In an age of strong opinions, ambiguity, and internalized whataboutism, it's good, though disturbing, to periodically get reminded of what evil looks like and who the bad guys actually are.
Russia vs Ukraine? Yes it’s clear who the bad guy is in that situation (Russia). But there are plenty of countries allied with the US, and even the US itself sometimes, that commit atrocities like this. Guantanamo, for example, has inmates that are known by the government to be innocent who still haven’t been released. Probably because the government knows they would be swarmed by reporters trying to get full details on what was going on inside that torture chamber. Morality is besides the point. All that matters is your passport. Mine happens to be American. Doesn’t mean that I have to pretend like the US is morally superior to anyone.
Please don't whatabout in a thread clearly about two countries that are not the US. There are plenty of threads to go around about US imperialism that are a better place for your comment.
It’s necessary to whatabout when threads about Russia come up because there are usually plenty of top rated comments (see above) dehumanizing Russians and calling for their extermination. I have never seen any thread critical of US meddling in world affairs express the same hatred of US citizens and supporter's. “whataboutism” should not be used as defense against double standards. Double standards should be clearly called out.
And "ancestral hatred of Russians and Russia"? If my grandparents and parents were victims of Soviet aggression/invasion/genocide, what right do you have to question "ancestral hatred"?
The fact that Russia is doing it again is enough to arouse intense emotions in many European populations.
Equating modern Russia and the SU is a widely deployed sleight of hand at the moment. Same with pre-Soviet Russia. No matter how little sense it actually makes. “Show me on this map where the Tsar/Stalin hurt you.”
But there is a common thread: Russia was, is, and will remain for a long while the predominant regional power. Pays to have a friendly relationship with them. Ami will go home. Sooner or later.
I would like to emphasise again that Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties.
>criticizes Lenin and Stalin
He criticizes the Soviets for creating Ukraine as we know it—Donbass, Crimea and so on. Artificial borders, a people divided; precisely to prevent the SU from becoming synonymous with Russia.
And it wasn’t just the Soviets who sought to use Ukraine against Russia.
Every day Ukraine-supporters whine about what they consider lackluster support from the West. What’s actually happening is obvious but wishful thinking and a quality reality distortion field prevent enlightenment: While there are real limits of supply, and at times they might have in fact entertained the idea of “winning,” the basic goal is and has always been to cause as much death and destruction as possible without actually getting into a shooting war with Russia. And, of course, most of that death and destruction happens in Ukraine.
And then they have the gall to cry “scorched earth.”
I have a strong suspicion the parent comment I was replying to was written by someone that thinks America has an infinite moral bank account can draw from to escape culpability for its actions. Maybe I misinterpreted that and if so you’re correct. But the way it was worded seemed pretty clear to me that the author sees the world like a Star Wars movie of good and evil. It’s not. In the real world the Jedi kill kids too.
Dude, you're the only person here who mentioned America. Feels like you're projecting what you think other people think and reply to that, not to what they actually wrote.
The evil of Nazi Germany is notable because of the scale of their atrocities. This is the same with Russia where the evil is so systematic and widespread that it boggles the mind.
Trying to compare the evil of Russia today to something like Guantanamo can only be seen as furthering Russia's propaganda.
Okay fine it’s a scale. You got me, the US is morally superior to plenty of countries. It was hyperbolic to say it isn’t. But still, there is no such thing as good and evil here. Just different shades of evil.
Another reason I might bring up the US is because in certain contexts especially concerning geopolitics, references to Russia as “the bad guy” is used to justify all kinds of things. The same way Communism (I.e the USSR) was used as a boogeyman to justify US behavior in Vietnam (bombing civilians). Does that mean that I don’t support the US over Russia? Of course I do. I’m a citizen of the US. But I don’t like language like “the real bad guy”. It’s not whataboutism in that context.
I mean, I appreciate that you comment from your own perspective as a US citizen, but I think it's just jarring because
1) even the article didn't mention it, so it feels like a forced comment to say "well, there are only shades of grey".
2) folks who aren't US citizens don't vibe with your perspective the same way. As a Pole I see Russians as unequivcally "the bad guys" because they have done the exact same kind of thing to our country to Polish people in the past. The tales of Polish prisoners in Russian work camps are numerous and pretty much the same as this article describes.
That’s completely fair and I wasn’t trying to diminish the crimes of Russia. I shouldn’t have immediately gone to the secondary discussion about US foreign policy
> But still, there is no such thing as good and evil here.
You're trying very hard to insert the US into the discussion here while the focus should be on what Russia is doing to Ukraine, where there's very clearly a good vs evil thing going on.
Complaining about the evil that US has committed when discussing Russia's actions is only helping Russia's propaganda. Cut it out.
The scale of Putin's Russia crimes are stratospheric. It isn't only tortures, there's raping, kids kidnapping, castration, targeting civilians with bombs, etc. And that isn't all, in particular if you add what Putin's regime is doing against their own people. Also keep an eye on what's still happening in Syria, and what Wagner is doing in the Sahel region.
> what evil looks like and who the bad guys actually are.
Whataboutism aside, I really don't get what you're trying to imply with that "actually".
Like, is there some country whose blemished record we pretend is terrible, but is "actually" okay when compared to Russia?
Julian Assange was recently freed after spending 12 years either cooped in an embassy or in literal prisons because of the US's relentless campaign to punish him for exposing the US's war crimes. (And yes, there are many things to dislike about Assange and his support for Russia is a pretty big one, but the US would have hunted him regardless of these things.)
Is the message that the US aren't actually the bad guys? That they're only the bad guys until you compare them to more violent and more openly criminal regimes? In that logic, isn't Russia not-actually-the-bad-guys because it has committed fewer war crimes than ISIS or the Nazis or the Myanmar junta? (Or maybe not. I don't know the numbers for any of those.)
The lesson can't be that we're periodically reminded of evil when it's unambiguous and performed by polities opposed to US hegemony. All states do evil given the opportunity, and the only way to close off that opportunity and call them out whenever it happens, whether they are Russian, American, Israeli, Arab, French, Brazilian, Papuan or whatever else.
It is disturbing and fascination to see a big portion of the online Russians that are living in a parallel universe, with a parallel history and parallel reality (or maybe I am wrong and most online Russians that produce comments are trolls) , so expect a lot of comments denying history and reality.
Most Russians probably know they are being lied to, but they're obviously afraid to talk or organize protest: they just can't dissent, it's too dangerous or just not worth it.
This makes it much easier for Putin to install this parallel reality.
Russians are not stupid, this is a textbook example of a modern dictatorship.
Even if Putin goes away, it might not make Russia better: Putin may be the smartest guy in the room right now, unfortunately.
I am talking about the people you meat online, they know english and they could read the real history and use the brain to decide what is true. Though I witness the Zeds using unnatural logic in their conversation/debating. I bet there are tons of Russians much smarter then Putin in Russia, the problem is that the KGB is behind Putin for now.
But if a Romanian would start telling some bullshit like how good communism was I assure you 10x more Romanians will pop up and put him in the right place. I never seen a Russian correcting a Zed when say they pretend that USSR collaboration with nazi never happened or call it a "pact" and pact is "very good" but "alliance" is very bad or "supporting" is bad, but "pact with nazi to invade and split the world" is good.
And about logic, more then one Zed was complaining that Ukraine hitting a military shit outside the SMO zone defined but Puttin is terrorism but when Ruzzia hits a power station or civilian building it is not terrorism because the target is inside the SMO. No good Russian popped in the discussion to say he disagress with this point, my guess this is how was presented on Ruzzian media and how any good Zed will repeat it even if the logic is unnatural.
I see them on reddit , the Zeds control the r/UkraineRussiaReport where they mostly push their propaganda and sometimes some combat videos , but since there are not many good news for the Zeds they put fake stuff like Zelensky bought a new sports car or mansion, or Ukrainians getting forcibly recruited. You will see there the unnatural logic Zeds have (like a guy complains that drone pilots are evil and insane but somehow the Ruzzian soldiers hiting a apparments block from distance are good and sane.
The mods there are 100% KGB guys. You will get banned if you engaged with them, so better don't or make some other account, those assholes will troll your ancient comments and mass report you to silence you.
Since you said you are not following the war let me make a summary
Ruzzia is attacking and Ukraine is defending,
the attacks are done with either a column of vehicles or motorcycles/ATV , this vehicles wither hit mines, get blow up by artillery or FPB drones, then the soldiers are picked up with FPV drones. There is a ton of FPV and surveillance drones videos of Ruzzian loses and almost nothing from the other side (but the Zeds are sure that Russia is not publishing the videos they have). Drones are used to also spot logistic of Ruzzians and those trucks/depos are blown up daily, there is also videos of anti air stuff getting destroyed a lot this last month. So Ruzzia is in a despreate attack mode, the soldiers have bad logistic support and they are sacrificed for microscopic gains. The Zeds seem to bet on Trump winning and offering Putin a favorable peace deal. They also hope N Korea will send them more soldiers and ammo to fight, since Putin is too coward to mobilize the people in the big cities.
Twitter is another cesspit of Russian apologists and bots.
However, it seems a lot of them are in the US, influenced by the MAGA camp, and apparently unable to discern reality from fiction. (I'm not making a political statement, just an observation.)
Russian botfarms are strong, and they have a lot of help from other botfarms. Just take a look and see how they're trying to flag this topic, and downvote every comment.
As a Pole, where my family has stories of being treated like this by Russians, and in general as a nation we have plenty of stories of suffering at the hands of Russians in exactly these kinds of cicumstances - I'm
1) not surprised this is happening at all
2) it makes my blood boil to a degree that cannot be explained in any rational way.
When Poland seems to be ramping up in terms of military and talks about being "ready" for conflict with Russia, it's not because anyone here wants to go and fight - it's because we know exactly what Ukraine is going through because Russians have been doing exactly this shit to many other nations before. Their brutality knows no bounds.
Another Pole here. Yup, it seems most westerners choose to be completely ignorant to what russians are and what they represent. And yes, history is important because knowing it gives you an immediate insight into the russian mentality and why none of their European neighbors treat them as a civilised society.
Unless you're speaking about American politics, the opposite is true.
Enormous quantities of European artillery production are finally coming online while Russia's stockpiles of artillery and vehicles are finally running dry. They won't "run out", but they can't continue pushing forwards with only what they are able to produce fresh themselves. Much like the missile strikes - sure they won't literally "run out" as long as they continue production but Russia can no longer throw 500 missiles a month at Ukraine anymore because the stockpiles are gone. Now the biggest problem is glide bombs, but that is being mitigated also.
The situation with the power grid is quite serious, though. It's going to be a very difficult winter for civilians. It's a damn shame that western nations couldn't pony up sufficient air defense before it was needed rather than waiting until after it was too late.
>Unless you're speaking about American politics, the opposite is true.
...The situation with the power grid is quite serious, though. It's going to be a very difficult winter for civilians.
I think you overestimate the voting public and underestimate the institutional support he has. Rumors of his political demise have been floated for years, "This time, for sure!" and he is the nominee for all that.
Yes, all the billionaires are doing everything in their power to consolidate the US into a Corporate State. Trump is their way of launching their 'Project 2025', essentially a minority of people trying to overturn the will of the people.
“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”
> In a country of 350 million, the only two selections are Trump and Biden?
Trump is a baffling choice of candidate for how bad and utterly unsuited it was.
Trump is a candidate who won an election thanks to a massive wave of foreign interference and, even though he was handed a nearly ideal set of circumstances, fumbled his term so hard that lost an election as the incumbent against a lackluster challenger.
On top of that historical show of incompetence, who already earned him a the top spot in the ranking of most incompetent US presidents in US history, there's hi coup attempt to force the US into a fascist dictatorship which included plans to assassinate his own vice president along with other political rivals.
If that is not enough, there is his criminal history and spiral into dementia.
This is the best that the Republican Party managed to pick among it's ranks as their best and brightest.
I'm convinced that the Democratic party only entertained the idea of pushing Biden due to a) being a sitting president and incumbent, who historically tends to ensure second terms, b) his outstanding tenure as president even though circumstances were far from ideal, c) and the high-stakes risk of allowing the US to succumb to the push for a fascist regime.
> It's a damn shame that western nations couldn't pony up sufficient air defense before it was needed rather than waiting until after it was too late.
For the record: Ukraine has no defense agreement with any of these western nations that are currently supporting them, and there is 0 chance that - if roles were reversed and another European nation had been attacked - that they'd have supported this theoretical victim.
The way you're phrasing that is honestly outrageous.
> For the record: Ukraine has no defense agreement with any of these western nations that are currently supporting them (...)
Why do you feel this is relevant?
> (...) and there is 0 chance that - if roles were reversed and another European nation had been attacked - that they'd have supported this theoretical victim.
I'm also not sure what leads you to believe this is relevant at all.
Ukraine is surrounded by NATO members. If NATO is not enough to counter a threat, things would be far bleaker for Ukraine as well.
No it isn't. The country to the right is not in NATO. The country to the north is not in NATO. Transnistria is a None-Of-The-Above. Are the navigable waters of the Black Sea 'in NATO'?
The point is simply that European nations are currently gifting a lot of tax payer money to Ukraine to support the Ukrainians to keep their independence.
There would've been countless ways to mitigate the risks of the invasion, they choose not to and now even badmouth the nations literally gifting them money.
This is at a level of homeowners not insuring their homes and then complain that the state took a while to rebuild their homes free of charge.
Russia has shown that they don't have the resources to make meaningful progress towards Ukraine and given West's support the outcome is inevitable that Ukraine will be victorious.
The only question is if Russia apologists gain political power in the west and manage to stop West's support (Trump is Putin's buddy, by his own admission for example).
And even then the remaining support in West gives Ukraine the upper hand.
> The only question is if Russia apologists gain political power in the west and manage to stop West's support (Trump is Putin's buddy, by his own admission for example).
> Russia has shown that they don't have the resources to make meaningful progress towards Ukraine and given West's support the outcome is inevitable that Ukraine will be victorious.
Even though the russian invasion of Ukraine is already a catastrophic strategic defeat for Russia and the initial domino of its unavoidable collapse, this does not mean that Ukraine is safe and Russia's genocide of Ukraine cannot go through anymore. In a war of attrition Russia has far more people they can force into the meat grinder to exhaust Ukraine's defenses. Even if Russia's meat wave tactics continue to be the norm, Ukraine can only support for so long today's 10-to-1 kill/death ratio.
Things seem to be swinging back into Ukraine's favor at the moment. Russia's offensives near Kharkiv have been stopped and Ukraine is able to start small counterattacks.
The big and mighty Putin needs to visit North Korea to get ammo because no one else respects Russia any more. That doesn't sound like things are going that well.
>>Zelensky and most of the federal govt of Ukraine is in on it
That's quite a bold assumption that literally doesn't line up with anything I have ever read, and I've been following this war very closely. Any reason why you're saying that?
The issue with this situation is that it cannot be resolved through 'peace negotiations'.
This is pure, systemic evil, on a state level. Russia was never punished for its crimes the way Germany was after WW2. This is the result.
Peace will only be possible when that system is dismantled and destroyed - with everything that entails. Russia is not just digging itself into a hole, but into a grave.
Why is it that any time someone posits that a problem exists, you straw man that they’re proposing the most extreme solution?
Someone says Russia is a problem? They must mean we should annex it! Someone says landlords are a problem? They must mean we should abolish private ownership and institute communism!
And of course the ultimate irony, you accuse everyone else of politicizing things.
This isn’t a healthy approach to discourse. I hope you can understand that. Please aim higher.
It seems quite often when Russia loses a war they then change their system. See Japan/WW1 and the communist takeover, Afghanistan and the collapse of the USSR. Quite possibly if Russia loses in Ukraine as in gets sent home then something similar will happen.
There's an odd situation where the US seems to be drip feeding aid to Ukraine so as to prevent it from winning as they are worried about the Putin government collapsing leading to chaos. Personally I'd rather like to see that government collapse. (good video on that https://youtu.be/CxZ402BMSs8)
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Most people aren't here to read about the Russia/Ukraine conflict. You submit articles very frequently on the topic, so it's not surprising that some of them get flagged.
The topics that I submit are mostly related to new technological developments in the defense industry. I try to give leads in new military technology so if engineers and software developers want to contribute or start a career path in the defense industry they have a leg up.
This particular post about Russian war crimes has over 60 comments which I think is significant and the post should not be flagged.
I am a high profile Ukraine War activist and what I post I think matters. Quite a few people in the defense industry and government read the posts that I submit to Hacker News YCombinator. I have a very large following in government and the international defense industries. I am working on a better work flow for news aggregation to bring more relevant up-to-date news to this community here and on X.com.
When it comes to war crimes and stories that relate to human atrocities I think an acception should be made here.
I just wanted to make sure it wasn't Russian trolls that flagged this post as it is the first or one of the first and the article is about Russian "death camps". I try to focus entirely on engineering and tech related to the war in Ukraine in hopes of recruiting and encouraging engineers and software developers to help improve the situation in Ukraine by improving their technological capability while also offering opportunities to participate and develop their careers at the same time.
I'm working on my work/information flow so I'm able to spread better tech related news here at HackerNews YCombinator.
I enjoy reading and contributing the highly technical articles as that is what we want here. We don't want low level shit here. Slipping in one of these off-topic related articles is okay every now and then but I thought it would be at least interesting for us to read something about the condition of prisoners and their deaths due to ill-treatment. The world needs to know.
My news aggregation website is coming soon. It is just a matter of risk, reward, and maintenance with the site itself. If I had the funding and did not have to work a normal day job I would do it over night.
Cherry pick news articles that fit a certain theme and post them? Anyone can do that. Aggregate maps and data, sure.
> It's really up to the community and mods what counts as tech news, and clearly they disagree with you.
I don't think that's true. There's indeed plenty of engagement in this discussion, quiver above the average engagement in HN, but somehow it sounds like there's some kind of counter pressure to bury this particular discussion.
A high engagement to low voting score is actually a negative indicator, which is an opinion held by the moderation team because if that ratio is bad enough it gets auto-deranked and possibly flagged.
Contemporary history should not be conflated with politics. There can be some overlap, but what this article describes are significant events that go far beyond everyday politics.
> Most people aren't here to read about the Russia/Ukraine conflict.
That can be said about pretty much any topic on this site. However, it is clear that there is still considerable interest in the topic even if it is below 50% of the user base
> Most people aren't here to read about the Russia/Ukraine conflict.
I don't know what "most people" is supposed to mean. To me, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as the US presidential elections, are clear examples of an interesting new phenomenon.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is particularly relevant to techies by the way Ukraine has been thrashing a full-blown invasion by Russia with nove high-tech weapons such as it's vast array of cheap drones.
Also, I'd say that a genocide in 21st century Europe is quite novel.
Because they are. You speak as though you are the OP, others think you are the OP, and you seem determined to make us read it whether we need to or not.
There's plenty of places to find all the 'news' about your war. This isn't the one.
Users flagged it. We can only guess why users flag things, but here's what I can tell you: (1) it was an unusually large number of flags; (2) the average account age of the flaggers is more than 8 years, and most are active contributors on a wide range of topics; and (3) I looked through all their flagging histories and found only one whose flags were consistently political and one-sided. That is not the case with any of the others, and nearly all seem to be using flagging as intended.
In the past it has been helpful to mention a list of "users who flagged X also flagged the following", so in that spirit, I've included a list below. The point here is not that all those other flags were good (a few were in fact bad), it's that the accounts are flagging a wide variety of stories and not in a predictable way.
I once did a mistake of reading phoronix comments to an article mentioning Ukraine. All of them were full of easily verifiable lies. All the accounts were 8+ years old. I think it's just Russian expats who enjoy their comfortable life abroad, don't want to live in Russia, but still fully support Putin.
I don't know about other sites but there's no evidence of that being the case here, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. One can never know for sure, of course.
95 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadAnd "ancestral hatred of Russians and Russia"? If my grandparents and parents were victims of Soviet aggression/invasion/genocide, what right do you have to question "ancestral hatred"?
The fact that Russia is doing it again is enough to arouse intense emotions in many European populations.
>Soviet
Equating modern Russia and the SU is a widely deployed sleight of hand at the moment. Same with pre-Soviet Russia. No matter how little sense it actually makes. “Show me on this map where the Tsar/Stalin hurt you.”
But there is a common thread: Russia was, is, and will remain for a long while the predominant regional power. Pays to have a friendly relationship with them. Ami will go home. Sooner or later.
>claims these things
What he actually claims:
I would like to emphasise again that Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties.
>criticizes Lenin and Stalin
He criticizes the Soviets for creating Ukraine as we know it—Donbass, Crimea and so on. Artificial borders, a people divided; precisely to prevent the SU from becoming synonymous with Russia.
And it wasn’t just the Soviets who sought to use Ukraine against Russia.
Every day Ukraine-supporters whine about what they consider lackluster support from the West. What’s actually happening is obvious but wishful thinking and a quality reality distortion field prevent enlightenment: While there are real limits of supply, and at times they might have in fact entertained the idea of “winning,” the basic goal is and has always been to cause as much death and destruction as possible without actually getting into a shooting war with Russia. And, of course, most of that death and destruction happens in Ukraine.
And then they have the gall to cry “scorched earth.”
Dude, you're the only person here who mentioned America. Feels like you're projecting what you think other people think and reply to that, not to what they actually wrote.
The evil of Nazi Germany is notable because of the scale of their atrocities. This is the same with Russia where the evil is so systematic and widespread that it boggles the mind.
Trying to compare the evil of Russia today to something like Guantanamo can only be seen as furthering Russia's propaganda.
1) even the article didn't mention it, so it feels like a forced comment to say "well, there are only shades of grey".
2) folks who aren't US citizens don't vibe with your perspective the same way. As a Pole I see Russians as unequivcally "the bad guys" because they have done the exact same kind of thing to our country to Polish people in the past. The tales of Polish prisoners in Russian work camps are numerous and pretty much the same as this article describes.
You're trying very hard to insert the US into the discussion here while the focus should be on what Russia is doing to Ukraine, where there's very clearly a good vs evil thing going on.
Complaining about the evil that US has committed when discussing Russia's actions is only helping Russia's propaganda. Cut it out.
The scale of Putin's Russia crimes are stratospheric. It isn't only tortures, there's raping, kids kidnapping, castration, targeting civilians with bombs, etc. And that isn't all, in particular if you add what Putin's regime is doing against their own people. Also keep an eye on what's still happening in Syria, and what Wagner is doing in the Sahel region.
Whataboutism aside, I really don't get what you're trying to imply with that "actually".
Like, is there some country whose blemished record we pretend is terrible, but is "actually" okay when compared to Russia?
Julian Assange was recently freed after spending 12 years either cooped in an embassy or in literal prisons because of the US's relentless campaign to punish him for exposing the US's war crimes. (And yes, there are many things to dislike about Assange and his support for Russia is a pretty big one, but the US would have hunted him regardless of these things.)
Is the message that the US aren't actually the bad guys? That they're only the bad guys until you compare them to more violent and more openly criminal regimes? In that logic, isn't Russia not-actually-the-bad-guys because it has committed fewer war crimes than ISIS or the Nazis or the Myanmar junta? (Or maybe not. I don't know the numbers for any of those.)
The lesson can't be that we're periodically reminded of evil when it's unambiguous and performed by polities opposed to US hegemony. All states do evil given the opportunity, and the only way to close off that opportunity and call them out whenever it happens, whether they are Russian, American, Israeli, Arab, French, Brazilian, Papuan or whatever else.
This makes it much easier for Putin to install this parallel reality.
Russians are not stupid, this is a textbook example of a modern dictatorship.
Even if Putin goes away, it might not make Russia better: Putin may be the smartest guy in the room right now, unfortunately.
Those are not the russian people, they are just going to make noise like a lot of noise we see on the internet.
And about logic, more then one Zed was complaining that Ukraine hitting a military shit outside the SMO zone defined but Puttin is terrorism but when Ruzzia hits a power station or civilian building it is not terrorism because the target is inside the SMO. No good Russian popped in the discussion to say he disagress with this point, my guess this is how was presented on Ruzzian media and how any good Zed will repeat it even if the logic is unnatural.
The mods there are 100% KGB guys. You will get banned if you engaged with them, so better don't or make some other account, those assholes will troll your ancient comments and mass report you to silence you.
Since you said you are not following the war let me make a summary
Ruzzia is attacking and Ukraine is defending, the attacks are done with either a column of vehicles or motorcycles/ATV , this vehicles wither hit mines, get blow up by artillery or FPB drones, then the soldiers are picked up with FPV drones. There is a ton of FPV and surveillance drones videos of Ruzzian loses and almost nothing from the other side (but the Zeds are sure that Russia is not publishing the videos they have). Drones are used to also spot logistic of Ruzzians and those trucks/depos are blown up daily, there is also videos of anti air stuff getting destroyed a lot this last month. So Ruzzia is in a despreate attack mode, the soldiers have bad logistic support and they are sacrificed for microscopic gains. The Zeds seem to bet on Trump winning and offering Putin a favorable peace deal. They also hope N Korea will send them more soldiers and ammo to fight, since Putin is too coward to mobilize the people in the big cities.
However, it seems a lot of them are in the US, influenced by the MAGA camp, and apparently unable to discern reality from fiction. (I'm not making a political statement, just an observation.)
1) not surprised this is happening at all
2) it makes my blood boil to a degree that cannot be explained in any rational way.
When Poland seems to be ramping up in terms of military and talks about being "ready" for conflict with Russia, it's not because anyone here wants to go and fight - it's because we know exactly what Ukraine is going through because Russians have been doing exactly this shit to many other nations before. Their brutality knows no bounds.
Enormous quantities of European artillery production are finally coming online while Russia's stockpiles of artillery and vehicles are finally running dry. They won't "run out", but they can't continue pushing forwards with only what they are able to produce fresh themselves. Much like the missile strikes - sure they won't literally "run out" as long as they continue production but Russia can no longer throw 500 missiles a month at Ukraine anymore because the stockpiles are gone. Now the biggest problem is glide bombs, but that is being mitigated also.
The situation with the power grid is quite serious, though. It's going to be a very difficult winter for civilians. It's a damn shame that western nations couldn't pony up sufficient air defense before it was needed rather than waiting until after it was too late.
This is what I was talking about.
Surely there are hundreds of thousands more suitable candidates.
We always get the leaders we deserve.
Trump is a baffling choice of candidate for how bad and utterly unsuited it was.
Trump is a candidate who won an election thanks to a massive wave of foreign interference and, even though he was handed a nearly ideal set of circumstances, fumbled his term so hard that lost an election as the incumbent against a lackluster challenger.
On top of that historical show of incompetence, who already earned him a the top spot in the ranking of most incompetent US presidents in US history, there's hi coup attempt to force the US into a fascist dictatorship which included plans to assassinate his own vice president along with other political rivals.
If that is not enough, there is his criminal history and spiral into dementia.
This is the best that the Republican Party managed to pick among it's ranks as their best and brightest.
I'm convinced that the Democratic party only entertained the idea of pushing Biden due to a) being a sitting president and incumbent, who historically tends to ensure second terms, b) his outstanding tenure as president even though circumstances were far from ideal, c) and the high-stakes risk of allowing the US to succumb to the push for a fascist regime.
For the record: Ukraine has no defense agreement with any of these western nations that are currently supporting them, and there is 0 chance that - if roles were reversed and another European nation had been attacked - that they'd have supported this theoretical victim.
The way you're phrasing that is honestly outrageous.
The UK and US provided "security assurances" to Ukraine in return for it giving up its nukes.
Why do you feel this is relevant?
> (...) and there is 0 chance that - if roles were reversed and another European nation had been attacked - that they'd have supported this theoretical victim.
I'm also not sure what leads you to believe this is relevant at all.
Ukraine is surrounded by NATO members. If NATO is not enough to counter a threat, things would be far bleaker for Ukraine as well.
What point do you think you're making?
Neighboring is not surrounding.
There would've been countless ways to mitigate the risks of the invasion, they choose not to and now even badmouth the nations literally gifting them money.
This is at a level of homeowners not insuring their homes and then complain that the state took a while to rebuild their homes free of charge.
Russia has shown that they don't have the resources to make meaningful progress towards Ukraine and given West's support the outcome is inevitable that Ukraine will be victorious.
The only question is if Russia apologists gain political power in the west and manage to stop West's support (Trump is Putin's buddy, by his own admission for example).
And even then the remaining support in West gives Ukraine the upper hand.
Odds are in their, and hence Putin's, favor.
And even if Trump wins it's not likely he can pull all support.
Even though the russian invasion of Ukraine is already a catastrophic strategic defeat for Russia and the initial domino of its unavoidable collapse, this does not mean that Ukraine is safe and Russia's genocide of Ukraine cannot go through anymore. In a war of attrition Russia has far more people they can force into the meat grinder to exhaust Ukraine's defenses. Even if Russia's meat wave tactics continue to be the norm, Ukraine can only support for so long today's 10-to-1 kill/death ratio.
The big and mighty Putin needs to visit North Korea to get ammo because no one else respects Russia any more. That doesn't sound like things are going that well.
That's quite a bold assumption that literally doesn't line up with anything I have ever read, and I've been following this war very closely. Any reason why you're saying that?
To the point that even African nations are complaining about the influx of arms flowing into their countries as arms meant for Ukraine are sold off. https://statehouse.gov.ng/news/president-buhari-calls-for-ti...
Sure, that one I've heard - but to go from there to "Zelensky is on it [genocide of the ukrainian people]" is quite a leap.
This is pure, systemic evil, on a state level. Russia was never punished for its crimes the way Germany was after WW2. This is the result.
Peace will only be possible when that system is dismantled and destroyed - with everything that entails. Russia is not just digging itself into a hole, but into a grave.
Someone says Russia is a problem? They must mean we should annex it! Someone says landlords are a problem? They must mean we should abolish private ownership and institute communism!
And of course the ultimate irony, you accuse everyone else of politicizing things.
This isn’t a healthy approach to discourse. I hope you can understand that. Please aim higher.
There's an odd situation where the US seems to be drip feeding aid to Ukraine so as to prevent it from winning as they are worried about the Putin government collapsing leading to chaos. Personally I'd rather like to see that government collapse. (good video on that https://youtu.be/CxZ402BMSs8)
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Most people aren't here to read about the Russia/Ukraine conflict. You submit articles very frequently on the topic, so it's not surprising that some of them get flagged.
This particular post about Russian war crimes has over 60 comments which I think is significant and the post should not be flagged.
I am a high profile Ukraine War activist and what I post I think matters. Quite a few people in the defense industry and government read the posts that I submit to Hacker News YCombinator. I have a very large following in government and the international defense industries. I am working on a better work flow for news aggregation to bring more relevant up-to-date news to this community here and on X.com.
When it comes to war crimes and stories that relate to human atrocities I think an acception should be made here.
I'm working on my work/information flow so I'm able to spread better tech related news here at HackerNews YCombinator.
I enjoy reading and contributing the highly technical articles as that is what we want here. We don't want low level shit here. Slipping in one of these off-topic related articles is okay every now and then but I thought it would be at least interesting for us to read something about the condition of prisoners and their deaths due to ill-treatment. The world needs to know.
Cherry pick news articles that fit a certain theme and post them? Anyone can do that. Aggregate maps and data, sure.
I don't think that's true. There's indeed plenty of engagement in this discussion, quiver above the average engagement in HN, but somehow it sounds like there's some kind of counter pressure to bury this particular discussion.
> > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics,
Contemporary history should not be conflated with politics. There can be some overlap, but what this article describes are significant events that go far beyond everyday politics.
> Most people aren't here to read about the Russia/Ukraine conflict.
That can be said about pretty much any topic on this site. However, it is clear that there is still considerable interest in the topic even if it is below 50% of the user base
I don't know what "most people" is supposed to mean. To me, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as the US presidential elections, are clear examples of an interesting new phenomenon.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is particularly relevant to techies by the way Ukraine has been thrashing a full-blown invasion by Russia with nove high-tech weapons such as it's vast array of cheap drones.
Also, I'd say that a genocide in 21st century Europe is quite novel.
Why do you think that your question is relevant to the fact that this post is being flagged?
There's plenty of places to find all the 'news' about your war. This isn't the one.
I don't think so. Feel free to try to explain in your own words why you feel an ad-hominem is relevant.
> You speak as though you are the OP (...)
I speak up when I see attempts to derrail an interesting discussion by conspiracy-oriented ad-hominem attacks.
Again, why do you think your complains are relevant to the fact that this post is being flagged?
I'm asking (for the third time, mind you) why do you think your complains are relevant to the fact that this post is being flagged.
You're repeatedly trying to dodge the question.
Can't you even explain your own train of thought? What does this say about it?
In the past it has been helpful to mention a list of "users who flagged X also flagged the following", so in that spirit, I've included a list below. The point here is not that all those other flags were good (a few were in fact bad), it's that the accounts are flagging a wide variety of stories and not in a predictable way.
---
In what format is Euro2024 broadcast in your country? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40837829
Dev rejects CVE severity, makes his GitHub repo read-only - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40837791
Goldman Sachs says the return on investment for AI might be disappointing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40837081
Farewell MongoDB: why you only need PostgreSQL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40836988
Analisis Tingkat Kemenangan Pada Berbagai Jenis Permainan Slot Di Mahongbet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40835300
DeSantis' Ban on Cultivated Meat: Food Freedom Battered in the State of Florida - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40834342
Welcome to the Scene [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40833179
That job you applied for might not exist - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40828708
Anyone likes mechanical keyboard sounds? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40828566
Oklahoma orders schools to teach Bible 'immediately' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40816352
Italian Revenue Agency demands 1B from Google for tax evasion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40812608
The rarest book in American literature: Poe's Tamerlane - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40795556
Why is Microsofts chat widget over 6MB of JavaScript code? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40785986
Why do we still teach people to calculate? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40771627
How to do the jhanas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40771514
OpenAI's GPT-5 Pushed Back to Late 2025, but Promises PhD-Level Abilities - https://news.ycombinator.com/item? id=40759361
I W...