https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1510383327362134019?t=FFNv5qRN5ifDzFguVLbhoQ&s=19
For the record, while I think it’s likely some kind of atrocity took place in Bucha, colour me extremely skeptical of these reports of Russia planning to do Holocaust Part 2 in Ukraine. These reports that Russia has mobile crematoria are dubious and mostly people are alleging they brought them to conceal casualties. For example:
The guy suzzer linked is the only person I have seen alleging that these machines (which may well just not exist) are there to incinerate Ukrainians. It’s worth remembering that a ton of what we see reported about the war is Ukrainian propaganda. Like the line at the moment is that Russian troops are 1) low morale, on the point of mutiny, didn’t sign up to fight a war against neighbours, are sabotaging their equipment and running over their commanding officers etc etc, but also 2) stand ready to commit mass genocide of people who are essentially just like them. I have a hard time believing these things are simultaneously true.
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The Russian army isn’t a monolith. Both of these can be true at the same time.
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These atrocities coming out of Bucha and occupied territories should be a wake up call to the west to send Ukraine more lethal weaponry.
Tanks, vehicles, planes. Fuck Putin and the Russians to hell.
These sanctions need to be increased and kept in place for 30 years. Fucking animals.
We see evidence of both low morale amongst troops and mass executions and genocide.
Its not Ukrainian propaganda. It’s not hard to believe, you can just look at the photo and video evidence coming out.
And we know this intent to commit genocide to be true by Russians not allowing any humanitarian aide into Mariuopol so citizens there can starve to death. On top of what they are doing to the city physically.
This isn’t much of a contradiction. If there was some kind of planned genocide operation, it’s not going to be the line troops running it, it’s going to be dedicated political troops. It’s quite plausible that the specially recruited genocide squads will be into it, while the regular troops are not.
The specific mobile crematoria story does seem a little implausible, but there’s a lot of documentation that really bad stuff is being done by Russian troops, quite possibly including Srebrenica-style genocide. Pre-war claims about kill lists seem very likely to be true at this point.
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nah, you are just trying to find some way to rationalize your previous assessment that you would sit tight and let ukraine burn and not put any eu/us forces in direct conflict with russia. as if there was no way to know atrocities were going to happen.
except the whole world got plenty of warning about the regime. and the fact that putin has special military and paramilitary units for repressions. and the fact they are not shy to use chemical weapons inside and outside russia. and the fact they are to this day defending (!) atrocities committed in yugoslavia. and that the regime closed down all of the few organizations who were at least cataloging victims of repressions going back to stalin’s regime, all the way through the chechen wars.
sure, putin didn’t give a general anything more direct than a wink at the certainty that civilians would have to be silenced. but the negative selection for the most loyal and ruthless people to be around putin’s vertical of power ensured it would happen.
I’m not even sure why anyone is shocked to find that the Russian army did the same shit they did in Chechnya and Syria now this time in Ukraine, a country they deny has the right to exist.
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I am not surprised.
It disgusts me to see it in real time.
Putin is on the same level of depravity as Hitler, and that isn’t being hyperbolic.
Because atrocities against Muslims is meh, atrocities against white people OMG.
Putin’s propaganda machine is strong
China don’t care
India almost don’t care
So, they really can do all the war crimes.
Oh, I meant that they don’t care about the brutal murder of civilians in and of itself.
I suppose if the killing of said civilians could lead to WWIII, then that is relevant to their interests.
Yeah, as much as we like to believe that you can’t fool all the people all the time, it’s become pretty obvious that you can fool enough people enough of the time that endless, brazen propaganda is a winning strategy.
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The Chechens are white Muslims tho.
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The Russians lost at least (*) 86 T-80 and 18 T-90 which are their most modern tanks. There are only 470-480 active T-80 and 370-435 active T-90 which means they lost 18% and 4-5% respectively.
They also lost about 15% of the older active T-72.
They have thousands in reserve but who knows what condition they are in and those probably won’t have gotten many upgrades.
(*) according to:
These are only visually confirmed losses. Actual losses will be higher.
Low morale and willingness to commit atrocities absolutely go hand in hand. You think Haditha, My Lai etc… happened because things were going so well in those wars? Even the Rape of Nanking was preceded by heavy resistance in and around Shanghai that from the Japanese perspective came out of nowhere.
I have no idea to what extent Russian soldiers are deserting or engaging in sabotage but to any extent that’s happening it’s certain to be occuring alongside others who’s reaction is to burn down the whole hamlet and everyone inside it.
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So what if the mobile crematoriums aren’t real? That’s like 2% of the story. Everyone in this thread is well aware that we’re getting the pro-Ukrainian side and some things are going to turn out to sensational rumors. I try not to pass those along but sometimes they get thrown in with the wash.
If I passed along the mobile crematoriums it was probably part of some larger post about Russian atrocities. It’s not like I’ve been harping on it. Twitter is also flipping out about Russians having concrete plans about how to dig mass graves. I haven’t really passed those along either because who knows.
But the bodies and the stories coming out look pretty damn real. That shit would be very hard to stage. Agreed?
https://twitter.com/ronzheimer/status/1510666442869460996
https://twitter.com/NewsfeedUkraine/status/1510668933166211078
It seems pretty clear to me the Russians have no qualms about killing anyone they deem to be a political enemy. Or just killing out of spite when they’re on their way out of the town.
https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1510667678108762114
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Small thing: the West didn’t invade Ukraine.
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