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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   23101 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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Coffee, I come back to this, because you are absolutely better than this. As I see your points, and please do others jump in if I have lacked charity or understanding:

  • Your first point is that atrocities make for good propaganda, to the point it may be worth falsifying them. True, but obviously doesn't provide information here, or mean that real atrocities do not occur.
  • Your second point - Bucha was evocative, made the Ukrainians furious, and collapsed any chance at peace, making it really dumb for Russia - True, but still doesn't change any of the evidence that Russia did it, and we know Russia has made deeply retarded choices in this war
  • Your third point - Russia put out a lot of propaganda that it was actually somehow Azov, days afterwards, with massive video, satellite and signal intelligence. This is to be expected, but provides no information useful to update on as they do this for every atrocity they actually do, like shooting down the Malaysian Airliner (impossibly blamed on an SU25 with hilariously bad evidence) or the poisonings in Salisbury. Instead, this is so that a motivated reasoner can argue that it was Azov, not to be credible. The fact you quote it makes me more confident that your priors are to accept whatever Russia says, no matter how incredible, or that you wish others to do so. In what sense does this convince any reasonable skeptic on the Motte? So why post it?
  • Your fourth point - there might have been fighting at some point on that street where the civilians were visibly lined up during the occupation, raped and shot in cold blood. That has no bearing on anything related to the massacre, which happened outside of combat and to people restrained and executed one by own. Plus, that amnesty report was correctly clowned upon as insane, and also, has no relation to systemic executions and rape outside of combat.

I do not believe Azov, who are not load bearing to any of this. I believe the evidence provided in my reply to you, primarily the satellite footage released days in advance of Ukraine retaking Bucha and can date the executions to post any early fighting, and also matches footage taken prior to the retaking of the city and exactly matches the patterns of bodies found once it was retaken. That's a hilariously high bar of evidence, and if it was the other way around for Azov you would correctly be calling it out, and you have claimed events prior on far far shakier evidence. Russian soldiers ran rampant over civilians they had power over, none of which is built upon needing to believe a single word of Azov.

Why do you even like the Russians here? Why can't Bucha be a terrible failure and a mistake by units gone rogue for you?

Anyway, on our other notes:

Your Meduza link shows that there are other allegations versus mine that Chechens raped, DNR soldiers this time, but that neither of them have been disproven? Are you agreeing with me?

And your source that 3% of the respondents were muslim, in line with the lower bound i mentioned, but that 65% of residents express that religion is important and 36% of them Islam is the most important? In a city of like 13 million? Do you see a slight pickle even in the narrow survey that the massive irregular population is not going to be well covered by? That there may be quite a few Muslims in Moscow isn't some weird conspiracy, who do you think is launching all the terrorist attacks?

My first point is larger than that: atrocity propaganda is the norm in modern psyops. We should expect a lot of atrocity propaganda coming from both sides. It would be improbable for a modern war to occur without atrocity propaganda. Which again, I’m not mad about, but for a question like “is Russia a threat to Europe”, this should be treated seriously (at least here), not by reciting events that may be propaganda planted by three letter agencies and highly motivated neonazis battalions.

Russia put out a lot of propaganda that it was actually somehow Azov, days afterwards, with massive video, satellite and signal intelligence

Did you read that Russian MFA report? What part of it do you dispute or consider erroneous? You should address the specific evidence presented by the official government of the nation you’re accusing of an atrocity. It was published last month, not days afterward. Ukraine claims that those particular men were civilians. Ukraine etched their names upon a memorial. Russia provided evidence that they were members of an armed extremist neonazi battalion with a long history of killing civilians, an outfit condemned by the UN and who traffics in extremist literature. Who do we believe? Ukraine or Russia? Neither? Thank you for reminding me of Bucha by the way; had you not mentioned if I would have never found this report.

I do not believe Azov, who are not load bearing to any of this

Azov is the armed and extremist neonazi brigade from which Ukraine sources some of their key positions. They are highly influential in Ukraine. Some of the highest-ranked Ukrainian military personnel are former members of this neonazi battalion. Russia claims that Azov, this batallion decking themselves in swastikas, was in Bucha. This is very problematic if true. They attach photos of the men in uniforms, name them, and name the specific unit of Azov they were affiliated with. How can we determine who is telling the truth? If Azov was in Bucha, then no sane person should believe what is claimed about Bucha, given the long history of Azov’s crimes against civilians and extremist leanings.

You know, I think when the typical European thinks “threat to Europe”, they imagine Nazis. Doesn’t it seem like Ukraine is a threat to Europe, if they have neo-Nazis praising Hitler going wild with weapons? The commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps of the Ukrainian Ground Forces has published screeds like “Ukrainian Racial Social-Nationalism in the Ideology of Patriot of Ukraine”. I’m starting to really question your motivations here, because your name (the golem) has a long history of being used by Nazis, and here you are defending a neonazi outfit. If you don’t mind answering a few questions about this:

  1. Do you deny that Azov is a neo-Nazi brigade with a long history of crimes against civilians?

  2. Do you deny that the Ukrainians select former Azov members for important positions in Ukraine? Biletsky as I mentioned, but also Serhii Velichko and Kostiantyn Nemichev, members of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.

  3. Why should I trust a nation that permits, and selects for important promotions, members of an extremist neonazi brigade?

I believe the evidence provided in my reply to you, primarily the satellite footage

Okay, but follow this line of argument: (1) if Azov were in the homes, they would have used those homes as defense while civilians were nearby or in those homes; (2) Azov themselves may have killed civilians, as they have before; (3a) the placement of the deceased on a street are what we would expect if Russians made a base out of homes where civilians were killed by crossfire or Azov, because you don’t live next to a dead person for a week, you’d drag them away from you; (3b) it is profoundly improbable that all 2500 Russians in Bucha saw nothing wrong with leaving the civilians they supposedly killed in the middle of a street, especially when they had two weeks of little fighting. Not a single one of the 2500 soldiers in Bucha thought “hey, let’s hide this civilians we just killed”? (They had full control from March 5 to March 30).

Why do you even like the Russians here

I want Ukraine to stop self-harming themselves, and I want Europe to stop needless brother wars. You can focus on inter-nicene squabbles after you’ve kicked out the last Salafi and minimized the global threat posed by China. Otherwise it’s just ridiculous.

Your Meduza link shows that there are other allegations

If they fabricated a letter, why should I believe the other allegations?

your source that 3% of the respondents were muslim, in line with the lower bound i mentioned, but that 65% of residents express that religion is important and 36% of them Islam is the most important

I don’t see a source for 36% say Islam is the most important.

In a city of like 13 million

In a city or 13 million there are 12 to 24 mosques

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