• papalonian@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Genuine questions:

    Was he seemingly fairly elected originally, and did he hold elections previously? (I don’t know how Ukrainian elections work or how long he was in office before 2022)

    How “in control” is he of the parliament / the referenda determining elections? Is it a Trump situation where all his buddies are in position to say, “sure! give him all the power!”, or is there more separation?

    I’m admittedly relatively uninformed in the conflict, but I will say it was interesting seeing the general opinion of Lemmy go from “Slava Ukraini, fuck Russian Nazis, here’s some footage of Russian teenagers getting blown up with drones, Trump bad for not wanting to give aid” to “Zelensky is a fascist war criminal and also a Nazi and dumb American liberals are bad for siding with them” seemingly overnight. The switch happened a while ago but it was apparently unanimous.

    • cornishon@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 day ago

      Zelensky was fairly elected because his platform was peace with Russia and he had strong messaging about how Russians and Ukrainians are brotherly nations. Of course he then immediately dropped the pretense the moment he got elected and started passing anti-Russian laws.

    • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      the general opinion of Lemmy go from “Slava Ukraini, fuck Russian Nazis, here’s some footage of Russian teenagers getting blown up with drones, Trump bad for not wanting to give aid” to “Zelensky is a fascist war criminal and also a Nazi and dumb American liberals are bad for siding with them” seemingly overnight. The switch happened a while ago but it was apparently unanimous.

      Lemmy has always had people who took the second position, and still has people who take the first position. There has been a general shift, but it was neither sudden nor unanimous.

      • papalonian@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        When I first joined Lemmy, those that held the second opinion were down voted en masse and we’re always lambasted as Russian trolls and Nazi sympathizers. I never saw a pro Russia / anti Ukraine post or comment with positive votes. Nowadays I don’t think I see many explicitly “pro Russia” posts but there’s a good number of anti Ukraine posts that are relatively high on the front page, and most pro Ukraine comments have at least one upvoted reply calling them a liberal or pro-fascist.

        I didn’t necessarily mean unanimous as in, “everyone now has this opinion”, so much as “the hive mind has decided that we now upvote this opinion and down vote that one”. Like, there’s Trump supporters on Lemmy, whenever they comment anything pro-Trump it’s kind of a given (not necessarily saying a good one) that it’s going to get downvoted, and most things critical of him will get upvoted even if it’s not the most accurate or ingenuous criticism. To me, it very much seemed like one week it was “upvote Ukraine, downvote Russia!”, and the next it was “downvote Ukraine, Russia…🤷🏽‍♂️!”. Somewhere around the Iran shitshow.

      • Hell_nah_brother@thelemmy.club
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        2 days ago

        Sorry but I got the hick.

        The whole “Zelensky is a Nazi” thing is part of the Russian propaganda narrative.

        I would personally disagree, not completely but I feel it’s incorrect. I would ask, is Zelensky leading a country with fascist ideology? Let’s see…

        Ukrainian independence groups were ideologically aligned with the main enemy of the Soviets, which was Nazi Germany.

        Well, that’s concerning, no?

        This is the whole “Banderite” term being flung around: fascist groups who fought against the Soviets for Ukrainian independence

        The “Banderite” term refers to Stepan Bandera.

        Bandera remains a highly controversial figure in Ukraine. Many Ukrainians hail him as an example, or as a martyred liberation fighter, while other Ukrainians, particular in the south and east, condemn him as a fascist or Nazi collaborator whose followers, called Banderites, were responsible for massacres of Polish and Jewish civilians during World War II.

        Bandera in 2010 was awarded as “Hero of Ukraine”. He is in traditional folk Ukrainian music. In October 2007, the city of Lviv erected a statue dedicated to Bandera. On 1 January 2014, Bandera’s 105th birthday was celebrated by a torchlight procession of 15,000 people in the centre of Kyiv and thousands more rallied near his statue in Lviv. In 2021, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory under the authority of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, included Bandera, among other Ukrainian nationalist figures, in Virtual Necropolis, a project intended to commemorate historical figures important for Ukraine.

        Ukraine still regards these people as heroes for fighting against the Soviets.

        Well, that’s concerning pt.2

        Their fascist ideology is mostly ignored, even by Zelensky (a Jewish man himself).

        Bibi looking at your comment like 👀

        Even today there are far-right groups in Ukraine. Zelensky has essentially recruited these people in the fight against Russia since they are fervent nationalists.

        Well, that’s concerning pt.3

        In reality, actual fascist ideology isn’t a widely held belief in Ukraine

        How the U.S. Has Empowered and Armed Neo-Nazis in Ukraine

        Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History

        Nazis in Ukraine: Seeing through the fog of the information war

        • papalonian@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Do you think Ukraine should allow the invasion and surrender, if a large portion of their support comes from Nazi sympathizers? I’m not trying to rage bait or or pull a “So yOu thInK thIS tHEn?!” I’m genuinely trying to understand the other side of the argument.

          Like, I agree with you, it’s obviously not “good” to have those fucks on your side. But it’s really easy for me to say that while I’m sitting on my ass in my comfortable house thousands of miles away from conflict. If I were the leader of a country being invaded by a much larger force, and I had essentially a militia in my country ready to fight and defend it, and my options were “use the militia or watch your nation burn”, I’d probably be in the same position…

          • Hell_nah_brother@thelemmy.club
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            2 days ago

            And I will try to reply in a normal way, I promise. I already got this same question discussing the same topic (not saying someone is repeating a propaganda they did not understand, but you know… here we are again.)

            Do you think Ukraine should allow the invasion and surrender, if a large portion of their support comes from Nazi sympathizers?

            This question makes a big assumption that it’s hard to ignore. Because “if a large portion of their support comes from Nazi” we have only two options: either you don’t have people fit for combat that are not nazi in your entire country (so you are a leader of a nazi country) or they are not all nazi and you are picking the bad ones for… reasons?

            we are also ignoring that we are discussing an “if” questions. So yes, we can make up any reality we want.

            Like image asking: “what man? Hitler either had no choice but to create the SS or his country would be destroyed!”

            ??? I mean, okay good… what do you want me to tell you…

            • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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              2 days ago

              @papalonian@lemmy.world the nazi thing is not propaganda; the united states congress literally banned weapons sales to ukraine because of heir nazis proclivities. their first attempt to do so was back in 2015 – ask yourself how are you 11 years slower than congress in recognizing this?

            • papalonian@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Thank you for the good faith response, promise I’m not a parrot for anyone lol.

              In my (uninformed) view, it isn’t so much that, “Ukraine only has Nazis capable of fighting”, so much as it’s, “Russia is a way bigger country with a larger army, we need literally everyone we’ve got, even the Nazis”.

              Like if the entire country was rallying behind a Nazi flag and they were tossing people in concentration camps and making plans to genocide another group it’d obviously be a different story, but they’re trying to kick people out of their own land, and as far as I know (again, not terribly far) they don’t have plans to keep going afterwards. If that were the case… Yeah, maybe Russia should just take em all out. Not a fan of Russia, but less of a fan of Nazis.

              The Hitler analogy isn’t a fair one because Germany was an aggressor. The argument can’t be made that they were in the same situation that Ukraine is in.

              • ZeroHora@lemmy.ml
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                1 day ago

                Like if the entire country was rallying behind a Nazi flag and they were tossing people in concentration camps and making plans to genocide another group it’d obviously be a different story

                I’ll just point that the rallying behind a Nazi flag is not exactly how things go in reality. MAGAs use the USA flag for the majority, the Brazilian far right tried to stole the Brazilian soccer uniform as a their symbol(which is the country flag colors), the Ukraine banderites was using the Ukraine flag(with the nazi spin).

              • Hell_nah_brother@thelemmy.club
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                1 day ago

                it’s, “Russia is a way bigger country with a larger army, we need literally everyone we’ve got, even the Nazis”.

                That’s a lot of fascists tho. Also, what a depressing and shitty situation to be in. If that was the case and we want to be shiny warriors of justice, we should at least talk about it.

                Like if the entire country was rallying behind a Nazi flag and they were tossing people in concentration camps and making plans to genocide another group it’d obviously be a different story

                Ukraine has always been a very divided country (east/west) and the central government has been hostile towards Russian majority oblasts (and there are since Russia is a neighbour). There is whole wiki page about Ukrainization which itself it’s a strange concept, no? Ukraine and the Ukrainian language come from Russian, it was the most beloved region during the URSS, little Russia was called. Why all this hostility, why the ukrainization? It’s like doing an irlandization of British people living in Irland. That sounds insane no?

                The argument can’t be made that they were in the same situation that Ukraine is in.

                But look now how far we went, from “Putin is crazy dictator who just wants war” to “he might be right about the de-nazification of Ukraine”. Also this is almost literally the meme where the guy tattoos a swastika to prove he’s not a Nazi.

                I’m not saying he’s right, but if my next door neighbour calls my dead mother a whore everyday and one day I punch him in the face, that’s still violence but he deserves it. You won’t catch me crying for nazis, that’s all.

                • papalonian@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  Also, what a depressing and shitty situation to be in.

                  I mean yeah. That’s more or less my take. I don’t agree with the mentality of, “Ukraine can do no wrong in the defense of their country”, I don’t think that their alliance with their fascist groups should be swept under the rug or buried in history or anything like that. It’s a sin they will have to pay for in one way or another eventually. But I don’t think it’s enough (at least for me) to side with Putin. Even if Ukraine was a majority fascist nation and Zelensky was an open Nazi sympathizer, my limited knowledge of Putin’s politics do not lead me to believe that he would stage an invasion solely for the altruistic act of rooting out the Nazis.

                  I’ll have to take a look at the Ukrainization wiki article. I knew of the divide between the East and West and that there was hostility between native Ukrainians and foreign Russians, but did not know there was a specific term for the “culture war”.

        • ThirdConsul@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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          1 day ago

          In reality, actual fascist ideology isn’t a widely held belief in Ukraine

          The Azor group tied party got about 1% in popular election.

            • Hell_nah_brother@thelemmy.club
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              1 day ago

              It’s a metric to gauge the feelings towards fascists ideology. Yes, 1% for a strictly confirmed military Nazi battalion? Yes it is a lot.

              • ThirdConsul@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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                20 hours ago

                It’s a metric to gauge the feelings towards fascists ideology.

                What country are you from? Or alternatively, which government/organisation do you feel is doing the good work? Let’s check if that country/org has a far righters and what is the feeling of other citizens towards their far righters.

                Yes, 1% for a strictly confirmed military Nazi battalion?

                1% for far right group, not for the battalion. And having ONLY 1% of far righters or nationalists in any country is frankly better than I expected.

            • ThirdConsul@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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              1 day ago

              Oh, sorry, my bad, I wrote that to agree with you. My bad for not being clear enough

      • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Of course it is, liberal vanity and solipsism means you cannot possibly countenance the prospect of an actual person disagreeing with you unless money has changed hands.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Yes, because you’re an extremist who can’t imagine anyone genuinely disagreeing with you

      • KimBongUn420@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        My assumption is that the NATO/nafo psyops teams utilize reddit and communities like .world and have been influencing opinions, the same as they have previously on Facebook.

      • Devadander@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        It would be naive to believe otherwise. Stay vigilant, and disconnect when you can. This shit is poison