loki old fart wrote:
Ukraine government appoints Dmytro Yarosh as military adviser.
Seems the right wing neo nazis have got there feet under the table.
http://www.mil.gov.ua/en/news/2015/04/05/dmytro-yarosh-appointed-as-advisor-to-chief-of-general-staff/
Isn't this guy wanted by Interpol ???

In March 2014 Russia launched a criminal case against Yarosh, and some members (including party leader Oleh Tyahnybok) of Svoboda and UNA-UNSO, for "organizing an armed gang" that had allegedly fought against Russian 76th Guards Air Assault Division in a First Chechen War and for "public calls for extremism and public calls for terrorism".

 reds8n wrote:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/09/kremlin-hall-of-mirrors-military-information-psychology?CMP=fb_gu

bit long but worth a read.

 reds8n wrote:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/09/kremlin-hall-of-mirrors-military-information-psychology?CMP=fb_gu

bit long but worth a read.

I began to wonder whether the very idea of information-psychological war – with its suggestion that Russia had discovered a shadowy weapon for which the west has no answer – was itself a species of information warfare. Perhaps the encyclopedia, and talk of “invisible radiation” that could override “biological defences”, was simply one more bluff – like the fake nuclear weapons that were paraded through Red Square in order to lead overeager western analysts down a hall of mirrors. And if this was simply a 21st-century update of that classic example of “reflexive control”, inducing your enemy to do what you want him to – then, I wondered, was this essay, the one you are reading, part of the plan?

 Iron_Captain wrote:

And y̶e̶s̶ no, before anyone asks, R̶u̶s̶s̶i̶a̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶r̶u̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶A̶l̶p̶h̶a̶ ̶L̶e̶g̶i̶o̶n̶ Russia is not at all ruled by the Alpha Legion.

ULAN-UDE, Russia -- Journalists at a Siberian newspaper say they spent three days using scissors to cut an article about a Russian soldier who was wounded fighting alongside pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine out of 50,000 copies of the publication.

Tank crewman Dorzhi Batonmukuyev's accounts of fighting in eastern Ukraine have added to what Kyiv and NATO say are incontrovertible evidence of direct Russian military support for the rebels in a conflict with government forces that has killed more than 6,000 people since April 2014.

 Wyrmalla wrote:


From the same website Ukrainian Parliament Bans Communist, Nazi Propaganda . Good on them. =P

 koooaei wrote:

The funny part is that Ukraine was basically found by communists.

 koooaei wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:


From the same website Ukrainian Parliament Bans Communist, Nazi Propaganda . Good on them. =P

The funny part is that Ukraine was basically found by communists.

 Wyrmalla wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:


From the same website Ukrainian Parliament Bans Communist, Nazi Propaganda . Good on them. =P

The funny part is that Ukraine was basically found by communists.

They may have aided the nationalists in the early twentieth century to found the state (or a state at least similar to modern Ukraine), but that's sort of glazing over the history after that point. Youknow all the genocide and what not.

If a guy gives you an apple then punches you in the face afterwards (oh and deports you to the back of beyond) are you supposed to still like him because he gave you the apple?

Hmn, I wonder if this law will have an effect on Chernobyl at all? =P

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:


From the same website Ukrainian Parliament Bans Communist, Nazi Propaganda . Good on them. =P

The funny part is that Ukraine was basically found by communists.

They may have aided the nationalists in the early twentieth century to found the state (or a state at least similar to modern Ukraine), but that's sort of glazing over the history after that point. Youknow all the genocide and what not.

If a guy gives you an apple then punches you in the face afterwards (oh and deports you to the back of beyond) are you supposed to still like him because he gave you the apple?

Hmn, I wonder if this law will have an effect on Chernobyl at all? =P

If not for the Communists, Ukraine would not exist today, it would be even less than a province of Russia. There would be no Ukrainian culture or language, nothing. The Russian Empire tried to destroy Ukrainian identity. It was communists who set up several independent Ukrainian states, and after Ukraine was conquered and made part of Poland, it was the Soviets who liberated it and made Ukraine into one single republic within the Soviet Union. This was the first time in history Ukraine was united. The Soviets also began a policy of Ukrainization, they encouraged Ukrainian language and traditional culture. If not for them, what is now Ukraine would just be parts of Russia. The holodomor only happened in Eastern Ukrain and Southwestern Russia. It was not targeted at a specific people (Ukrainians and Russians both suffered) and was thus not a genocide. It is funny that the people that call this a genocide mainly come from Western Ukraine, which never even experienced it. It is just a part of their centuries-old Russophobia.
And if that was not enough, it was also the communists who saved the Ukrainian people from total extermination at the hands of the Nazis. The Nazis had plans to eventually exterminate all Ukrainians and repopulate the area with ethnic Germans.
Again, without the communists, the Ukrainian people would not exist today.
It would be fitting if the Ukrainians showed some more respect to the Soviets. But no, they pull down statues of Lenin, the man who is essentially responsible for the existence of Ukraine, and instead put up statues of Bandera, the man who wanted to sell out Ukraine to the nazis and whose troops committed genocide on the Polish minority in Western Ukraine. Such a great example for Ukrainian children, don't you think?

And regardless of the above, this law has no purpose but to spite ethnic Russians, who often see symbols like the Red Star, Lenin and the hammer and sickle as national symbols. It's only effect will be even more increase in tensions between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians.
The only good thing to come from that law is that now the Azov batallion and scum like them have to change their symbols. Altough I am afraid they are going to get around this.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The holodomor only happened in Eastern Ukrain and Southwestern Russia. It was not targeted at a specific people (Ukrainians and Russians both suffered) and was thus not a genocide. It is funny that the people that call this a genocide mainly come from Western Ukraine, which never even experienced it. It is just a part of their centuries-old Russophobia.

In post-Soviet Russia, you don’t make memes. Memes make (or unmake?) you.

That is, at least, the only conclusion we can draw from an announcement made this week by Russia’s three-year-old media agency/Internet censor Roskomnadzor, which made it illegal to publish any Internet meme that depicts a public figure in a way that has nothing to do with his “personality.”

Sad Keanu? Nope.

Sad Putin? Absolutely not.

“These ways of using [celebrities’ images] violate the laws governing personal data and harm the honor, dignity and business of public figures,” reads the policy announcement from Roskomnadzor.

To be clear, this isn’t a new law passed by parliament or anything — it’s just a (pretty startling) clarification of existing policy, published to the popular social network Vkontakte. According to Russian media, the announcement came in light of a lawsuit filed by the Russian singer Valeri Syutkin, who sued an irreverent Wikipedia-style culture site over an image macro that paired his picture with some less-than-tasteful lyrics from another artist’s song. On Tuesday, a Moscow judge ruled for Syutkin, prompting the Roskomnadzor to publish an update to its “personal data laws.”

Those laws now ban, per Roskomnadzor’s announcement, memes that picture public figures in a way that “has no relation to [their] personality,” parody accounts and parody Web sites. If a public figure believes such a site or meme has been made about him, the announcement continues, he can report them to the Roskomnadzor, which — in addition to overseeing Russia’s Internet censorship program — can file claims in court. Web sites are essentially given the choice of blocking the offending content in Russia, or seeing their whole sites get blocked across the country.

If that sounds crazy to U.S. readers, it probably should: U.S. law gives a very, very wide berth to Internet speech, even when it depicts private people or children — and especially when it depicts public figures.

Russia, on the other hand, has taken a series of steps to increase government control of the Internet in recent months. Just last August, Russia enacted a law that forced all bloggers with more than 3,000 daily readers to register with the Roskomnadzor, basically outlawing anonymous blogs. Earlier in the year, Russia approved a law that lets Roskomnadzor unilaterally block Web sites without explanation; the sites of prominent Putin critics were among the first to go dark.

It is impossible to know, of course, exactly how much of the Russian Internet will be affected by the change and to what degree this new policy will be pursued or enforced. (It is worth noting that public figures have to take their complaints to the Roskomnadzor, which many presumably will not do.)

Still, if the policy is enforced, the implications for the Russian memeosphere could be huge: According to a recent academic census of English-speaking memes, nearly a third of the Internet’s most popular memes depict a specific person. Just think of how many excellent memes depict Vladimir Putin!

 Soladrin wrote:
A tiny a news article just popped on a Dutch news site that said Ukraine is going to start dismantling Tsjernobyl. This seems like very odd timing.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The holodomor only happened in Eastern Ukrain and Southwestern Russia. It was not targeted at a specific people (Ukrainians and Russians both suffered) and was thus not a genocide. It is funny that the people that call this a genocide mainly come from Western Ukraine, which never even experienced it. It is just a part of their centuries-old Russophobia.

I'm sure that the people of Kyiv and Zhytomir will be glad to know that the loss of about 1/5th their combined populations was not part of the holodomor and merely Russophobia on their part.