Russia - threadbanned users in OP

And in the meantime Siberian disaster continues.

The situation is very difficult also due to weather conditions. Strong winds of up to 40 m/s cause the fire to spread faster and make it difficult to extinguish it

Due to the high temperature, permafrost melts and carbon dioxide and methane are released into the atmosphere. So this is a real environmental catastrophe.

I just find it rather bizarre to hear a country ranting and raving about nazis, while doing pretty much everything the actual 1930s nazis did back in the day and then to see posters and commentators somehow falling into the rabbit hole of regurgitating the same b/s statements defending it.

Russia is also the same country that was funding very far right political groups in Europe and elsewhere. Literally promoting neo nazism, racism, homophobia and all sorts of other stuff that absolutely is part of a nazi agenda. Yet, everyone else is a nazi apparently.

Ukraine is a fledgling, developing democracy and still classified as a developing country. It had problems, most of which very much paralleled Russian problems and most of which were caused by being a post soviet state, trying to rebuild itself.

Most of its politics is centrist and if you look at its voting patterns, far right groups represented a very tiny % of its political system. By all accounts it was moving in a direction that was beginning to look more like a progressive EU candidate. There was a growing focus on rights based freedoms. The biggest issues it faced was getting away from the influence of corruption driven by oligarchs and disastrous Russian style politics and constant threats and interference from Moscow and its proxies, including Trump’s bizarre meddling btw.

It absolutely was not full of nazis and this notion that finding any element of far right political actors in Ukraine as a justification for the absolute barbarism that Russia inflicted on it is just propaganda. If you dig into almost any country’s politics, you’re going to find some elements of far right leaning politics, mostly at the fringes of the fringes. Ukraine was no different in that regard. Russia itself seems to lack any kind of mirrors or ability to see itself. It’s is now a full military fascist state, led by a madman and wallowing in its own propaganda. There’s no question about that anymore.

By the looks of it we are about to be lectured about the dangers of nazisim by a strange guy on a big military stage, surrounded by weird Z symbol flags, national flags, parading soldiers and weapons of mass destruction, who’s conducting Blitzkrieg, running concentration camps and suppressing all opposition while seeing absolutely no irony in any of that.

The whole thing is absolute madness.

I'm hoping the next 24 hours pass by without any dramatic news from Ukraine.

With all civilians having now been removed from the Azovstal steel plant, and Putin's parade on the morrow, I cant help but worry about Putin's course of action for the fate of those brave soldiers and the numerous wounded left inside.

I believe we are now at the pivotal point of this war. What Putin does next is going to be instrumental in telling us his mindset and plans for the longer term.

Its an update. The tweet includes a video of the Son who survived detailing what happened in that brutal, bloody and evil attack on unarmed civilians by Russian "liberators"

Hell couldn't be hot enough or eternity long enough for the evil cnuts who would do that and the countless other brutal murders of Ukrainian people, perpetrated by the Russians

And yet they are the ones fighting to the death for Ukraine , most of the complaints about the AZOZ battalion comes from inside Russian controlled donbas ,the big bad Azoz did this and the big bad Azoz did that , what they really mean is the big bad Azoz have been fighting and holding off against the Russian military not just the last two months but the Last invasion 8 years ago they single handedly held the Russian military despite being out manned ,out gunned and lacking any real armour or heavy weapons.

Some may go around waving flags and carrying torches , but they will go down in history as some of the bravest and toughest men and women to put on a military uniform anywhere in the world right now .

Putin's speech sounds very similar to that rant by a woman on state TV I linked to a couple of days ago. She claimed that the EU and the US were trying to create a new "global Nazi empire" with Ukraine as the starting point of their mission.

Members of the Russian community took part in a Victory Day convoy in the midlands today. Seems to have passed off peacefully anyway.

Do the Azov have far right elements? Damn right they do. The Far Right in Ukraine has been a problem and one that was being reported for years by western media and government and NGO's right up to this invasion kicking off(IMHO too much of it in the western media was fears of nazis everywhere, as the Far Right has lost a lot of ground in Ukraine in the past decade).

The Azov regiment currently being blamed for the invasion of Ukraine and just about everything by the Russians and some Russian apologists closer to home, were originally formed as a paramilitary nationalistic and far right self-defense group. Later they were formally incorporated into the Ukrainian home guard as a volunteer battalion to help an overmatched Ukrainian military fight the Russians in 2014.

In 2015 it was stated that some 10% to 20% of the group's members were bone fide followers of nazism. Now even if we don't believe a word of that and say the whole nine yards of them were all fully signed up nazis with jackpots and swastikas and what have you - the fact is a regiment of 900 personnel out of a pre invasion estimated total of 200,000 for the Ukrainian Military, is peanuts.

And even if their numbers have trebled or quadrupled since the Russian invasion of Ukraine - their numbers are still peanuts.

That's not to claim there are no additional far right interests or groups in Ukraine. I'd imagine there are. But the fact is, so has Russia where neo nazi style parades are apparently openly allowed. And not forgetting the Russian Wagner military group. A self declared bunch of Russian neo nazis, awarded Military honours by Putin and deployed by the Russians in areas of Africa and now ironically in Ukraine.

One thing is fairly certain is that the Ukrainian Military are doing their damnest to defeat the Russians who have brutally invaded their country, with Russia taking heavy losses. I would be surprised if the final death toll of the Ukrainian Military will not also be very high, with the chances of any military personnel coming out of the present fight not being good. Any members of the Azov regiment doubly so, because the Russians have placed a huge emphasis on making an example of them. When the current fighting is over, realistically I can't see too many of the Azov regiment surviving eitherway.

I'm guessing they probably are. It may be their equivalent of Bastille Day / St.Patrick's Day etc.

That's what I meant - the Russian people in Ireland probably do it every year, as it is their equivalent of Bastille Day, July the 4th etc.

From the Guardian regarding the interview with the Avoz brigade in Mariupol:

Here are the quotes she picks out from a press conference by the commanders of Azov regiment in he Azovstal plant in Mariupol. This is an unverified translation:

Civilians were evacuated in three days recently. We do not know if everyone was evacuated. From politicians we hear that it was success. But during the evacuation two servicemen were killed and six injured. This is the price of the evacuation of civilians.

[...]

On the territory of the Azovstal plant there are many civilian and military casualties, and tens of thousands of citizens died as a result of Russia’s actions during 2,5 months, they didn’t have a chance to be evacuated timely.

[...]

We have been asking for the evacuation of civilians for 2.5 months, and only now we have managed to evacuate several hundred. It is joy through tears.

[...]

No one expected us to stand for so long. Our government failed to save Mariupol. We are called heroes, and we should not flaunt it, because we do our job. The heroes are next to me. Many people gave their lives for the city, for the state and for the citizens of Ukraine.

[...]

We could retreat from Mariupol, because we saw what a dangerous situation. But we decided to stay here, and we had an order to defend Mariupol.

[...]

Many government officials have been sabotaging Ukraine’s defense for eight years. Everyone interfered, we knew that a great war with Russia was coming, and we were preparing. We didn’t get Javelins or coaches, we collected everything ourselves: information, ammunition.

[...]

We (Azov) were called a paramilitary group and radicals [by the West, as well as RU propaganda].Where we were radicals is in defending our country. We did great damage to the enemy. We received no help: no artillery or aircraft. We were left alone and we were alone for 8 years.

[...]

We know our past. We have been volunteers since 2014, there were many different people. But we decided to leave our past behind and become professional military. We wanted to create a new modern Ukrainian army, and trained as it should, at the highest level.

[...]

We are located 100 kilometers from the main Ukrainian positions. It is a shame to run away from here. Another option is to lay down your arms and surrender. The last option is to stand and fight.

[...]

We knew that the Azov Regiment had no high chance of survival. We cannot surrender and give up to the enemy. Because every POW is a resource for exchange to increase the level of political negotiations. They take away attention from another, it is a scattering of attention.

[...]

Moreover, not so long ago in April, Russian propaganda showed that they had captured Azov soldier. He had a large tattoo on his shoulder. They showed that he was alive, and a few days later sent a message to his mother that he had been strangled to death. They always do.

[...]

Russians are not interested in our lives. At the time, we had a lot of Russian POWs, and they are in the exchange fund, they are alive. We keep the agreements, the Russians do not.

[...]

We are fighting for a free world here. If #Russia will crash #Ukraine, and #Mariupol is the main location in this war, they will go further: to Poland, to the Baltic countries.

Incredible bravery and resilience.

That must have been what they were talking about when they were going on about the Putster launching a tactical nuke