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Russia/Ukraine conflict

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There is a rather large difference between castration by the hundreds and murder by the millions.

Or even relocation by force. I never heard of the NAZIs abducting Jewish children in order to raise them as German.

If we call all murder by the hundreds or thousands "Genocide" then the world will become desensitized for when we ring the alarm bells when actual genocide is happening. The attempt to kill an entire nationality/ethnicity.
Liebensborn was a NAZI program to increase births for the Fatherland. It started out as SS officers impregnating German women at a almost factory level process but was spread to conquered territories where SS soldiers impregnated acceptable women. They also took children from the families of acceptable conquered nations (mostly the Nordic countries, but also Netherlands, Poland and others) to raise as "German". Generally all Jewish children were killed as being untermenschen, 'subhuman'. BTW the NAZIs didn't start truly million level mass liquidation of the Jews and others until 1942 with the Wannsee Conference where Rheinhard Heydrich lead the planning for "the Final Solution". That's when mass murders accelerated into killing millions instead of just 10's and 100's of thousands. But the seeds for this horrendous mass murder were planted wih the complete dehumanization of the Jews, the Roma, the disabled and others that didn't fit into the master race plan. Russians have massacred civillians during this war with impunity. What makes you think they won't expand that if they take more territory?

If Ukraine wins this war they have their land back and they will survive not just as a country but as a people. If Russia wins Ukraine will no longer exist and the Ukrainian people as well. Russia has actually done this before in the 1930's with Stalin deliberately starving millions to death, the Holodomor.
 
I beg to differ. This isn't Auschwitz.

Saying there isn't a large distance between castrating 700 Ukrainians and murdering 6 million Jews is borderline crazy.
You do understand why they are castrating men? To prevent the future births of Ukranian children. This is genocide, though as you say not on the level of Auschwitz, yet. Does the world wait until the psychotic mass murderer ups his game to millions?
 
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There is a rather large difference between castration by the hundreds and murder by the millions.

Or even relocation by force. I never heard of the NAZIs abducting Jewish children in order to raise them as German.
Yes they did, approx 200,000+

"During World War II, around 200,000[4][5][6][7] ethnic Polish children as well as an unspecified number of children of other ethnicities were abducted from their homes and forcibly transported to Nazi Germany for purposes of forced labour, medical experimentation, or Germanization. An aim of the project was to acquire and "Germanize" children with purportedly Aryan-Nordic traits because Nazi officials believed that they were the descendants of German settlers who had emigrated to Poland. Those labelled "racially valuable" were forcibly Germanized in centres and then sent to German families and SS Home Schools.[8] An association, "Stolen Children: Forgotten Victims" (Geraubte Kinder – Vergessene Opfer e.V.), is active in Germany, representing victims of German kidnapping.[9]"

 
Rob,
Human nature has not changed much. It is hard to fathom how Germans allowed the Holocaust to happen and yet they did. It starts with "de-humanizing" (no such word) the other. I agree with you that the two things are not remotely the same but I stand by my statement that Germany has proven that good people can cover the remaining ground in short order.
 
There is a rather large difference between castration by the hundreds and murder by the millions.

Or even relocation by force. I never heard of the NAZIs abducting Jewish children in order to raise them as German.

If we call all murder by the hundreds or thousands "Genocide" then the world will become desensitized for when we ring the alarm bells when actual genocide is happening. The attempt to kill an entire nationality/ethnicity.
I think the definition of genocide you are using is not quite what the international community uses, even though some dictionaries (like Oxford which Google appears to use) define it as such.

Genocide does not only apply to killing (there are other ways to commit genocide without directly killing people). It also does not have to be the entire ("in whole") nationality/ethnicity, it also applies "in part".

Here it is in the Geneva Convention:
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
  • Killing members of the group;
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
Wikipedia has more specific examples for each particular point:
Genocide - Wikipedia

You will notice a lot of these things have been committed by both the Nazis in the past (as others pointed out) and Russia in this conflict. I agree with you that Russia have not (yet) gone as far as the Nazis, but that's not exactly a bar that should be held for acceptance, and certainly they should not be allowed the chance to move things toward that direction.
 
Interesting item posted by Igor Sushko on Twitter. He has a video of Igor Girkin.

“Russian war criminal & former FSB spetsnaz, Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin predicts Russia's collapse if Ukraine is able to break through the current frontline, which he calls the thinnest thread on which everything hangs for Russia.”

I will try to paste the link but not sure it will work.
 
There is a rather large difference between castration by the hundreds and murder by the millions.

Or even relocation by force. I never heard of the NAZIs abducting Jewish children in order to raise them as German.

If we call all murder by the hundreds or thousands "Genocide" then the world will become desensitized for when we ring the alarm bells when actual genocide is happening. The attempt to kill an entire nationality/ethnicity.

The stated Russian goal for the Ukrainians is the same as the stated Nazi goal for the Jews. Just because the Russians are less competent at it than the Nazis doesn't give them a bye.

There are many articles about how the Russians are working to eliminate the Ukrainian identity in the occupied territories. Here is just one
Russia Accused of Trying to ‘Erase’ Ukrainian Identity in Occupied Areas

The UN definition of genocide is "a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part."

It's part of US law too. 18 USC 1091:
18 U.S. Code § 1091 - Genocide

What the Russians are attempting to do to Ukrainians is genocide as defined by international as well as US law.

There was conjecture that the destruction of the Karhovka dam could cause health problems with contaminated water. Here is a report of this occurring with some Russian forces. I would like to see some additional sources confirming this..

Russian units in Kherson Oblast and Crimea, stricken in cholera outbreak, ‘losing combat effectiveness’

Of course. Russia recruits heavily from unsophisticated, poorly educated people from the distant provinces. They don't know anything about sanitation.
 
The stated Russian goal for the Ukrainians is the same as the stated Nazi goal for the Jews. Just because the Russians are less competent at it than the Nazis doesn't give them a bye.

There are many articles about how the Russians are working to eliminate the Ukrainian identity in the occupied territories. Here is just one
Russia Accused of Trying to ‘Erase’ Ukrainian Identity in Occupied Areas

The UN definition of genocide is "a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part."

It's part of US law too. 18 USC 1091:
18 U.S. Code § 1091 - Genocide

What the Russians are attempting to do to Ukrainians is genocide as defined by international as well as US law.

I also disagree with the concept of equating killing people with erasing their culture.

Absorbing Ukraine and eliminating their language and cultural identity is a million orders of magnitude different than killing 45 Million Ukrainians.

"Cultural genocide" should be a crime. Mutilation of prisoners of war is and should be a crime. That is a different level of crime than mass murdering millions of people.


"Cultural genocide" demeans and diminishes the wholesale murder of a whole ethnic group/nationality of people.
 
Mick Ryan with a good podcast- KurskII

 
I also disagree with the concept of equating killing people with erasing their culture.

Absorbing Ukraine and eliminating their language and cultural identity is a million orders of magnitude different than killing 45 Million Ukrainians.

"Cultural genocide" should be a crime. Mutilation of prisoners of war is and should be a crime. That is a different level of crime than mass murdering millions of people.


"Cultural genocide" demeans and diminishes the wholesale murder of a whole ethnic group/nationality of people.
Your logical problem is that the legal and philosophical definition of ‘genocide’ does not evaluate the competence of the perpetrator. Is killing a village of people worse than killing a city of people? Is castrating ten people worse than castrating a thousand? You seem to be thinking competence as one essential defining part of genocide.

Neither law nor logic supports that view. Without question the WWII Nazis refined their processes to do more mass killing. Thus far the post-USSR Putin regime has not yet become so efficient.

That in no way alters the horror nor reduces culpability.
Nonetheless, in 2023 we pay attention to mass murder and are inured to single murder. We think often about success in murder as a qualitative difference than a single one.
The single case is definitive, adding cases does not change the fact. And so it is with genocide.

Please reconsider your views. Most of us respect and read your words. In the case the real difference among us is vocabulary. Checking the law and etymology will solve the problem in a couple of minutes:
 
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The attempt to kill an entire nationality/ethnicity.
It's exactly what Putin is attempting. Just because he hasn't yet succeeded on a large enough scale doesn't mean it's not happening. over 100,000 Ukrainians have been killed. You think Putin wouldn't wipe out all Ukrainians in the blink of an eye if he could?
 
It feels to me as the talk of degree is an attempt to delay the ultimate decision of doing something about it. We are kinda getting there and I have faith that we will eventually get there. It is just that a lot of people are twisting themselves up in knots with very strained logic in an attempt not to acknowledge the basic truth of what is happening.

I realize the above is not a logical argument for my position. It is simply an attempt at a "from 10,000 foot overview of where things are heading". It is obvious to me and I hope it would be to others.

Rob is simply way more precise and demanding of his arguments and, to my memory, has not resorted to my "come on folks, it is obvious" argument approach in the past. There is nothing wrong (and a lot right) with being careful in thought and judicious in use of language as long as you weigh those efforts against the risk of being wrong.
 
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NOTE: The link below leads to some Czech newspaper. I have no idea what kind of source that is...

But allegedly:...

The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine have signed some kind of cooperation agreement regarding the Combat Vehicle 90. The Czech Republic will buy 246 vehicles, Slovakia 152 and Ukraine wants a thousand of them. Tower and chassis are to be manufactured in the Czech Republic.


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