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 Vaktathi wrote:
Trying to pick fights over the term's origin isn't going to accomplish anything.

Indeed. We're leaving the argument of saying "gulag is the wrong word because it's an acronym" to the side, it's off topic. Thanks guys.

Sorry, this is a little old and might have been posted here already, but its' a pretty interesting article about the paid bloggers and social media posters disseminating propaganda about Ukraine.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house

Would love to know if any other states (I mean, obviously North Korea) are doing this.

Your own link, from the Western capitalist pigdog media, had this on the trolling habits of some other nations.

I'm actually really surprised not to see the US on there. I wonder if that means we don't do it (possibly because we don't have to), or are just better at hiding it?

It hasn't been found out yet, isn't necessary due to the nature of corporate media or simply isn't mentioned there.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm actually really surprised not to see the US on there. I wonder if that means we don't do it (possibly because we don't have to), or are just better at hiding it?

Probably the last. The US has one of the best and most powerful secret services in the world. I highly doubt they would want to be falling behind on this.

Perhaps, but I think you overestimate the US government's intelligence when it comes to the internet .Or if they even care what other countries think of us.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36078581

Despite the fact that all involved are terrorists and not members of the armed forces in any way, shape or form, perhaps we'll swap ours for yours.

Look at Savchenko. She became posessed with Chaos!

Stolen Dutch paintings recovered in Ukraine

Ukraine says it has recovered four paintings from a haul of 24 that was stolen from a gallery in the Netherlands more than a decade ago.

The haul of 16th and 17th century paintings was worth €50,000 (£40,000; $56,000) when stolen from the Westfries Museum in the city of Hoorn in 2005.

The four recovered works had been "in the possession of criminal groups", Ukraine's foreign minister said.

Reports say they were recovered from Ukrainian ultra-nationalists.

The museum said in December that two men, reportedly from a Ukrainian nationalist militia, had presented a picture of one of the paintings to the Dutch embassy in Kiev.



At the time, Dutch media reported that the men had said they had found the entire stolen collection and demanded millions of euros for the haul's return.

Ukrainian authorities gave no more details on how the four paintings were recovered.

Vasyl Grytsak, the head of Ukraine's state security service, said the first painting was recovered in early March, followed by a second in early April and two more on Thursday.

"A preliminary examination has determined they are authentic," Mr Grytsak told a press conference.

Ultra-nationalist Ukrainian militia groups are fighting a pro-Russian insurgency in parts of eastern Ukraine.

The conflict is estimated to have killed more than 9,200 people since April 2014.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Just change every instance of the word "gulag" was actually "Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Labor Settlements". Would that suit you?

The labour camps, which they were. Everything else is Russophobic propaganda garbage.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The "self defense forces" in Crimea turned out to not be local either

I have news for you, they "turned out to be local". If you have have a breakdown numbers I would love to see them. If not... That's just your personal opinion.

That's a rather hard claim to back up from either side definitively, but both sides are freely firing area weapons into populated centers without regard for what's there, and there's zero evidence that it's simply retaliatory attacks from the DNR/LNR.

Not really. The DNR/LNR websites post daily military briefings about the shelling, where, when and if someone died/got injured. Just because you haven't seen them, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

Now, this isn't to say that the Ukrainians are perfect or blameless, they're not, they absolutely have done some bad things and used area weapons indiscriminately, and have massive problems with corruption and control of their forces, but if they're worse than the DNR/LNR, it's only because they've got more ammunition and the DNR/LNR guys might have to ration it more.

How do you know the "DNR/LNR guys" are as worse as ukranian forces? Is it because you have a predetermined opinion about any people who would support Russia? I would really love to know how you set your criteria for who wrong and who is right in this conflict.

Neither side is particularly stellar in this conflict.

Agaian, just your personal opinion with no prove to support that claim.

And your evidence of this is...what?

"VSU* shelled almost 150 times the conflict zone in DNR during the day"
* an acronym for Ukrainian Forces

http://rusvesna.su/news/1461244821

And again...that's a lot of propaganda, one-sided accusations, and buzzwords you're spouting, but nothing substantive.

Great! Why don't you search the internet then and prove that I am wrong, and I am just gonna sit back and enjoy telling you that you post is nothing but "...a lot of propaganda, one-sided accusations, and buzzwords you're spouting, but nothing substantive"? Just to be fair. What I an afraid is that you don't play fair.

As for the video, we have zero context for anything therein (is this recent? old? are they near the DNR/LNR or is this after exercises elsewhere? Are they regulars? Nationalist volunteers?, etc), and from an obviously stilted source called "TV Patriot" with Russian flags stamped on everything, with a video titled "Армия Украины позорится на весь мир, алкаши и наркоманы, тупой и еще тупее тупого!"/"Army of Ukraine disgrace to the whole world, , Dumb and Dumber stupid!".

I believe it's from this year, one of the waives of the ukranian army recruits. I also believe they had 4 or 5 waves despite "winning" in the war. As for description, it's pretty accurate, they ukranian army depicted there is what they are - alcoholics and drug addicts who didn't have money to pay off the military recruitment center not to send them into the war.

You'll forgive me if the video fails to sustain any points. It's drunk dudes with Ukrainian flags on their shirts, how many videos can we find of drunk Russian soldiers doing similar stuff? Quite a lot.

Please do, preferably something resent from either Syria or the Northern Caucasus where the Russian army is involved.

If you have something other than propaganda to talk about, by all means, but if you're just going to link propaganda, this isn't going to get anyone anywhere.

If you just gonna tell me I post only "propaganda" without any support of that claim, I am gonna report you to the mods and put you on my ignore list.

If you really want some good stuff on the conflict, check out Vice's Ukraine series, they do a rather good job of showing the uglies of both sides.

I've watched Vices videos and could only stomach a few as it's an obvious anti-Russian propaganda and is quite moronic at that. It's not so obvious to you but for me who understands Russian and what people are saying and how it's translated it's pretty obvious.

An internet message board about toy soldiers in a universe where the "good guys" are theocratic feudal fascists is the wrong place to try and fight that fight. Ultimately, when people use the term, everyone gets meaning, and it's used in common conversation. Trying to pick fights over the term's origin isn't going to accomplish anything.

The word "n***r" became an racial slur which is no-no in the press today. All it took a five or six decades. I am starting early and if not me then someone else will continue to correct the injustice.

Yeah labor camps in the sense they worked people to death, so just a long drawn out death camp in reality. But I guess over 1 million people dead (conservative estimates) was just an accident.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure that's a smallish proportion of the number of people to actually go through the camps, cause a hell of a lot of people went through those camps in Stalin's years.

It depends there are low estimates at 1.6 million all the way to 10 million. So call it 5 million to split the difference with 14 million people rotating through them that is still a 1/3rd death rate.

It still is a drop in the bucket to the nearly 25 million that stalin had killed under (once again a conservative estimate I've seen numbers up to 70 million) his regime that were not linked to ww2

The labour camp is labour camp first. I bet It would be a complete discovery for you, but in Stalin's times some of the labour camps commandants were themselves found guilty and shot dead for wasting valuable human resources.

Oh yeah you weren't sent there to die no sir not at all, and don't mind that bread truck outside your apartment building at night it's delivering bread not taking people to camps.

The number of "25 million killed" is complete garbage and lie. Even the Wikipedia page about the Great Purge lists only an wild estimation of deaths associated with the Great Purge between 681,692 to nearly 2 million and not all of this people had some kind of political conviction but also there were some real saboteurs, thieves, murders and rapists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ustrello wrote:
Oh yeah you weren't sent there to die no sir not at all, and don't mind that bread truck outside your apartment building at night it's delivering bread not taking people to camps.

I am glad you lived through those hard times to tell the truth.

Nah it actually isn't a lie, look online and most people agree that is a low number for Russians killed by uncle joe

Just out of curiosity, I don't really pay to much attention to this anymore. Have the Russians officially said they are fighting the Ukrainians or are they still pretending that parts of their army are running away with tanks/artillery and trucks and fighting of their own free will?

That might sound trollish or maybe attempting to bait but I actually don't know and want to know.

 Ustrello wrote:
Nah it actually isn't a lie, look online and most people agree that is a low number for Russians killed by uncle joe

I have and it was wa-a-a-a-ay before this conversation. The latest number I have of the confirmed death warrants during the Great Purge is about 300K. The same with the other instances. However this is a topic about the civil war in ukraine and not about history of USSR.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:
Just out of curiosity, I don't really pay to much attention to this anymore. Have the Russians officially said they are fighting the Ukrainians or are they still pretending that parts of their army are running away with tanks/artillery and trucks and fighting of their own free will?

That might sound trollish or maybe attempting to bait but I actually don't know and want to know.

Do you know how the army works?

 Yaraton wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Just out of curiosity, I don't really pay to much attention to this anymore. Have the Russians officially said they are fighting the Ukrainians or are they still pretending that parts of their army are running away with tanks/artillery and trucks and fighting of their own free will?

That might sound trollish or maybe attempting to bait but I actually don't know and want to know.

Do you know how the army works?

Seeing as that's basically what the Russians were claiming a while ago...I'm going to say yes?

 Yaraton wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:
Nah it actually isn't a lie, look online and most people agree that is a low number for Russians killed by uncle joe

I have and it was wa-a-a-a-ay before this conversation. The latest number I have of the confirmed death warrants during the Great Purge is about 300K. The same with the other instances. However this is a topic about the civil war in ukraine and not about history of USSR.

That number may be too low, based on my own reading on the subject from various sources. And any claims of confirmed, absolute numbers when it comes to Stalin's murderous tendencies is to be taken with a grain of salt.


Truth of the matter is that there is no firm academic consensus on the total body count under Stalin. While there are official records, the U.S.S.R. was notorious in those days for poor record keeping. You can expect any official Soviet statistics from that era to be far higher than what is on paper. Add in the fact that a lot was covered up, destroyed, and forbidden from discussion during the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, and we'll never know the whole truth.

There is some truth to the old, sarcastic quip relating to state-sponsored mass murder: "The only difference between the Nazis and Communists, is that the Nazis kept better records".


One thing is clear, though. Even low estimates puts Stalin in the top three alongside Hitler and Mao.


Peace, out.

 motyak wrote:

 Yaraton wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Just out of curiosity, I don't really pay to much attention to this anymore. Have the Russians officially said they are fighting the Ukrainians or are they still pretending that parts of their army are running away with tanks/artillery and trucks and fighting of their own free will?

That might sound trollish or maybe attempting to bait but I actually don't know and want to know.

Do you know how the army works?

Seeing as that's basically what the Russians were claiming a while ago...I'm going to say yes?

You are a different person than him, why is that? Is he dead or banned or is incapable of answering a simple question for himself?

 Yaraton wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The "self defense forces" in Crimea turned out to not be local either

I have news for you, they "turned out to be local". If you have have a breakdown numbers I would love to see them. If not... That's just your personal opinion.

You mean the guys in Russian Army pattern uniforms, with Post-USSR Russian Federation weaponry like Pecheneg's and AK-74M's were "local" forces? Even Russian news media is clearly stating that Putin as acknowledged that they were Russian.

https://www.rt.com/news/crimea-defense-russian-soldiers-108/

That's a rather hard claim to back up from either side definitively, but both sides are freely firing area weapons into populated centers without regard for what's there, and there's zero evidence that it's simply retaliatory attacks from the DNR/LNR.

Not really. The DNR/LNR websites post daily military briefings about the shelling, where, when and if someone died/got injured. Just because you haven't seen them, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

I'm not debating or denying that the attacks don't exist or that people aren't being hurt. But let's be honest, if you're trusting the DNR/LNR online presence for accurate and fair information, well, you're braindead (just as you'd be braindead for trusting anything the Ukrainians or the Russians or any other directly involved party puts out on the subject without additional research) and even if you could trust it, it's no indication on if specific civilian buildings are being targeted or if it's just people firing and not caring where it lands or not being capable enough to aim it with any accuracy (which I suspect is the more likely issue on both sides).

Now, this isn't to say that the Ukrainians are perfect or blameless, they're not, they absolutely have done some bad things and used area weapons indiscriminately, and have massive problems with corruption and control of their forces, but if they're worse than the DNR/LNR, it's only because they've got more ammunition and the DNR/LNR guys might have to ration it more.

How do you know the "DNR/LNR guys" are as worse as ukranian forces? Is it because you have a predetermined opinion about any people who would support Russia? I would really love to know how you set your criteria for who wrong and who is right in this conflict.

Who did I say who is right or who is wrong? What on earth are you going on about?

That said, there's gobs of evidence out there of the DNR/LNR guys doing gakky stuff, tons of video showing civlians on the Ukrainian side getting their houses and apartments hit by weapons fire, just as much as there is of the DNR/LNR guys.

Hell, Vice had reporters there as bodies of people ordered shot by the DNR/LNR were dug up in Sloviansk.
https://news.vice.com/video/russian-roulette-dispatch-63

Neither side is particularly stellar in this conflict.

Agaian, just your personal opinion with no prove to support that claim.

I would really suggest watching Vice's series.

As for the video, we have zero context for anything therein (is this recent? old? are they near the DNR/LNR or is this after exercises elsewhere? Are they regulars? Nationalist volunteers?, etc), and from an obviously stilted source called "TV Patriot" with Russian flags stamped on everything, with a video titled "Армия Украины позорится на весь мир, алкаши и наркоманы, тупой и еще тупее тупого!"/"Army of Ukraine disgrace to the whole world, , Dumb and Dumber stupid!".

I believe it's from this year

Of which we have no idea or proof or context of when or where. Could be 8 years old. Could be 2 weeks old. Could be of guys done with maneuvers and partying after training. They may have been rotated off the line after heavy fighting, in which case such behavior is commonplace amongst soldiers of all nations, be they Russian, Ukrainian, American, German, Chinese, etc. ad nauseum.

We have absolutely no idea is the point, the video gives zero context and says nothing substantive other than "hey these particular guys wearing Ukrainian military uniforms were drunk at some point", which doesn't really tell us anything.

As for description, it's pretty accurate, they ukranian army depicted there is what they are - alcoholics and drug addicts who didn't have money to pay off the military recruitment center not to send them into the war.

So...based on one video of a small group of what *appears* to be Ukrainian troops being drunk...the whole army is now nothing but poor drug addicts and alcoholics?

Talk about bias and preconceptions...holy gak.

You'll forgive me if the video fails to sustain any points. It's drunk dudes with Ukrainian flags on their shirts, how many videos can we find of drunk Russian soldiers doing similar stuff? Quite a lot.

Please do, preferably something resent from either Syria or the Northern Caucasus where the Russian army is involved.

How about this, find me something of Ukrainian troops that can demonstrably be shown to be of recent vintage, with context of the situation and identifiable location in the conflict area, and we'll talk.

Because I mean otherwise I can just search videos of drunk russian soldiers and just claim they're wherever Russia is currently fighting.

If you just gonna tell me I post only "propaganda" without any support of that claim, I am gonna report you to the mods and put you on my ignore list.

Go for it. You've provided zero evidence for any claims you are making, stridently making out a single side to be perfect without any flaws while another is evil without any redeeming features, using heavily politicized and derogatory language in the process, and blindly ignoring pretty much any and all counter-arguments and examples. By all means...feel free, but I'm not particularly worried about violating forum rules in this instance.

I've watched Vices videos and could only stomach a few as it's an obvious anti-Russian propaganda and is quite moronic at that.

I mean...you can call it whatever you like...unless you have some basis with which to discuss why it is so, that doesn't mean it actually is whatever you try to call it.

I mean, they get in and film alongside the DNR/LNR guys, even frontline DNR/LNR soldiers, they show you their perspective, just as they do the Ukrainians. Here's one where they follow DNR infantry and they show you the battlefield and results of Ukrainian shelling
https://news.vice.com/video/in-the-trenches-with-the-dnr-russian-roulette-dispatch-97

They have an excellent and heartbreaking piece when they followed a DNR unit and one of the soldiers died, and here's one where they cover an American fighting *with* the DNR/LNR guys.
https://news.vice.com/video/russian-roulette-dispatch-107

An internet message board about toy soldiers in a universe where the "good guys" are theocratic feudal fascists is the wrong place to try and fight that fight. Ultimately, when people use the term, everyone gets meaning, and it's used in common conversation. Trying to pick fights over the term's origin isn't going to accomplish anything.

The word "n***r" became an racial slur which is no-no in the press today. All it took a five or six decades. I am starting early and if not me then someone else will continue to correct the injustice.

ooookay....wow. That went there. Well, since when did Gulag become a racial slur? You are literally the only person I've ever heard of in my entire life have any problem with the way this word is used in conversational english, even other native Russian speakers.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 Yaraton wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:
Nah it actually isn't a lie, look online and most people agree that is a low number for Russians killed by uncle joe

I have and it was wa-a-a-a-ay before this conversation. The latest number I have of the confirmed death warrants during the Great Purge is about 300K. The same with the other instances. However this is a topic about the civil war in ukraine and not about history of USSR.

That number may be too low, based on my own reading on the subject from various sources. And any claims of confirmed, absolute numbers when it comes to Stalin's murderous tendencies is to be taken with a grain of salt.


Truth of the matter is that there is no firm academic consensus on the total body count under Stalin. While there are official records, the U.S.S.R. was notorious in those days for poor record keeping. You can expect any official Soviet statistics from that era to be far higher than what is on paper. Add in the fact that a lot was covered up, destroyed, and forbidden from discussion during the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, and we'll never know the whole truth.

There is some truth to the old, sarcastic quip relating to state-sponsored mass murder: "The only difference between the Nazis and Communists, is that the Nazis kept better records".


One thing is clear, though. Even low estimates puts Stalin in the top three alongside Hitler and Mao.


Peace, out.

I have never heard from any sources that the documents were 1) poorly recorded or kept during the Stalin's USSR 2) destroyed during de-Stalinization 3) of those who got amnestied still kept secret.
Also there is huge ideological difference between Communism and Nazism and the methods of control vary widely not only from that stand point of view but also from country to country. Not knowing the exact number of casualties you can't really compare.

Meanwhile in the modern western ukraine:



The text reads: "Ukranian Division Galicia, they were defending Ukraine"

So we have one side of the argument pointing out that there's no moral victors in a civil war while the other side (or, well, one person) is posting the equivalent of "RUSSIA STRONK!" while thumping his chest.

Auschwitz was totally primarily a work camp too; it even said so over the entrance! Why would the nazis ever lie about such a thing?

So how is the ceasefire holding up?

At this point Russia seems happy with keeping up the status quo while the Ukrainian government disintegrates.

 Yaraton wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 Yaraton wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Just out of curiosity, I don't really pay to much attention to this anymore. Have the Russians officially said they are fighting the Ukrainians or are they still pretending that parts of their army are running away with tanks/artillery and trucks and fighting of their own free will?

That might sound trollish or maybe attempting to bait but I actually don't know and want to know.

Do you know how the army works?

Seeing as that's basically what the Russians were claiming a while ago...I'm going to say yes?

You are a different person than him, why is that? Is he dead or banned or is incapable of answering a simple question for himself?

I didn't feel it necessary to respond to such a baited question when Motyak pointed out your obvious ignorance. And from what else I have gathered from the following comments it appears Putin has officially claimed he has soldiers on orders in Ukraine?

 Tyran wrote:
So how is the ceasefire holding up?

At this point Russia seems happy with keeping up the status quo while the Ukrainian government disintegrates.

thats kinda their thing, same happened in Georgia, "freeze" the conflicts so they arent taking anymore resources but arent resolved enough that anything can move forward.

Vaktathi wrote:

 Yaraton wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The "self defense forces" in Crimea turned out to not be local either

I have news for you, they "turned out to be local". If you have have a breakdown numbers I would love to see them. If not... That's just your personal opinion.

You mean the guys in Russian Army pattern uniforms, with Post-USSR Russian Federation weaponry like Pecheneg's and AK-74M's were "local" forces? Even Russian news media is clearly stating that Putin as acknowledged that they were Russian.

I don't think he is talking about the army, he is talking about the local forces that were there alongside the Russian army (and who actually did most of the work). They were the militia guys wearing civilian clothes or old army uniforms with old weapons.

Ustrello wrote:Nah it actually isn't a lie, look online and most people agree that is a low number for Russians killed by uncle joe

Most of those really high numbers were invented in the West during the Cold War by people who had no means whatsoever to accurately research the situation. It was nothing but Cold War propaganda. The actual Soviet archives were available to researchers for a short time during the 90's, and they revealed 799,455 executions, 1.7 million deaths in labour camps and 390,000 deaths due to forced resettlement. The total comes to 2.9 million victims of Stalin's reign. This does not include victims of situations that happened during Stalin's reign but for which Stalin is not directly responsible (and for which there usually aren't official archives) such as famine and war-related atrocities.

Also, to those saying that the Soviets did not keep good records, the Soviets were actually notoriously for keeping ridiculously detailed and extensive records on pretty much every subject imaginable. The bureacracy was (and still is in modern Russia) huge, even in the secret services. The problem is that most of those archives are safely stored away by the secret services, and no one ever gets to see them (except for a short period after the collapse of the Soviet Union under Yeltsin)