[Roosta]

Originally Posted by scorpion9 ↗

Videos like this are a harsh reminder that this war will not end until Putin is dead. It won't end until the nazi Ruzzia will learn the real history and apologize for their crimes, just like Germany did.

Putin fundamentally does not understand why Ukraine is fighting back. He simply doesn't understand that not everyone wants to serve their ruski reich. He doesnt understand that people have other identities, other cultures, other languages, other histories.
The fact that he sent trucks loaded with riot ger into Kiev during his first wave of invasion shows how disconnected from reality he was.

Putin was born and brought up under the Soviet occupation. He learned the fake history told by the KGB and he keeps making decisions based on that alternative history. Until Ruzzians learn the truth about their past, nothing will change. Even if this war ends with some kind of peace treaty, another one will begin soon after. The next führer will learn the fake history that is being written today and will begin the next brutal war.

If its true that the Ruzzians are already programming the next generation into their Putin jugend( history books teaching that the west is a demonic evil degenerate and russia under Putin is the holy savior ), it will take an entire generation until we have another chanche at true peace.

Im curious how many people here thought that something like this( a new authoritarian nazi reich being born ) was possible in 21st century? I personally had ruled out all wars between large countries because it just seemed so implausible. People have too good lives nowdays to follow a führer into a mindless war.
Sadly, i was wrong.
The appeal of a totalitarian father figure seems to be a fundamental part of our species.

Well said !

[WonderMomma]

Originally Posted by scorpion9 ↗

Im curious how many people here thought that something like this( a new authoritarian nazi reich being born ) was possible in 21st century? I personally had ruled out all wars between large countries because it just seemed so implausible. People have too good lives nowdays to follow a führer into a mindless war.
Sadly, i was wrong.
The appeal of a totalitarian father figure seems to be a fundamental part of our species.

Never. I never would have imagined it. But at the same time, almost nothing surprises me in this world anymore.

Life is hard in general. Leading and thinking for oneself just complicates things. Allowing others to make decisions for you and to just go with the flow of doing what you're told by the powers that be is easier. As humans, doing so is ingrained and indoctrinated in our lives from the moment we are born. From our parents, teachers, governments, doctors, religious figures and other authority figures.

Many humans are incapable of thinking beyond their own bubbles and those of us who are, didn't get that way overnight. It took me 35-40 years to start truly thinking for myself based on my instincts alone. My instincts have always screamed out at me in both good and bad situations but I ignored them many times based on what someone else wanted or how I was expected to behave. Following my instincts, refusing to default to denial or conformation and letting go of anything I cannot control directly has changed my life significantly.

If my government becomes totalitarian at any point in my lifetime I will likely be one of the first ones to be culled off. I would rebel with every fibre of my being.

[Roosta]

[kellyhound]

Kazakhstan. Local residents made a person cover a Z symbol on his car with paint.

He tried to justify himself that his last name, Zinovyev, starts with a Z, and apologized for his actions.


Russia is holding "elections" on 8-10th September, including occupied territories of Ukraine.

In Nova Kakhovka, a person wrote "Nova Kakhovka is Ukraine" on their voting ballot.

[kellyhound]

Russian media are reporting that mobile operators in Russia are facing a shortage of base stations needed to expand and maintain their networks due to sanctions.

The largest operators on the market such as MTS, Megafon, Vimpelcom and Tele2 were left with 20-30 thousand stations by the end of the year, while normal operation requires at least 80 thousand stations, Alexander Sivolobov, deputy head of the NTI Competence Center for wireless and Internet of Things technologies said.

According to Sivolobov, over the past year, operators have been testing equipment from "third echelon" manufacturers from China and other countries, but they have not yielded satisfactory results after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when the world's leading telecom equipment manufacturers, such as Finland's Nokia, Sweden's Ericsson and China's Huawei, suspended their official deliveries to Russia.

Currently, some Russian operators are considering working with Chinese manufacturers to modify stations to fit existing networks, according to a source among electronics suppliers. Nevertheless, the mass transition of operators to "third echelon" stations may lead to failures in communication networks and increased costs for equipment repair, Alexey Boyko, an analyst of the specialized telegram channel Abloud62, warned.

[kellyhound]

A man claiming to be from Russia’s FSB, but refusing to give his name, has telephoned Emine Zekeryaeva, demanding that she come to the FSB office and threatening to abduct her if she does not comply.

This is not the first time that the 25-year-old Crimean Tatar has been targeted by the FSB, and it is unclear whether the FSB’s actions are aimed solely at intimidating the young mother and her family, or are more sinister.

Emine Zekeryaeva’s husband, Asan is the nephew of political prisoner Leman Zekeryaev and was one of 33 Crimean Tatars who were detained on 25 January 2023 while simply trying to show support for the men, including Asan’s uncle, who had been arrested the previous day.

Asan Zekeryaev had been jailed, without any grounds, for 14 days. It was, therefore, assumed, when Asan disappeared after being taken away by enforcement officers that he was the target.

It later became clearer what had happened. Asan had been alone in the family’s home in Stary Krym when the FSB began violently banging on his door at around 7 a.m. on 7 August.

He managed to text a relative explaining this, but then all contact with him was lost, and the relatives who hurtled over to the house found Asan gone.

Emine Zekeryaeva and the couple’s children were at her parents’ place in the village Bratske. Having learned that her husband had disappeared, she immediately contacted lawyer Lilia Hemedzhy and began ringing occupation police stations, etc., to find out where her husband had been taken.

Around two hours after Asan disappeared, the FSB turned up in Bratske, and detained Emine, demanding that she come with them, and also that she hand over her telephone.

She asked on what grounds, as did her father, when they told her to get into their car, with the FSB giving no explanation.

They took Emine and her children in their car back to their home in Stary Krym, with the children clearly terrified and asking why their father, who was in another of their cars, was not allowed to go with them.

When they arrived back in Stary Krym, men with machine guns surrounded the street, blocking roads around it, before undertaking a search of the home. As always, they illegally prevented lawyer Edem Semedlyaev from being present.

The search lasted two hours, and clearly found nothing. The FSB then approached one of the relatives who had been prevented from getting close to the house and asked him to look after the children, as they were taking Emine away.

Asan insisted on accompanying his wife They were taken to the FSB building in Simferopol where Emine was questioned about a page on VKontakte from seven years ago, that she had long deleted.

They demanded that she unblock her phone, which she finally agreed to do on condition that she was present. She also asked for her lawyer to attend but was prevented from even ringing her.

Emine was released in the evening. Despite the extraordinarily heavy-handed measures throughout that day, she appears, at least for the moment, to be considered ‘a witness’ in proceedings against another Crimean woman who went to Syria.

Emine told Graty that in 2015 she had communicated with the woman on VKontakte. The woman had tried to get her to also go to Syria. She not only refused but also tried to persuade the woman to return.

Both Emine and her husband stated at the time that the measures against her were aimed at intimidation.

This is now turning into terrorization. On 5 September, Emine received two phone callx from a person who claimed to be from the FSB, and to have been present during the search, but refused to identify himself. He demanded that she appear at the Investigative Committee in Dzhankoi.

When she asked for an official summons and said that she wanted to consult with a lawyer, the man began threatening “to act, using different measures”, namely to simply come and take her away.

Lawyer Emil Kurbedinov has formally approached the Investigative Committee, asking whether Emine has been summoned, and if so, by whom.

There are real grounds for concern. Russia’s FSB has already used exchanges on social media from years earlier as pretext for repressive criminal proceedings against several Crimean Tatars.

They too had tried to dissuade a person from going to Syria, with this later used as pretext for lodging extraordinary charges that the men had ‘failed to report terrorism’.

[kellyhound]

Russia’s Investigative Committee has reported several more ‘sentences’ passed by the Russian proxy ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ [‘LPR’] against Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The latest batch of such reports all show the men purportedly ‘confessing’ to such crimes while seated at a table facing a man sitting with his back to the camera, in full camouflage gear with the words ‘Investigative Committee’.

It is this body which is claimed in every report to have provided the ‘evidence’ which the ‘court’ examined.

There is, however, nothing to suggest that there was any other evidence to back the charges aside from these alleged confessions from men who, as can be seen here, appear to be intently watching this supposed ‘investigator’s’ face as though checking to see whether he is saying the right thing.

All of the men are prisoners of war whose treatment is regulated by conventions that Russia has committed itself to comply with. Unlike other obligations under international agreements which Russia is flagrantly violating, here it is pretending to comply by claiming that the men deliberately targeted civilians.

While such actions might well constitute war crimes for which even prisoners of war are accountable, there is nothing at all to suggest that they took place except ‘confessions’ from men who are totally at the mercy of their captors and who, almost certainly, do not have access to independent lawyers.

Russia’s Investigative Committee was first caught using torture to extract television ‘confessions’ to apparently horrific crimes against civilians from Ukrainian political prisoner Serhiy Lytvynov back in 2014.

On that occasion, it was proven that neither the women and children whom he was alleged to have raped and murdered, nor their addresses, had ever existed and that Lytvynov had been savagely tortured into reciting what he was told to say.

There is no reason to believe that Russia’s ‘investigative’ methods are any different in these cases, with this further confirmed by the fact that all such ‘trials’ are effectively held in secret, on occupied territory to which neither international monitors, nor independent media have any access.

Dinu Shiman

On 29 August, the Investigative Committee [IC] reported that the so-called ‘LPR supreme court’ had sentenced Dinu Shiman from Ukraine’s Armed Forces 115th Mechanized Brigade to 14 years harsh regime imprisonment.

As reported earlier, Russia is using these pseudo ‘republics’ and their extremely questionable ‘courts’ for these ‘trials’, while still charging the men under articles of Russia’s criminal code.

Shiman was accused of ‘harsh treatment of civilians and the use of prohibited means of war’ (Article 356 part 1 and deliberate damage to others’ property’ (Article 167 part 2). Here, however, Russia is claiming that such deliberate damage to civilian infrastructure was carried out by Shiman, with the only ‘proof’ being the videoed ‘confession’.

Dmytro Lihusha

This was one of two verdicts from otherwise unreported ‘trials’ announced on 29 August.

The charges laid against this National Guard serviceman are under the same articles of the Russian criminal code, with the alleged shooting at a residential building claimed to have taken place in Sieierodonetsk on 17 April 2022.

Lihusha, who is also shown ‘confessing and repenting’, was sentenced to 15 years harsh regime.

Oleksandr Novik

This POW faced the same illegal charges under Russia’s criminal code and the same 15-year sentence.

The alleged shelling of a residential apartment claimed to have taken place in Sievierodoentsk on 17 May 2022.

This time an ‘expert assessment’ was also presented, estimating the extent of the material damage.

There is nothing at all, except for Novik’s ‘confession and repentance’ to indicate that the damage was caused by Ukrainian soldiers and not by the aggressor state which had been bombing and shelling Ukrainian cities since 24 February 2022.

‘Donetsk people’s republic supreme court sentences’

In both proxy ‘republics’, Russia is using such prisoner of war ‘trials’ to accuse Ukrainians of crimes that there is plenty of documented evidence that it committed. Those POWs seized in Mariupol are more often accused of actually killing civilians.

Vitaliy Prokopchuk

IC reported on 4 September that Prokopchuk, a Ukrainian marine from the 36th Brigade, had been sentenced by the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic supreme court’ to 25 years.

It was claimed that he had killed or tried to kill civilians in Mariupol, and that he had “confessed and repented”.

Vitaliy Lysiura

On 5 September, IC reported that Lysiura, who is also from the 36th Marine Brigade had been sentence to 27 years on very similar charges.

Serhiy Batynsky

Sentenced on 5 September to 25 years. Everything, from the claims about the supposed killing of civilians, to the videoed ‘confession and repentance’ follow the same template as above. The only difference here is that IC added a charge or rape.

Valentin Vasylenko

Sentenced to life imprisonment, with it claimed that he had killed 14 civilians, including a child, “out of motives of political and ideological hatred”.

Russia’s proxy ‘republics’ were holding at least 300 Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages even before the full-scale invasion.

In 2021, Freedom House gave both occupied Donbas and Crimea ratings perilously close to those given to North Korea due, among other reasons, to the lack of any resemblance of rule of law. Released hostages have given detailed accounts of the savage torture used to extract videoed ‘confessions’.

There is nothing to suggest that any of this has now changed.

[kellyhound]

Su-24M bomber of the Russian invaders crashed in the Volgograd region, the Russian propaganda resource Baza states and the Ministry of Defense confirms the invaders.

Previously, the plane crashed in the Kalachevsky district, 5 kilometers from the Lozhki farm, the enemy resource claims.

There were two crew members on board and the cause of the crash is being investigated, propagandists say.

It is not yet known whether the crew died.

Rescue services arrived at the scene.

The Russian Ministry of Defense confirms that the plane crashed allegedly during a scheduled training flight.

The occupiers’ agency clarifies that the flight allegedly took place without ammunition, and the plane crashed in a deserted area.

Mi-8 helicopters of the search and rescue service were sent to the scene, the invaders said.

[WonderMomma]

"There's a powerful explosion in the Russian city of Saratov

A gas pipeline is on fire."

#oildepot #russianfire #russianterritory

[WonderMomma]

"Russian blogger, ex football player and owner of Krasava football club Yevgeniy Savin is accused of "discrediting" the Russian army. He faces criminal charges.

In April 2022 Savin made a film about war in Ukraine (a small excerpt from it is on the video). He did not support Russian invasion into Ukraine and left the country.

Savin was already fined RUB 50,000 (about $520) for "discreditation" of Russian army."