Azov Insignia-Bearing Teen Carries Out, Streams Mass Shooting in US

It seems Russia was instrumental in the rise of the Azov Battalion. 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment

13 people shot in Buffalo on the weekend is national news.

34 people shot in Chicago on the weekend and it's just another weekend. [204 homicides year to date, 800+ in 2021]

Shootings of black Americans are only reported when it's convenient.

 

 

NDPP wrote:

In Ukraine, Russia is Fighting Neo-Nazism

https://cprf.ru/2022/05/in-ukraine-russia-is-fighting-neo-nazism/

"Today, Banderites, like the SD stormtroopers in Germany, are the shock brigade of Big Business. They control every move of the government, constantly blackmailing it with the threat of a government coup.

The nature of the present-day Ukrainian state is the alliance of big capital and the government bureacracy backed by Fascist elements under the total political and financial control of the USA..."

 

Zelensky is not a neo- nazi. The Azov battalion has neo-nazi roots and still contains some but many were expelled and they are not being honored for anything even remotely connected to white supremacy. Any honor bestowed on them is for defending Ukraine from Russia's invasion. They are honored despite neo-nazi connections not because of them.

I got banned from Facebook for merely posting a picture of the Azov official logo because it is a NAZI symbol. But that was a few days after the invasion.

Pondering wrote:

 

Zelensky is not a neo- nazi. The Azov battalion has neo-nazi roots and still contains some but many were expelled and they are not being honored for anything even remotely connected to white supremacy. Any honor bestowed on them is for defending Ukraine from Russia's invasion. They are honored despite neo-nazi connections not because of them.[/quote]

Zelensky is not a neo-nazi but he certainly did nothing to stop the Azov Battalion or the right wing, racist groups that created it. I suspect his hands were tied by US influence. But I have to ask where there is evidence that many of the neo-NAZIs were expelled and where to? I would want to know just to avoid them.

I have no idea how you whitewash neo-NAZI or similar offshoot ideologies just because they helped in your fight let alone celebrate them as heros.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment

The unit was initially formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly (SNA) group. Both groups engaged in xenophobic and neo-Nazi ideals and physically assaulted migrants, the Roma community and people opposing their views.

As a battalion, the group fought on the front lines against pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, the eastern region of Ukraine. Just before launching the invasion, Putin recognised the independence of two rebel-held regions from Donbas.

A few months after recapturing the strategic port city of Mariupol from the Russian-backed separatists, the unit was officially integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014, and exacted high praise from then-President Petro Poroshenko....

The unit received backing from Ukraine’s interior minister in 2014, as the government had recognised its own military was too weak to fight off the pro-Russian separatists and relied on paramilitary volunteer forces.

These forces were privately funded by oligarchs – the most known being Igor Kolomoisky, an energy magnate billionaire and then-governor of the Dnipropetrovska region.

In addition to Azov, Kolomoisky funded other volunteer battalions such as the Dnipro 1 and Dnipro 2, Aidar and Donbas units.

Azov received early funding and assistance from another oligarch: Serhiy Taruta, the billionaire governor of Donetsk region....

“These are our best warriors,” he said at an awards ceremony in 2014. “Our best volunteers.”...

In 2015, Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment at the time said that 10 to 20 percent of Azov’s recruits were Nazis.

The unit has denied it adheres to Nazi ideology as a whole, but Nazi symbols such as the swastika and SS regalia are rife on the uniforms and bodies of Azov members.

For example, the uniform carries the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol, which resembles a black swastika on a yellow background. The group said it is merely an amalgam of the letters “N” and “I” which represent “national idea”.

Individual members have professed to being neo-Nazis, and hardcore far-right ultra-nationalism is pervasive among members.

In January 2018, Azov rolled out its street patrol unit called National Druzhyna to “restore” order in the capital, Kyiv. Instead, the unit carried out pogroms against the Roma community and attacked members of the LGBTQ community.

“Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces,” a correspondent for the US-based magazine, the Nation, wrote in 2019.

Included the above to illustrate I am not ignoring their history.

The until was formally incorporated into the National Guard on 11 November 2014, and its former commanders were replaced with officers from regular Ukrainian armed forces.[12][13][14][7] The regiment strength was estimated between 900 and 2,500 members in 2017-2022.[15][3] Most of the unit members are Russian speakers and come from the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, it also includes members from other countries.[12][16][17]

At maximum they were at 2500 men mostly Russian speakers 20% of which would be 500 neo-nazi. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/26/putin-anarchists-join-ukra...

“His regime is an ultraconservative, rightwing dictatorship that represses anarchists in Russia, the free press, LGBT networks. It scares even the most banal, grassroots initiatives, like animal rights activists. We see the conflict between Ukraine and Russia as a conflict between a more or less democratic state and a totalitarian one.”

That sounds even worse than neo-nazi to me or at least their equal. Russia is not fighting neo-nazis it is trying to annex Ukrainian land. Any neo-nazis in the bunch just happen to be there when it comes to Russia's motivation.

So we have neo-nazi Ukrainian Russians fighting other Russian paid rebels who are also neo-nazi in all but name on Ukrainian land where there are Ukrainian Russians who don't want to separate from Ukraine. 

 

 

Since Russia has nuclear weapons I think there was no chance NATO was going to attack Russia. I think Russia attacked Ukraine first without warning because Putin wanted to annex all of Ukraine and establish a pro-Russian Ukraine puppet government in Kiev.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

You are absolutely right that NATO was not going to attack Russia. That is what they trained 300,000 Ukrainians to do.

Russia invading Ukraine was basically self-defense.

Russia has a terrible history of genocidally oppressing the indigenous peoples of Siberia. 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Pondering wrote:

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So we have neo-nazi Ukrainian Russians fighting other Russian paid rebels who are also neo-nazi in all but name on Ukrainian land where there are Ukrainian Russians who don't want to separate from Ukraine.

So according to this scenario only Russian speakers are involved in the conflict. Even if these were the only groups involved why should NATO have been training any of these forces and sending them weapons. Everywhere the NED and NATO go, to help people become democratic, death and destruction follows. It is the same scenario over and over except this time Putin struct first because Russia has been invaded by Central European forces on a regular basis: 1812, 1854, 1915, 1941 and most Russian leaders understand that history.

Russians are assuming Russian speakers are on their side and want to be "liberated". The Azov battalion that has been so condemned are Russian speaking Ukrainians and it is fighting against Russia and Russian backed separatists. The Azov battalion has been characterized as neo-nazi with the underlying suggestion that this is a Ukrainian movement fighting against Russian-speaking separatists just trying to defend their language rights and independence against the nasty neo-nazi Ukrainians. It turns out it is the Russians who are a neo-nazi movement within Ukraine. They are fighting the Russians who want to separate who are funded by Russia. It seems even neo-nazis don't want to be under the Russian state.

The portrayal of Russia fighting against neo-nazi Ukrainians is very misleading and an attempt to blacken Ukrainians as not worthy of help because the Russian Azov battalion has been fighting Russian separatists. In all the talk about the origins of the Azov battalion I never heard mention that they are Russian Ukrainians. It seems their nazism is derived from their Russian background not their Ukrainian background.

Russia wasn't a nuclear power in 1941. No country was even vaguely planning on invading Russia just like no country is even vaguely planning on invading The US, the EU, China, or India. It's leftwing propaganda to suggest that Russia had reason to fear invasion so was forced to act first.

The problem for Russia is that so many countries choose NATO and capitalism. The only possible explanation for this is propaganda thereby negating the choices of those populations. The establishment left long ago determined that the US is so evil that a multi-polar world is needed to keep them in check. Therefore, in any conflict between NATO/US and anyone else NATO/US are in the wrong regardless of the details.

I don't think NATO "should" be training/supplying weapons or expanding necessarily. I only think they have the right to. Freedom of association on a global scale. I think it is dangerous to give in to nuclear threats. I don't think it reduces the threat I think it increases it. It seems to me illustrating that nuclear threats don't work is the best deterrent to both use and development.

Indeed these Nazi's thought that Putin needed to be fought because he was a Jew. I am confused as to why you think it is okay to white wash murderous assholes who have spent years killing innocent people.

I'm not whitewashing them. I'm saying they are all the same. Portions of the Russian-Ukrainian Azov Battalion are neo-nazi. At the most they number only a portion of the 2,500 hundred member Battalion, but even if it were all of them that is still just 2,500 out of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian troops. Considering the punishment they took in Mariopol I find it hard to believe they form a significant portion of the Ukrainian military.

The Russian-Ukrainian Azov Battalion is being exagerated to tar Ukraine when it seems the "nazi" in them came from Russia.

I know you absolutely condemn Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. You are in no way claiming that NATO's behavior justifies it, but then you follow immediately on that condemnation with a great big BUT that does come across as justification of some sort in the sense of the guilt being shared by NATO for provoking Russia through expansion. 

I assumed the Azov Battalion fighting the Russian separatists were ethnic Ukrainian. That supported the narrative that nasty Ukrainians were abusing the Russian speaking population so Russian separatists arose in response to the injustice. But it turns out the Azov Battalion fighting the Russian separatists is ethnically Russian too. 

The roots of the Azov Battalion are Russian so it seems more than a little unfair to condemn Ukraine for that. I am guessing that for Ukraine it made sense to allow the Russian Azov Battalion to fight the Russian separatists rather than have ethnic Ukrainians fighting Russian separatists. 

I get accused of oversimplifying but I find myself being drowned in historical details that don't have a practical impact on the current situation while this very important detail about the Azov Battalion is ignored. 

The most important factor by far is what the people in the regions themselves want. Were I convinced Crimea or any logical area of the Donbas wanted to be Russian I would totally support that happening. Every indication is that even Crimea would rather be Ukrainian that Russian. 

Every indication is that even Crimea would rather be Ukrainian that Russian. 

Please cite some polls or other studies that have led you to that conclusion. Frankly I doubt if that it the case since the main attraction on the peninsula is Sevastopol Naval Base that has been a part of its history since 1783. The peninsula has been the site of more than one epic battle between Russia and other powers. However if you have some data that you would like to share I am interested.

Thank you for admitting you have no proof just your own "analysis" from your apartment in Montreal.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Thank you for admitting you have no proof just your own "analysis" from your apartment in Montreal.

I never said I had proof. I presented my reasoning from the start. You have no proof of anything either.

The default when land is taken from a country through invasion is that those invaded would have perferred not to have been. The onus is on the invader to prove that they are welcome. Russia hasn't done so.

International law is built on the assumption that countries don't want to be invaded.

It is up to the invader to prove they were/are wanted. 

To suggest that this is "my" rule is just a cop-out because you know I am right. Russia has had the opportunity for years, almost a decade, to prove that it is welcome in the territories it captured and had control over. They could do it today.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Sorry but I do not understand the framework you want to discuss global affairs in. Words have meanings that are real and specific. International law is a real term that means actual laws and treaties and conventions. Russia is no more going to hold a referendum in Crimea than the US is going to allow one in Puerto Rico. Hell the US might even win in Puerto Rico but it would be close even though they have repressed all independence movements since they invaded in 1898.

Why don't you write to them and tell them about your rules pertaining to invading nations.

Russia broke international law, not my law, by invading and annexing Crimea and every other part of Ukraine it has invaded. 

Even if Russia did allow a supervised referendum and won in a landslide they still would have broken international law by invading. Even so, regular people on the street might oppose sending weapons to Ukraine if a referendum proved that it was the will of the people. 

As to Puerto Rico

21st century

Further information: Proposed political status for Puerto Rico, 2012 Puerto Rican status referendum, President's Task Force on Puerto Rico's Status, and 2020 Puerto Rican status referendum

On 15 July 2009, the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization approved a draft resolution calling on the government of the United States to expedite a process that would allow the Puerto Rican people to exercise fully their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.[113]

On 6 November 2012, a two-question referendum took place, simultaneous with the general elections.[114][115] The first question, voted on in August, asked voters whether they wanted to maintain the current status under the territorial clause of the U.S. Constitution. 54% voted against the status quo, effectively approving the second question to be voted on in November. The second question posed three alternate status options: statehood, independence, or free association.[116] 61.16% voted for statehood, 33.34% for a sovereign free associated state, and 5.49% for independence.[117][failed verification]

On 30 June 2016, President Obama signed into law H.R. 5278: PROMESA, establishing a Control Board over the Puerto Rican government. This board will have a significant degree of federal control involved in its establishment and operations. In particular, the authority to establish the control board derives from the federal government's constitutional power to "make all needful rules and regulations" regarding U.S. territories; The president would appoint all seven voting members of the board; and the board would have broad sovereign powers to effectively overrule decisions by Puerto Rico's legislature, governor, and other public authorities.[118]

Puerto Rico held its statehood referendum during the 3 November 2020 general elections; the ballot asked one question: "Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State?" The results showed that 52 percent of Puerto Rico voters answered yes.[119]

 

I think eventually the people of Puerto Rico will get there way and become full American citizens. I think eventually they will be fully represented in Congress by two senators and one or two representatives in the House of Representatives. I think eventually the people of Ukraine will also get there way and become full members of the E.U. I think over the long term democracy will win out for both Puerto Rico and Ukraine. The sooner the better.

Facts do indeed matter. Thanks krop.

JKR wrote:

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Discounting a hundred years of struggle by Puerto Rican independence fighters sounds so hum drum on babble.

Who’s discounting Puerto Rican history?

I said you were discounting the independence movement. Somehow you think that a hundred years of struggle was to get a vote in the US Presidential election not for a free country.