this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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Yes, I've seen people send me this type of thing before. You didn't answer the question. How many, in what years? There's a reason I am asking for specifics from you, so that then you'll need to defend your own claim.
Irrelevant question. The point is about whether there are right wing death squads terrorising the people in east ukraine. There are my sources proving they exist. If you want to make up some weird statistic so you can have measure of how bad these nazis are in order to be able to dismiss them then you're looking for nazi apologia. In which case you can fuck off.
The reason I'm asking is that, if it had actually happened, there would be a specific answer. That's a hallmark of factual information; it might be true or false, but it's specific and unchanging. You can compare it against other facts, and if it's true, it lines up. For the most part all the different pieces fit together. Propaganda information changes wildly, or contradicts itself, and the conversation keeps coming back to emotional appeals or angry hostility, and away from simple factual questions.
When I first started asking this question, I was genuinely taking it pretty seriously. It was part of an extensive conversation with some people where I was looking up UN death and incident figures, watching Youtube videos like the ones you sent me, asking questions about what was being presented or looking things up for myself. I actually spent a whole bunch of time on it. So the original reason I asked was that I wanted to see if it was true or false, and the best way I know to do that is to dig for a lot of details, then compare them against other stuff, make sure they're at least internally consistent, etc.
Every single conversation I've had about these supposed death squads went this way though.
See if you can spot the outlier. Again, I was originally asking about it expecting a specific answer and some kind of elaboration so I could compare it against other stuff to start to piece together whether it's true, but it was a little hard to ignore the pattern once it started happening.
If what had actually happened? Nazis in donbass? Why dont you interact with what I said. I dont know what youtube video you're talking about. What I linked is a three part series going into extreme detail about nazism in ukraine from WWII on as well as UN reports about missing persons in the region. Unless you interact with what I actually said I see no reason to continue this "conversation"
Obediently watching your videos while you absolutely refuse to answer simple questions about your position is not "interacting," and I'm not interested in doing it.
I spent hours watching videos the last time I did this. If I decide I want to do it again, I'll let you know. How many people died to these death squads in Donbas, in what year?
what videos dude wtf are you even talking about. I mean the reason there is no such statistic is because it's not a singular event. Like take the burning of the trade unions building in odesa 2014, thats 43 dead. Is that high or low?
As the government crumbled and the nazi forces spread the russians in Ukraine had to cobble together their own defense forces. This was a time when the maidan "self-defense" force was still rather hooligan and street-fighter like. With the collapse of the government the police force evaporates and now you have a civil war. It's not as clear cut as an organized, pre-meditated attack on an unarmed civilian population like in Gaza, during the Kristallnacht or Hiroshima. It's a civil war that goes on for over a decade now. I dont understand why you're so fixated on some statistic that doesn't fit the situation at all.
"Violence erupted on 2 May, when a 'United Ukraine' rally was attacked by pro-Russian separatists." Source
You can feel one way or another about street violence and I'm sure we can argue about whether that was what initiated the battle, but are you seriously claiming that those 43 dead were a result of "death squads"?
Sounds closer to the truth of what happened, although obviously I disagree with elements of your characterization. Sounds like the goalposts have moved now, from "death squads" and pogroms into an ethnic ongoing civil war. The ethnic violence, from both sides, I'll 100% agree was happening yes. If you want to talk about whose "fault" that was, and abandon the claim of organized death squads, we can move to that instead, and I'll be happy to talk about it.
I thought that's exactly what it was, though? Ukrainian death squads preying on helpless Russians and so they had to "fight back" to defend themselves?
How many Russians died during the initial pogroms that they were defending themselves against when they armed themselves and started attacking Ukrainian demonstrations?
I've already explained why, but I will again: I don't believe these death squads or pogroms existed. Definitely, I believe there was ethnic violence in eastern Ukraine, on both sides, but I believe that this idea that the Ukrainian government was systematically exterminating Russians is, to me, pure propaganda fantasy. Maybe I am wrong in that, although at this point I don't think so. Asking about objective and specific details of what you're saying happened is a way to start to pin it down. Then if your numbers and dates contradict some other facts that are provable, it's a pretty clear indication that it didn't happen. It's a way to sort fact from propaganda.
I'm not trying to ask for the number because I'm "fixated" on it, or because I'm planning to say it's high or low or whatever. I'm asking as a way of seeing what you're actually claiming happened. You've already moved a certain distance, from "death squads" to talking about street violence which at least one reliable source says the proximate cause of was Russian gunfire, so it's already had some of its intended effect.
This is what I mean by "terrorism of nazi death squads". Everything else is stuff you made up about what I said. I'm ending it here you arent doing your due diligence but expect me to look up everything.
Yes the attack on the trade unions building was by nazi death squads. Look at the UN report on it, or just read the article I linked you.
It is a key feature of propagandists that they must not engage in a two-way dialogue. Everything must be them presenting their narrative. Inconvenient questions are met with hostility or long lectures, or demands that you consume large amounts of their media as a precondition of continuing the conversation.
Have a good one.
Edit: Actually, one amendment, can you link me to the UN report on the fire? That, I'd be interested to read.