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Ukraine launches site to help families of captured and killed Russian soldiers
- dsgtng18 5y ago"Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity." -- Article 13 of the Geneva Convention
- sterlind 5y agoMaybe I'm just naive, but I don't see this as intentionally insulting or a public spectacle. I think it really is to help Russian families identify whether their children have been captured or killed while serving. I don't think Russian soldiers want to kill Ukrainians. I don't think Ukrainians want to kill Russians. I think regular people from both countries have been forced into the awful situation of shooting each other, and they're navigating the human toll. Seeing this site really made the war hit home for me.
- Moru 5y agoAnd it's horrible for the morale of the russian soldiers if their mothers starts calling them and yelling at them for killing their brothers...
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y agoIt can serve multiple purposes and all of these could be true. I will add one more: -propaganda value for local, international and regular Russians cannot be overstated here
- aaron695 5y agoYes, this site is a clear cut war crime. Ok, it's low on the war crime scale, but you are in or out on the Geneva Convention.
- pjmlp 5y agoOnly naive people can believe in clean wars and soldiers on the field actually following the convention all times. Talking on the internet is easy.
- rosndo 5y agoIt really isn’t, this is not degrading treatment. These people aren’t being paraded around the streets. This is a genuinely useful resource for them and their families, a means for parents of Russian soldiers to be able to get on phone with their kids.
- chmod775 5y ago>These people aren’t being paraded around the streets. Sure. They're just being uploaded to YouTube with comments enabled. 4chan's /pol/ already found the Facebook profiles of some of these POWs and are messaging their friends and relatives for fun. I'd rather be paraded down a street.
- rosndo 5y agoThat’s simply inevitable in modern wars where everybody carries a camera.
- chmod775 5y agoPublishing their full names is quite evitable.
- rosndo 5y agoPublishing their full names is the right and human thing to do. Russian government is not keeping their families informed.
- chmod775 5y agoYou can just give them a call, you know. In fact some of them are made to call their family in some of the videos circulating. The right and human thing to do is following the Geneva Convention. You'll have to make a pretty amazing case if you want to argue it should be disregarded in this case. It should be obvious there's better ways to inform families of these POWs, not just because a less public/propaganda way is more respectful, but also because a more direct route is more likely to reach them. But that's obviously not the point. This is pretty standard as propaganda goes and fits neatly with the other narratives that are spun. That can be understood and accepted, but it definitely shouldn't be celebrated.
- axiosgunnar 5y agoGuys, this is literally a pro-Russian propaganda troll with an account created less than an hour ago with random letters as its name. Dang?
- muzani 5y agoFrom the guidelines: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
- smorgusofborg 5y agos/pro-Russian/pro-Putin? IMO pro Russian trolls are very cool but usually get imprisoned by Putin.
- axiosgunnar 5y agoYes, you're right
- Arnt 5y agoNot so random. Note the last paragraph in particular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_200_(code_name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_200_(code_name)
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y agoBut how will their families know what happened to their sons, fathers etc.? The Russians are censoring everything heavily.
- spacemanmatt 5y agoCare to quote the Geneva Convention on the topic of waging unjust wars of aggression on one's neighbors? Don't pretend like morality is black and white.
- sverhagen 5y agoSo, captured... I had been wondering, with all these recent developments, just a practical question if I may? When there's really combat on the streets, involving armed civilians, what do they do when they capture opposing troops? There's no process or infrastructure to lock them up?
- KarlKemp 5y agoAt 200, it’s really not much trouble. Civilian police has probably seen little impact and could easily hold them. It’s a country of 40 million people. Vast swaths of the countryside haven’t seen any fighting. This is a non-issue for now. And if it ever becomes an issue, the war will likely be over.
- capableweb 5y agoKeep them detained and call the cops/military, wait for them to come pick them up. Loads of videos of this happening if you want to see the practical events of a detention.
- celticninja 5y agoThey take their body armour and weapons and then lock them in a room. The captured Russians dont want to escape just to give back to the front lines, easier to stay captured and wait out the war.
- reitanqild 5y agoI think they keep armour. I'm a bit rusty but you are supposed to keep personal protection.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- vincnetas 5y agoI was expecting to see hundreds of captured, but there are 29 pictures and thats it. At least UA is claiming to have captured more than 200 POW's
- supergirl 5y agodon’t need propaganda here
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
- vasergen 5y agosee https://t.me/rf200_now/79 https://t.me/rf200_now/79, telegram canal from this website, looks like there more info
- capableweb 5y agoIf needed, I've written a bot you can use to translate forwarded messages to English via DeepL: https://t.me/transtel_bot https://t.me/transtel_bot Source code for the bot is available here: https://codeberg.org/CapableWeb/transtel https://codeberg.org/CapableWeb/transtel
- thesumofall 5y agoIf you don’t want to be confronted with the horrors of war, don’t visit this channel
- spacemanmatt 5y agoHaving known Russian people on and off all my life, and having read numerous stories of conscription, this is not only the smartest but the most humane thing Ukraine could do right now. You are what you do when it counts.
- itsoktocry 5y ago>conscription, this is not only the smartest but the most humane thing Ukraine could do right now. I agree, it's "positive propaganda". Along with videos of deceased soldiers and blown up machinery, showing the borderline brainwashed and naive the consequences of their actions may put a stop to this before it gets...more out-of-hand.
- spacemanmatt 5y agoThe definition propaganda I could find easily includes "biased or misleading information" I don't think this meets the definition. It's 100% wartime messaging with a political purpose in mind, but I think it is a poor example of propaganda.
- jacobolus 5y agoThe word propaganda means public messaging intended to influence a population, and did not originally connote trickery. The word is roughly a synonym of 'public relations'. Such messaging is often misleading, which has led to common negative connotations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/propaganda#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/propaganda#English
- spacemanmatt 5y agoThe word has connoted trickery since before I was born. I don't really think that usage deprecated for generations is especially applicable.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
- KarlKemp 5y agoThere might be a bit too much optimism right now, but I’m enjoying how the Ukrainian PR runs circles around Putin. At least for a moment, they are riding this wave where everything seems to work.
- yyyk 5y agoMost countries expected Putin to overrun Ukraine by now - not being close to do it is big news. The biggest news though is just how incredibly low Russian morale is. The Russian army should still be able to win, but I'm not sure it really can. Can Putin afford being remotely truthful about casualties? Or firebombing cities he was supposedly 'liberating'? If the army cannot be inspired to sacrifice and cannot use full (illegal) force, how does Putin expect to win? Even dictatorships need some motivated people. Putin's propaganda apparently can make Russian apathetic, but not get them to work effectively for his cause. IMHO, the smart play for Putin is to forget about Kyiv, take what he can, then beg for negotiations. That he may still be able to do.
- supergirl 5y agoit’s not ukraine though. it’s the whole west against russia. the only thing the west is not doing is sending soldiers. they do everything else: cyber ops, propaganda, sending intelligence, etc
- justsomehnguy 5y agoTo anyone wondering about the site name - it's American equivalent would be something like "foldedflagus.com" 'Gruz 200' is a universally understood term in the former USSR after the Afghan War: > Officially, the term Cargo 200 is military jargon to refer specifically to the corpses of soldiers contained in zinc-lined coffins for air transportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_200_(code_name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_200_(code_name) Considering there is nothing on the site itself except some video and Google Tag manager - I highly doubt this isn't just a mockery.
- rosndo 5y ago> Considering there is nothing on the site itself except some video and Google Tag manager - I highly doubt this isn't just a mockery. Unsurprisingly the actual content is on the associated Telegram group as is very much normal in these countries.
- 88840-8855 5y agoLook at the BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars and euros that are pouring into weapons. Germany just approved 100 billion (!!!!) military budget for this year. JUST IMAGINE what would have happened if the west would have supported the ez Soviet Republics after 1991. Great western foreign politics at work. FUCK WAR. Fuck propaganda. Fuck the double standards that we Europeans have, applauding drone bombings and American invasions, but bringing a country of 150 million people to fall now. Double standard bs. I don't want that.
- koonsolo 5y ago> JUST IMAGINE what would have happened if the west would have supported the ez Soviet Republics after 1991. Just IMAGINE if Russia would have invested less GDP % in military and used it for their own infrastructure and people. Imagine having oligarchs share a tiny part of their wealth to improve the lives of everybody.
- elric 5y agoWhat are you on about? There is very little support in Europe for American drone strikes, or indeed for many other American "interventions". Fuck propaganda? Sure. On all sides of the spectrum. This game of finger pointing is pointless.
- itsoktocry 5y ago>There is very little support in Europe for American drone strikes There's enough support that a drone strike can wipe out a family and the military can determine "no wrongdoing". https://nypost.com/2021/11/03/air-force-watchdog-finds-no-wrongdoing-in-afghan-drone-strike/ https://nypost.com/2021/11/03/air-force-watchdog-finds-no-wr... I think this is what people talk about when they refer to the hypocrisy.
- elric 5y agoThis is an article by an American newspaper reporting on an American investigation of an American attack. How exactly does this pertain to European support?
- vasergen 5y agoI am from Ukraine. If you know people from Russia, or you are in groups where are Russians please tell them that this is a war in Ukraine, ask people to go on the streets and protest. People in Russia simply don't know what is going on in Ukraine, they are misinformed and trust in their propaganda - which is complete lie. Nobody is waiting for Russians in Ukraine, people hate Russians and will never forgive and forget for what are they doing.
- Moru 5y agoThere are a lot of russians outside of russia and they are busy trying to convince their friends and family back home that this is Putins fault but the propaganda has been strong the last 50 years so it's hard. But a lot is coming around and starting to open eyes. This will cost Putin a lot.
- ralfn 5y agoTell them if they don't fight Putin, they will be fighting the rest of the world. The only way to prevent full out war is if the Russian people rise up. Putin is not considering their future at all. He is old and going out with a bang and taking the whole country with him, and Europe is done appeasing. Kicking Russia out of Swift has the direct implication that many European nations are now war-time economies. Basic things like heating will require dratistic government interventions. Defense spendings are going up drastically over night. Europe is effectively mobilizing in the background. And how could we not? He is not going to stop at Ukraine. He is coming for us all. WWIII has started and the only thing that can stop it is if the Russian people prevent it. If they stand up. Otherwise, my safety, your safety, the safety of your friends and families is not garantueed. Otherwise it becomes a choice of a whole continent enslaved by one man -or- a whole continent destroyed. Europe does not believe he will stop at Ukraine. Consider the implications, please. Tell your family & friends. His behavior is too erradic. The basic assumption is that war is inevitable.
- Moru 5y agoWe are many sharing this view. It's just a question of time before someone high enough takes care of him. Noone wants a nuclear war ever. Even high up former russian generals are saying that this war is wrong and when he has lost even the generals, it will end fast.
- koonsolo 5y agoI highly respect how Ukraine and their officials are handling this. Putin makes personal accusations such as "Nazi's and drug addicts". When you look at the Ukrainian president, he is always very positive, towards his own people, towards Russian citizen. He doesn't throw random insults at Putin. This site again shows their humanity and class. Nothing but respect for them.
- dogma1138 5y agoThe choice of branding a country where both the head of state and the head of government are Jewish as a Nazi regime was an odd one…
- spacemanmatt 5y agoAmerican talking heads call actual Jewish people Nazis all the time. It's literally blood libel.
- inter_netuser 5y agoThat's because they have army regiments founded and staffed by actual neo-nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion#Neo-Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion#Neo-Nazism One of the main streets in Kyiv was renamed after this very controversial gentlemen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera According to Jacobin, Bandera was a Nazi sympathizer: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/stepan-bandera-nationalist-euromaidan-right-sector/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/stepan-bandera-nationalis... Wild.
- dogma1138 5y agoBandera wasn’t a Nazi he was a Ukrainian (“ultra”) nationalist he did tried to work with the Nazis to secure Ukrainian independence however he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a bloody concentration camp. He was a way justifies the means type of guy he fought against the Polish to secure Ukrainian independence then against the Bolsheviks and Communists. Branding him as a Nazi is honestly insulting both to him and to anyone who actually suffered under actual Nazis. Jacobin is a rag I wouldn’t rely on a single word they print.
- Thomashuet 5y agoThe 200 is not the number of prisoners but a reference to a Soviet code used for deceased soldiers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_200_(code_name) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_200_(code_name)
- readonthegoapp 5y agoi thought humiliating captives on camera was a war crime. i guess not -- as long as you do it to the correct enemies.
- vanusa 5y agoThese poor young men aren't being humiliated by any stretch, in these videos. Other than having their identities made public. But that's a risk one should expect to take when invading a foreign country. But the interrogations themselves (while stern) are not humiliating as such.