Deki posted:

I don't think anyone's pretending that Ukraine, like most poorer EE countries (and America) don't have a bad Neonazi problem.

mobby_6kl posted:

We should ban him from this forum

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

Looks like Red square is being outfitted with machine gun nests.

NOTHING to worry about. It's normal stuff.

Vaginaface posted:

Throughout the entire conflict this comes up periodically. Azov battalion comes most immediately to mind, then that guy with the backpack patch, then tattoos, and on it goes.

It seems like everyone pro Ukrainian has generally turned a blind eye to it because they needed fighters, but given that the "main objective" of Moscow was to "denazify" Ukraine, they might want to take another look at having identifiable, open Nazis invade Russian soil.

lomzus posted:

https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1660909187348439041

quote:

Compared to Belgium and Denmark, the Netherlands has made more rapid progress in replacing its F-16s with F-35s. Currently, the remaining Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16s are located at a single base, Volkel, where the local frontline fleet was reportedly reduced to just 24 aircraft last summer.
...
There are now rumors that those F-16s may be transferred to Bulgaria, which is seeking a stopgap fighter while it waits to receive new-build F-16 Block 70s from the new production line in South Carolina. It’s conceivable, however, that these aircraft could also be transferred to Ukraine, although the apparent requirement to overhaul them would affect when they might actually become available. That would appear to leave the approximately 24 jets still in the Netherlands as the best candidates for Ukraine, although their availability will also depend upon continued F-35 deliveries and the operational readiness of that aircraft and its pilots. However, with a final Dutch squadron scheduled to convert to the F-35 next year, the timeline for potential F-16 deliveries to Ukraine looks generally promising.

lomzus posted:

https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1660909187348439041

mobby_6kl posted:

Speaking of the second army in the world, a quick reminder that RT thought it was a good idea to invite John Bolton for an interview last year

https://i.imgur.com/woosJVl.mp4

let's gooo

Read an article about this yesterday, the Dutch are definitely one of the top contenders:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraines-f-16s-could-come-from-these-countries

Vaginaface posted:

I'm so lost in the various psyops, would someone mind giving a rundown? What is bellingcat/does it have allegiances?

Every single photographed person on Twitter is accused by somebody of being an open Nazi or some flavor of extremist. It's really hard to keep up with

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

The russian “opposition” is legit mostly far right extrémistes, like it or not

Toxic Mental posted:

Why don't tankies ever say the US should have invaded Cuba before the missile crisis I wonder

Alan Smithee posted:

seriously how do you get owned by John Bolton I would never show my face in public ever again

Jimlit posted:

I mean the CIA did give it a go.

Toxic Mental posted:

EorayMel posted:

Why doesn't the world's second strongest army simply send several thousand soldiers to quash this insurgency in a matter of hours, or at least have Putin send several thousand of his private army cops to do it instead

beer_war posted:

And to be clear, Russian Volunteer Corps are, like, super-Nazis. Let's not kid ourselves here. Freedom of Russia Legion are a lot harder to pin down.

beer_war posted:

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1661015912248651779?s=20

Yeah, everything's poo poo right now, but man, the opportunities to "sharpen our national sentiment" and "strengthen the foundations of our spirituality". Isn't that what you always wanted?

Oldsmobile posted:

"Think of all these awesome things that could maybe happen because, and despite of, my collossal cock-up"

quote:

A number of Russians are fighting their own countrymen alongside Ukraine - researcher: "It is likely that their number will increase"

There are two groups in Ukraine whose fighters are made up of Russians and who fight alongside the Ukrainians.

Description of video contents: The Freedom for Russia legion fights for Ukraine. Two soldiers can be seen walking along a forested path in what may be a park. The legion's goal is to topple the current Russia regime. Aleksei is being interviewed, and says that he fights alongside Ukrainian soldiers. They treat him with respect, and he returns the same to them. They are all doing the same work: fighting against evil. A map of the border area is shown, and a text scroll explains that a group know as "The Russian Volunteer Troops", had infiltrated the Russian side of the border in early March. The reason for their strike was to inspire resistance within Russia. An video clip of four armed civilians in masks is then shown, tagged as taken in Crimea. The text scroll mentions that Russian resistance members are also active there. The leader of the group, known as Atesh, says that they are preparing to liberate Crimea from Russian control. They also send their greetings and respects to the members of Russian Volunteer Troops, who they then call awesome and that they await them in Dzankoi and Crimea. Next an interview with Freedom to Russia legion-member Caesar, who explains that only one percent of the population took part in the revolution a hundred years ago, and that if 1.5 million citizens would now take up arms against Putin, then his regime would fall.

A mysterious group became famous at the beginning of March, when an armed group of 45 men from Ukraine invaded Russia.

Russia claimed that the group shot a car and took hostages in the Bryansk region.

However, all that is known about the event is that the group filmed a couple of videos in the locality.

Whatever happened in Bryansk, it was all quite humiliating for Russia. Russia even named last Thursday's massive missile strike on Ukraine as revenge for the incident.

Putin blamed Ukrainian "neo-Nazis and terrorists" for the invasion of Bryansk. However, the videos shot on the spot show that it was the Russian volunteer corps RDK (Russkiy dobrovol'cheskiy korpus).

So the intruders were Russians. Russians who are ready to kill their countrymen and who seek to overthrow Putin.

In this story, we present two groups of Russians fighting on the side of Ukraine.

Russian Volunteer Corps, RDK

RDK organized into its own group in August 2022. It is unclear whether it is officially part of the Ukrainian armed forces. The group itself states that it belongs to the International Legion, which is part of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine.

According to various estimates, RDK has around a couple of hundred members. They are united by extreme nationalism. It is known that most of them lived in Ukraine already before February 2022. Some fought in Ukraine already in 2014.

Denis Nikitin, a well-known far-righter, acts as the face and leader of the group.

One of the members says in a video that the members of the group consider themselves "ardently nationalist".

The group has a background organization organized in Warsaw, which helps to recruit more people to the group.

Although the leader of RDK is a well-known extreme right-winger, according to researcher Igor Gretskiy, the group cannot be considered extreme-right.

- Yes, their leader has an extreme right-wing background. However, the support group in Poland does not consider itself as far-right, but above all as nationalist. They stand against Putin's imperialism, Gretskyi tells Yle.

Gretskiy works as a researcher at the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute and is familiar with Russian fighters in Ukraine.

Gretskiy states about the group's attack in Russia last week that it was not significant in a military sense.

- However, the operation sent a clear message that Russia's borders are not secured and that Russia is unable to hold back even a few dozen men capable of operating inside Russia, says Gretskiy.

The group published the attached video in the Bryansk region. In the video, the organization urges Russians to take up armed resistance.

The Twitter link has not been attached to this translation as I can't be sure of what may turn up in the replies. The link is available in the original untranslated article.

Freedom to Russia Legion

The largest of the Russian forces operating in Ukraine is the "Legion Svoboda Rossii" or the Legion of Freedom for Russia. It was founded a year ago, i.e. in March 2022. The group primarily consists of former Russian army soldiers and prisoners of war who have switched sides.

There are other stories from the background of the members. Legion made headlines for a while last summer, when Igor Volobujev, deputy CEO of Gazprom Bank, said he had joined Legion.

The emblem of the legion is a blue and white flag. The Legion has replaced the red stripe of the Russian flag with a white one. According to the legionnaires, the red stripe represents blood and violence. The same flag is used by the Russian opposition on a wider scale.

The Legion is officially part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and fights as part of the International Legion. The number of its soldiers is unknown, but the legionnaires have talked about at least two battalions in interviews.

A battalion can be anything between 400 and 1000 soldiers. Some estimates have spoken of up to 4,000 soldiers.

According to Igor Gretskiy of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, the biggest figure may well be true.

- A significant number of Russians have been imprisoned, and new ones are constantly being added. They are a regular source of recruits for the Legion. It is quite likely that their number will increase.

Members of the Freedom to Russia forces have fought on the front of Eastern Ukraine as part of the International Legion in the worst warzones, such as Bakhmut.

In an interview with The New York Times, a Russian soldier using the name Caesar has told that he killed many of his compatriots in Ukraine without remorse. He is one of the few Legionnaires who appeared in public with his own face.

According to the Legionnaires, they are primarily fighting for Russia.

So they are not only fighting for Ukraine, but they feel that they are fighting for a free Russia. Their first step is to beat the Russian army in Ukraine. After that, the fight would continue in Russia.

- If Ukraine gets its 1991 borders restored and the groups are capable of fighting at that point, they could continue fighting on the Russian side, says researcher Gretskiy.

The groups have been declared terrorist organizations in Russia

Russian media hardly talk about these groups. The Russian Prosecutor's Office has declared the groups as Ukrainian terrorist organizations.

- The Russian state does not want to let the information spread in the media and admit that the Russians could challenge the Russian government. They don't even want to acknowledge the idea that the Russians could take up arms and start a war against Russia's political power, says Gretskiy.

The Russian security service FSB considers the Freedom to Russia Legion to be a particular threat, so new members must pass a strict screening.

Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian intelligence service, has said that the FSB has tried to infiltrate the legion several times. Caesar, a member of the group, has also commented on the issue.

- Putin and his administration are very afraid of the Freedom to Russia legion, because we are the first to put up an armed resistance to Putin's junta, says Caeser in the video.

In addition to the two groups operating in Ukraine, there is also a third group fighting against the current Russian regime. The Natsional'naya respublikanskaya armiya (NRA), i.e. the National Republican Army, has taken the name of attacks in Russia. It is an even more obscure organization than the groups mentioned above, and it operates in Russia, unlike the legion and the DRK.

It also uses a blue and white flag as its emblem.

- We have heard about them with the blow that killed Daria Dugina, but there is not much evidence of their existence, says Gretskyi.

Daria Dugina was the daughter of a Russian ultra-nationalist philosopher who died in a car bomb attack in Moscow in August 2022. The NRA has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Former Russian Duma representative Ilya Ponomarjov has appeared as the group's representative in Ukraine. He has tried to strengthen the cooperation of the three groups.

At the end of August, the groups held a joint press conference in Irpin, Ukraine, where they signed the "Irpin declaration". It agreed on joint strategic goals and, among other things, the use of the blue and white flag.

However, the Russian volunteer group DRK terminated the cooperation soon after this.

Combat units and propaganda tools

According to researcher Gretskiy, the groups act in two ways: as combat units and as a propaganda tool.

- They can serve both purposes. The battalions can serve as role models for the Russians on how to fight against Putin's regime.

Both groups are active on social media and post impressive videos.

- RDK wants to get attention. It wants to spark resistance in Russia. The wider the information about the attacks spreads, the more people might want to join them, says Gretskiy.

The researcher points out that a few hundred men is quite a small number of soldiers if you consider that more than half a million Russians fled Russia due to mobilization. RDK wanted to recruit men from those who had just escaped, but was disappointed.

- They certainly thought they would get more men in their ranks from those who left Russia. However, those fleeing the mobilization were not willing to fight against Russia, says Gretskiy.

For Ukraine, the significance of the Russians fighting on its side is mostly political.

- It is good for Ukraine to show that there are Russians who support democracy and freedom and fight on the right side, Ukrainian military analyst Oleg Ždanov told the AFP news agency.

Gretskiy points out that Russian groups fighting on the side of Ukraine criticize the Russian opposition because its representatives have not called on the Russians to engage in armed resistance.

- If you think about Russia's opposition abroad, none of them has called on the Russians to take up arms and fight. Khodorkovsky, Gasparov, Navalny's group - they are only fighting in the information field, holding conferences and broadcasts on YouTube, says Gretskiy.

Gejnor posted:

Payback is a motherfucking bitch, ain't it, Murderers?

The Dutch have not forgotten and, i suspect, will never forgive either.

beer_war posted:

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1661015912248651779?s=20

Yeah, everything's poo poo right now, but man, the opportunities to "sharpen our national sentiment" and "strengthen the foundations of our spirituality". Isn't that what you always wanted?

William Bear posted:

I laughed at him saying that Russia never had easy times. What does it do to a national psyche to never have a golden age to look back on, even just an imagined golden age?

Russia is depressing.

zone posted:

https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1661014362642079752
No thanks to you, you waffling coward.

Pablo Bluth posted:

Seems like there's now talk in Germany pushing to supply their Taurus cruise missile.