Russian invasion of Ukraine

Octavian said:
There’s a very sinister alliance with the far left and Russia which I can only think is born out of some nostalgia because that’s where the motherland of the Soviet Union originated and they hate the West.

Chris Williamson is the latest to come out and attack NATO rather than Russia.

It’s bizarre alright as Russia hasn’t been communist since 1991 and I thought they hated imperialism.
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The far left (and far right) in the West are played like a fiddle by Russia.

Have you ever heard of Olginos? Also known as “Russian Troll Factories”? They are misinformation organisations that spread pro-Russia/anti-West shite across Russia and into the West. They also start conspiracy theories or spread misinformation around emotive topics, or stoke fires around incidents and create furores that antagonise groups of people into getting wound-up and even into taking action.

This was one of the very first things Putin started doing when he took power in 2000. He took over Russian state TV and made it a pro-Putin/anti-West propaganda station. Then he spread it into different countries. It’s why we should never have allowed RT to broadcast in this country.

Then with the rise of the internet and social media, these Olginos or Troll Factories were created and would flood Russian social media platforms with this same pro-Putin/anti-West rhetoric all over comments sections and chat rooms. They then employed English speaking employees who spread the same shite across our online platforms in the West: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, forums (just like ours!) would have these Russian bots posting their pro-Putin/anti-West bollocks day-after-day, hour-after-hour.

The far left in the West hate Western society and our governments (Christ, they even hate the slightly less left wing left wing!). These bots have spread misinformation about NATO-expansionism, NATO-imperialism, NATO’s threat to Russia, NATO antagonising Russia… the far left here fucking love that shit, and it just becomes part of the topics of every day conversations online.

Look at Jeremy Corbyn and his merry band with their protest against NATO countries sending weapons to Ukraine and the West’s antagonising of Russia. On their website, there are 7 words to start a paragraph off about condemning Russia’s invasion and the rest of the paragraph is moaning about the West/NATO!

People on the extremes of politics and social issues are easily exposed to and often trapped in algorithms and online echo chambers. Even those who get a broader scope often just ignore what they don’t like and won’t take it on board. These people are easily swayed and manipulated with continual exposure and repeated tropes.

These Troll Factories spread across every political and social issue you could possibly imagine. They’re open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week hammering us with fake news, and influential and manipulative language.

It’ll be the same with the founders and most extreme supporters of things like Black Lives Matter. While the well-meaning supporters who follow them because they simply think that black lives matter; the core of that movement describe themselves as Marxist and anti-capitalist and there’s a lot of anti-West and anti-white sentiment in their extreme end too. Their online algorithms will be feeding them all kinds of bollocks in their online echo chambers with misinformation sloshing around spread by the Troll Factories.

It’s the same over on the far right n’all. They love a conspiracy theory and the Troll Factories start, spread, and spam them all over social media.

QAnon, white genocide, Covid conspiracies, anti-vaccers, global warming hoax, chemtrails, Holocaust denial etc. will all be Troll Factory rooted. Those paranoid far right nutters hate “MSM” and access their news from all sorts of utterly crazy places. Where they are trapped in their end of algorithms and echo chambers is frightening!

There’s obviously a lot of racism over on the far right as well. Trump/MAGA, and Brexit/immigration topics will have been rife for Troll Factory involvement.

The Leave campaign was full of this misinformation spread by Russia. As was a hell of a lot of the going on in the MAGA and Trump years, with interference in the election drives of Clinton and Biden.

There are negativity spammers from the Factories as well, spreading doom+gloom and forever repeating how shit things are around different topics.

There’s so much anti-West and conspiracy shit talked about by the extreme ends that these topics, and what were once extreme minorities, are forever nudging ever closer into normal ways of thinking and moderate politics with a worryingly ever growing support.

The FBI put undercover employees in the Troll Factories last decade, and there have also been ex-employees who’ve come forward to the West to admit what went on there. For example, here in these articles:

amp.theguardian.com

The Russian troll factory at the heart of the meddling allegations

Former workers tell how hundreds of bloggers are paid to flood forums and social networks at home and abroad with anti-western and pro-Kremlin comments
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com

Latest breaking news and videos of European and World | Eupoliticalreport

Find all national and international information about Europe and Worlds. News about economy, politics, diplomacy and others. Stay with us.
www.eupoliticalreport.eu www.eupoliticalreport.eu

They’re really good reads!

I’ve been banging on about this sort of thing for years. I feel like people don’t really take much notice of me and dismiss what I say on it, but maybe now they will start to take it on board a bit more with what’s currently unfolding.

I’ve spoken before in this thread about Putin’s aims. And they are two-fold:
1. Disrupt, create divisions, and weaken in the West
2. Expand Russia

He’s been doing #1 for over two decades, and doing it very well! He’s been doing #2 in Georgia since 2008 and Ukraine since 2014. But he’s really ramped up #2 these past few weeks. Although, it’s not going anywhere near as well as he did with #1, and this might be the very thing that smashes his gains made with #1 as it unites the West where it has been continually divided for too long!
 
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Marklr said:



do you think these could maybe have guns pointing at them? Or maybe...
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He's lucky. He's going to be safe thanks to being on TV his face is everywhere and his name. Not a mark on him.

Thankfully Ukraine are playing this through the media showing compassion and that they are not the aggressors
 
Does anybody else think the footage fromUkraine is odd , burned out vehicles but no bodies? Planes being hit but no explosion when theyhitthegroundetc etc ,all seems slightly faked
 
Metal Biker said:
Drink the mask, wear the alcohol.

only-way.gif
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One.of my favourite films
 
Marklr said:



do you think these could maybe have guns pointing at them? Or maybe...
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I really don't believe any side in this they are both trying to show the world the "real war " obviously we are getting mostly the Ukrainian side ,it's a war we really haven't got a clue what is actually happening
 
bobmcfc said:
Zelensky has won the hearts and minds of the world. He's the man of the people, a true leader. He's played a blinder here against cold hard Putin.
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Considering he's a political nobody, he was a comedy actor in a soap opera. He ran for election as bit of a joke. Fair play to the guy he is, as mentioned, playing a blinder. Seems like a decent bloke.
 
smeeagain said:
Does anybody else think the footage fromUkraine is odd , burned out vehicles but no bodies? Planes being hit but no explosion when theyhitthegroundetc etc ,all seems slightly faked
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No.
The ones you are seeing are the ones where the bodies have been removed or were obliterated. I'm sure if you search more - you'll find some very gory footage.
 
The perfect fumble said:
If it's any help I find it best to distinguish between words and actions.

Putin can talk nuclear readiness all he likes, but his actions? Four days in he's got a delegation talking with the Ukrainians. Russia has the conventional weaponry, men and machines, to roll over Ukraine, so why hasn't he done it?

Putin is trapped in the past, he assumed, as happened in so many Western European countries in the early years of the 2nd World War, that faced with overwhelming odds, the government of the invaded country would surrender rather than suffer pointless loss of innocent civilian life. That might still happen here, we get stories and images of plucky Ukrainians, but it's hard to distinguish between fact and propaganda, all countries look plucky against the invader right up to the point they aren't, then knownothing armchair warriors thousands of miles from the action call them surrender monkeys.

The only thing one can say with any certainty is this invasion is not turning out as Putin envisaged.

Putin's appeal to the Ukrainian military to oust their government, so that he can set up a cosy client state in Kyev, along the lines of the one he has in Minsk is the real issue, because that plan is in the shitter.

We're in a world of unintended consequences now, Putin wanted a compliant Ukraine on his doorstep, not a devastated resentful nation under occupation. Ukraine is a huge country of 44 million people, not some tiny statelet in Georgia. He can take Ukraine but he'll never hold it to his bosom,

This war might be playing out on the world stage, but it is not a world war. The world might be supporting Ukraine, but not with boots on the ground. Which means that unless there's a palace coup in Moscow, Ukraine will lose. Soon we're going to find out what the nature of that loss is.

As for Russia? In military terms she will win, but it will be a pyrrhic victory, her principal objectives thwarted.

Churchill was referring to loss of life in the 1st World War when he said this, but it is apt in a broader sense to Russia in this vainglorious war....

"Victory has been bought at a price so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat"
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I wish you were wrong but suspect you are right, no matter how much I want the Ukraine to win, Russia are far to large and strong. They have too many expendable troops and weapons I fear
 
Tuearts right boot said:
Considering he's a political nobody, he was a comedy actor in a soap opera. He ran for election as bit of a joke. Fair play to the guy he is, as mentioned, playing a blinder. Seems like a decent bloke.
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It would be a tragedy if he got killed. Ukraine possibly going back to a corrupt government willing to bend the knee to Russia.
 
Octavian said:
There’s a very sinister alliance with the far left and Russia which I can only think is born out of some nostalgia because that’s where the motherland of the Soviet Union originated and they hate the West.

Chris Williamson is the latest to come out and attack NATO rather than Russia.

It’s bizarre alright as Russia hasn’t been communist since 1991 and I thought they hated imperialism.
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I think your point should not be targeted at one part of the political spectrum but all over, as Russian sympathy (politics, not people) also lies with Trump, Banks, Carlson, Farage and so on, who aren't left wing last time I checked. I think those views lie across society for a variety of reasons. It's strange how eroded left right wing is becoming these days, covid and other political events are causing havoc.
 
petrusha said:
This is very good in conveying the horror but sense of absolute powerlessness that most educated people in Russia seem to be feeling right now:

'I am against this war. Everyone I know is against this war' – Reactions by Russians

Of course, words like this or mine on here are inadequate. On the other hand, I'm not much attracted by the idea of getting arrested at a demo on Nevsky prospekt in downtown St Petersburg and at best being deported away from my family. The worst is a stretch in a hellhole Russian prison. Cowardly on my part, I suppose, but there you go.

I have to say, I'm not coping very well at the moment. Until yesterday, I was pretty philosophical, but now I feel crippled by a terrible anxiety (I can feel the heart palpitations) and depression. I have a lot on at the moment at work, but it all feels utterly futile in the face of what's happening to this country.

Anyway, I don't want to be self-pitying. I'm not in a war zone and will cope. Please save your concern, thoughts and prayers for the brave people defending themselves in this terrible war.
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If you need to get out, head for Stockholm.
 
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