Baltic Counterintelligence Officers Speak Candidly About Russian Cruelty | Hacker News Reader

Baltic Counterintelligence Officers Speak Candidly About Russian Cruelty

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33 pointsobscurette8 comments

Another good point of reference for all this cultural commentary is the Volga Germans. They were moved to the Volga to enrich the culture with their farming methods. Later most left Russia for the US and even today there is long simmering resentment over the indignities of life in Russia.

It's interesting to compare this to the propaganda landscape of WW2 and especially WW1, when the British pushed a comparable line about the inherent sadism and civilisational primitivity of the Germans. Unfortunately I'm having trouble finding anything longer-form than posters and single-line pull quotes to compare to this article beat for beat, but the various tidbits in https://greatwar.nl/frames/default-christmastruce.html certainly feel remarkably familiar, with the mutual accusations of atrocities and violations of principles real and imagined -

> France and England both underlined the brutality and inhumanity of the German nature. According to the allied propaganda, war prisoners were ill-treated, tortured and under-fed. German soldiers were purported by the allied forces to rape women and cut their breasts off. The hands of small boys were cut off to satisfy the Germans’ sadism and to prevent their service in the enemy’s forces. Furthermore, German soldiers were said to have burned civilians and babies alive.[17] Germany was also accused by France and England of taking hostages as human shields to prevent allied attacks.

- complete with picture proof, which of course was disputed:

> “They think that our Press is to blame in working up feelings against them by publishing false “atrocity reports.” I told them of various sweet little cases which I have seen myself, and they told me of English prisoners whom put they have seen with soft-nosed bullets, and lead bullets with notches cut in the nose; we had a heated, and at the same time good-natured argument, and ended by hinting to each other that the other was lying.”

and the occasional externalisation of internal divisions (the part about Saxons and Prussians) in the face of preexisting grievances and overwhelming external narrative pressure. It is an interesting small bit of historical irony that the Saxons, who appealed to their would-be kinship with the British a hundred years ago to distance themselves from the general image of the German, now after 45 years of Soviet occupation find themselves occupying a place within intra-German stereotypes that is a little adjacent to the opening article's depiction of the Russians.

Of course there's a big difference from today, because now you can check out the cruelty yourself on the thousands of videos and photos of it.

Except that this article contains neither propaganda nor personal opinions, but only facts that are well known to all the older people who live in countries that are neighbors of Russia.

I have been born and I have grown in Eastern Europe, in one of the countries invaded by the Russians, so nothing from what was said by the Baltic interviewed people was new for me, all their stories sounded very familiar.

For example one of them has mentioned that both his maternal grandfathers have been deported, then murdered by the Russians.

My two maternal grandfathers happened to have exactly the same fate.

The reason why they were among the first chosen for deportation was that one was the teacher of the village, while the other was a farmer, but he also had a part-time job at the mayor's office as supervisor of the maintenance work for the road passing through the village.

The Russian invaders applied a policy like in the Japanese proverb about the nails which stick out, everybody who was somehow distinguishable from the mass of the local inhabitants was a prime target for removal, because they feared that among such people there could be some who might try to organize a resistance.

The Baltic interviewed people expressed frustrations about the naivety that is widespread in Western Europe and Northern America about Russia and its methods, which have never changed since ancient history, through WWII and until present. Such sentiments are also common in Eastern Europe, among the older generations, who still remember the Russian ways of doing things.

Not sure whats your point, german army was brutal in their eastern campaign, mowing down whole villages, kids, elderly, women, everybody. In my own country they razed few villages completely to the ground, gathered most people in the town church (biggest tallest building in whole village) and burned them alive (thats hundreds each time), the rest went to concentration camps. These are historical facts, maybe a bit blurry if your lineage didn't have literal skin in the 'game'.

The fact that russians are trying to recruit lowlife in prisons (there are videos of wagner group speaking in prison yard that even murderers will be let free after 6 months of service in Ukraine) supports cruelty accusation. As do thousands of Ukrainian civilians from freed territories.

There is no shortage of stories of ie Ukrainian teachers being tortured badly for refusing to teach russian language in schools, and generally civilians witnessing executions, which explain the mass graves of executed hand-tied civilians that are being found so frequently after russians move away. Heck, there are videos like from early invasion where russians set up post next to some main road, and deciding just for fun to shoot on every single civilian car passing through, killing many, even injuring one other russian soldier.

Does it mean that every single russian soldier on Ukraine is a cruel primitive beast? Obviously no, but places like Bucha and many many many others show how russian army behaves. You can decide to think that all is a conspiracy, but there are simply too many proofs of contrary, coming from all directions, constantly. And they confirm the experience of tens of millions subjected to russian/soviet mistreatment in past decades in many other places, including my own home country. In russia, human life has little value. It doesn't matter if you are foreigner, another slav, heck another russian. Cannon fodder, obstacle to power.

The person you are replying to mainly I think referenced WW I. I doubt the German Imperial Army was gentle, but I never heard that it was as bad as the Wehrmacht etc.

For Eastern Europe WWII was just being between equally sadistic and brutal sides – Germans and Russians. Baltic states are full of stories like the one about my family:

- Occupied in 1940 by Russians, heads of family (especially if politically active and educated) were arrested, tortured and were never seen again.

- Occupied in 1941 by Germans young men were arrested, tortured and never seen again.

- Occupied in 1944 by Russians again survived women with children were sent to Siberia and most of them were never seen again.

From rather big and known family full of educated people only my grandmother and my father survived.

The only real difference between Russians and Germans is that Russians didn't have to take any responsibility for their atrocities. They were winners of the war.

The British certainly went in big with propaganda. On the other hand, the Louvain library didn't burn itself. At least during the initial war of movement, the German army seems to have had mediocre fire discipline and imagined the franc-tireurs to be responsible for what were really friendly fire incidents. They did shoot some number of people and burn some number of towns.

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