“I’ve watched several videos of Ukrainian soldiers surrendering their firing pins to the Russians. You can call that whatever you want, but they’re not fighting for Ukraine. The fact that you’re calling that statement propaganda, is delusional, in light of the current events on the ground in at least half of Ukraine.”
The videos show us about two units of the Ukrainian Ground Forces at Sloviyansk disarming after their commanding officers ordered the troops to do so. It appears the troops are being told the disarming was to prevent an incident in which the pro-Russian insurgents could be killed or injured in a confrontation. At least a few of the Ukrainian soldiers appeared to be rather unhappy at being ordered by their commanders to remove the firing pins from their small arms. So, the video shows us about two officers or perhaps a few more ordering the Ukrainian soldiers to disarm whether or not some of the soldiers agreed with such an order. Now you have taken this handful of soldiers, willing and unwilling, as an excuse to claim the Ukrainian ground forces are overwhelmingly prepared to surrender to the Russians and their Ukrainian separatist insurgents. You then try to say I am delusional for observing your remarks misrepresent the videos and the facts. Unfortunately for your argument, the mathematics of two or a few officers and fewer than about fifty to a hundred men does not reach anywhere remotely close to being a significant majority, plurality, or minority of the Ukrainian soldiers defecting to the separatists. The Ukrainian Ground forces before their recent reinforcements numbered about 144,000 soldiers. The ethnic Russian portion of the Ukrainian population is about 17.2%. If the entire ethnic Russian percentage of the Ukrainian Ground Forces defected to the separatists, they would number somewhat less than 25,000 soldiers. If half of those same soldiers defected, they would number around 12,500 soldiers. If just one hundredth of those soldiers defected to the separatists, they would number about 250 soldiers. Somehow I cannot see 250 soldiers defecting in those videos, willingly or unwillingly. So, what we have here is you making propagandistic remarks falsely claiming the actions of less than 1% of the ethnic Russian part of the Ukrainian Ground forces and less than one-tenth of one percent of the Ukrainian Ground Forces is in some magical way representative of the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian Ground Forces. That is one humdinger of a wild delusion you’ve got there.
You can keep on with the propagandist label if that’s your shtick. We’re just having an internet discussion. Nothing you or I say or think here, effects anything on the ground in Ukraine, and there’s not a damn thing you or I can do about this civil war, other than comment on what we see on the Internet. And from what I can see, Ukraine’s army is a bunch of amateurs going up against a pretty well organized Russian group, and they haven’t fired a single round at each other yet. Pretty tough to fire a rifle that’s had it’s firing pin removed, however.