Quote Originally Posted by mojo
What is true is that yes, there were Nazi groups in Ukraine. Yes, they had militant Nazis.
So what?
What is false is the implication that's unusual or another country's problem.
It certainly is unusual. It would be highly unusual for a police chief in the UK to ask for the names, numbers and addresses of local Jews. And it would be highly unusual for the UK military to incorporate a paramilitary Nazi group into the armed forces.

This isn't some rogue officer or soldier we're talking about. This is institutionalised.

The US has militant Nazis. The UK has militant Nazis.
They're not part of the armed forces though. They are banned groups, certainly here in the UK.

That's not any other nation's invitation to invade.
Well, let me first off clarify that I don't believe Russia are justified in invading Ukraine because Ukraine has a Nazi problem. However, Russia would be justified in doing so if they felt it was a serious national security risk. But Ukraine's Nazi problem isn't a security risk for Russia.

But if there were Russian Jews living in the border regions that Russia felt were in real danger, then yes I would accept a degree of justification in military action. But that threat has to be real. it's not real. Ukraine's Nazi problem isn't that bad that they're threatening a new Holocaust.

I would suspect the motivation of the police chief who sent that letter was to intimidate Jews, it was an act of anti-Semitism. He should have been fired immediately. And the government should not be incorporating Nazi groups into the military. That's what makes this different to the Nazi problems we have in our nations. As best as I'm aware, there are no openly Nazis in the UK in any position of influence or power. Being openly Nazi would be career suicide.

The problem is that in this thread, you mentioning that there is truth to Putin's claim of Nazi's implies that Russia is justified in its invasion.
I guess this is an easy misunderstanding to make, but to clarify, I think Putin's claim that Ukraine has a Nazi problem is true, but that does not justify Russia invading Ukraine. I don't recall once actually justifying their invasion. I might well have attempted to see the geopolitical motivation, that's not the same as justifying.

The democratically elected president of Ukraine is a Jew.
He's also corrupt.

It's fair to say that these Nazi groups in Ukraine were not acting on the endorsement of their president, if not their whole gov't.
So wtf are they doing being an actual part of the nation's military?

Even if these militant nazis were posing a threat to the border with Russia - EVEN IF. That is not an invitation to invade a country
Well as I've already said in this post, I disagree here, but this is an irrelevance because it's not what's happening.

Russia would, in theory, be perfectly justified defending their citizens in internationally recognised Russian territory from Nazis.

There's no justification whatsoever for war crimes.

As for the rest - this is the Putin shootin' thread. If you'd like to talk about Yemen, or any other war, then go for it.
This is a thread about geopolitics and war. We don't need a new thread for every subgenre.

wtf dude Nazis are bad!!!
Yes, historically much worse than Russians.

My apologies for misinterpreting your intent to just casually point out a 2 year old story of a problematic Nazi in Ukraine.
Sarcasm detected. But it predates the war, right? So this clearly isn't Putin's war propaganda. That it's 2 years old is not insignificant.