Surrender of Mariupol Leaves ‘Heroes’ to Face Putin’s Twisted Justice

The Daily Beast ^ | May 17, 2022 | Philippe Naughton

[MalPearce]

Hmm.

#112 - Freeper calls someone a coward.
#113 - Same Freeper says “sounds like a personal attack on a Freeper.”

Anyway.

BobL accused me of making personal attacks on Freepers after I said, “What the Putin puffers also don’t like to tell people is, since 2019 the Donbass hostilities have mostly been confined to sectarian clashes between the DPR and Azov .... And yet that’s the pretext Putinistas bought for the Russian Special Military Occupation, the razing of Mariupol, the civilian mass slaughter in Bucha, tge destabilisation of Chernobyl...”

At no point was that comment directed at him personally. Or anyone else specifically, for that matter. It was aimed at Putin Puffers.

Yet Bob replied in #93 as if I’d attacked him personally. So I replied, “You can’t hurt a paid up Putin bot, they’re in it for a few bucks.”

For anyone to actually think ANY of my posts are attacking Putin Puffers are PERSONALLY aimed at them, they’d actually need to BE a Putin Puffer. And for them to get offended at the idea that Putin Puffers are getting paid to troll, they’d have to be Putin Puffers who resent the implication that Putin Puffers are on the take.

If you’re not a Putin Puffer, and you’re not on the take, then nothing I’ve said should offend you.

Quite simply, I give both sides of this war as fair a hearing as I can, without prejudice:

“What do they say about Azov Nazis? Nothing complimentary. What do they say about the Azov Battalion? Half full of Nazis, the other half are simply people who signed up to be in the NGU and ended up with Azov. The Russian dad I know was fighting alongside Azov for a time but got abuse from some of the nazis, so he complained to the NGU,and they transferred him out to another group that’s a mix of Russian and Ukrainian guys.”

The problem I keep running into is, the pro-Putin, pro-DPR, pro-invasion narrative that I get from thousands of miles away from the conflict just doesn’t match what I’m hearing from Russian colleagues, Russian friends and Russian FAMILY in the Donbass.

Now either I take the word of some armchair internet random over the direct testimony of not one or two but HUNDREDS of Russian people who were living and working in eastern Ukraine before the invasion, and who have been telling me for 3 years that half of what we’ve been told about the conflict (on BOTH sides, but particularly from the pro-Russian, pro-separatist side) is fiction, or I don’t.

I have two Russians living with me now, through the UK Homes for Ukraine programme. They tell me 2014 to 2015 was very bad, but 2015 to 2019 was not as bad, and since 2019 they felt able to carry on living a completely normal life without even feeling the need to move TOWN let alone COUNTRY. Yes there were Azov Nazis still going around causing problems, but the DPR were just as bad. The way to get on in live was to avoid both bunches of psychos.

When the war kicked off in 2022 - triggered by the DPR totally egging up the message to Russia that a full scale genocide was going on when the reality was far more like the UVF and IRA going after each other - that they travelled across to the western border of Ukraine then travelled through Slovakia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and eventually ended up in Paris.

Other Russian Ukrainians I know through work (we had offices in Russia and Ukraine) are telling me the same. Some got to the middle or west of Ukraine and stayed there; others went to Poland; others went further and they are now dotted in locations all over Europe.

Most have photos of, and invoices for, the journeys they’ve made. It took our couple five weeks to get to the UK. These are two extremely well-educated young Russian people, they speak four languages, their first language is Russian, they’re from the Donbass, and yet as long as they have holes between their butt cheeks they’re NEVER going to forgive Russia or the DPR for forcing them into this.

Azov brutality didn’t force any them out of Donbass in eight years of conflict, but one month witnessing the brutality of Russians, Chechens and DPR mercenaries all in cahoots with each other HAS made them flee.

Now, I’m really sorry, but anyone who tells me that over a million Russian speakers really WERE being persecuted so badly in Donbass between January 2019 and January 2022 by 2000 Azovs that Putin felt he had no choice but to launch a Special Military Operation that flattened Mariupol and has left most of the Donbass in ruins, is (as far as I am concerned) might want to try explaining to me why

(a) Russian Ukrainians from Donbass OVERWHELMINGLY chose not to go to Russia, where ALLEGEDLY they would’ve been better off, any time between 2014 and 2022;
(b) Russian Ukrainians didn’t even flee to Russia when the war broke out;
(c) Russian Ukrainians sometimes chose to walk all the way through over 500 miles of “enemy territory” to get to the western Ukrainian border INSTEAD of welcoming the Russian and Chechen ‘liberators’;
(d) Russian Ukrainians often spent weeks living on camp beds with only intermittent emergency rations before getting to a more permanent location which according to Russia and the DPR is about as “enemy territory” for Russians as you can get (i.e. the United Kingdom).

Because if people can’t explain that, then it suggests to me that MAYBE the DPR narrative - and hence the whole Azov narrative we’ve been sold by Russia and the DPR - is bullshit.

Of course Azov were scum of the earth. Giving them a moral victory is a very dangerous thing to do. But Russia gifted Azov with the best possible moral defense, when it invaded. Even a Nazi has a right to defend his home, his family and his neighborhood from a murderous invasion.

[A strike]

#113 - Same Freeper says “sounds like a personal attack on a Freeper.”

I said nothing ABOUT your post, but merely noted it.