I'd suggest you too read the links in my original comment here.
854 karma · joined December 1, 2012
Zelensky let them all out when the war started[0], including the infamous Tornado battalion[1][2].
"have a long and proven track record of lying without any shame or remorse"
Just like the Ukraine or the US.
"which Russian side ... encouraged"
Another fine example of 'atrocity propaganda'[3] to mobilize public support in Western countries for the Ukrainian war.
"vs silence on Russia using all sorts of forbidden weaponry"
So why is the silence? That happens when things get investigated and no proof is found. I remember Ukrainian general claiming in 2014 that Russia used a tactical nuke in Donbass.
[0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10559879/Zelensky-r...
[1] https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tornado-battalion-rogue-para...
[2] https://focus-ua.translate.goog/uk/amp/ukraine/521825-osuzhd...
You might be right, actually. Naive and brainwashed Americans supported criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the false pretext. And reelected Bush afterwards. So don't underestimate the power of Western domestic propaganda.
"so for all intents and purposes they were both part of it"
Not really. Rusich is a dirty secret just like Utkin's personality. They are not legitimized in any way. Azov with the Wolfsangel on their banner and Aidar are openly ultra-nationalist and touted by Kyev as heroes.
That wouldn't be the first time when the West uses Nazis against Russia. I hope you just lied and used 'we' instead of 'I'.
The rest of your comment is expectedly lacking any specifics.
Well, this sure looks like an evidence of Wagner's commander having a neo-Nazi tattoo [0][1]. Besides Utkin's personality there doesn't seem to be anything else.
Of course its commanders are a minority.
"untainted by antisemitism"
So it's ok to hate other nationalities if it's not Jews?
No one idolizing Bandera and the likes of him cannot be untainted by Nazism.
"I don't think they really"
Pretending to read other person's mind and accuse them of insincerity based on that makes a poor argument.
"to push people's emotional buttons, and distract "
You mean people in Western countries might learn whom they are helping and ask questions like "why exactly have we been doing this"?
About in the same place as Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, removing the incubators and leaving the babies to die. [0]
I'd suggest you follow the links I gave you.
"In this first English-language book on the Azov movement, Michael Colborne explains how Azov came to be and continues to exploit Ukraine’s fractured social and political situation—including the only ongoing war on European soil – to build one of the most ambitious and dangerous far-right movements in the world. Michael Colborne ... has been part of the Bellingcat Monitoring Project team at the investigative journalism website Bellingcat, primarily researching Ukraine’s far right."
And by the way, what other country made a neo-Nazi brigade a part of its army?
"And they are putting their lives where their mouths are"
Not sure what's your point. Nazis were doing that too.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/world/europe/nazi-symbols...
[1] http://cup.columbia.edu/book/from-the-fires-of-war/978383821...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ukraine-hasbetter-he...
[3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-row-over-holocaust-history-...
[4] https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukraine-tells-israel-to-stay-o...
[0] https://bloknot.ru/politika/prigozhin-telegram-kanaly-kepka-...
That's not the only thing they were doing. [0]
"like Azov Brigade"
I'd recommend a book by a Canadian journalist collaborating with Bellingcat on the subject of Azov and other Ukrainian nationalists. [1]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Divisi...
[1] http://cup.columbia.edu/book/from-the-fires-of-war/978383821...
Hmm, I wonder why. Maybe because of this [0]:
"An UVO brochure from 1929 stated: "Terror will be not only a means of self-defense, but also a form of agitation, which will affect friend and foe alike, regardless of whether they desire it or not."
The UVO organized a number of assassination attempts on some of the most renowned Polish and Ukrainian politicians, some of which were successful."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Military_Organizatio...
Maybe because Prigoshin was saying that the war was started for no real reason and people liked to listen to truth for a change [0]?
How can you get this number? Today in Russia any question by a pollster sounds like "Do you support the war or do you want to get fined for "discreditation of the army"?". I remember quite different reaction to the Western polls in Crimea showing that huge majority support reunification with Russia -- "No, no, you can't believe any polls conducted in a non-free country, people there are just afraid to say they hate Russia and want back to the Ukraine".
"while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge"
I don't know anyone who knows that and supports Wagner.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12gw8w/what_...
"But your quoted line suggests they got no help from the military not that they weren't there."
Seriously? "there was almost no response, no (Russian) military." suggests you that Russian military was there? It seems, English is not your native language either.
"There is no promise there"
That's why I didn't use that word. Azov's 'suggestion' to attack border towns like Chechens did is "a basis in reality" unless you think that NYTimes journalist invented this.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20230613012141/https://www.nytim...
But back to my point, you can see his tattoos only because someone dug out a photo of him and shared it on the internet. Not because he was marching bare-chested on the streets of Moscow on Hitler's birthday carrying a torch and shouting 'Glory to Russia!'. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't do that because that would not be accepted by Russian society or by Kremlin.
That's the difference with the Ukraine.
Doesn't look like it [0].
Even the original article says: "“There are very few of our people there. Previous days with all the shelling - there was almost no response, no (Russian) military. We were left on our own,” the unnamed woman said."
"that has no basis in reality"
Does it? Deliberately shelling a town and killing civilians together with 'suggestions' of neo-Nazi from Azov look like a basis to me.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/12/world/europe/russia-war-b...
Not that quickly. [0]
"the usual scorched-earth tactic that is their calling card"
That's russophobic fiction.
"Blowing up that dam sure helped them get caught up towards that end"
Here is a Washington Post article [0] about Ukrainians attacking the dam with American missile to test if they can blow it up:
"Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages.
The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off."
There were many more attacks on that dam by the Ukraine [1] but I won't bother to try to find non-Russian sources, the WP article is enough.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/29/ukraine-offe...
[1] https://pikabu.ru/story/skolko_raz_vsu_obstrelivali_kakhovsk...
Of most?