Thread by @JBelcourt73

So, westerners willing to shill for Russia abound. Recently I discovered @naomiallen_usa who is advancing a narrative that it is Ukraine who is the real NAZI. Her thesis is centered on 4 points 1. The far right is state sponsored in Ukraine. 2. Aleksandr Dugin has been exiled

the centers of power in Kleptograd, 3. Wagner isn't real and that 4. Ukraine is the real aggressor. She is of course welcome to respond, but let's take her work apart seam by seam shall we?

1. she claims the far right is state sponsored in the Ukraine. This claim likely rests on the Azov battalion being made part of the regular Ukrainian military. As @brycewilsonAU has documented, yes AZOV had some extremists. No one is denying that. However, it is a stretch to use

extremist roots as a brush to paint an entire culture. Ukraine has the lowest rate of antisemitism in Eastern and possibly Western Europe jpost.com/diaspora/artic…

Ukraine's president is famously a Jew and overall, the claim that the least antisemitic country in Europe is also the most NAZI like of the combatants. It smells of Lavrov's, "Hitler was a Jew" BS. But her claim does at least set up a standard I intend to hold her too if she is

perhaps mistaken in her views and intellectually honest vs just a Russian agitprop asset. Because on the other hand Russia has among the lowest rates of acceptance of Jews and antisemitism cannot be divorced from the far-right extremist (or far left for that matter).

In addition to widely divergent views on Jews, in 2019 the far right in Ukraine only got 2% of the vote and Ukraine is advancing equality for members of the LGBTQ

jpost.com/Diaspora/Antis…

community and is going to consider legalizing same sex marriage after a popular petition was delivered to the government. Now color me confused, but if Ukraine is run by the far right, and their far right is not antisemitic and pro-LGBTQ what is Ukraine's left like? Meanwhile in

Russia, members of the LGBTQ community are routinely harassed and arrested and do not enjoy equal rights. But back to who is the real NAZI. The differing views on equality are also on display with the way Putin has used Russian far right extremist groups to attack his political

foes. Also famously teaming up with Aleksandr Dugin who was/is a major thought leader in Russian power circles. This brings up her second point. Russia must be the good guys because Dugin has been exiled from the halls of power. theconversation.com/putins-fascist…

Yes, Dugin was thrown out after he went to far in demanding that Putin do more in 2014. But Dugin is like a metastasized cancer. Even if he is exiled, his ideas remain floating through the body politic because post Dugin Russia never went through any type of intellectual

chemotherapy and his ideas are still the organizing principles of the Russian state. We see Putin, Lavrov and Medevdev speak the words but we hear Dugin. The idea that Ukraine isn't real, that the idea of Ukraine needs to be extinguished etc. are part and parcel of the Russian

conversation, just look at Olga Skabeyeva. She is a state sponsored mouth piece so if she says it, has quests who say it, it is pre-approved and likely using canned talking points. So, in short, Dugin is still the philosophical head of Russian fascism and imperialism.

But smoke and mirrors is the whole point. Look over here at what Russia is doing not at what she is saying and then suddenly, no look at what Russia is saying not what she is doing until it becomes nearly impossible to keep up. Thats the whole point, it is a giant gaslighting op

on an international scale. Ditto point 3, that Wagner isn't real. That claim is a play on words. The truth is they do not call themselves Wagner, the prefer the W Orchestra, and Prigozhin owns them. meduza.io/en/feature/202…

The W Orchestra famously likes to play music as they torture and murder victims hence the imagery of a hammer and often an accordion. Both of which featured prominently in Syrian war crimes committed by the colloquially known Wagner Group PMC. The efforts to say it is not real

is all misdirection aimed at audiences that do not have the time or resources to dig deeper. However, they are easily debunked and so here I am providing a public service in debunking Russian dis-info. Now, lets tackle point number 4 of her thesis. That Ukraine is the real

aggressor. Who invaded whom? Be that as it may, Russia has been claiming that Ukraine (and all of Russia's neighbors more or less) do not enjoy actual sovereignty and actions they take to safeguard themselves from Russia may/will be considered hostile acts. This is straight up

imperialism. There is a reason all of Russia's former colonial holdings in the west other than Belarus want into NATO. It's to remain free from the world's last great colonial empire. And it is colonialism that Russia is engaged in. All those occupied areas in Moldova, Georgia...

The agitation over statues and demands for special rights for Russian speaking populations its a slavic Monroe Doctrine and is no more valid than our own was and belongs to a different era before the equal right of nations to pursue their own destiny. But aside from that we have

the evidence provided by HIMARS and Russia's own fires based conduct of the war. Russia was firing 60k shells a day (average weight 120lbs per shell) and had at least 50 large depots inside the LNR and DNR to draw from. These depots were not there before 2014 and are there now

and strategically placed to support Russian OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS. Russia does not have the transport capacity to build 50 depots in 5 months and supply combat units with 60K shells a day. As we have seen since HIMARS-O-Clock, Russia cannot provide the 60k shells a day from inside

Russia. The depots were built pre-war. We see similar efforts to corrupt Ukrainian politics, information spaces, etc... Hell the whole reason there is a LNR/DNR was the flight of Yanukovich's security thugs to the Donbass and their FSB handlers after Maidan. Putin is the baddie

not Ukraine. So when you reach out to your elected officials the way I reach out to @JohnBoozman @SenTomCotton and @RepFrenchHill you can use good information. You can get more reliable knowledge at @MriyaReport and if you want to help Ukraine give to @MriyaAid or help

#feedthewolves by donating to @georgian_legion Please retweet and share this essay to counter the false narratives being pushed by Kleptograds apologists. Slava Ukraini! #russiaisateroriststate #RussiaInvadedUkraine #Genocide @MFA_Russia <--- still losing

@threadreaderapp unroll please