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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31233 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Back on the object level of the issue at hand, for all it's worth, reports of Russians abusing or executing PoWs so far - especially after the chaos of the first few days - are very thin on the ground, despite what I assume must have been a very large number of people looking very hard for evidence.

I think the main reason you haven't heard about it is that Russia's torture of both POWs and civilians is so routine and well-known that it isn't considered very newsworthy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_torture_chambers_in_Ukraine

https://thehill.com/policy/international/3543197-inside-russias-war-camps-ukrainian-pows-detail-torture-abuse/

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/28/russia-ukraine-war-un-report-details-accounts-of-rape-torture-and-executions.html

I find it hard to imagine that this wouldn't be carried by our media with much greater continuing intensity if the evidence situation were actually good enough. More importantly, though, it seems that there are some obvious test cases where PoWs like the top brass of Azov or the handful of international volunteers that were captured came back in one piece as part of a prisoner swap, where disposing of those people would have been a natural choice that would have been very advantageous to Russia if optics of PoW treatment were not a concern (as the Azov leaders and those who would see themselves in their position are valuable to Ukraine by virtue of ideology, combat experience and motivation, and conversely anything from just not releasing them to the full ISIS treatment would have improved Russian morale).

where disposing of those people would have been a natural choice that would have been very advantageous to Russia if optics of PoW treatment were not a concern

Did you miss what happened at Elenovka? Or do you find Russian version plausible, that it was a Ukrainian strike on their own people because "they started to talk about crimes of Zelensky"? By the way, UN had to disband the group tasked with investigating what happened there because Russia denied the investigators access.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/un-disbands-fact-finding-mission-into-olenivka-prison-attack-in-ukraine/2780833

Just curious, you’re so passionate about the war that you set up a Google ping for themotte when anything critical of Ukraine pops up. (Nothing wrong with that, why not give your POV.) You mentioned last time you are living in Ukraine. Have you considered fighting in the war? I know Ukraine is drafting every young man they can find; I think their recent bill allows recruiters to enter homes to find young men. Or do you have a desk job with the Ukrainian military that permits you to engage in forums from time to time?

Just curious, you’re so passionate about the war that you set up a Google ping for themotte when anything critical of Ukraine pops up. (Nothing wrong with that, why not give your POV.) You mentioned last time you are living in Ukraine. Have you considered fighting in the war? I know Ukraine is drafting every young man they can find; I think their recent bill allows recruiters to enter homes to find young men. Or do you have a desk job with the Ukrainian military that permits you to engage in forums from time to time?

Uncharitable, antagonistic, and snide.

Believe it or not, we are actually capable of reading between lines, and just because you write a post in a conversational, friendly tone doesn't mean we can't tell what you're actually saying. No, you are not "Just curious." Don't do this.

that you set up a Google ping for themotte when anything critical of Ukraine pops up

It's false. I read this forum sometimes, but I don't find American culture war that interesting so I rarely post.

Have you considered fighting in the war?

I did. But I have a dependant, and some of my relatives including my father are fighting, so if something happens to us, no one would be able to take care of my underage sister. Plus I don't have military experience, my father has. Also I have relatively lucrative job in IT, and I donate most of my salary to AFU. Make of that what you will.

I know Ukraine is drafting every young man they can find

It's false as well.

Or do you have a desk job with the Ukrainian military that permits you to engage in forums from time to time?

And that is comical. Interesting that people who laugh at conspiracies involving "Russian bots" fall to the same temptation of accusing anyone of being a "glowie", or an "Ukrobot".

And that is comical. Interesting that people who laugh at conspiracies involving "Russian bots" fall to the same temptation of accusing anyone of being a "glowie", or an "Ukrobot".

To be fair, the people who are referred to as "Ukrobots" do exist. I doubt they'd consider obscure heretic forums to be worth astroturfing, though, as opposed to Russian Telegram channels.

I thought that both the version of the Russian narrative you quote and the Ukrainian version about them shelling themselves was nonsense (Ukraine was pushing the "Russians shelling themselves" thing about every single shelling that may have looked bad in the eyes of anyone on their side at the time, including anti-personnel mines fired into the urban areas of Donetsk and the near-daily shelling of the Zaporozhye NPP). Surely they would have had better ways to dispose of them if they were interested in this, especially since this sort of shelling presumably only actually killed some hard-to-control small subset of the PoWs on site.

The more plausible explanation was that the Ukrainians shelled it by accident, based on false intel, or because the Russians could have also garrisoned military and equipment at the PoW camp (as they were doing in the NPP) and they were indifferent (as in the NPP) or unaware of the presence of the PoWs. Even in these scenarios, the Russians could have any number of reasons for refusing to admit the UN group, ranging from concerns that the report would find against them regardless of facts (see also the irregularities around their investigation of the Syria chemical weapons incident; it seems quite likely that for a lot of the UN bureaucracy, the US and allies have their thumbs firmly on the scale), via concerns that the group might pass intel to Ukrainians (the Russians repeatedly accused OSCE monitors of doing this since the conflict started, and my impression is that well-connected people on their side do in fact believe this), to the circumstance that they might find even an accurate finding that they were garrisoning valid military targets in a PoW camp to be embarrassing (in fact I'd assume there are some agreements against this as well?).

Though the same group proves that PoWs were treated awfully by Russia.

So apparently really bad treatment is happening, though without routine murder of surrendering Ukrainians. Always nice to be passing some standards.

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