I read that. It made me wonder what the relationship of the Vostok Battalion is to the rest of the rebels. And by the way, I notice that you, like the press, always say pro-Russian before rebels. I just find that little verbal flourish interesting. I take it that you don't.
Oh. Chechens. Interesting.
They are anti-Kiev, but pro-Russian is more appropriate. The reason for that is that they are not fighting against Kiev just for independence, in which case they would be separatists. Instead they are fighting to join Russia and form Novorossiya. But not only that, most of the pro-Russian rebels are ethnic Russians or actual Russian nationals, some of which, particularly the leadership, are active and former Russian military. So simply calling them anti-Kiev misses out all sorts of important facts you'd rather hide. We should probably just call them Russians without the "pro" prefix and the "rebels" postfix as it would give a clearer picture as to who is fighting who.
interesting you post that, I was about to post this:
Isn't it? Haven't I been saying there are Russian nationals in Ukraine? Chechnya is of course Russia now and the Vostok Battalion answers directly to the Russian Defense ministry's intelligence unit, the GRU. Chechens have been in Ukraine for months now and there have been reported cases where they use their unique knives in murdering people and cutting off their heads. They're well known for being nasty. I felt sorry for Russian troops caught alive in Chechnya, I can only imagine the horrors inflicted in Ukraine.
In this thread, or that other thread with people allegedly killed by sniper fire? Watching someone die is rather emotional wouldn't you say? Now what was that about propaganda....
The article says that Russia lied to cover up its culpability. Still a bit early to tell, don't you think. No, of course not. But then you should explain what lies did they tell and how do we know they were lies? We all more or less agree that the shoot down was an accident. How much can we disagree that the persecution of the war in the east is completely at the discretion of Kiev (though they must feel pressure from their western backers) and is an unnecessary aggression. There is no law of nature that says the eastern part of Ukraine cannot run semi or largely autonomously from Kiev.
Civilians ARE being killed Mike, by the Ukrainian army. When you shell people's houses then sometimes the people die. The guys in the east are not attacking the guys in the west., the guys in the west are driving over to the east and attacking them. If the guys in the west just stayed home then nobody would be dying. If the attackers stopped attacking the defenders wouldn't need to defend.[/QUOTE]
Interesting that the Chechens are ratting out the rebels if they are working together for Russia.
Watching someone being killed is emotional. That's what makes it hooky. But it is also evidentiary. A crime is committed, the footage documents the crime, and I admit to posting it because it is demonstrative of a small part of an ongoing atrocity. However, at no time will you hear "Bibi is killing this man" or "Jews are killing this man". It presents a tableaux of an actual event (though people are willing to invest a lot of energy into arguing that the footage "is a fake as a NASA moon-landing").
Or Quebec even. But that's not really the case unless you believe what Russian propaganda are saying. Like I've already said in this thread, Donbass is not Crimea. The fighting is done by pro-Russians but you can't claim that all of Eastern Ukraine is ethnically Russian, and in fact just less then half is. And of those who are ethnic Russian, it's hard to say how many of them would prefer to join Russia. I've also posted that polls taken well before this crisis that showed that the desire to join Russia was very low in Eastern Ukraine. In Quebec for instance we've had polls and elections and referendums and the separatists keep losing. Now, what if say France decided to arm a bunch of the separatist minority and they took over a bunch of Government of Canada buildings and stormed some military bases and some French special forces and mercenaries popped in out of nowhere and started causing all sorts of murder and mayhem? Would you suddenly conclude that all of Quebec is French speaking and all of Quebec wants to join France? Of coarse not because that would be silly. So why do you do that with Eastern Ukraine?
Here's some very effective propaganda: Russia’s top 20 lies about Ukraine
