Ukraine-Russia thoughts, Week 5 — dueling war crimes and leftist niches

The Bucha apparent war crimes appear to have been coordinated, not ramdom, and probably with the backing of Russia's Wagner Group. And now, the head of Russian metals company Rusal has called for an impartial investigation.

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A day or two before Bucha was "discovered," Ukrainian soldiers were committing war crimes, too, including shooting surrendered POWs.

Says who? RT? No, the NYT.

A video posted online on Monday and verified by The New York Times appears to show a group of Ukrainian soldiers killing captured Russian troops outside a village west of Kyiv. “He’s still alive. Film these marauders. Look, he’s still alive. He’s gasping,” a man says as a Russian soldier with a jacket pulled over his head, apparently wounded, is seen still breathing. A soldier then shoots the man twice. After the man keeps moving, the soldier shoots him again, and he stops.

There.

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Related?

Eric Draitser of Counterpunch Radio had his Friday broadcast all about Bucha, including the revelation that Russia's Wagner Group, which has its own neo-Nazi problems, was involved or even directly behind this. I asked him why his broadcast was ONLY about Bucha and this was his response on Twitter:

LOL shared on my Facebook on date of publication
https://t.co/IfTJSeeOJg

— Eric Draitser (@stopimperialism) April 8, 2022

To which I said:

Response appreciated. "LOL" not so much. And (because even with you, it may be needed), not to "justify" Putin or his invasion, nonetheless, a single Facebook post, & none on yr Twitter feed, about the Ukrainian atrocity, or abt both sides violating Geneva w/POWs on TV, etc ...

— TheRealSocraticGadfly: Friends Crushes Xi Jinping (@real_gadfly) April 8, 2022

And, didn't hear back. His whole Facebook feed, which is more in-depth than his Twitter, is not MSM, tis true, but leans harder pro-Ukraine than it has to. The real issue is that while the NYT reported the Ukrainian atrocity, opinion and analysis there will never touch it. (Also, as the History for Atheists dude was told by me on my philosophy blog, I read first, listen to radio or podcasts a distant second.)  And, whether orally or in writing, a mention is not the same as a discussion.

My overall impression is that he's really not THAT different than the left edge of the MSM.

Not only did I not hear back on Twitter, but Joshua Frank, Counterpunch's ME, "liked" the LOL reply by him but didn't take note of me response.

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Here's an in-depth analysis of the run-up to the war, that somebody posted in comments to one of Draitser's FB posts, and to which he didn't respond. That said, the author appears to start sliding away from full truth by the middle one-third, to run into the ditch in the last one-third, and badly, and per my Googling, Jacques Baud may do that deliberately. And, although Lee Camp, Chris Hedges and other RT commenters have said that they didn't have to pull punches, it should be noted that Baud has written for RT France. It should also be noted that Camp and Hedges didn't get a chance to see if they'd be forced to pull punches as the war continued.

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In all of this is the bigger picture — finding one's niche in the American left on foreign policy issues. I don't need Draister's help to not trust Aaron Maté or Max Blumenthal. Surprisingly, someone I have come to distrust as a "spinner" for Russia on the Internet Research Agency, its Facebook groups in the 2016 election, and things at the edges of "Russiagate" in its broadest terms, Mark Ames, has been pretty reliable on Twitter as far as calling out Russian military and policy failures while at the same time continuing to point out problems with Ukraine.

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Elsewhere on his FB page, Draitser tries to fellate Lenin at Putin's expense:

"What Ireland was for England, Ukraine has become for Russia: exploited in the extreme, and getting nothing in return. Thus the interests of the world proletariat in general and the Russian proletariat in particular require that the Ukraine regains its state independence, since only this will permit the development of the cultural level that the proletariat needs." -- Vladimir Lenin, 1914

Anybody who knows the reality of the Russian Civil War knows that 1920 Lenin, or even 1918 Lenin, had repudiated 1914 Lenin, if that 1914 Lenin wasn't just a PR talking point. 

Elsewhere, he links to Paul Street at Counterpunch, who IMO also gets this wrong. No, the early USSR was not dedicated to making the Ukraine — or any other non-ethnically Russian portion of the old Russian empire — a nation state or close to it. (Also contra Street, in an unrelated issue? Yes, Glenn Greenwald is laughable. BUT? He's also right that the Trump Admin eventually DID sell arms to Ukraine that Dear Leader Obama wouldn't.)

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Meanwhile, Russians the age of Maté and Blumenthal who can vote with their feet, even temporarily, are doing so — to Istanbul. When Turkey under Erdogan feels free, it's sad indeed. BUT? This non-Wilsonian rejects Biden's call for regime change. There's no way we could remodel Russia; besides, the first time we tried to is part of the reason the world is here today.

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From somewhat the British equivalent of US paleoconservativism, Niall Ferguson updates his answers to seven war-related questions.

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China is not totally in Russia's corner. Reuters notes Chinese refineries, most of them run by state oil companies, are NOT buying Russian oil futures contracts.