getting us into wars like Iraq. It’s my #1 issue over anything else.