On this day in 1945, Auschwitz was liberated. Today, the world marks International #HolocaustRemembranceDay.
We can say “never again” all we want, but only constant effort to defend universal human rights has a chance of making that ambition a reality.
Liberated by the Soviet Union army: it is important to remember this because the peoples belonging to the USSR like the Russians suffered millions of deaths to defeat Nazism while the US and UK very few in comparison.
Because of Hollywood cinema, in mass culture the US is considered the architects of the defeat of Nazism when compared to the USSR they had a marginal role.
Furthermore, the US destroyed German cities with bombings not for military reasons but for terrorism. The USSR didn't.
The US role in ETO WWII was logistics. Other western nations trained and supplied troops as their "thing." Russia provided far more corpses than needed to secure victory, because what's a million peasants, more or less?
And Russia has not learned better. Given federation geography, you would think it would, but logistics requires good stores inventory tracking. Professional standards interfere with corruption. Corruption speaks to trust, or it should.
@graphictruth @humanrightswatch
Don't you feel "provided far more corpses" is disrespectful towards 25 000 000 dead from USSR? 15% of the total population, 4 times the percentage of the dead of all the nations involved.
And as I said, they didn't destroy any cities with carpet bombing like the US and the UK did, carrying out war crimes and terrorism.
Sending poorly armed and equipped infantry against German fortifications and tanks was the trademark of Soviet military command, which contributed to such a massive losses. Civilian losses of Soviet citizens were also massively increased by the very policies of Moscow, for example unwillingness to evacuate Leningrad, not to mention mass executions of civilians in NKVD prisons in 1941 when Soviets were fleeing from Germans. Of course, after war they counted the people *they* killed as their "war time losses".
Were these casualties heroic? Hell yes, on individual level. Were they justified from military point of view? Hell no.
And if you don't believe the WW2 sources, you can watch exactly the same pattern of sending waves of poorly prepared, freshly mobilized infantry being applied by Russian command today in their invasion on Ukraine.
Surely, Russia will in 50 years boast death of these people as the sacrifice of their citizens in this war. Now it's the time to think who sent them to their deaths in the first place.
@graphictruth @humanrightswatch
> sending waves of poorly prepared, freshly mobilized infantry being applied by Russian command today in their invasion on Ukraine
It's the opposite and it couldn't be more obvious.
Zelensky is sending Ukrainians to their deaths at the behest of the US and UK, the Ukrainian army recruits civilians and sends them to the front without training and the Nazis force civilians to go into battle by threatening to kill them as deserters.
If you seriously believe "Zelensky is sending Ukrainians to the front" then you clearly haven't been to #Ukraine and have no clue what is going on there. Ukrainians are defending their country from foreign invasion and I personally know plenty of Ukrainians who lived in Poland and UK and after the war started they returned to their country to defend it. They didn't have to, they wanted to defend their country. Others who live here (I mean UK & Poland), send a continued stream of help to their friends who fight on the front line. I'm talking about people I know in person, and I talk to them frequently while they're in Bakhmut, Izyum, Nikolaiv.
Also you have no clue about what is going on in Russia. Your world view is clearly based on Russian media targeted at English-speaking audience, but if you only briefly watched Russian media, even state media, in Russian, you'd clearly see the scale of the problem where freshly mobilized people are sent straight to the front line and killed immediately, as in Makiivka and many other places.
This is subject to great controversy inside Russia and even state media can't ignore it, but it's officially blamed on "negligence of low level commanders" and dismissed as a minor issue. But of course you don't live in Russia, so their English-language media doesn't even need to mention it and you'll never know.
The genocide that the Ukrainian Nazis were carrying out in Donbass was documented for 8 years by independent journalists from various countries including Italy.
But I'm curious to hear how you will try to justify this bastard that is Zelensky who as a comedian on television in 2014 made fun of the Crimeans left without water by Kiev:
Such a transmission can only take place in a country that has been transformed into Nazi Germany and Russian ethnicity is the target of their racism.
The "genocide" that you're talking about started with — once again — Russian invasion into Crimea and Donbas. The actual genocide started with Russians led by Igor Girkin slaughtering Ukrainian politician Volodymyr Rybak in Slavyansk in April, and then they only continued to torture and kill civilians (e.g. Pentecostal church preachers).
Also on personal note, I was myself in Donbas only a few months before the war started— in August 2013 I literally slept overnight in the same Slavyansk, and drove through the whole Donbas further down to Russia, and then back. There was no discrimination of Russians or Russian speaking people in Ukraine — I'm Polish and I was literally speaking Russian all the time. All these stories of "crucified boy" are a complete fantasy, invented in Russia to justify the war.
What about the video I just sent?
Nothing. Ukraine had no obligation to supply water to illegally occupied Crimea after 2014. It’s as if someone had stolen your flat, and expected you to continue paying for electricity and water. It’s the problem and the responsibility of the thief.
That's not the point. Whatever the reason, laughing at a region without water is possible only in a Nazi nation.
Put yourself in my shoes and tell me if I should believe an anonymous account on a social network or videos like the one I sent you.
If you don't find a way to disprove the cruelty of that show you will confirm what I think: the Russians are right and you are manipulated by propaganda like most western Ukrainians.
Victor Suvorov has a honest advice for you. Russians won't respect you, regardless of how much you try, quite the opposite:
I approached you with an open mind and you confirmed what I thought. You will never change anyone's mind and meanwhile more and more people are being reached by the truth.
Speaking of an attacked civilians as of "Nazis" and victim blaming is the opposite of "open mind". Please read the Suvorov's quote carefully and draw lessons for future. Russians know very well when they're lying, they just don't give a shit because facts for them mean nothing. But for people who honestly repeat their lying they have nothing but contempt.
You speak like a racist. You are a racist. Poland is full of racists who hate Russians, everybody knows it.
Instead, here in Italy there are many Russians and I have never once heard from them a word of contempt for the Ukrainians. The Russians pity the Ukrainians who have been subjugated by US/UK propaganda and Nazism.
For the Russians the Ukrainians are like brothers and they intervened to save them from the Nazis prepared on purpose by the US to depict Russia as a bloody invader.
I'm sorry but this is the truth, it's documented, you too confirmed it with your attitude and more and more people will wake up.
A factful reminder: it was Russia, not any other country, who physically invaded a sovereign state of Ukraine, and so far killed 7000+ civilians in the course of its invasion, and therefore it *is* a "bloody invader". It doesn't need any "depicting", Russia made itself an invader by its president's decision to invade.
Indeed, that's what depicting is all about: removing the context.
I have written here why Russian army intentionally killing civilians is a lie: https://qoto.org/@post/109722894208428560
About the Russians who are in Italy: you don't have to hate Russia to love Italy, that's obvious to anyone who has been here.
And racism is not about races, it's about ethnicities and nationalities, it's always been that way, and your insinuation that Russians are inherently bad is exactly what we call racism.
It's no surprise though, racists are poorly literate and that's why you've been manipulated.
You are a disgusting, dishonest shit eater, as describes by Suvorov, who uncritically repeats the dumbest and most absurd Russian justifications only to suit your bias. Russia does intentionally target *civilian* infrastructure in Ukraine, and it does intentionally hit civilians, and it does that to sew terror on civilians, and Russian politicians are absolutely transparent and open about it
You can't prove it.
Oh, hell I can!
Here's Putin literally admitting it. But you won't know it because you're only receiving a mix of half-truths, carefully prepared for ears of a Western Putinversteher.
Here’s Simonyan explaining precisely how they are doing the latter - of course, for Russian audience:
Here’s Simonyan openly admitting Russia is intentionally bombing civilian infrastructure in Ukraine - only she says “we were forced to, and we don’t like”:
Are you insane or what? This doesn't contradict what I said, it confirms it:
You literally wrote:
Russians DON’T target civilians
She literally says:
I don’t know anyone who would enjoy the fact that Kyiv is being shelled and children are without light.
She doesn’t deny they are hitting civilian infrastructure. She just justifies it.
You should like this one, Zelensky merely joking about water in Crimea seems to have been a definition of “fascism” for you. Here’s Simonyan and Solovyov talking how “Ukraine in its current form has no right to exist” and how they are going to “deworm” it. Solovyov is literally calling Ukrainians “worms” that need to be poisoned, just as he’s deworming his cat and “from the worms’ perspective it’s a war”. They love it and have a good laugh!
Here’s Simonyan having another good laugh while she explains “we all hope for a famine, because if a famine comes they’ll all understand they have to be friends with us”
And if you’re concerned about racism, here’s Simonyan and other Russian authors literally joking about “muscular criminal negroes” and making other racist jokes
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russias-gloating-about-us-unrest-is-racist-af
This doesn't change how US/UK turned Ukraine into a racist nation against Russia, how Nazis bombed Donbass for 8 years etc etc nor this proves the intention by Russian army to kill civilians.
Sorry, Russians are not that stupid to admit war crimes on TV.
You are quite confused and see things that are not there.
Targeting civilian combined electricity and heat plants, as they do all the time, is a war crime on its own.
You also don’t need an intention to kill civilians to classify something as a war crime. Use of indiscriminate weapons against residential areas is a war crime on its own. For example, in Dnipro the speculations were they were targeting a power plant but if you are launching a Kh-22 anti-ship rocket with 950 kg warhead with accuracy of 600-1000 m against a civilian object in a densely populated area, then it’s guaranteed to hit something else - in this case a residential house.
And this is why such launch is already a war crime.
Oh and this part is epic
> here in Italy there are many Russians
Have you wondered why are they living in Italy, not in Russia? Have you wondered why over 400k Russians have escaped Russia since 24 February, and double that in September 2022? You literally yourself brought up a first-hand evidence that Russia is a fascist state, but you call all Ukrainians that name, and then you accuse me of "racism"! (as if Russia was a race)
What is the opposite and of what