A court in the Russian city of St. Petersburg sentenced anti-war activist Olga Smirnova to six years in prison on August 30 on a charge of spreading fake news about the armed forces.
They’re kidnapping Ukrainian children and trying to “re-educate” them
Let’s start with a source for this one. I’ve seen nothing akin to the indigenous boarding schools ran by the U.S. and Canada in actual campaigns to destroy a people’s collective identity. What I have seen are reports of children whose parents are not available/alive to take care of them (a fact of any war) and Russia putting them in school and/or up for adoption (something any state would do).
We meet just a few days before the international criminal court issued warrants for the arrest of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, his commissioner for children’s rights, for directly supervising the atrocity of kidnapping Ukrainian children for “adoption” and “re-education” in Russia.
I mean it’s a pretty well known enough to trigger an international arrest warrant.
I’ve seen nothing akin to the indigenous boarding schools ran by the U.S. and Canada in actual campaigns to destroy a people’s collective identity.
Classic hexbear whataboutism response. Like I’m going to sit here and defend the horrendous crimes that happened in those boarding schools. Both things are wrong. You can be critical of Russia my man, you don’t need to defend it so aggressively.
Your linked articles makes literally no fact-claims outside of what my comrade there said. It just ignored whatever reasons Russia have and assumed the worst or let you imagine/fill in the gaps. Edit: added “no” because it was missing
Your comrade just made an assumption that the Russians are merely looking after children who have lost their parents, as if they’re playing the generous role of social services.
From the linked article:
In February, a report from Yale University found that since the start of the war, children as young as four months living in occupied areas had been taken to 43 camps across Russia, including in annexed Crimea and Siberia, for “pro-Russia patriotic and military-related education”.
In at least two of the camps, the children’s return date was delayed by weeks, while at two other camps, the return of some children was postponed indefinitely.
Videos published from the camps by the occupying regional authorities show children singing the Russian national anthem and carrying the Russian flag. In separate videos, teachers talk about the need to correct their understanding of Russian and Soviet history.
Simmons said: “All of it adds up to a story which is utterly horrendous. It’s horrendous on every conceivable level.
Still literally none of that goes against what was said. There’s s war, and when that happens and territory changes hands, there’s always this problem (or the military let’s the children just run around with parents gone and get themselves hurt). It’s not unique and it’s not something you have a better idea for. Its why we stand for bringing and end to wars generally while you stand for ending Russia (where the next war will just come at the next eastern border where this whole cycle will repeat). Can you not see how areas which have become Russian through referendum will have issues of parents being gone and wanting children back, but Russia can’t just send em randomly across a border. They’ve gotta have checks for the parenthood and that the children are not also claimed by another parent that stayed (a case which often happens with divorces, and complicates it). All while trying to work with a government that very obviously is not willing to work with you. All the articles fit this narrative also, just with spin on top using specific wording and leaving out details.
International law is a joke. If you knew anything about it you wouldn’t be screeching “whataboutism!” at even the most obvious of comparisons, because you’d know that a cornerstone of what passes as International law is looking at practices of other countries.
But let’s see what your article says:
Kherson was liberated in November after eight months of occupation, but is pounded every day and night by Russian artillery… A report last October by Yale University Human Rights Lab, citing a vast range of open sources in Russia and Ukraine, traces many reasons for their abduction: including so-called “evacuation” from state institutions such as that at Kherson
This article documents that (when it was written) Kherson was still an active war zone, but nevertheless adds scare quotes to “evacuation,” as if there is no need to evacuate children from a war zone and this is all a Russian pretense. So early on we can see that no Russian explanation will be deemed credible, even when the explanation Russia gives (e.g., evacuation) is documented by the author himself.
“Staff hoped for three months that our army would somehow evacuate them,” Sagaydak continues, “but when it became apparent this would not happen, we made arrangements for those with living relatives
Even Ukranians recognize the need for evacuating children, but nope, it’s an evil plot when Russia does it! Note also that the immediate evidence we have here – an in-person interview with a Ukranian working with kids, not a second- or third-hand story – mentions exactly what I said: kids orphaned by the war who need to go somewhere, not Russians snatching kids from their parents.
“Another woman here, aged only 30, took five, which could not possibly have been hers, so we made up a legend that she was helping her pregnant sister while she gave birth. We had to invent all the medical records, and worried when a driver turned up who was not the one we had planned. But when they were stopped, and the untrustworthy driver even told the true story, the kids managed to outwit the occupying soldiers.”
What is more believable: Russians are trying to snatch any kid they can lay their hands on, for some reason the Ukrainians subjected to this believe fake medical records will prevent this, a driver tells them “hey here’s five kids with fake documents,” and the kids outwit a bunch of soldiers with some unexplained cunning? Or is it more likely that Russians consider kids in a war zone basically a nuisance, and aren’t particularly invested if someone is trying to evacuate them?
But then, on 15 July, the Russians returned, with 15 more children to be cared for
So the Russians are stealing children by… taking them to a Ukranian orphanage?
I mean, just look this shit up? There’s tonnes of articles, accounts from mothers trying to get their children back, UN reports on it, loads. Stop pretending like this isn’t happening, it’s absolutely ridiculous. Feels like I’m witnessing some kind of Russian information warfare in action here.
You know this is happening yet you’re coming out in defence of Russia.
Lmao you can’t even imagine how someone could possibly disagree with the liberal narrative – even after someone goes line by line through a salacious article and highlights bias and inconsistencies.
Genocide is a crime. If you claim a crime occurred you have to provide evidence. What you are doing is equivalent to accusing someone of murder, then standing up in front of the judge and shouting “we all know he did it, just go out and find the evidence yourself, what, are you some kind of Russian plant for saying I need a witness???” Just a laughable response.
Let’s start with a source for this one. I’ve seen nothing akin to the indigenous boarding schools ran by the U.S. and Canada in actual campaigns to destroy a people’s collective identity. What I have seen are reports of children whose parents are not available/alive to take care of them (a fact of any war) and Russia putting them in school and/or up for adoption (something any state would do).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/18/how-ukraine-kidnapped-children-led-to-vladimir-putins-arrest-warrant-russia
I mean it’s a pretty well known enough to trigger an international arrest warrant.
Classic hexbear whataboutism response. Like I’m going to sit here and defend the horrendous crimes that happened in those boarding schools. Both things are wrong. You can be critical of Russia my man, you don’t need to defend it so aggressively.
Your linked articles makes literally no fact-claims outside of what my comrade there said. It just ignored whatever reasons Russia have and assumed the worst or let you imagine/fill in the gaps. Edit: added “no” because it was missing
Your comrade just made an assumption that the Russians are merely looking after children who have lost their parents, as if they’re playing the generous role of social services.
From the linked article:
In at least two of the camps, the children’s return date was delayed by weeks, while at two other camps, the return of some children was postponed indefinitely.
Videos published from the camps by the occupying regional authorities show children singing the Russian national anthem and carrying the Russian flag. In separate videos, teachers talk about the need to correct their understanding of Russian and Soviet history.
Simmons said: “All of it adds up to a story which is utterly horrendous. It’s horrendous on every conceivable level.
Ukrainian mothers trying to their their kids back.
UN report on kidnappings
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fortune.com/2023/07/07/why-is-russia-kidnapping-ukrainian-children-vladimir-putin-soviet-book-author/amp/
They literally took this girl, gave her a Russian passport and claimed her as an orphan.
The absolute fuck are you guys coming to the defence of Russia for?
Still literally none of that goes against what was said. There’s s war, and when that happens and territory changes hands, there’s always this problem (or the military let’s the children just run around with parents gone and get themselves hurt). It’s not unique and it’s not something you have a better idea for. Its why we stand for bringing and end to wars generally while you stand for ending Russia (where the next war will just come at the next eastern border where this whole cycle will repeat). Can you not see how areas which have become Russian through referendum will have issues of parents being gone and wanting children back, but Russia can’t just send em randomly across a border. They’ve gotta have checks for the parenthood and that the children are not also claimed by another parent that stayed (a case which often happens with divorces, and complicates it). All while trying to work with a government that very obviously is not willing to work with you. All the articles fit this narrative also, just with spin on top using specific wording and leaving out details.
International law is a joke. If you knew anything about it you wouldn’t be screeching “whataboutism!” at even the most obvious of comparisons, because you’d know that a cornerstone of what passes as International law is looking at practices of other countries.
But let’s see what your article says:
This article documents that (when it was written) Kherson was still an active war zone, but nevertheless adds scare quotes to “evacuation,” as if there is no need to evacuate children from a war zone and this is all a Russian pretense. So early on we can see that no Russian explanation will be deemed credible, even when the explanation Russia gives (e.g., evacuation) is documented by the author himself.
Even Ukranians recognize the need for evacuating children, but nope, it’s an evil plot when Russia does it! Note also that the immediate evidence we have here – an in-person interview with a Ukranian working with kids, not a second- or third-hand story – mentions exactly what I said: kids orphaned by the war who need to go somewhere, not Russians snatching kids from their parents.
What is more believable: Russians are trying to snatch any kid they can lay their hands on, for some reason the Ukrainians subjected to this believe fake medical records will prevent this, a driver tells them “hey here’s five kids with fake documents,” and the kids outwit a bunch of soldiers with some unexplained cunning? Or is it more likely that Russians consider kids in a war zone basically a nuisance, and aren’t particularly invested if someone is trying to evacuate them?
So the Russians are stealing children by… taking them to a Ukranian orphanage?
I mean, just look this shit up? There’s tonnes of articles, accounts from mothers trying to get their children back, UN reports on it, loads. Stop pretending like this isn’t happening, it’s absolutely ridiculous. Feels like I’m witnessing some kind of Russian information warfare in action here.
You know this is happening yet you’re coming out in defence of Russia.
Lmao you can’t even imagine how someone could possibly disagree with the liberal narrative – even after someone goes line by line through a salacious article and highlights bias and inconsistencies.
Genocide is a crime. If you claim a crime occurred you have to provide evidence. What you are doing is equivalent to accusing someone of murder, then standing up in front of the judge and shouting “we all know he did it, just go out and find the evidence yourself, what, are you some kind of Russian plant for saying I need a witness???” Just a laughable response.
The only thing laughable is you trying to defend Russia and try to downplay or make excuses for Russia kidnapping children.
https://www.politico.eu/article/save-ukraine-children-abduction-russia-war-rescue-operation/
https://apnews.com/article/ukrainian-children-russia-7493cb22c9086c6293c1ac7986d85ef6
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15395.doc.htm
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russias-mass-abduction-of-ukrainian-children-may-qualify-as-genocide/