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this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Like I said, not all fascists are Nazis. I always referred to Putin as fascist, not Nazi. There are overlaps among the fascists sub-groups but they're not identical. Mussolini was willing to oppose Hitler with annexing Austria before and side with the Allies but Mussolini found he had more use for allying with Hitler at the time (then we know how things ended up). Putin does things that mirror Hitler and the Nazis, but like the mirror image, it is still different. Nonetheless, not all fascists are the same, like democratic countries are not all the same either.
This is something many outsiders don't understand. Russians are first and foremost nationalists. They don't care what kind of government rules them so long as they could carve their own sphere of influence. They ascribe to what is called [Eurasianism] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasianism?wprov=sfla1). That's primarily the Russian foreign policy. There is a strong Russian exceptionalism. Even the liberal opponent of Putin, Alexey Navalny, is also a hard nationalist. Consider that Mikhail Gorbachev, who was friendly with the West and led the dissolution of the Soviet Union, still expressed concern of NATO expansion. One would have thought that the man who is more liberal would be open to embracing Western liberal values and possibly get the country to join NATO, still expressed concern of NATO expansion. That says a lot that Russia see themselves as their own power and that their realm is Eurasia, not identifying with the West or others.
Putin himself have used neo-Nazi groups to his own benefit. [There are plenty of those groups linked to Kremlin] (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-22/putins-fascists-russias-home-grown-neo-nazis/100927582), nevermind Putin cosying with and funding far-right political parties.
The Azov only sprouted in 2014 after Putin meddled and annexed Crimea. Had Putin not interfered, he would not have stoked Ukrainian nationalism. Ukraine and Russia were friendly before but Putin did not want Ukraine to join the EU, and possibly join NATO (by the way, NATO still did not admit Ukraine to the alliance despite what happened so Putin's fear of NATO expansion is delusional).
Even if that's the case, you don't invade another country. No one is saying to invade Saudi Arabia to "de-Wahabbisised" the country for radicalising Muslims across the world. Funny that Russian apologists ignore those analogies, don't they? I'm sure you'll ignore this as well.
Then I suggest you watch the video I linked. Putin and many other Russians regularly cite Ilyin more than Dugin.
Britain, France and US are not dominated by fascists so mentioning them doesn't make sense, unless Sunak, Biden and Macron proudly proclaim they are inspired by fascistic writers.
Going back to Putin. He is not going to let go of Ukraine. It's a geostrategically important country for Russian agenda. Not only is it resource-rich but it's Russia's vulnerable point because of the flatlands and close proximity to oil-rich Caucasus and access to the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean. And I also mentioned Putin writing an essay denying Ukrainian national identity so Ukraine is personal to him.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Not only is it resource-rich but it's Russia's vulnerable point because of the flatlands and close proximity to oil-rich Caucasus and access to the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Previously:
You compared Putin to Hitler and the Nazis, and explicitly drew your conclusions from this comparison. Maybe don't draw conclusions if the analogy is bad? But you did that not because it's a good analogy, but because it's a neat shortcut for dismissing any call for diplomacy without having to make a coherent argument.
That's not a response to my point about you downplaying fascism in Ukraine. Funding far-right groups in other countries is something liberals do all the time, just look at all the far-right parties, regimes and insurgents the US has supported over the years. But you're claiming the US isn't fascist, so you have to extend the same leeway to Russia here. Liberals support and work with fascists all the time.
What is exceptional is how Ukraine very openly supports and glorifies Azov "heroes", promotes fascist Banderite ideology, and criminalizes all left-wing parties and orgs. This is actually pretty weird for a liberal democracy, and you are pretending this is totally normal. Since you're not at all concerned about this, I conclude you're not opposed to fascism, you're just opposed to Russia. You used fascism (well, Nazis before you backtracked) as a shortcut argument for why Russia can't be talked to, without being able to substantiate what exactly is uniquely fascists about Russia (apart from I guess Ilyin, which you very well know nobody's going to read in order to find out, so that's more of a "trust me it's fascist and trust me Putin loves that shit"). And btw, I'm not going to watch a Kraut video, from what I gather he's a dipshit and I don't want to.
Even if we, for the sake of argument, pretend like Russia is fascist, it doesn't follow that they want to conquer Europe, will never stop, can't be reasoned with, will commit genocide if not stopped, or whatever. That's actually part of your Hitler analogy, and I already went over why that one is bad.
I never even fucking argued that Putin is fighting this war because he wants to denazify Ukraine, since I don't believe this. I'm pointing out this: You're making the argument that Putin must be opposed at all costs because he is a fascist in bad faith, since you downplay and excuse the very obvious fascism that infests the Ukrainian state, which you support. That fascism is a lot more obvious to me than the alleged Russian one.
Again, because Nazis and fascists are similar. They exalt their own group while dehumanising out groups. Putin is doing the same.
How hard is it understand you don't invade another country because for those reasons? Same way as it is wrong for US to invade or meddle another because a country elected a socialist government.
Moreover, Ukraine is far from being a Nazi state when they have a Jewish leader and the neo-Nazi parties in Ukraine only got measly 2% of the votes in the elections prior to the invasion. There are Nazis in Ukraine just like everywhere else. Austria also have a far right party ruling but you don't invade the country for it! Would you promote to invade Saudi Arabia for its Wahabbism? And just as I suspect, you ignored the analogies. You are definitely consuming Russian propaganda whether intentionally or not by keep whatabouting Azov.
Again more than likely, Putin stoked nationalist tensions to create pretext to invade Ukraine. He is an ex-KGB agent after all (but he did say there is no such thing as ex-KGB agent after all). Many authoritarian leaders do the same to make excuses to attack another.
I never said Putin wants Europe. He wants Ukraine because of its importance. Putin is not going to invade the rest of Europe. Why would he attack NATO Europe? He wants to extend Russian borders as far away as possible from the core regions around Moscow and to expand their own influence. That has always been the Russian strategy and having Ukraine within Russian orbit is critical to the Russian geopolitical ambitions.
I'm sure you would rather watch Russian propaganda dipshits and parrot what they say.
You brought up the Azov and Nazis in Ukraine as Putin's justifications, the usual whatabout. What else could you be implying? Putin must be opposed because he carries a dangerous precedence that invading another country for trumped up pretext is okay and the last 70 years of peace could be thrown away. It would set precedence to others that it is alright to dump the UN Charter to respect national borders and invade another country. It's like being back to the days before World War II with Wild West-style international relations. Putin may not invade Europe and only stop at Ukraine, but his actions will influence others with far-reaching consequences.