US Online hate groups fed by Kremlin propaganda like "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". This propaganda is why Kherson is important today
In the first pasted article, there is a look into how Kremlin propaganda is by leaving a residue of a psychotic state of denial in the Russian federation, and its off shoots into America, and other places, as the worst of Kremlin propaganda is being recycled by far Right publications. This gaslighting in Russia has a long history. In the early 20th century the Okhrana, the Czarist secret police, forged the infamous "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" . Believed to be true by Adolf Hitler, Henry Ford, and the late Osama bin Laden. It was introduced by the Russian secret police in an attempt to bolster the reign of Tsar Nicholas II. It erroneously exposed his enemies as co-conspirators with the Jews in a plot to take over the world. '
Today, on line Kremlin propaganda does not have the cache of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but in its own way is equally insidious. And this closed Kremlin ecosystem, is why , in the face of catastrophic losses of Russian Army manpower, Kherson is being feted as a would be colony by Russia.
Finally in setting itself up for failure, the Kremlin is setting itself up for maximum failure, in the worst case, as tremendous Russian Army sacrifices for Nazi like propaganda will in the end lead to the abasement of the Russian federation.
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/07/russian-media-online-hate-extremists-racism\
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Jun 7, 2022?-?Technology
Russian media drives online hate
There is a clear and growing link between Russian propaganda and online far-right extremism globally, according to a new study from researchers at the George Washington University.
Why it matters:?The findings suggest the influence of Russian media on these communities is organic, which makes it harder to stop.
Data:?George Washington University ; Table: Thomas Oide/Axios Visuals
Driving the news:?The data gives context to recent real-world hate crimes, most notably the mass shooting in Buffalo, N,Y., last month.
How it works:?To study the connection between extremist groups online and Russian propaganda, researchers mapped what they call "hate clusters" (online fringe extremist groups) that have posted links to Russian media.
Key takeaways:?The findings suggest extremist hate groups that post links to Russian media tend to originate from places with deep racial divides, including North America, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and Nordic regions.
The big picture:?The findings dispel the notion that Russian influence on domestic extremism happens through coordinated bot campaigns.
"It turns out that we’ve all got it wrong,"?Johnson said.
What's next:?Johnson, who has spent years mapping the intersection between extremist communities online, notes that these types of groups are "self policing," and often shift their messaging around certain topics.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/8/2102917/-Ukraine-update-Russia-wants-to-turn-Kherson-into-a-colony-to-feed-Putin-s-dreams-of-empire
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Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday June 08, 2022?·?12:56 PM EDT
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Russian forces raise a Soviet banner of victory over the Ukrainian city of Kherson. May 20, 2022.
It’s not necessary for an occupying power to win a battle in order to cause irredeemable?damage. They don’t even have to destroy a building. After all, they have something that gives them a leverage unmatched by the people giving everything in the effort to drive them out: hostages. Thousands, even millions, of hostages.
In the Kherson region, those hostages mean that while Russia is free to unlimber all the artillery it wants at Ukrainian positions, Ukraine is extremely reluctant to point its big guns back toward the towns and villages where Russian forces are crouching. Just like any advance, retaking a position requires application of more force than holding it, and when the people on one side are more concerned about capturing territory without destroying homes and threatening civilians, that difficulty goes up by an order of magnitude.
What Russia did in capturing territory was amputation. What Ukraine is trying to do now is surgery. It’s harder. It?takes longer. It’s frustrating to those who want a quick response.
Unfortunately, that delay means that Russia is also using its hostages in another way. In several areas controlled by Russia, but in Kherson in particular, those hostages are being subjected to a daily gamut of challenges meant to break their will, change the way they think, and surrender their hope.
Across the city, Russia is taking away signs, papers, and books written in Ukrainian and replacing them with ones written in Russian. Citizens are being drafted to help in this effort in an extremely effective way. Russian troops have erected checkpoints throughout the city, halting and demanding papers from those who try to pass. People have been, and are still being, shot in the street for being out without proper paperwork. How to get proper paperwork? Agree to help in remaking the city into a?Russian colony.?
Schools, which are preparing to reopen in the area, are being given Russian textbooks and a Russian curriculum—a curriculum that teaches that the nation of Ukraine?does not exist,?and that anyone who claims otherwise is a traitor. So far, only two out?of 60 school administrators have agreed to go along with this, but don’t expect that opposition to last. During the first days of Russian occupation, there were many images of citizens in Kherson protesting against Russia. Such events have become much less common, not because the people there have decided Russia is not so bad, but because they’ve seen how hundreds have been hauled away, never to reappear, when they’ve said something judged to be anti-Russian or pro-Ukrainian. Russia often follows a pattern in Kherson that is also followed in Moscow. Don’t stop people immediately, but take down names for later.
From a distance, the idea that people pointing a gun at everyday citizens, demanding papers, and then taking them away for any sign of opposition?might claim to be “getting rid of Nazis” seems ironic. From up close, it just seems terrifying.
People in Kherson are now able to get only Russian phones. Watch?only Russian television. Read?only Russian newspapers. Moscow has put in place procedures which will, in the next few weeks, make them all “Russian citizens.”?There has been some pretense, off and on, of having a “referendum” in the city to officially align Kherson with Russia. But that’s not really necessary.?The Kremlin has declared that Kherson is “Russia forever.” This is a good, old-fashioned, war of conquest after all, and Kherson is one of Russia’s fattest prizes.
According to the Ukrainian southern command,?things in Kherson are getting steadily worse . Russia has tightened up the borders of the region, making it much more difficult to escape from the occupied area. In fact, just about the only road available leads straight out of Kherson and …?into Crimea. The crackdown on what Russia now views as dissidents is getting harder. The transformation of the city into a Russian outpost is accelerating. The numbers of those being disappeared is growing.
As Ukrainian forces attempt to move toward the city, Russian forces are engaged in a predictable response—they are shelling every village and town that Ukraine captures, making the approach of the Ukrainian army something like the trumpet of doom. They’re creating the destruction Ukraine has been working to avoid.
In some areas, like the bridgehead established across the Inhulets River south of Davydiv Brid, Ukraine seems to be taking these actions into account. They’re not driving to take and hold that town, or others along the river. They’re not driving village to village over the highways. They’re establishing a broad front, moving across fields, taking advantage of the weather and terrain to advance without creating unnecessary confrontations. But that can’t continue. No matter what route Ukraine takes into the city, there is going to be destruction. Because Russia is not about to let Kherson go without causing as much pain as possible.
Fighting is going on all along the front between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Kherson area
There are fights going on at so many points along the line between Ukrainian forces and Russian forces in Kherson oblast, that almost every point of intersect might be considered an area of active fighting. At the northern end of the line, Ukrainian troops are still attempting to seize?Vysokopillya, which Russia has turned into a regional nexus for command and control. Taking that town could be especially important in thwarting what is rumored to be a Russian force organizing for another run toward?Kryvyi Rih to the north.?
In the middle of the line, that bridgehead on the east of the Inhulets continues to expand, in spite of Russian claims that it has been eliminated. Reports have put forces much farther south than indicated here, but without any details or confirmation, I’m leaving the borders where they are for the moment. Even if this force is driving hard for the bridge at Nova Kakhovka, as many tweets and Telegram messages insist, it seems impossible for them to get there without first pushing past significant Russian defenses.
At the south end of the line, Ukrainian forces are once again within 15 km of Kherson. But just ahead of them are two sets of Russian defensive lines. One just south of?Kyselivka and another immediately outside the city. As in the force south of Davydiv Brid, there have been confusing reports, including some that suggest Ukrainian forces are in the immediate suburbs of Kherson. But there seems no evidence to support this claim. For now.
One point of dispute that is also a point of confusion: there have been multiple posts indicating fighting in the area of?Tamaryne. Whether this represents Ukrainian forces moving in from the area around?Snihurivka, which is still largely held by Russia, or whether it shows the force to the north moving in an unexpected direction, it’s unclear how this connects to other actions.
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SEVERODONETSK
At this point, Severodonetsk might as well be it’s own “front” (though if Russian forces manage to get close to Lysychansk from another direction, that could change).??
For anyone who thinks all the foreign volunteers who went into Severodonetsk are gone, listen to the dialog in this video.
video of a Brazilian volunteer fighting Russians in Severodonetsk?pic.twitter.com/ToXXL3Ple4
— Nikolas Yagami???????? (@esse_uma)?June 8, 2022
As far as what’s going on in the city …?fighting continues. There have been claims from Russia and from the Luhansk nationalists that LNR forces killed Ukrainian soldiers in the industrial zone overnight. Didn’t happen. There have been claims that either Russia or Ukraine has “begun to withdraw.” Hasn’t happened. Russia still seems determined to capture the city by the arbitrary deadline of June 10. Ukraine still seems determined to fight it out. But there is little doubt both sides, and the civilians trapped in the battered city, are taking tremendous losses. Ukraine still might decide to withdraw, and has the opportunity to move across the river if things get desperate.?
On Wednesday, President Volodomyr Zelenskyy praised the “heroic defense” of the city, but also admitted that Russian forces outnumber Ukrainian forces in the city and stated that withdrawal is an option.
KHARKIV
In spite of continued gains by Ukrainian forces in the area, Russian troops on Tuesday and Wednesday engaged in the one thing they are still capable of in the Kharkiv area—lobbying artillery and missiles into the city to cause pain and misery for civilians. These attacks don’t even have the appearance of a military objective. They’re just trying to hurt people. And so long as Russia holds on to Lyptsi, less than 20km from the city, they can do this easily and cheaply. So they are.
Kharkiv area shows small, but significant, changes
Not much has really changed hands in the area since Ukraine took Vesele and outlying villages over the weekend. Russian reports on Sunday had it fully capturing Ternova, but the latest word is that Russia is “continuing to expel the enemy” from Ternova. Which translates to: Ukraine has Ternova.
Maybe the most interesting thing in Russian reports is that they mention fighting on the east bank of the Siverskyi Donets River at Rubizhne. That seems to confirm Ukraine’s continued presence on the east bank, and at a spot well to the north of anything previously known. Russia is also bragging about how they have mined every possible way into Rubizhne, something that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense was complaining about earlier in the week.
FIRMS data shows heavy activity around the Rubizhne bridge
The latest satellite images show that the former bridge at Rubizhne is still unrepaired, but there has been too much cloud cover in the area over the last two weeks to determine if Ukraine has erected a pontoon bridge in the area. In any case, artillery fire near the bridge landing on both sides of the river continues to be heavy. On Tuesday, there was also a burst of artillery fire well over to the east, which could signal Ukrainian forces that had been near Buhaivka making a move.
IZYUM
The big news at Izyum is not good. Russia has apparently taken?Svyatohirske, one of the last Ukrainian-held towns on the north bank of the river east of Izyum. But at the same time, Russia may have managed to get forces across the river to the village of?Tetyanivka.
Russian forces may have crossed the river at?Svyatohirske.
Images late on Monday, as Ukrainian forces were still fighting in?Svyatohirske, showed that the single bridge leading across the river at that point was heavily damaged, but not actually down. It’s possible that bridge isn’t capable of allowing heavy equipment across, but is still sturdy enough for infantry and lighter transports. Descriptions of the force reportedly in?Tetyanivka would support that idea.
Ukraine has been counting on river crossing to give them a chance to inflict more disasters on Russia. They not only have get across almost 100m of water, but climb steep banks to get away from the bridgehead, while Ukraine looks down from the heights. If Russia has what amounts to a freebie in getting across the river, that’s a Not Good Thing.
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Also
https://thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/thehill.com/opinion/international/3513708-russias-humiliation-is-unavoidable/amp/
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Russia’s humiliation is unavoidable
BY ALEXANDER J. MOTYL, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR?06/08/22 07:00 AM ET
A view of the Big Kremlin Palace and Churches with the Moskva River in Moscow, Russia on June 2, 2022.
French President Emmanuel Macron recently?suggested ?that “We must not humiliate Russia, so that the day when the fighting stops, we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means.” The intent behind his statement may be noble, but the goal is impossible to achieve. Any genuine peace — one that precludes future wars and guarantees Ukraine’s survival as a democratic state — will necessarily entail some degree of humiliation for Russia.
That’ll be the case even if the West and Ukraine bend over backward to avoid humiliating the Russians and their ruler, Vladimir Putin. That’s because it takes two for humiliation to occur. Whether the West humiliates Russia depends as much, if not more, on how the Russians perceive themselves as it does on what those in the West do or say.
Many Russians view their country as a God-given superpower with a messianic mission in Ukraine, Eurasia, and ultimately the world. Such a divinely inspired state must expand, because territorial expansion is the precondition of its earthly mission to promote its culture, values and spirit amongst the heathens who have strayed from the one true path by adopting liberalism, promoting libertinism, and supposing that democracy dares to consider itself superior to a dictator’s rule.
The works and speeches of Putin, the fascist philosophers?Aleksandr Dugin ?and?Ivan Ilyin , the recently deceased populist rabble-rouser?Vladimir Zhirinovsky , the former Russian prime minister and president?Dmitry Medvedev ,?Patriarch Kirill , and scores of propagandists, pamphleteers, and dime-novelists all agree on the general outlines of such a worldview, which has become Putin Russia’s legitimating ideology.
To those who hold such a grandiose self-perception, any defeat, even of the smallest kind, any criticism, however minute, any slight, however picayune, translates into a mortal offense, into an attempt at humiliating God’s divine proxy. Ironically, such hypersensitivity also bespeaks an underlying uncertainty about Russia’s avowed greatness. Tell the French or the Americans that their cultures are inferior, and they’ll dismiss you as harebrained. Tell Russians that you aren’t completely enthralled by their culture, and they’ll be insulted and try to persuade you that you’re wrong.??
This means that any peace predicated on Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty — that is, any peace that involves a Russian withdrawal from at least the territories?Moscow seized ?since the war began on Feb. 24 — will entail some form of Russian defeat and, hence, some form of humiliation.
Russia will be humiliated regardless of how, and how greatly, Ukraine wins the war. In fact, as scores of Russian commentators make clear, many Russians already feel humiliated — and the war is far from over. They feel that way with good reason. Russia?failed to capture Kyiv ; it was forced to withdraw from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy provinces; it proved incapable of?seizing Kharkiv ; its hold on Kherson province looks shakier by the day; and it has pretty much failed to achieve the much-expected breakthrough in the Donbas.
By any standard, Russia has failed. Ukraine has defeated Russia in many areas. And there is little prospect of Russia’s winning — especially if and when the Ukrainians receive Western heavy weaponry that enables them to launch a counter-offensive in late summer.
Given the?profound shame ?that many Russians already must feel, given the extent of their humiliation, to suggest, as Macron did, that humiliation should be avoided is tantamount to saying that the clock should be turned back to Feb. 23 and the Russian onslaught should not have occurred.
That may be a noble counterfactual thought-experiment, but it’s useless as a guide for policy.
The task before Ukraine and the West is, thus, not how to avoid humiliating Russia but how to reduce the extent and depth of Russia’s humiliation. That can be achieved best by hastening Russia’s defeat.
The longer it takes for Russia to accept the inevitability of its defeat, the more Russians?needlessly die , the more?economic hardship ?the Russians endure, the greater will their humiliation be when the war ends and they realize that all their efforts, all their sacrifices, all their pains were for naught. And, as Macron implies, deeply humiliated countries make for bad partners in peace.
Alternatively, if the Russians lose quickly, the shock and disappointment will be great, but the humiliation will be significantly smaller. Their rulers can put the blame on the dastardly NATO alliance or, conceivably, utilize Russia’s massive propaganda machine to spin defeat into some form of Pyrrhic victory, whereby Holy Russia fought Evil in a noble, if uneven, fight. The resultant peace likely would be durable, since it would guarantee victorious Ukraine’s existence and defeated Russia’s minimal humiliation.
The only way to avoid any kind of humiliation would be a Russian victory, one that would entail the achievement of all of Putin’s strategic goals: Ukraine’s complete destruction and Russia’s continued expansion into neighboring states in Eurasia. If Macron and his like-minded supporters in the West find that alternative unacceptable, if what they want is a genuine peace, then they have no choice but to support Ukraine militarily and strive for its victory as soon as possible.
Alexander J. Motyl ?is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends : The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge : Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”
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FTR
In the first pasted article, there is a look into how Kremlin propaganda is by leaving a residue of a psychotic state of denial in the Russian federation, and its off shoots into America, and other places, as the worst of Kremlin propaganda is being recycled by far Right publications. This gaslighting in Russia has a long history. In the early 20th century the Okhrana, the Czarist secret police, forged the infamous "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" . Believed to be true by Adolf Hitler, Henry Ford, and the late Osama bin Laden. It was introduced by the Russian secret police in an attempt to bolster the reign of Tsar Nicholas II. It erroneously exposed his enemies as co-conspirators with the Jews in a plot to take over the world. '
Today, on line Kremlin propaganda does not have the cache of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but in its own way is equally insidious. And this closed Kremlin ecosystem, is why , in the face of catastrophic losses of Russian Army manpower, Kherson is being feted as a would be colony by Russia.
Finally in setting itself up for failure, the Kremlin is setting itself up for maximum failure, in the worst case, as tremendous Russian Army sacrifices for Nazi like propaganda will in the end lead to the abasement of the Russian federation.
Summarizing the dynamics.
Russia will be in the end excruciatingly humiliated once Russian soldiers return to their home towns and find out that their entire enterprise was backed by filthy propaganda in the home front which had no relationship to the realities these soldiers found themselves confronting in the battlefield. Russia will be humiliated when it learns that Vladimir Putin declared Ukraine to be a fake country with veterans attesting to the actual existence of a similar but not the same Slavic nation state . Russian humiliation will be tripled over again and again when soldiers whom fought in the battlefield are bombarded with references to Ukraine Nazi units, when the soldiers from towns all over the Russian federation will tell people in hometowns all over the Russian Federation of countless battles with Ukrainian civilian soldiers, from all over Ukraine itself to fight them. I.e. fellow Slavic people, whom are NOT Nazis
It is too late to assuage that coming cascade of humiliation. We can though at least attest as to where it is coming from
Andrew Beckwith, PhD
Historian and Bibliographer of the Stalinist Holodomor Genocide of 1932-33.
2 年K-h-e-r-s-o-n.