WEBVTT - Genocide in Ukraine 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.360 Welcome to It Could Happen here, a podcast about things 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:12.080 falling apart um and and some other stuff from time 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:16.239 to time. I'm Robert Evans UM and today we are 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:21.040 going to chat once again with Romeo Kokoatski. Um. Romeo, 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.280 you are a Ukrainian journalist and an anarchist. We chatted 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:31.160 with you right before the Russian expanded invasion of Ukraine. UM, 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.920 and now we're we're talking with you again now that 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.159 the war has entered UM certainly a different phase as 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.800 as Russian troops pull out of the north of the country, 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.839 pull out from around Kiev and focus their remaining on 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:51.400 blowed up forces to the fight around the dawn Bass. Um. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.520 How are you doing, Romeo? Yeah, thanks for having me 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:58.960 on UM. It's been it's been tough. We'll get into 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.040 this a little later on. But obviously learning that Um, 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.960 a town not far from your own as undergone a 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:11.360 genocide is not the easiest thing to live through. Yeah, 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.000 and knowing that that is not even the worst of 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.280 the atrocities that we're going to discover in the coming 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.839 weeks and months is is put the put the mental strain. 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.479 Let me tell you, Yeah, I don't think I think thankfully. 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:29.039 Very few people understand the experience of learning that a 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.800 genocide has occurred next door essentially, um. And yeah, what 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.480 you wanted to talk about specifically, obviously, when when we 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:38.480 talk about the act of genocide, we're talking about the 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.959 massacre in Bucca UM. An exact count butcha, sorry, an 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.760 exact death count is not available right now. But I 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:51.279 think at least two civilians killed is the last number 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.360 I've gotten. Yeah, that's the last, like confirmed number. But 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.400 obviously a lot of these people UM have been tossed 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.600 into mass graves. They're lying around in various residencies. It's 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.880 it's gonna, it's gonna be a long time before, yeah, 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.840 able to to come to any kind of accurate account 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:14.240 of how many residents were killed. Yeah, And for a 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.040 brief overview of just kind of like what has been 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:21.400 seen in the executions there. We have civilians often hands 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.400 tied behind their backs, so they were clearly restrained, executed 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.000 after having been restrained. Some of them were just left 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.800 in the streets, some of them dumped into mass graves. 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:36.080 UH Satellite imagery from before the town was liberated by 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.240 Ukrainian forces shows corpses lying in the street in the 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.920 same position they were discovered in when the Ukrainian military 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:47.919 moved in, which is as solid open source confirmation of 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.560 the genocide as you're going to get with any kind 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:55.960 of genocide. Um. So that's that's the situation. Obviously, the 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.800 usual crew of bad actors and u USHI defenders have 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:05.240 kind of slid into the most common allegation I'm seeing 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.440 at least online as people saying it must have been 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.440 as Off battalion that did it, even though their four 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:15.720 hundred and forty miles away um encircled by the Russian army. Um. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.560 but you know it's the it's the you're seeing like 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.040 a lot of kind of bad open source responses to 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.600 with people being like, well, why would the bodies if 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.440 you look at the satellite imagery, why are the body 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:30.079 so evenly spaced, which is just like they're not. It's 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.520 it's it's just like people people recognizing that if you 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.520 like circle ship on a grainy image and and tweet 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.320 about how it's suspicious, you'll provide enough plausible deniability for 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.720 other people to to doubt a genocide. You know, it's 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.880 it's it's the same ship we saw with Syria. There 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.600 was some disgusting denial where someone was claiming that they 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.280 could see bodies being carted away um by the Ukrainians 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.880 for you know, investigation and reburial. Um, that the corpses 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.119 were quote unquote moving. You can see you can see 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.120 this guy's hand move. Yeah, you're looking at dead bodies. 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.400 Buggy there. And by the way, when you move dead bodies, 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:13.920 they move like pieces of the shock. It's you're driving 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.960 over a street that has been churned over by tank 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:21.760 treads and you're you're transporting human corpses. Those corpses are 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:26.960 gonna get jostled around. Yeah, it's uh, definitely. I don't know. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.440 You know, I don't want to be labor on this 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.120 too much because I think we've talked a lot about 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.560 how this this distant foe works. I think what you 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.000 came on specifically to talk about and what's really worth 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:42.000 getting into in some detail, is, um, this manifesto that 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.400 was published on r i A, which is a large 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:51.200 Russian government controlled UH news agency. Um, it's this I 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:56.080 don't know how manifesto. It's fascist. You can find it 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.520 if you if you just google uh r i A 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.080 published is Russian fascist manifesto The New Voice of Ukraine 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.560 has a translation of it up um if you want 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.479 to read this thing, but it's it's pretty pretty striking, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:15.919 um and um. The kind of focus of this is 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:24.000 on justifying the denazification campaign um and it opens one 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.120 of the opening lines is when the theory that people 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.559 are good the government is bad no longer holds true. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.040 Admitting this fact is the basis of the Denazification party 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.400 all of its associated measures, and the fact itself is 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.600 the subject matter of the policy. And that this came 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.680 out within a day or two of the discovering of 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:48.320 the elements of genocide and and um, which is yeah, 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:55.520 is pretty predominant, I would say, like pretty noteworthy. Yeah. 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.520 So I had to translate this and let me tell 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:01.360 you it took um a pretty big, pretty big tone 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.760 in my sanity for a couple of days here um. 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.960 And I'm gonna be honest as Ukrainian reading this, this 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:13.320 was If you have ever I don't know if some 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.000 of your listeners may have like been at protests UM 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:21.120 counter protests against UM fascist or far right demonstrators where 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.560 they're chanting that they will murder you. This is exactly 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:25.840 how I felt. This is this is nothing less than 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.440 someone reaching through the screen and telling me that they 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:33.039 want to kill me and everyone I love personally, Um, 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:38.000 because I am, because I want their independence. So there's 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:43.160 this the kind of theme of this article. The tern 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.839 that they use most often is denossification, and I think 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:53.720 it really um, it is incredibly vital to explain just 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:59.040 what this denotification means, because normally, like you and I, Robert, 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.760 I think we both call our else anti fascists and 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.719 we are pretty anti Nazi. Um that I think that's 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.520 a that's a pretty mainstream position to do not like 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.680 Nazis and be anti Nazi. So the Russians use this 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.520 term denazification to someone that has no context, no idea 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.880 of what it refers to beyond the obvious meaning. Get 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.679 rid of Nazis sounds like something even laudable. The problem 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.760 is what the Russians mean by Nazis is not what 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.800 you and I or any other normal, same rational human 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:36.360 being would consider a Nazi. This article does not justify uh, 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:41.040 it's it's thesis that Ukrainians are Nazis at all. In fact, um, 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:45.880 there are there is a whole series of paragraphs um 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:50.800 that states that Ukraine does not meet like any critidia 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.800 of being Nazi. UM too. To quote a bit from 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.880 this um, as horrible as it is, UM, it reads, 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.760 there isn't, after all, a single important Nazi party, no fewer, 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.600 no fully racist laws, only their curl tailed variance in 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.600 the form of oppressions against forms language. As a result, 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.840 there's no opposition in resistance to the regime. A particular 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.200 feature of Nazified Ukraine is it's a morphosis eminent and 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.280 ambivalentness which allows for the masking of Nazism as a 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.440 desire to move towards a quote unquote independent and quote 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:28.440 unquote European, uh Western and pro American path of development, 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.600 in reality towards degradation, while insisting that quote unquote Ukraine 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:38.040 doesn't have any Nazism, only private and singular excesses. So 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:43.560 the micle itself an it's that Ukraine is not Nazi 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:48.040 in any way that we would recognize the term. Yeah, 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:52.200 and it's it's basically saying that like it's Nazi, it's not. 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.960 There's no fewer and there's no race like racialist laws. UM. 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.319 But the thing that makes it a Nazi is want 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.600 in closer union with Europe as opposed to Russia. UM. 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.840 And of course it it notes like the so called 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.360 laws against the Russian language, which I'm not aware of 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.480 anything happening. I think what they're referring to is like 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:17.040 attempts to encourage the Ukrainian language in Ukraine. Yeah, there 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:21.080 are no laws or sanctions language in Ukraine. There never 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.520 have been. And in fact, when I was there, one 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.120 of the difficulties I had with my interpreter is he 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.240 he only spoke Ukrainian. And so you can, obviously you 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.439 can speak with people who speak Russian if you speak Ukrainian, 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:37.200 but it's a little bit like confusing, and most people 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.760 we were talking to spoke Russian natively. Like it's the 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.080 the idea that it's somehow like been that the Russian 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:49.040 language has been somehow like attacked in Ukraine. Um feels 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.000 very silly as someone who like repeatedly encountered the Russian 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:58.880 language while in Ukraine. Yeah, it's it's it's simply propaganda, um. 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:05.960 And the fact is that the Russians define Ukrainian Nazism 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.160 not as having Nazi values or a Nazi party or 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.400 anything that we would associate with with Nazism, but in 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:17.400 fact simply the simply that Ukraine wants to be independent 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.040 of Russia. That in itself is proof positive to the 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:27.400 Russians of our Nazism and nothing else. So when when 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:31.960 people hear this word denossification, what they don't mean getting 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.520 rid of like far right elements in Ukraine. No, they 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:40.120 mean being anti Russian or being or simply wanting to 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.280 be separate from Russia. Is itself a far right position 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.640 in Russia's eyes, and that is enough to call for our, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:53.840 um pretty much complete extermination. Yeah, and you know, to 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.320 kind of go into this article a little more. One 0:10:56.400 --> 0:11:00.040 of the things that I find m interesting about it 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.320 is this line here, The fact that the Ukrainian electorate 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.640 shows Poroshenko's piece Porshenko is the president before Zelinski and 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.880 Zelinski's piece should not be misled. Um, I think they 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.680 probably meant misread. Maybe Ukrainians are quite satisfied with the 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:16.640 shortest path to piece through blitzkrieg, which the last two 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.120 Ukrainian presidents transparently hinted at when they were elected. I 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.480 how I don't understand how anything Ukraine has done could 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:29.240 be considered a blitzkrieg um since they never invaded Russian 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.480 territory and in fact lost territory to Russia in two 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:36.400 thousand and fourteen. Um, that's a weird definition of a blitzkrieg. 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.120 I'm wondering if you can shed some light on what 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.200 they might even mean on that, or is it just 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:48.160 just complete fallacy. What they mean is basically that Ukraine 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.920 in so within Russian probably and you have to understand, 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:58.000 we're talking about a completely separate universe, a different reality. 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.200 So the way every every single aspect of what you 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.960 and I know does does not apply, like they don't 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:08.440 live in our consensus whatsoever. So what they mean is 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:13.040 that Ukraine blitz creaked the elimination of Russian speakers and 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.800 um pro Russian culture and pro Russian sentiments in Ukraine 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.599 during the year of my don Um in Russia's in 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.880 Russia's reality, Ukraine carried out of genocide against these people 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.960 in Ukraine in everywhere except the puppet authorities of the 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:37.320 Luhanskan Danetsk People's republics. So basically Ukraine carried out this 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.000 blitz creed. The reason Ukraine is so quote unquote nazified 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:47.199 is because in the this Russian alternative reality, Ukraine genocide 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.599 at all of the Russians, all the ethnic Russians, the 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.199 writing speakers and even with pro Russian sentiments. And this 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.520 is what they mean when they refer to this uh, 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:02.240 this blitz creed that they that well um Ukraine went through. 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:06.280 They quickly killed everyone who was pro Us and now 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:11.000 uh and now everyone else, everyone who has left is 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.960 a Nazi um like the The latter part of this 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.680 paragraph really makes that clear. They say it was this 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.880 method of quote unquote appeasement of internal anti fascists through 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.439 total terror that was used in Odessa, hark evening for 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.800 tost Mariable and other Russian cities. So not only are 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.560 are these Ukrainian cities Russian, this quote unquote appeasement that 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.000 they're referring to is a sarcastic way of referring to 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:39.800 their um supposed genocide of these people, of of Russian speakers, 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.040 of um ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Again, that is not 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:49.360 only untrue, it's also ludicrous because everyone in Ukraine is 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:55.640 has some Russian ancestry, because it's a mixed country. Everyone 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.839 is everything, Like the entire Eastern European region is not 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.199 some make enclave. It is in fact a melting pot 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.559 um which the Soviet Union worked very hard to change. 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.160 One of the things I kept encountering in f Difka, 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.480 which was still under fire today and was under fire 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:14.960 in two thousand fourteen, for an idea of like how 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:17.720 long chunks of the country have been in Like now 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.040 it's spread all over Ukraine, but parts of Ukraine have 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.040 been under continuous artillery fire for nearly a decade. UM. 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.600 But I kept encountering these old ladies who had grown 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.720 up in the Soviet Union, and we're saying, like, Um, 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.760 I don't understand why they're doing this. They they like 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.280 I've always considered myself Russian, and and now this is happening, 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:39.320 like I don't understand it. I don't understand it. It It 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:52.360 doesn't make any sense. And in terms of like the 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.440 denialism that we've been seeing lately. UM. One of the 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.680 reasons I I argued for because we had a debate 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.520 in the UM in the editor's room at Envy when 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.320 we were UM, when we were looking at this piece, 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.160 we had a debate over where whether we're going to 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.840 translate end UM publish it, and I pushed really hard 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.560 UM to do so because I think there is no 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:19.600 greater way to push back these UM claims of genocide 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:23.240 denial that we we are seeing popping up um across 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:28.520 various parts of UM of the Western laughter and the 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.280 anti imperialist left or whatever you call it UM. And 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.280 I think there's no better way to push back against 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:40.400 the arguments than to present the Russians own words to them. Yeah, 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:47.400 like this is such an openly genocidal fascist peace um 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:53.200 using pure the pure logic of of quite like of 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:59.120 just fascism. That is impossible. I think to really um 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:03.080 say that they is like a fabrication or the like. 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:05.920 The Russians aren't like this. Well, they're telling you in 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.720 their own words, this is what they're like. Yeah, And 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.680 I think the like putting focus on this isn't This 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.720 wasn't written by you know, some um like far right 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.240 extremists for some minor like online site that has like 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.800 an audience of two thousand, like Russian fascist whatever. No, 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.040 this was a major article published in one of the 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:35.800 Russian main media outlets by a respected political scientist within Russia. Yeah. 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.720 And that's that's the thing that I think really needs 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.120 to be gotten across is the degree to which I 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.440 think there's a desire to believe that the Putin regime 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:51.240 is like on its last legs and that most people 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:58.560 recognize how fucked up the political status quo is there, 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.640 and that's support for the regime is like pretty minimal 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:07.720 as a result. Um. And I I'm not I'm not 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.399 seeing the evidence of that. And when I talked to 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.040 I just we just did an interview with the Russian 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.280 anarchist who his attitude was very much that like, yeah, 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.600 most people broadly by the propaganda. Um. It is not 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:24.320 like the it's possible that's going to change over time, 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.159 because again, the severe casualties Russia has taken have not 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:33.119 really had a chance to totally filter out socially into Russia. 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.600 I think people are still becoming aware of the scale 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.080 of losses, and it's going to take some time for 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:43.200 that knowledge to to release circulate. UM. But I think 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:47.080 this article represents how a very large chunk of the 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:52.280 Russian populace are are seeing what's going on in Ukraine. Um. 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.840 And that's problematic for a number of reasons. For one thing, 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.919 with this kind of logic that we see in this article, 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.160 there's not much you can't justify, right, Like, there's very 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:09.320 little that uh, if you if people believe what's being 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.760 said in this article, there's very little you couldn't do. 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.600 There's very few weapons you couldn't deploy. Right. That's one 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.040 of the arguments this is making is that you have 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:21.840 to exact soldiers who have been notified, Um, have to 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:26.639 be wiped out completely. Um, there's there's no soldiers that 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:30.600 who have been notified. Anyone who has ever taken arms 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:36.320 against Russia and anyone who has ever supported anyone who 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.399 has taken arms against Russia, which at the current moment 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:46.240 is over of the Ukrainian population must and I quote 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:51.199 from this must be liquidated. Yeah, not not. Um. It 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:53.679 makes an argument a little higher up that these people 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.640 can't be re educated, so they can't even be sent 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.080 to camps two goologs. Um, they can't be made to 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.080 do forced labor. They must be liquidated, eliminated. Uh. And 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:08.040 this is nothing less than simply saying, well, we are 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.720 going to have to kill the grand majority of Ukrainians. Yeah, 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:19.520 and I don't I don't know what more like you 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.080 can for the folks who are kind of on the 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.760 because there's there's this tendency I think within the chunks 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:33.200 of the left that are not they haven't lost their minds, 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.679 They're not they don't buy the Russian propaganda. They do 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:37.879 see what's happening in Ukraine is terrible, they see the 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.480 war is terrible, but they still have this attitude of, well, 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.080 the best thing is to end it quickly, and like, 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:46.840 you know, we should, we should push for some sort 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.400 of negotiation. And first off, I'm saying, like, whatever the 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.480 Ukraine as a country decides is acceptable to them in 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.040 terms of peace. I'm not going to argue against one 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.960 way or the other because that's not my place. But um, 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:05.840 I don't I don't see how you can negotiate with 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.639 people who have this attitude towards you, um and and 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.840 towards the existence of your people. Like, I really don't 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:17.320 see long term where there's kind of an option for 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.240 peace for Ukraine with this kind of rhetoric existing in 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.080 Russia outside of smashing the Russian military to the greatest 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:31.680 extent possible. Yeah, I mean I feel the same way, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.479 And that is a very terrifying thoughts. It's not crazy, 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.000 like yeah, because my general latitude towards wars is that 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.760 it's best when they're over. Yeah, exactly right. I have 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.960 no I have no strong desire to see to like 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.760 bomb Russian cities. Well, I mean, okay, that's that's that's 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.840 a little bit of lie. But no one, no one, 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.960 no one can blame someone living in Ukraine right now 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.040 for feeling a bit of a desire for for vengeance, 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:04.480 even though I don't think that's particularly likely to help matters. Yeah, 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:10.480 probably not. And I generally don't want to um see 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:14.600 like a world war in Europe or anything like that. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.919 But I I really when I racked my brains of 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:22.720 what can be done, like how you can live with 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.600 like the these people aren't you know, thousands of climbers 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:30.040 away or on the other side of the continent. They're 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.760 literally the neighboring state. Um And I I just I 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.920 don't have any answers of how Ukraine is supposed to 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.600 move forward while Russia remains in its current configuration. Like 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:45.720 I don't see a future, um a coexistence of any 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:50.200 kind that's possible when they are literally calling for our extermination. 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.320 I think that's also kind of the question of how 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:08.320 do we have There's this this phrase that you heard 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.080 a lot, particularly kind of in the in the post 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.240 World War two period of like the need for rules 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.640 based international order, and the United States was as much 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.480 apart as anyone of making sure that that was never 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:23.679 anything more than a than a friendly lie. Right, you 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:26.120 had a couple of brief moments here and there where 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:30.960 it was attempted to be imposed, um, Yugoslavia or well, 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.439 you know, Bosnia being kind of a clear example, but 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.600 it was always you know, in between a bunch of 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.040 illegal wars on behalf of a bunch of different states, 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:43.160 and illegal fundings of of insurgent groups and all sorts 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:47.440 of sketchy stuff and kind of culminated. And I think 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:49.679 you can we keep going back to Syria, which is 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.600 an important part of like what allowed what's happening in 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:55.399 Ukraine to happen. But the invasion of Iraq by the 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:57.879 United States was another one. Right, This idea that like 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:00.959 and and the things that like torture and stuff by 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:04.120 US force, is this this the fact? I mean, that's 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:08.520 what the Russian diplomats. Yeah, that's what Russian diplomats always 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.399 bring up in UM, in the U N and in 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.280 other like international bodies whenever they're pressed on this question 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:18.400 human rights. They always invariably pointed the US and say, well, 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:21.800 the US did this, this and this and the rock. Um, 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:24.280 how come the US gets to do whatever it wants 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.800 with no pushback, and the implication being that Russia also 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:30.120 believes it should be able to do whatever it wants 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:34.080 with no pushback. And obviously like the fact that the 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:36.879 United States committed war crimes does not mean that Russia 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:39.560 should get to commit war crimes. But from like a 0:23:39.600 --> 0:23:42.840 point of view of like, if we're looking at things 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:46.479 from an international perspective, yeah, if the United States is 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:49.840 going to do ship like that, well other countries are 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:52.359 going to do ship like that, and see it as like, 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:55.000 well there there isn't like why why are we bound 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:58.760 by an international order but not you and I. One 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:01.520 of the things that so fright about the kind of 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:04.800 rhetoric coming out of Russia is that it it shows 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:08.400 those kind of dreams that people had in the wake 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:11.119 of World War Two, which again there was no like 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:13.800 Golden Age after World War Two. The United States went 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:16.639 right to regime change in Africa and Latin America, all 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:19.920 sorts of fucked up ship. But it shows that like 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:25.760 any kind of international hope of something like that ever existing, 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:30.720 has has fallen apart. We are we are if people 0:24:30.800 --> 0:24:33.960 want something like that. And I do believe that some 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:37.080 sort of rules based international order. And I'm not talking 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:41.200 about like you and global government. I'm talking about broad 0:24:41.320 --> 0:24:44.399 ranging international agreements that, for example, you don't get to 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:48.560 fire chemical weapons at civilians, you know, Like, um, I 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:51.080 think that would be nice, a nice thing to exist, 0:24:51.200 --> 0:24:54.040 And I think part of what we're seeing here is 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:56.520 that any chance of having that has kind of been 0:24:56.560 --> 0:25:01.040 reset to zero. Um. Not that it was ever a reality, 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:05.800 but I think the kind of I think the rhetoric 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:11.200 around the fact that ever existed has completely dissolved now. Um. 0:25:11.240 --> 0:25:16.000 And maybe that's not like particularly bad, because it's bad 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:18.920 for people to believe something exists when it doesn't, because 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:23.440 that that international order never did really exist, But um, 0:25:23.560 --> 0:25:27.119 I think what we're seeing here is kind of the 0:25:27.160 --> 0:25:32.920 final collapse of any belief that, uh, there's an inner 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:39.719 there are international standards of morality and behavior for states. Yeah. Absolutely. 0:25:39.760 --> 0:25:44.480 I mean there's a lot of reasons why. UM. Ukraine's 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:46.600 President Lanski gets a lot of props from from a 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:48.800 lot of people right now. But one of the things 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:51.920 that has absolutely I personally rate as absolutely as the 0:25:52.000 --> 0:25:55.960 kids say based in recent days was the Lensky's addressed 0:25:56.400 --> 0:25:58.360 um in from the u N where he called them 0:25:58.359 --> 0:26:02.040 basically cowards. If they don't kick Russia out and they 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:06.200 can't even enforce their main um, their main goal, which 0:26:06.280 --> 0:26:11.439