Not P.....but Seymour Hersh admitting his self-blocked blindness....

[Martin Dietze]

[re-post as the messed-up formatting made reading pretty difficult in the last one, sorry for this]


Oh dear, you are wrong in pretty much everything you write here. Let’s check some the details…


> On 31. December 2025 at 17:57:49, J Tracy (brook7 at sover.net) wrote:

> The result of people believing the crap you believe about Ukraine is hundreds of thousands dead in a lost war because, led by the nazi-loving far right, they and their imperialist supporters refused to

The far-right is what you actually find on the Russian side. What constitutes fascism? Emilio Gentile names a couple of properties, like:
- the “führer” principlea
- claim to totality
- a military oriented party organization
- a culture-creating, irrational secular substitute religion based on myths, rites and symbols
- corporative, hierarchical economic organisation
- a totalitarian model of society structured into functional hierarchies

I can hardly see any point in this list *not* matching modern Russia.

Hence, if there is an element of a war against fascism in this, then it’s resistance against fascist Russia.


> leave the culturally Russian eastern oblasts alone

The Eastern oblasts being "culturally Russian” is an old myth spread by the Russian propaganda.
According to the 2001 census, ethnic Russians form a (large) minority, accounting for 39% of Luhansk and 38.2% of Donetsk oblast. 
Interestingly this figure is not even representing the actual cultural composition withint these 2 oblasts, because the high proportion of Russians is limited to the urban areas, most of all the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk (which saw a wave of immigration from other parts of the empire during the two phases of industrialisation in the late 19th century and mid 20th century).
Eastern Ukraine has been the home of Ukrainians for centuries. Today’s large Russian minority is a rather new phenomenon caused by the abovementioned two waves of immigration. 
None of the Eastern oblasts is “culturally Russian”. Within the industrial centers people have a strong regional identity which is neither “Russian” nor “Ukrainian”, but “Donbas”.



 > or keep the reasonable Minsk accord they had signed with eastern Ukraine.   

“Eastern Ukraine” is not a legal entity. After 2014 it has been de-facto occupied by Russia which used it as a strawman trying to still appear as a “third party” which it was not. 
However none of this matters, because both Minsk agreements were broken immediately after signing by the Russian side: the Donetsk airport after Minsk I and Debaltseve after Minsk II, both involving local militia and regular Russian army units.



 > Meanwhile all opposition parties silenced

You exactly describe what has been happening in Russia for 25 years in the course of its fascisation.
When it comes to Ukraine this is of course nonsense. 
While parties cooperating with the enemy are indeed illegal now (same as what the British did to their own Nazi party when in war with Germany) there is still a lively opposition both in the parliament and in civil society. Both is missing in Russia.



> elections refused,

In Ukraine elections are illegal at the moment as the country is in a state of war.
Zelenskyi has however made an offer to push through changes to the legislation and hold elections anyway - if the country is protected against Russian attacks during that time (what Russia has refused, of course). 
I think this is more than reasonable, in particular because different polls have shown that the president still enjoys overwhelming trust and would not have to fear any election result at this time. Hence, irrelevant (again). 



> I remember an article in the Guardian well into the Ukraine conflict claiming that Russian soldiers were reduced to fighting with shovels. The NY Times published similar drivel about immanent victory. That was when I knew even the most “liberal” papers would report whatever the state Intel propagandists told them, no matter how ludicrous, how big the lie.   

I’m afraid this sheds some light on the way you see the world. What does not fit your expectation and world view simply cannot be true and must be propaganda.
However I can offer you an alternative to the mess you’re in: if liberal papers agree on certain points and do not seriously consider the view the aggressor state has been trying to spread, then this could simply mean that they report facts and there is no “alternative truth” worth being given any room in serious publications.
Interestingly most of what you have written above is pretty much a copy-paste from Russian English-language media. So what makes you so certain that one is propaganda and the other not?


I had been away from the list for some time as gmail kept on bouncing mails causing the list server to remove my address again and again. It is sad to see that even 2022’s invasion has not made some people think over their previous positions but instead simply lead to reworded and sometimes even stranger argumentation to justify fascist Russia’s aggression against its neighbour.

Cheers,


m.