Thread by @YudinGreg

Unfortunately, I am not surprised by the atrocities in the occupied zone in Bucha. One thing people tend to underestimate is the narrative built in Russia to justify this war. It sounds so outlandish to most observers that it is too easily written off. But it works. A🧵1/11

The narrative mounted by Putin from the first days of war focuses on “de-nazification” of Ukraine. Nazism is understood in Russia (just like anywhere else) as an absolute evil. However, it is seen an external evil, Russia is by definition free from Nazism (we defeated it!) 2/11

It follows that Nazism is an external enemy that should be destroyed at any cost. The initial view was that Nazis have seized power in Ukraine, while ordinary Ukrainians are just some sort of Russians with silly ideas about their identity and a ridiculous language 3/11

This meant “de-nazification” could be completed through regime change & Ukrainians should be liberated. Obviously, this conception failed when Ukrainians started resisting bravely. A natural conclusion from that: Ukrainians turned out to be deeply infected by Nazism 4/11

Therefore, liberation means purification. I have expanded on that a bit: 5/11

https://twitter.com/YudinGreg/status/1510024090131836932

And this is precisely how the message of official speakers has changed recently. Here Margarita Simonyan is saying precisely this: we have underestimated how deep Nazism has permeated Ukrainian society. Now liberation means purification 6/11

That affects the operational choices by the troops on the ground. Imagine you are a Russian soldier occupying a city in Ukraine (I know it is an unpleasant experiment). What are the classifications and distinctions you would use when dealing with the local population? 7/11

Your basic theory is that this is a land occupied by the Nazis, and you are here to liberate it. Obviously, Nazis will resist; and those resisting are Nazis. Your primary task is to separate the Nazis from poor Ukrainians & make the city clean from Nazism 8/11

This is why we already see the filtration camps operating near Mariupol. The process of filtration reportedly involves many locations inside Russia, which means the whole concept of filtration operations was pre-planned. Once again, the purity narrative is crucial here 9/11

This is why I seriously doubt these atrocities are just excesses of war. Every war excites the worst in people, especially when commanders are rogue. However, the systematic and consistent actions owe more to the way war is justified than to affects like revenge 10/11

If you feel like this logic of purification actually reminds of Nazi thinking, I think there’s a lot of truth to that. I will probably make a separate thread on why 🇷🇺 probably has no immunity against Nazism.
I am afraid the worst thing are yet to follow. Hope I’m wrong. END

ADD: This is exactly what I am talking about: “Don’t worry. You are all normal – and this is dirt. We are here to cleanse you from the dirt.”
hrw.org/news/2022/04/0…