Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Young Neo-Nazi's and supremacists are attracted to war, they like guns, they like to fight. People like this join militaries all over the world in numbers out of proportion to their numbers in civilian life. Although most in the Azov battalion were Russian speaking Ukrainians many of them were from outside of Ukraine, these people were willing to fight for Ukraine so their group was accepted originally while Poroshenko was president.
I can't verify this but the number of neo-Nazi's as a percentage of Azov battalion members had reportedly been gradually declining for some time, especially after Zelenskyy was elected.
I am told there are neo-Nazi's in the Wagner Grp too. Is this not so? The same phenomenon, really.
I am pretty sure that if you could take one Wagner Grp mercenary (before they brought in the Syrians), and one Azov battalion soldier (before Zelenskyy was elected) and strip them down to the waste the number and kind of tattoos would probably be similar.
This is not a reflection on the two governments or the people at large, it reflects some of the kind of people who are attracted to war.
Anyway, I am not sure that their presence didn't help save Ukraine at it's most vulnerable point during Russia's incursions. The country was desperate and comparatively weak at the time, and it's hard to say no to someone willing to risk his life on one's behalf. Ukrainian people should be, and probably are grateful for their service.
Ukraine itself is demonstrably NOT a Nazi state. They do not espouse the principles and do not act like Nazis. They don't have Charlottesville-like demonstrations nor book burnings nor anti-semitic pogroms. The typical Ukrainian people are, just like Russian people, ordinary folks trying to make a decent living and get on with their lives.
I think the real difference is that Azov Battalion started off as a neo-nazi battalion, that was formerly incorporated into the Ukrainian military. This is not comparable to a few men with Neo-Nazi sympathies joining in secret.
The Azov Battalion even hosted people from the Unite the Right even in Charlottesville in 2017 Kiev. Their headquarters has a stylized swastika put into a heavy oak door right in center Kiev. They will be cleaning all this up as it's kind of an embarrassment for the West now. But no matter.
TBH, I think a lot of it is a no biggie. I don't believe Putin invaded because of a bunch of soccer hooligans. He's smarter than that, he's just using our language to justify a war. As ridiculous as it sounds that Putin invaded Ukraine over some Neo-Nazis, it's equally as ridiculous our excuses. It's all geopolitics!
But since you're a supporter of Ukraine, and probably hate Neo-Nazis, I do find the cognitive dissonance delicious!
Well then Russia should just leave Ukraine. And it will not be a problem.
If we stopped funding Ukraine, the war would go on much longer, perhaps for a generation.
Does Ukraine have the moral authority to rule over Donbas anymore? They shelled them for 8 years, and committed atrocities against them.
That's the same argument we used to get Serbs out of Kosovo. When Albanians tried to secede [like Donbas Ukrainians], the Serbs shelled them hard, and committed small-scale atrocities. We used this pretext, that and fear mongering there could be a bigger genocide if we didn't intervene, to push Serbs out of what was their borders.
But since you're a supporter of Ukraine, and probably hate Neo-Nazis, I do find the cognitive dissonance delicious!
I find this comment odd.
There are neo-Nazi's in the US armed forces, the Canadian armed forces, the Swedish armed forces, the French armed forces and the Russian armed forces. They are, in small numbers ... literally everywhere in the western world.
I don't like their philosophy or whatever you would call it, but it doesn't make me feel any different about my government.
Does Ukraine have the moral authority to rule over Donbas anymore? They shelled them for 8 years, and committed atrocities against them.
That's the same argument we used to get Serbs out of Kosovo. When Albanians tried to secede [like Donbas Ukrainians], the Serbs shelled them hard, and committed small-scale atrocities. We used this pretext, that and fear mongering there could be a bigger genocide if we didn't intervene, to push Serbs out of what was their borders.
I don't agree with our policy on Kosovo or on Bosnia and it was the opposite of our policy now. We should not have bombed Serbia and should not have recognized Kosovo. President Clinton allowed the paranoid Russians to find a reason to be paranoid.
As for the Donbas, Russia created, funded and armed proxy armies. The Ukrainians had nearly defeated them, so the Russians sent regular troops in to drive the Ukrainians back to the 2014 cease fire line. Ukraine was fighting an invading foreign army. There were no foreign troops in Kosovo.
There are neo-Nazi's in the US armed forces, the Canadian armed forces, the Swedish armed forces, the French armed forces and the Russian armed forces. They are, in small numbers ... literally everywhere in the western world.
I don't like their philosophy or whatever you would call it, but it doesn't make me feel any different about my government.
It's not like you have a few Ukrainian troops who subscribe to Neo-Nazism in secret. They're open about it, and well tolerated.
If you noticed, since yesterday, I mentioned that a major reason the special military operation was launched was the insistence by people both in the west and in the Ukraine that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO, and that to counteract this, Russia wrote and delivered draft treaties to the west which were quite reasonable and which included a requirement that Ukraine not join NATO.
I've been asked where these treaties are, when they have been known to many (including people who write on publications and who disagreed with them) since late last year. Today, I wrote that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation still has them (in English).
Likewise, some posters insist Ukraine "can do whatever it wants" and that means Russia has no business opposing Ukraine joining NATO; these posters, however, think too simplistically. Every nation-state has geostrategic interests, and Russia is no exception.
China opposed the U.S. overthrowing and in the process, destroying the North Korean regime in 1950 and it sent troops. China did not want a unified Korean peninsula allied to the U.S. as this (to the Chinese) would have meant U.S. bases in northern Korea facing Manchuria. The U.S. did not yet have nuclear-tipped missiles (this technology would arise later), but given how technologically backward China's military was then, the U.S. would not have needed ICBMs; long-range bombers, such as Enola Gay, would have sufficed to drop nukes on Chinese territory. The idea that the U.S. could have sent planes to drop nukes on Beijing or other major Chinese cities from a base as close to the Yalu River as the U.S. would have had in northern Korea had the U.S. and South Korea won the Korean War and unified the peninsula was too much for the Chinese. It is not for nothing that to this day, China opposes a U.S/South Korean effort to overthrow North Korea's admittedly inhumane and cruel regime. China didn't want U.S. bases in northern Korea in 1950 and 72 years later, that has not changed.
The U.S. was not happy with nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba, and if the Russians (or Chinese) were to station tanks, artillery, aircraft, and yes, nuclear-tipped missiles in Canadian territory with Vermont, Maine, northern NY, Oregon, Washingon within range; or in Mexico, with Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, Orlando, and Atlanta all within reach.... these posters would not like it.
Why would Russia tolerate a NATO presence in Ukraine, all the more given the French under Napoleon and then Germany under Hitler marched through the Ukrainian flatlands en route to Russia? This scarred the Russian nation.
Posters who think it's a simple matter of "let Ukraine do whatever it wants, Russia should mind its own business" need to study history.
You’re so right. We just don’t have a very well read general public. Too dumbed down with propaganda, and too lazy to educate themselves. The Facebook, Instagram and Tic Toc crowd, of internet influencers who themselves can’t find their own butts in broad daylight, with both hands and a tour guide.
I’m an American Patriot, and our America has been hijacked by globalists having no loyalty whatsoever to America. They are international gangsters who are implementing policies destructive of this country from the inside. This didn’t happen overnight, but has been slowly established over the past several decades, as it turns out.
The Ukraine-Russia conflict is just one skirmish in an all out war against humanity at large, that has multiple fronts, from biological attack on health, to the disruption of supply chains to,the artificial creation of the coming food shortages, to economic collapse.
A microcosm of this attack can be seen in what is occurring to our military, from the push for woke policy, forced injection of bioweapons to destroy health, and the depletion of military armaments and ammunition being stripped away and sent to Ukraine.
Military intelligence experts suggest that we are no longer equipped to conduct any type of protracted combat operation, should the need arise, as we’d simply run out of ammunition. The state of our defense is at an all time low.
The conditions we now find ourselves couldn’t have been accomplished more effectively were the Chinese Communist Party directly running the White House and Pentagon.
Young Neo-Nazi's and supremacists are attracted to war, they like guns, they like to fight. People like this join militaries all over the world in numbers out of proportion to their numbers in civilian life. Although most in the Azov battalion were Russian speaking Ukrainians many of them were from outside of Ukraine, these people were willing to fight for Ukraine so their group was accepted originally while Poroshenko was president.
I can't verify this but the number of neo-Nazi's as a percentage of Azov battalion members had reportedly been gradually declining for some time, especially after Zelenskyy was elected.
I am told there are neo-Nazi's in the Wagner Grp too. Is this not so? The same phenomenon, really.
I am pretty sure that if you could take one Wagner Grp mercenary (before they brought in the Syrians), and one Azov battalion soldier (before Zelenskyy was elected) and strip them down to the waste the number and kind of tattoos would probably be similar.
This is not a reflection on the two governments or the people at large, it reflects some of the kind of people who are attracted to war.
Anyway, I am not sure that their presence didn't help save Ukraine at it's most vulnerable point during Russia's incursions. The country was desperate and comparatively weak at the time, and it's hard to say no to someone willing to risk his life on one's behalf. Ukrainian people should be, and probably are grateful for their service.
Ukraine itself is demonstrably NOT a Nazi state. They do not espouse the principles and do not act like Nazis. They don't have Charlottesville-like demonstrations nor book burnings nor anti-semitic pogroms. The typical Ukrainian people are, just like Russian people, ordinary folks trying to make a decent living and get on with their lives.
Quickly:
Following Maidan, the new rulers of Ukraine began to issue proclamations with very aggressive language warning against the open usage of the Russian language and the practice of Russian cultural customs. This was something in direct violation of the Ukrainian constitution.
Whatever you are told or are not told needs to be measured against known facts. These fighters whose fascination with Nazi symbols which you explain away as "neo-nazis being attracted to war" is no excuse and no justification. I've written repeatedly on C-D since late February that these groups openly display the swastika and have been photographed performing the Nazi salute.
It is these people who have been behind the shelling of the Donbass Russians since 2014. Putin asked Ukraine to make this stop, and his request was refused.
Finally, as for Ukraine being a "Nazi state" - that's not an allegation anybody has made here at least as far as I recall. The problem from the perspective of posters whose views are parallel to mine is the racism and bigotry, mixed with military weaponry, that Ukrainian fighters have displayed against civilians.
And just for you to know: in mid-December, there was a vote at the UN. The UN General Assembly had adopted a resolution condemning Nazism, neo-Nazism and all forms of racism.
Even countries with deplorable human rights records such as North Korea voted in favor.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
