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I think that the leaders perform more like PR function and due to their power we cannot really think of terms we use for common men. Zelensky definitely played a role of inspiring leader and helped a lot in this war. But I suspect that Ukrainians would have fought bravely regardless and they are real heroes.
When people resist occupation risking their lives like in Bucha or the conductor was shot for refusing to play at the occupiers' concert, they are real heroes. If a robber comes to your house and at the gunpoint demands you to give all valuables, it would be insanity to refuse because your life is more valuable. However, during the war you are defending your country and if you are a civilian who decides to resist despite torture and risk of death then you are a hero. Many many Ukrainians turned out to be heroes.
There has been no independent inquiry in Bucha. It’s Ukraine / NATO claims without any real evidence for anything. No photographs of the faces of the victims, no consulting the family of the victims. Some of the corpse piles were surrounded by Russian aid packages, so to me it’s more likely to be “Azov killed innocents who took Russian aid” than “Random professional Russian soldiers randomly killed innocents after giving them aid packages”.
another blatant lie, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre :
An extraordinarily convenient line for the death of a pro-Russian politician. I love the idea of Russia being fine with soldiers killing influential pro-Russian politicians in key areas.
This is fake too, I imagine: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0gip7ibW_5Q
I am not claiming that Russian invasion was competent.
Ja niponimaju.
No idea what it is, I do not speak Russian. And RT branding and tiny account and that you posted it does not encourage me to spend time on it.
I don’t think anything would encourage you to spend time on a Russian-sourced claim.
As evidence for Bucha, you provide me with (1) the death of a prominent Russian-aligned politician whose son was murdered in 2018, (2) whom Russia was in contact with encouraging to flee Bucha, and (3) who we are to believe was killed by a random violent drunk Russian soldier, even though with certainty he would have had communication with the officers.
I am… not going to believe that.
Oh, I am doing this. I admit that I am limiting it primarily to "oh look what silly thing they are putting as an official claim" and to confirm things bad for them.
But well sourced claims also would be convincing, especially takedowns of Ukrainian lies. I am pretty sure that I become aware of Ukrainian official accounts posting game screenshots as real from such source (but it could be also Oryx retweeting them).
And I believed them as they provided an actual evidence.
I also spend some noticeable time on reading what Putin wrote (that blabbing how Ukraine is fake nation and so on). And self-published reports from Russians.
And treating RT with deep suspicion is well-warranted.
Yes, Red Army occupation tends to include pro-russian people getting killed by a random violent drunk Russian soldier.
In similar way how German Third Reich managed to convince people that USSR occupation is preferable (and similarly, how in some areas Gestapo managed to become preferable to NKVD). Both sides put massive effort on self-sabotage.
Going back to ongoing situation. Armies have loooooooong history of murdering random people. In fact, it is really impressive when such murders are non-existent or extremely rare. Which seems to be standard reached by Ukrainian army, but not Russian.
And obviously I am not trying to convince you, but other people reading this (and to have pretext to read more about this topics).
Given that you claim that Zelensky never visited Bucha and that all photos and videos from there are CGI I am not expecting to be able to convince you. In the same way as sometimes I may engage in discussion with flat-earther (or person running false-fag trolling).
No one claimed this
You claimed this in https://www.themotte.org/post/133/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/19694?context=8#context with
in response to
Though maybe you claimed that Zelensky was CGIed, while other photos were not? Then lets clarify it to
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we literally have satellite imagery of dead bodies lying on streets at time of Russian occupation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre#Satellite_images
This is blatant lie and denial of reality.
Dead bodies lying in the street, in position that look like they haven't even attempted to flee are more suggestive of people getting killed by a stray artillery shot than having been shot. They'd have been running after the first shots, so it'd look different.
In any case, Ukraine is claiming there are 'hundreds of bodies' and insinuating Russia murdered them all without really saying so. More likely is, the weeks of fighting and artillery exchanges killed most, soldiers being dicks / panicking / untrained most of the rest and as to executions, they're quite likely. Both sides have been noted saying they kill or want to kill those reporting their positions to the enemy.
I never claimed that Ukrainian claims are 100% accurate, and I can say that their claims are not fully accurate. They were publishing screenshots from flying games in the beginning of war and their count of shot down planes is a total fantasy.
Also, there were hundred of bodies, murdered by Russian invading army. And Ukraine has not merely insinuated this but openly claimed that - and as far as I know it was an accurate claim.
Even if that is true it reveals complete and blatant lies from Russians who claimed that they have harmed noone in Bucha.
And for:
that + looting and rape and torture is exactly what is being described as Bucha massacre.
No, publicly, people are saying Russians 'murdered' hundreds of people. It's all over twitter, for example. If you search for it, tweets pop up, every one saying Russians 'slaughtered' those people, as i if they, in a contested town on the front line had nothign better to do than kill thirty civilans each day.
If you look a little closer, the official claims are 'hundreds of people with signs of violent trauma' which is what you'd expect to happen in a town that wasn't evacuated and where the invading army is getting shot at for weeks.
It's not clear to me why the people haven't fled, did the Russians think having them around would help ? Probably, Russians were never very nice people, and even though they probably know it'd not stop Ukraine from firing at them, they thought 'why not', it costs us nothing and maybe it'd help.
People outside were very likely to be murdered/raped/tortured by Russian occupiers so most tried to wait.
Also, many has fled and remaining were less able/willing to escape.
I never claimed that Russian soldiers have good priorities. If anything, I claimed exact opposite. Which is self-proving by fact that they are Russian soldiers.
And I have no idea why you are surprised by that: we have long history of armies murdering civilians for no good reason, often with harm to themself. Russian army has even more clear history of being absurdly evil.
We also have quite good evidence of Russian army murdering some specific people in this specific case.
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Bucha atrocities have been very well documented and confirmed by several independent sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre
Russian narrative about it hasn't been confirmed, that's true.
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This sounds so fake I can't possibly believe it. Yet every single fake news media is repeating it as fact, solely on the claim of a ukrainian authority about en event that supposedly happened in a city currently occupied by a hostile force.
How can nobody in the entire world have questioned this yet?
I would be shocked to discover that Russian army has not murdered any people for trivial defiance.
Not investigated this specific case.
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It might not be true but it is very believable. Extrajudicial killings in occupied areas happen very frequently on both sides.
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