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May 1, 2022
Ukraine Open Thread 2022-58
Comments
Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 2 2022 14:04 utc | 305
RE Compositing: The videos are obviously fake, little short takes of acting with a projected background they have to be just the right distance from. They were already doing that on TV in the 60s. I don’t care a fig about compositing, but I appreciate you taking the time to explain. Removes all doubt they know what they are doing, they know it is all for show.
Posted by: Bemildred | May 2 2022 14:12 utc | 301
@ Bemildred | May 2 2022 14:12 utc | 306
You’re much too appreciative of my fumbling around, imho. I’ve led a long life of jacking many trades, so I can say “I used to do this for a living” about everything from Java engineering to cleaning latrines. I’m expert that way! But here’s the lesson for me: whenever I find myself invoking my own authority about something, I’m probably only making myself ridiculous and wasting everyone’s time.
I’m still a little thunderstruck, as a former imaging pro, that NP can hold her face so steadily in that rictus of hers. Apparently she’s a natural marvel of zombiedom. The presence or absence of more sophisticated manipulations will probably remain opaque to us.
Once again, I’d like to emphasize: What about May 9th? Does it seem to anyone else that Russia shrugs off a sequence of escalating provocations?
Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 2 2022 14:39 utc | 302
Now that the Azovstal civilian hostages are in process of being released I am seeing (all?) Western media trying to spin this as a victory for Zelensky somehow.
The Russian role in opening up the corridor is being erased from the media narrative, and in some cases spun as negatively as possible (no surprise there).
Is there, somewhere, a detailed timeline of the Russian attempts to negotiate the surrender of those in the Azovstal bunker, refusals by Zelensky along with evidence that the Zelensky government adopted a policy of “resist until death” for the fighters in the bunker?
My memory tells me:
1. It was Putin who took the decision not to storm the bunker but to wait it out.
2. The Russians have offered a humanitarian corridor at least twice, both refused by the Zelensky regime’ (?)
3. The Russians have clearly stated that combatants will be given chance to surrender, with guaranteed life.
4. The humanitarian corridor was arranged solely between the UN and the Russians (?) … Not sure about the Zelensky regime’ role in it.
5. Intercepted communications between the Azovstal combatants and Zelensky indicate Zelensky refusing to allow the combatants to surrender.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 2 2022 14:48 utc | 303
Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 2 2022 14:39 utc | 307
I appreciate your post. I’ve been a Jack-of-all-trades too, I can relate to what you say. I have a lot of opinions about things based on my own experience, but little inclination to make anybody else agree.
I think Ms Pelosi has had some work done, which explains the un-natural expression.
I doubt Russia pays much attention to what they are supposed to do. I was watching a little TV this morning with my wife, such obvious bullshitters, leading softball questions and hem and haw made up, vague answers.
Posted by: Bemildred | May 2 2022 14:57 utc | 304
“[Postil’s Jaques Baud interiew] is pure ignorance dressed up as ‘informed analysis’.”
“‘…we can only guess what Vladimir Putin wants.'”
“Comrade Baud might find it informative to read the Russian MOD statements, the treaties proposed by Putin in December 2021 only six months ago that is … He is a failure because of his willing blindness.”
“Jacques Baud is a fool and the postil is a participant in the great Wurlitzer of lies. I guess they get a payment from Integrity Initiative for this trash.”
Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 1 2022 22:48 utc | 168
___
Ha!! Don’t sugar-coat it; tell us what you really think.
I jumped first to the link before reading your post, assuming (incorrectly) that you endorsed the interview. I was quite disappointed and only then returned to your commentary.
Quite enlightening. You clarified my mostly vague disappointment with the interview in a way I could not, as do a number of other high-value analysts here. I think MoA is evolving into a mastermind phenomenon, a synergy of collective consciousness. Thanks, Uncle T.
Posted by: Doug Hillman | May 2 2022 15:09 utc | 305
“I don’t think Baud can be totally condemned for being someone inside NATO and the West paradigm and therefore not comprehending the full extent of the situation. The fact that he’s criticizing the West’s approach to Russia and Ukraine at all is a miracle.”
Richard Steven Hack | May 1 2022 23:23 utc | 179
____
Thank you, RSH, for a valuable perspective on being slow to judge, especially absent context.
Posted by: Doug Hillman | May 2 2022 15:24 utc | 306
Norwegian | May 2 2022 10:19 utc | 295
i pointed out the backdrop and building in kiev in my link @ james | May 2 2022 2:19 utc | 223
check it out!
Posted by: james | May 2 2022 15:42 utc | 307
RT Documentary has released a new short documentary on Ukrainian Nazism: Fast Forward to Fascism (28 min). It’s a rehash of what people here already know, but there’s some useful footage in there. If you can’t access RT’s website, you can watch the documentary on RUTUBE, on Odysee or on Rumble.
Posted by: S | May 2 2022 15:48 utc | 308
Chronicles Of The Conflict Telegram channel has published the crime reenactment video of Sergey Bratynskiy, an AFU serviceman who has confessed to raping a Mariupol woman in front of her husband, then killing him—all for the crime of being suspected of sympathizing with Russia:
[video of the crime reenactment]
[The Investigative Committee] of the Russian Federation charged a fighter of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who raped a woman in front of her husband
During the investigation, Sergei Bratynsky fully admitted his guilt. The man explained his criminal act by the fact that the couple was “suspected of sympathizing with the Russian Federation.” During the investigative experiment, he showed how it all happened.
Earlier it was reported that in the vicinity of Mariupol, the Russian military detained a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It turned out that he had raped a woman some time ago in front of her husband. After the husband tried to stop what was happening, the rapist killed him.
…
Posted by: S | May 2 2022 16:08 utc | 309
“Your thoughts please [re Trump].”
Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 2 2022 1:44 utc | 211
___
A good catalog of Trump’s “shortcomings”, in the Ukraine context alone. In the wider context, as Netanyahu’s and Adelson’s bitch, he murdered Soleimani, the pre-meditated murder of a foreign official on a known diplomatic mission. He also reneged on the JCPOA at Israel’s behest; imposed illegal punitive sanctions on Iran; proclaimed a unified Jerusalem to be the capital of Zion; recognized Syria’s Golan Heights as part of ersatz Eretz Isarael; embraced Saudi Arabia unconditionally in its war on Yemen; and continued Israel-first Neocon policy everywhere else. His real slogan was MIGA not MAGA.
Posted by: Doug Hillman | May 2 2022 16:25 utc | 310
Posted by: Norwegian | May 2 2022 6:01 utc | 268
On closer inspection I agree with the teeth position comments. What a zombie stone face!”
Those are dentures through which so many Lies of the Empire have been uttered that they look as crooked and artificial as the person uttering them!
Posted by: Scorpion | May 2 2022 16:33 utc | 311
War crimes of the armed forces and security forces of Ukraine: torture and inhumane treatment — Second report (PDF, 1.5 MB) (The Foundation for the Study of Democracy, 2015, 71 pages)
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M. S. Grigoryev, D. V. Sablin. Ukrainian War Crimes and Human Rights Violations (2017–2020) (PDF, 43 MB) (The Foundation for the Study of Democracy, 2021, 426 pages with photographs)
FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
THE UKRAINIAN REPRESSIVE STATE AND ITS “DEATHSQUADS” 11 Murder of opposition journalist Oles Buzina . . . 20 Odessa Khatyn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Azov Death Squad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 The Right Sector Death Squad . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Tornado Battalion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 The absolute power of the security services and the repressive judicial system in Ukraine . . . . 115
RUSSOPHOBIA, THE GLORIFICATION OF NAZISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM IN MODERN UKRAINE . . . . . . . . . . 167 Glorification of Nazism and its accomplices . . . 179 Memories and dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Persecution of the Russian language . . . . . . . 196 Persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church . . . 215 Ukrainian anti-Semitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
ATTACKS ON FREE SPEECH AND PERSECUTION OF JOURNALISTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Murders and assaults on journalists . . . . . . . 265 Attacks on editorial offices and media outlets . . 281 Censorship and restrictions on the media . . . . . 285 Arrests and imprisonment of journalists . . . . . 304 Arrest and Imprisonment of Kirill Vyshinsky . . . 305 The Arrest and Detention of Vasily Muravitsky . . 308 Ruslan Kotsaba’s Arrest and Detention . . . . . . 313 Arrest and imprisonment of Aleksandr Bondarchuk . 315 Arrest and Imprisonment of Anatoly Mayevsky . . . 316 Arrest and imprisonment of Pavel Volkov . . . . . 317 Arrest and Imprisonment of Dmitry Vasilets . . . . 322 Criminal case and prosecution of Vladimir Skachko 333 Pursuit of Miroslava Berdnik . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Criminal case and prosecution of Igor Guzhva . . . 336 Persecution of Dmitry Gubin . . . . . . . . . . . 340
WAR CRIMES IN UKRAINE: SHELLING OF CIVILIAN OBJECTS AND CITIZENS IN DONBASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Posted by: S | May 2 2022 17:14 utc | 312
A Twitter thread by Michael Kobs explaining how the Nazi salute paired with the “Slava Ukraini! Heroyam slava!” exclamation was adopted as OUN-B greeting in 1941:
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1520447504948645888
Send this to your clueless friends who keep mindlessly chanting “Slava Ukraini! Heroyam slava!”
Posted by: S | May 2 2022 17:46 utc | 313
Posted some time by La Bastille
Ps: in France too, only “nationalists” or “souverainistes” share this sane mind.
Ps: on Covid too, AfD is (unfortunately?) to listen. Not so duped, not so long…Well, not really, no… As much as I find annoying and even dubious the fact that far-right supports the Russian intervention that partly aims for the destruction of… Ukrainian far-right, saying that they are the only ones having this sane mind is false or at least a simplistic analysis. These people, like many, are weather vanes : they go where the wind takes them.
Even if I am personally aware of the reasons that pushed Putin to intervene in Ukraine (most of the people here in France ignore these reasons or chose to ignore them), I don’t project my own points of view about anything onto a politician, wether it’s the war in Ukraine or covid. I don’t know if this phrasing makes sense in English… Anyway, I don’t expect a politician to have the exact same idea as me on every subject.
Mélenchon, for instance, whom the MSM hold in the same esteem as Corbyn in UK (he was once accused of antisemitism too and any of his media appearance come down at best to walk on a tightrope the journalists shake to make him fall) has the same reasonable position even long before Russia stepped in Ukraine : non-alignment and exiting NATO. To be non-aligned means being free from any influence. Leaving NATO also. But Putin decided to jump on Ukraine a few days prior to the presidential elections in France and as we all know it now, for the MSM, nuance doesn’t exist because it doesn’t pay much. So either you are pro-Putin or anti-Putin, there’s no middle ground and even less looking back on history… too boring…
Mélenchon is famous in France about his unconditional support for the revolutions in South America. He took side for Cuba and Venezuela, at his own expense during the 2017 campaign. The hitch is that when you so strongly defend revolution, you tend to have a pavlovian reaction to any revolution, that’s why he misinterpreted Hongkong for example, since he’s not a specialist of Asia, as much as he is about South America. As for Ukraine, two things are important to analyse his position : the timing was bad and he defines himself as a pacifist (which some may find contradictory knowing he praises revolutions). As a pacifist, he condemned Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine but the timing put cohorts of journalists in front of him asking him to more clearly take side… Facing the risk of lowering his popularity rate just before the election (yep, war is still unpopular), he had to take a much tougher position by approving sanctions he knew would backfire in the end… But even so, until the end he was considered by the medias and by his fierce opponents from “what’s left from the left” as pro-Putin… Tell me about Pavlov…
Posted by: xiao pignouf | May 2 2022 17:56 utc | 314
Ruble now at 1 year high against the US dollar, which is very strong given that the US dollar is strong on the back of rising US interest rates. US 10-year bond trading at just under a 3% yield (was 0.5% in mid 2020). If it breaks 3% it could easily go up to 4% given the chart, which would be a disaster for US real estate and stocks. Interesting times ….
Ruble is trading back at 2018 levels versus the Euro. Maybe the exchange markets are discounting the utter economic disaster that Europe will become given the sanctions policies.
PayPal has suspended Consortium New’s account and is holding their funds while issuing veiled threats to confiscate the ~$9K USD in their account.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/05/01/paypal-cancels-cn-account-may-seize-balance/
Hmmm…I wonder why they might have done that. This narrative control has become RIDICULOUS and I fear that we’ve finally crossed the rubicon never to return.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | May 2 2022 19:48 utc | 316
#—-Posted by: Debsisdead | May 2 2022 5:57 utc | 266
Have you read Aldous Huxley’s “Brave, New World”? Where sex is everywhere, but mother is a dirty word?
Where you don’t age until you reach 60, and then you just disappear?
Huxley’s brother was Julian Huxley, the first director of UNESCO- he was also president of the British Eugenics Society.
Their grand-father used to be nick-named “Darwins’s bulldog”.
Aldous only described what they were conjuring around the dinner-table.
Posted by: Anne B | May 2 2022 23:04 utc | 317
Richard Steven Hack@275
Thanks for all your despatches. You are one of the most reliable providers of information most of us have access to.
Regarding the harvest in Russia and Ukraine this summer. It is hard to dismiss the idea that the biolabs in Ukraine were not prepared to decimate the food supply. Whether Russia’s advances and examination of the labs will be enough to prevent an attack by NATO’s Unit 731 remains to be seen.
Posted by: bevin | May 3 2022 1:43 utc | 318
Posted by: Circe | May 1 2022 19:52 utc | 108
Thanks for sharing that. Celebrate her memory, and all that she meant to you.
T’was between 11pm and midnight, 23/12/20 for my mum…
It’s a profound loss, but my memory of her still teaches me a thing or two.
Posted by: Jon_in_AU | May 3 2022 9:56 utc | 319
A real man would refuse to enter the slaughterhouse, even though that meant getting killed by the Nazis.
William Gruff | May 1 2022 15:39 utc
Interesting, but go first while I think about it.
Posted by: Leuk | May 3 2022 16:44 utc | 320