> Details:The National Resistance Center has reported that the Russians are using the pretext of removing "Nazi literature" to explain their actions, while the list of such literature includes all books in Ukrainian. In doing so, the occupiers are repeating the practice typical of Nazi Germany.
Ah, that's the justification. I've never understood the official Russian "denazification" position; it should be clear to them no one now or ever is going to take it seriously, why continue with this absurd pretense?
That said, in this case it's more barbed than the article suggests. As part of denazification, the Allies did destroy books. To suggest book destruction is what typifies Nazis is absurd unless we also call the Allies Nazis.
> As a consequence a list was drawn up of over 30,000 book titles, ranging from school textbooks to poetry, which were then banned. All copies of books on the list were confiscated and destroyed; the possession of a book on the list was made a punishable offense. All the millions of copies of these books were to be confiscated and destroyed.
That said, Aztec culture was full of horrors we can now no longer even imagine, paling even before the Nazis. To the extent the destruction of codices was deliberate, much of what went on would have seemed to be a relatively necessary de-Aztecification.
Well, so far it is not even a conspiracy, as you said nothing except saying you cannot say it.
Things very seldom get deleted here btw. but yes they do get flagged (and hidden for most users unless they choose to see it, like me) if many think you are not contributing.
So your post is already flagged, you are now free to say it, if you have anything to say about the matter.
Effectively banning Russian language (they cannot, but they do try), tacit license to use violence against people who see themselves as Russians (massacre of Odessa, other cases), the ukranian nationalism which is a direct continuation of that of nazi collaborationists and jew murderers (yes, I know that Zelensky is a jew; so am I). Encouraging killing russians (all russians) on their telegram channels.
I could compose here a text with examples etc, but I don't see the point of doing this. I think this post will soon be deleted ("flagged"), the account shadow banned or whatever, and so I would simply waste my time.
So you are saying the reason for russia to destroy everthing ukraine, is the ukraine trying to destroy everything russian in ukraine, after russia invaded in 2014?
Maybe you got cause and effect mixed up here?
In either way, I condemn both attempts at attacking different cultures. Still, ukraine did not declare there is basically no russia. And the did not invade russia to exterminate. But russian officials did it with ukraine. Saying they are all russian. And invaded. And are destroying everything ukraine in Ukraine.
That is the reason Ukraine tolerates their nazis, as they fight against the threat to all of them. But they surely ain't all Nazis.
That is just a weak reason to reestablish a russian empire. And that's the main thing here happening, for some reason Ukraine does not want to be part of your empire anymore and you try to force them.
(After russia confirmed their sovereignty in Budapest 1994)
Sorry, I have work to do (as probably also you), so I will be brief.
"after russia invaded in 2014": Crimea was taken away, this yes, while the uprise in Donbass was, as far as I know, spontaneous, with tacit Russian support; both followed the coup organized by the west in Kiev (there is no doubt about this, it was an unconstitutional coup, and the west did breach an agreement - tacit perhaps, I don't recall - with Russia as Lavrov stated).
"Maybe you got cause and effect mixed up here?" - telegram channels calling to kill all russians did indeed appear after February 2022, or at least I think so.
As for ukranian nationalism, it was encouraged by the west, with end purpose to get NATO to Russia borders. You see, contrary to what americans would like to believe, there is nothing truly exceptional about your democracy. Though there are substantial differences between Athenian democracy and what you call democracy, its way to expand by luring the people governed by oligarchies with "people's government", disrupting existing order, causing chaos, war and misery - at least until it substitutes the existing oligarchies with "people's" oligarchies, is unchanged for at least 2400 years (you can try to read, if you have not read them before, Thucydides and Machiavelli's "History of Florence", preferably older translations where they do not translate "demos" as "democrats", I have seen also this lately).
"That is just a weak reason to reestablish a russian empire. And that's the main thing here happening, for some reason Ukraine does not want to be part of your empire anymore and you try to force them." - in a recent book ("Occidente e il nemico permanente") by Elena Basile, an Italian ex diplomat, she states that all of this would never happen if the west had not turned Ukraine into an anti Russian state (I would cite more, but I don't have a time to look this up). She is not a Russian propagandist, but just a person trying to reason by herself given the sources available, as so many people whose voices get silenced in the west under the pretext of "Russian propaganda", while she calls for mutual tolerance and respect of rights. (And of course there are many other examples besides her.)
"As for ukranian nationalism, it was encouraged by the west, with end purpose to get NATO to Russia borders. You see, contrary to what americans would like to believe, there is nothing truly exceptional about your democracy. "
I am not american. And none of this matters to the argument. But if you want a glimpse of my knowledge about the situation, then I can tell you, that already germany in WW1 did encourage ukrainian nationalism.
I am not a fan of any nationalism.
And I also do know that some russian propaganda channels get supressed like RT in the west, which I am also not a fan of - but no one goes to prison or worse because of spreading lies. In russia people went to prison for calling the war a war. And many who did more, accidently fell out of a window. Or died in prison.
So it is no surprise most of Ukraine clearly wants to remain independent and not become russian. No matter who influenced whom at what time. That always happens. What matters is, what people want here and now. And what treatys they signed and broke.
> while the uprise in Donbass was, as far as I know, spontaneous, with tacit Russian support;
The European Court of Human Rights analyzed this when they were judging a case regarding the shot down airliner, and they found no evidence of any local insurgency. Instead, according to the facts established by the ECHR, the fighting in Donbas and Crimea was between armed forces of Ukraine and forces under the command of Russia.
> followed the coup organized by the west in Kiev
After over 100 protesters were shot and killed under Yanukovych, he fled the country fearing criminal charges, and was removed from office by the parliament with 328-0 votes. No-one even from his own party opposed this. Whatever legal tehnicalities there could've been, they're settled after Ukraine held new elections months later and elected a new president with a full mandate.
> the west did breach an agreement - tacit perhaps, I don't recall - with Russia as Lavrov stated
If you are referring to the sob story about NATO promising never to accept Eastern Europe into NATO, then here's Gorbachev directly calling it a myth: https://twitter.com/Jesuitchild/status/1749887239226617873 Minister of foreign affairs Shevardnadze, minister of defence Yazov and others have also said that it's a fabrication.
> she calls for mutual tolerance and respect of rights.
That is exactly how Sweden and Finland have tried to live next to Russia. Finland's policy even spawned the term finlandization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization But seeing the way Russia has treated Ukraine made it abudantly clear that such policy was untenable and irresponsible, and both countries abandoned neutrality in favor of alliances designed to contain the imperialistic expansionist behavior of Russia. This is an especially large pivot for Sweden, which had been neutral for over 200 years.
Given the current conditions, a good first step towards mutual tolerance and respect of rights would be Russia packing up its things and getting out of Ukraine. And then, perhaps in a hundred years when everyone who remembers how Russians gleefully raped and murdered in Ukraine have died, further steps towards reconciliation can perhaps be made.
But before that, it'd would perhaps be a good idea to ask forgiveness for the past crimes first. Today marks the 75th anniversary of 1949 mass deportations by Russians that saw around 100 000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania deported in entire families, from babies to bed-ridden elderly, into Siberian wilderness because they were "class enemies". On such anniversaries, Russian embassies usually put out releases saying that it didn't happen, or if it did, they deserved it. Can you imagine German embassies acting like this on Holocaust remembrance days?
I think it continues to happen in forms we don't easily recognize
because of our biases. When Google tried to scan every book in
existence, the copyright lobby put a stop to it because of
"intellectual property rights". Nobody's claiming that Sci-hub is
sacreligious, but it's on our cultural gatekeepers' hitlist all the
same. I suspect that future generations will view these events in the
same light as the destruction of the Mayan codices or the library of
Alexandria.
Or maybe people here are not brain-dead and russian propaganda does not fly here. It's not like russians occupied bunch of Ukrainian territory and started burning books there.
You are flattering yourself. The level of US people's acquaintance with anything outside of their country is well known across the world, and I am afraid that the information you get from your media is not as informative as you think.
On my cell phone I have a video of some polish mercenaries (or volunteers) burning Russian church books, laughing and obviously pleased about what they are doing. I will share it with you if you want.
In Kiev, not long ago, a monument to Pushkin was taken down. Bulgakov is practically forbidden. I will stop here.
Have you stopped for a moment to consider why it’s happening? Every single person in former eastern block (including me) is sick of russian propaganda and being ruled by them for last few hundred years. War in Ukraine was a great excuse to get rid of russian sh**.
I will point to the fact that before the collapse of Soviet Union, most Ukranians did not see any difference between them and Russians, and most of them voted for keeping Soviet Union intact in the referendum held on 17.3.1991 (as in most other USSR republics), ignored then by Yeltsin and other people who wanted to get their share of power sponsored by US. The division between Russia and Ukraine, as far as I know, was mostly administrative. In Odessa and Kiev people laughed at ukranian nationalism, which was then confined to L'vov and such places.
As for "hundreds of years", Russia was seen as liberator by the same eastern Europe when it fought against the Turks and nazi Germany, was seen as oppressor in some of Caucasus and in Poland, which in their turn thought it was their right to take the land of barbaric Russians. And in the Baltic states there are sources from the 16th century (Guagnini, an italian at the service of Polish court) which describe the Lithuanian Vitold governing Russians in Vilnius, stating that there seem to be more Russian Orthodox churches in Vilnius than catholic ones (and Guagnini cannot be suspected in sympathy to Russians).
So you see, you simplify history, and you do so, I think, first because you don't read, and then because your own country just changed one empire for another.
Russia fought along Nazis to occupy eastern europe afterwards. It was not a liberator. As for Turks, it was Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth that stopped Turks by Vienna.
As for „most Ukrainians“, western Ukraine was not under Russian control till post WW2. Then there was Holodomor in the East. And there's a difference between ethnic Ukrainians and Ukraine citizens. Which is a tricky situation in Donbas and Crimea especially.
As for Lithuanian Vytautas, we're taking in Ruthenians running from Moscow rule for a loooong time. But modern Muscovy / Russia is not the same as Ruthenians.
I think that a person must try, for himself, adhere to the historical truth. Which many times differs from what is written in wikipedia, especially the English version of it when it speaks of the Russian people (to be fair, also the Russian version is often biased in this regard, with an opposite sign).
"It was not a liberator" - tell it to the people who greeted the Soviet Army with flowers when they entered Vilnius (I know personally of concrete evidence). Tell it to the Jews, who were being murdered by Lithuianian nationalists, Lithuanian communists aside. Tell it to Serbs and Bulgars.
And I do not try to deny any of the the other historical facts: Stalin's repressions to start with. (By the way, what do you think would happen if some of the events which led to Soviet invasion of Chechoslovakia would happen in some european country, with americans taking the role of USSR?)
And Soviet Union was perceived as the liberator from the nazis, and not US, contrary to modern Holywood "tradition". People knew then the facts. And I do not try to depict USSR as something different from what it was.
"As for Lithuanian Vytautas, we're taking in Ruthenians running from Moscow rule for a loooong time"
Who are exactly "we"? The documents of the early Magnus Ducatus Lithuaniae were written in Latin and a Russian language variety ("old Ukranian", of course, of course..). This variety of Russian was its de facto official language.
And then these mysterious "Ruthenians".. Guagnini speaks of Russians in general ("omnibus Ruthenis"), and "gens Moscovitica" are just part of them.
Regarding history in general: what I know personally is the very short period since the 90s. And I know for a fact that Russians were not, at least until 2007, the "aggressors" the west, especially the balts, try to depict them ("forgetting" the elephant in the room, NATO expansion to the east). On the contrary, in Lithuania the aggression came mostly from lithuanians (aggression does not mean necessarily actual physical violence, it can be directed against language, culture, and history), while Russia was actively refusing to defend the rights of the Russian minority (I know this from first hand source).
So, also judging by how this period is being depicted by the west, I make my judgement also about the depiction by the west of other periods of Soviet and Russian history.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/6/7388039/index.a...