re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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I know this dam just exploded and stuff but did we ever find out why the Ukrainian soldiers are wearing Nazi stuff?

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You can always tell a lot about people when they are more concerned about a group where some people have Nazi symbols than the group that does Nazi things.

Russia has tons of guys sporting Nazi symbols too, of course, especially in organizations such as Rusich and Wagner, but let's ignore that for a moment.

Russia wants to wipe out the Ukrainian language and the Ukrainian identity. Their soldiers and their TV presenters repeatedly say that the want to end the idea of being Ukrainian. Their nation abducts tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and gives them to new "parents" in Russia to be told that their own nation is horrible and they are Russians now. Their soldiers have committed hundreds of rapes and tortured so many people to death in occupied Ukraine that they repeatedly dumped the bodies in mass graves.

But all of that's no big deal, right? "Hey, did you know that Ukraine just named a military unit 'Edelweiss,' and Nazi Germany had a military unit with that name in WWII? Wow, that must mean that Russia is the good guys and Ukraine is full of evil Nazis."

With this kind of logic, I always have to wonder whether I'm dealing with a special-ed child or with a troll -- there's no other option.

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Any chance those Russian resistance fighters had something to do with the dam? Just spitballing

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I’ve been reading about the dam collapse and so far no one has said whether an external force (missile) took it out or it was an internal explosion that did the damage.
Some even believe it could have been a failure because of the Hugh water and conditions over time.

But since we are spitballing now; since Russia is in charge of the dam In thinking they are the likely culprit and they used explosives to cause the damage.

Video shows internal explosion at turbine room

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This is the same sort of nonsense that China spouts to justify forceful incursions into the West Philippine Sea.

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True. But look at Russia's expansion history. They have done it for centuries. I really believe that is one of Putin's primary goals: expansion/reestablish ment of the Russian empire.

We are guilty of it also. Mexican War/expansion. Lincolns westward expansion policy started the irradiation of the tribes. It continued through Grant.

That’s a good summary. Not a lot of war updates on twitter this morning, the flooding is the dominant story.

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I know this dam just exploded and stuff but did we ever find out why the Ukrainian soldiers are wearing Nazi stuff?

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The whole Ukrainian “Nazis” thing is difficult for most Westerners to comprehend. This is because from the Western perspective Nazis were purely evil and bad and did nothing good. However, from the Ukrainian perspective, things are not quite as simple.

First you have to understand the history of Ukraine in the yeas before WWII. Ukraine had been part of the Russian Empire since the 18th century until it fell in 1917. While part of the Russian Empire, they saw their language and customs suppressed by Russia. Once the Russian Empire collapsed, Ukraine claimed independence. From the Ukrainian point of view, their independence was made possible by Germany defeating the Russian Empire.

But as soon as Ukraine declared independence, they found themselves embroiled in multiple wars and eventually were caught up in the Russian Civil War. In the Russian Civil War, thousands of Ukrainians were slaughtered and the country was conquered by the new Soviet Union. Under Soviet control, the misery for Ukrainians only intensified. The repressive Soviet regime arrested, tortured, and deported massive numbers of Ukrainians. People lost their homes, their farms, and thanks to forced “collectivization”, a man-man famine raged through Ukraine in the 1930s that killed millions. You can find out the details of this famine by searching the term “Holodomor”, it’s brutal. So basically, by 1941, Russia has been oppressing Ukraine for a century and a half and that repression had progressed to outright genocide.

Thus, when the Germans invaded in June 1941 for many Ukrainians, they saw the Germans as liberators. They saw what the Germans did to Russians and wanted to help them crush Russia for what Russia had done to them for generations. This is why, even to this day, there are some Ukrainians who view the Nazis differently than we do in the west. It’s because from their perspective, the Soviets were far worse and the Nazis at least tried to rid the world of the scourge of communism and all the atrocities it brings.

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It’s because from their perspective, the Soviets were far worse and the Nazis at least tried to rid the world of the scourge of communism and all the atrocities it brings.

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Sounds like Patton.

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Is “security by depth” a nice way of saying conquering your neighbors?

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It is when it applies to the Russians.

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The whole Ukrainian “Nazis” thing is difficult for most Westerners to comprehend. This is because from the Western perspective Nazis were purely evil and bad and did nothing good. However, from the Ukrainian perspective, things are not quite as simple.

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Thus, when the Germans invaded in June 1941 for many Ukrainians, they saw the Germans as liberators.

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There's definitely some of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" going on.

I personally have a friend whose Facebook pic was of abolitionist John Brown, who attacked US troops at Harper's Ferry. At the same time, he had a Confederate-flag wallet.

How could my friend admire both the violent abolitionist John Brown and the pro-slavery Confederacy? Easy. They both fought against the US federal government, which he hates.

In other words, symbols mean different things to different people. I'm a teacher. A few years ago, I had a little girl who had just moved here from India decorate some of her school materials with a big swastika. Of course, in India, the swastika has been a "good" symbol for many centuries. She had to learn that it didn't have the same meaning here.

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Not a lot of war updates on twitter this morning

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Now I know why this place is a echo chamber. Do you also get your war updates from Reddit?