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Iwan Baamann's avatar

Thank you for this analysis. In my conservative, Christian circles I am so often encountering the perspective you're responding to. I'm a native of Ukraine, from Dnipro; we have family who fled the country after the war; my former classmate, Denis Shlega, was one of the main commanders in Mariupol and was a POW in a Russian camp.

But people who know very little about Soviet and post-Soviet history respond to me with what sounds suspiciously like Russian propaganda: Ukraine is corrupt, the West is decadent, Putin's Russia is conservative, who knows what's really going on in Ukraine?, the media lied about Covid (they did, of course) so they are lying about Ukraine, too; and finally, it's not our war.

So thank you for responding to these so-called arguments.

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Jonathon Van Maren's avatar

Thank you, sir! The way progressive disinformation/making everything about their issues interacts with conservative suspicion of "narratives" due to abortion, gender ideology, Covid, you name it...it needs more unpacking yet.

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Luke L's avatar

Denis Shlega, ah an azovite...

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Iwan Baamann's avatar

No. Denys Shleha is a colonel of the National Guard.

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Luke L's avatar

Well AFAIK Azov is part of Ukrainian national guard, even expanded today to an army corps...

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Iwan Baamann's avatar

The point still is, if you want to establish the facts, he wasn't one of the Azov commanders.

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Luke L's avatar

Alright I was wrong, after checking, he is simply in a different unit. Thanks.

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Iwan Baamann's avatar

No problem. Although, if Denys had been part of Azov, that wouldn't have been a problem for me. The early nationalistic excesses, which I don't condone, have really mellowed out years ago. And had it not been for Azov, russian invaders in 2014 would have gotten much farther on Ukrainian land.

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Luke L's avatar

Hungary: if only orban is not pro russia

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Luke L's avatar

Greetings, and as a follow up: how you will respond to narratives that trump is pro russia ?

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Ryan's avatar

What about the war crimes the Ukrainian army is committing now during the war and prior to this invasion against Russian populated areas ? no mention of that in your report it seems

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