A Ukrainian soldier named Serhiy, returning from Russian captivity, has reportedly been found mutilated with swastikas carved into his forehead, as disclosed by Dr. Olexandr Turkevich, who is treating him.
The soldier, blindfolded during the ordeal, claimed Russian soldiers threatened to dismember him, citing accusations of fascism.
Russians truly are the bad guys on this planet.
I just want to draw an important distinction between the Russian government, military leadership, & voluntary/willing soldiery and the average Russian citizen. It would be wrong to call the latter “the bad guys”, but not the former.
Thank you.
Russian here, protested against the war and find it terrifying, not buying official narratives of nazis and NATO threat for a second.
Still remember the 24th of February, 2022. Before the date, we were all like “naive Westerners, Russia will not openly attack Ukraine, that’s so obviously stupid on so many levels, it’s a brotherly nation going through turbulent times, that’s it”. No one could in their sane mind even comprehend something like this. It was unthinkable. No one wanted that aside from a few select extremists, and most people never supported it later on - though propaganda machine did make some progress on the weakest of minds.
And then we wake up that day, on 24th of February, and have a collective “HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK PUTIN WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT OH WE’RE ALL SO SCREWED”. It was a very grim day, and everyone had worries of their own: some, like me, had friends and family in Ukraine, some were afraid of their men being drafted (which did eventually happen in September 2022), others were just terrified of the scale of human suffering it will entail.
Since then, we learned never to trust anything and question everything we believe in. It was a cultural shock like Russia has never seen.
Same day, 24th of February, streets sparked in violent protests, police got extremely brutal - to this day, almost 2 years into the war, police has constant 24/7 presence in the places that were the main anti-war protest venues of my city. It lasted for months, despite police never stopping and detaining extreme numbers of people: courts are still overburdened processing all of them. All until everyone who had integrity and bravery and nothing to lose got in jail.
Putin should pay for all the atrocities he has committed, and that’s something very many Russians will subscribe to.
Wow thanks for sharing this. Mind if I ask, from your personal perspective/experience, how is the situation now? Did the propaganda work at brainwashing people over the past years?
I’d say at first it did work on a lot of people from TV generation, forming a picture of Ukrainian soldiers as Nazis driven by drugged President who is a puppet of american dementia man, and of Russian soldiers liberating people from insanity.
At its peak, even some of the generally anti-war individuals fell into uncertainty.
But the longer it drags, the less effective propaganda is. War exhausted country’s resources and killed its men, and this becomes clear even to past die-hard supporters of the war. Also, the dissolution of Wagner group made Wagner fans (which constituted a large percentage of pro-war individuals) more bitter towards the military effort.
So in general, the sentiment goes more and more towards “why are we waging this war in the first place” and “how much longer do we have to suffer”
Oh wow, I wonder whether something happened before Feb 24th that might have caught your attention? Any idea? I certainly remember there was something…
You mean Crimea? While it was a hostile act indeed, it was different. Might be less visible from the outside, again.
Lemme try to explain the difference. Again, no justification, I don’t have a strong stance on Crimea, just how it looks from inside Russia (and Crimea - having lots of relatives and friends from there and been there pre- and post-annexation).
The annexation of Crimea was relatively peaceful (while some Russian soldiers came to the peninsula, it wasn’t a full-scale invasion, no bullet was shot and no bullet was meant to be shot) and went in accordance to the interest of locals, who wholeheartedly overwhelmingly approved the change - and I’m not just sourcing this from Kremlin propaganda and referendum results, I’ve been on the ground and have many contacts in there. The sentiment has somewhat changed over time, but is still moderately pro-Russia. Crimea is also primarily inhabited by ethnic Russians - 67,9% Russians with only 15,7% Ukrainians by the time of annexation in 2014 - which might help to explain such a fierce support (source: Wikipedia). Putin has also taken action against growing conflict between Russians and Crimean Tatars, which, while being heavily controversial, got him even more support from the Russian population majority.
The 2022 invasion was meant from the start as a full-scale war, and was meant to meet resistance and be hostile to the civilian population. Unlike annexation of Crimea, which was more of a political recoloring than anything, this time it was an actual war, with blood, bullets, and flame, and with Russian tanks riding through Ukrainian protesters that wished those tanks to go away. And this is the kind of scenario Russians could not envision. In Russian mentality, Ukrainians, just like Belorussians, are brotherly folks, and going for the kill means betraying the almost sacred bond the nations have. This shows in Russian politics, with leaders constantly trying to tell population it is not a war against brotherly Ukrainians, but rather against Nazis and their leader Zelensky (yep, the guy with Jewish bloodline). But it is bullshit that the majority can still see through, and when the war started, it was a giant shock and, like, something that absolutely, under any circumstances, shouldn’t have happened.
This, exactly, has blinded Russians, myself included, into trusting Kremlin with their “combat exercise” rhetoric. Not that we had (and have) big trust in our government, but going to a real bloody war with Ukraine was too unthinkable to ever seriously consider.
Also, please avoid rhetorical questions in favor of direct ones. I do answer this one because it might be useful for the general context, but it is rude and also ineffective in case you actually want to hear an answer.
I’m not Russian so I have a limited perspective of this, but I remember people pointing out good indicators that the invasion was really going to happen during the weeks leading up to it, like how the Russian military was setting up field hospitals along the border. Obviously, hindsight makes reflecting on this difficult, and I’m not sure what information was available to Russian citizens at that time.
Explained this in my answer; long story short, the very idea of such invasion was super unthinkable to an average Russian, and, while we’ve seen news from Western media, we discarded them as sensationalist and lacking understanding of the real situation.
But, as we soon figured out, Putin has no issue crossing any red line.
Humanity is the bad guy.
Nah, still Russians.
Are Russians the only ones responsible for the thousands of species humanity has driven to extinction? The climate collapse?
Yes. All ruzzia
Yes
Keep in mind, the IDF has killed more civilians in 2 months than Russia has killed in 2 years.
Not a fair comparison. The Ukrainian military is actively moving civilians out of combat areas and not choosing to wage guerilla war from densely populated urban centers.
This exactly. One can absolutely debate the methods of IDF, but literally no one could wage war in Gaza with few civilian casualties. Gaza is almost one huge city while Ukraine have massive rural areas around every city. Had Russia waged war in Gaza, they’d have killed at least as many civilians, and in my opinion probably a lot more as well.
Maybe don’t wage war in Gaza then? It is not truly needed, there are ways to combat terrorism without leveling a city. And let’s not forget Netanyahu funded Hamas because they benefit of the war.
This is not the point. The point is that comparing civilian casualties between a war in Gaza and a war in Ukraine is an apples and pears comparison.
You know, apples and pears are both very closely related fruits that serve very similar culinary functions. Comparing the two is a perfectly valid thing to do.
So you think Israel is justified in killing more civilians in 2 months than Russia has killed in 2 years?
This thread is about Russia. I was not the one bringing Israel up.
But no, I don’t think that is a good thing. But it has nothing to do with Israel being “more evil” than Russia. Russia cares zero about civilians and would have killed at least as many had Ukraine been a mostly urban warzone with Russian air superiority. But Ukraine isn’t, so therefore less civilian deaths.
Out of curiosity, what would have been your recommended response to the 7 October attack? I’m not saying Israel is handling this the right way whatsoever, but I see a lot of people make statements like yours without any specifics.
Leave Israel. They’re surrounded by enemies and the only way there will be peace is if one side genocides the other.
They never should have been there. They are only there because of the religious nationalist movement known as Zionism.
Nobody is entitled to live anywhere because of their religion.
The world would be a better, more peaceful place if Israelis just relocated to the USA.
So why not move Palestinians if migration is your solution to this problem? Both, Jews and Arabs, have lived in this area for thousands of years.
It’s not about having few civilian casualties, it’s about having fewER casualties. Gaza is extremely densely populated and civilian casualties are pretty much unavoidable, but it doesn’t mean you have to level entire city blocks or bomb the exact places you tell civilians to go. There’s plenty Isreal could do to reduce casualties, they simply won’t.
Again, one can absolutely discuss the methods of the IDF. The point here is simply that you can’t compare Gaza with Ukraine when it comes to civilian casualties.
You can’t compare the actual numbers but you can compare the actions sides take to prevent casualties. Your comment came across as “there’s nothing IDF could do to reduce casualties” when the reality is that they could and they just don’t.
“Came across”? Right. Then I could say bringing up an unrelated conflict, no matter how terrible, in a discussion about what Russia does comes across as a putinist move.
You absolutely can and I will.
Try to say the numbers don’t matter is just willful ignorance.
Do you think Israel is justified in killing more civilians in 2 months than Russia has killed in 2 years?
You’re right. Israel is justified in killing more civilians than Russia.
My bad.
We’re doing whataboutism? In that case, keep in mind that Stalin killed more people than Israel ever did.
I’m pretty sure most people who have a problem with Stalin have a problem with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The problem is that there are people who think Russians are subhuman invaders while Israelis are heroic defenders.
And Dschingis Khan killed so many more people. How does one genocide exonerate another?
They don’t. People should be as critical of Israel as they are of Russia, if not moreso.
Any Zionist is now also openly supporting genocide. That very much makes them the bad guys. The fact you’re being downvoted demonstrates too many people are too fucking stupid to even apply their own morals, because I KNOW they’d all bitch to no end if the “wrong” civilians were killed.
Also it’s a dumb point to push. One terrible regime being bad doesn’t say ANYTHING about a different regime.
It points at American hypocrisy, but you’d have to introduce that topic, not just slam it on the table and declare victory.
They couldn’t even draw it correctly, this is a religious symbol, if you angle it so it looks like an X in the middle, then you have the Nazis swastika.
Reminds me of this classic meme
Heill Hortler
That bottom center one will always be my favorite.
They’re all special in their own way. Each one of god’s little miracles.
I couldn’t have even guessed that they were trying to draw a swastika with that one.
The Nazis didn’t fucking care, this is just the dumb shit Nazis say online to gaslight you about other Nazis doing Nazi things.
Is there an actual history of this sort of thing or is it only from Inglorious Basterds?
That movie makes it feel like a timeless tradition, doesn’t it?
I’ve never seen it anywhere but in that movie (not a historian fwiw). So I’m fairly confident that it’s just the Russians being their usual asshole selves.
Good way to identify them after the war.
Identify who? Ukranian POWs?
Yeah whatever they get exchanged or anything they are well marked for future reference of war crimes.
You mean the Ukranians are committing warcrimes?
How old are you? 5yo? are you learning how to read or WTF? It’s pretty clear what I’m saying WO the need to repeat it.
Well you are but you aren’t. You seem to be implying it and I was wondering if you had the guts to actually write it out. I guess not.
You are defending or sympathyzing with carving swastikas into people, that kind of shows what kind of a person you are.
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And pivot.
You understand you are still to coward to say what you mean, and you are now pointing towards a fringe militia group that when they ran for political power got 0 seats in Parlaiment in order to justify Russians carving swastikas into people.
Every country has extrimist groups diametrically opposed to the side you want to be on. So pointing at one of those to excuse whatever inhumane thing you want to find acceptable just again emphasises the type of person you are. You madam are a troll, I bid you farewell.
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When you are the victim, you rarely get to carve swastikas on the offenders foreheads.
