We wuz lied to. Really? What a surprise!

Them Nazzies lived there.

A Russian military commander and prisoner of war in Ukraine said he and his forces were led to believe they were invading the country because “nationalists, Nazis have seized power,” according to a video that surfaced Monday. 

Russian Lt. Col. Astakhov Dmitry Mikhailovich was flanked by two badly bruised men as he said they were told in Russia “that Ukraine’s territory is dominated by fascist’s regime,” according to video shared by Ukraine’s News Channel 24, via a translation from the New York Post. “

“”Nationalists, Nazi’s have seized power,” Mikhailovich went on, about what he and his troops were allegedly told. 

He added: “You are in a tense situation going against your own commander. But this is a genocide. The people are just killed.”

He said he would go to jail or do “whatever we deserve.”

“We’re ready for everything.”

Comment: Lying to troops going into battle is a really bad idea. When disillusion shows up, they become unreliable like this officer. Officers in the Russian Army have beards?

Someone filled with spiteful malice will ask if the US politically indoctrinates its troops. I don’t remember seeing that. The media takes care of that. IN VN the draftees were for the war until Walter Cronkite led the press in turning against the war. The professionals just soldiered on except for a handful like John Vann who were in love with the Vietnamese.

Post 9/11 a wave of patriotic fervor swept the US. Indoctrination was not neccessary. That held up for a long time. I contribute to a lot of charities that try to help badly wounded veterans. To see what the invasion of Iraq cost these innocents cuts me to the bone. pl

Russia-Ukraine war: Russian military commander POW claims forces were told ‘Nazis’ had overtaken Ukraine | Fox News

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44 Responses to We wuz lied to. Really? What a surprise!

  1. jim ticehurst says:

    All..Just Watched John Kirby Presser ..
    Kirby Doesnt Have A CLEAR Picture Of Anything He Said..

    He Needs To Get Out Of Bidens Bedroom..
    JT

    • Pat Lang says:

      JT
      He has nothing to say because nothing serious has been decided.

      • jimticehurst says:

        PAT..every Time they Asked Him About The Big Convoy
        Or Any Other Data like That He Always Said “I dont
        Have A Clear Picture On That”..

        He Could Say “we are Evaluating The Data”

        And Not Make Our Intel Capabilities Look Inept
        IMO
        JT

        • Pat Lang says:

          JT
          You should not think like Fat Norman did that he could expect a perfect picture delivered by yhe IC.

          • Eric Newhill says:

            I got extra-motivated to fight in “the mother of all battles” by reports of hideous crimes by the Iraqi army in Kuwait, like taking newborns out of incubators and smashing them to death. Turned out to be BS; including the mother of all battles part. No problem, that’s part of war too.

          • Pat Lang says:

            EN
            You were duped by Ziocons.

  2. Pat Lang says:

    Jovan P
    IMO the Nazi element in Ukraine has been exaggerated by Russian IO.

    • southpoint says:

      So you don’t believe those crazies threatened Zelensky’s life?

      After reading through Robert Parry’s(Consortium News) posts from 2014/15 it seems quite apparent the Banderistas are a prominent and violent force in Ukraine and the US gov’t is well aware of this fact….
      https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/03/zelensky-and-the-fascists-he-will-hang-on-some-tree-on-khreshchatyk.html#more

      “He(Zelensky) just needs to understand one truth: Ukrainians cannot be humiliated. Ukrainians, after seven hundred years of colonial slavery, may not yet have fully learned how to build a state. But we learned how to make an uprising very well and remove all those “eagles” who are trying to parasitize on the sweat and blood of Ukrainians. Zelensky said in his inaugural speech that he was ready to lose ratings, popularity, position… No, he would lose his life. He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk – if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War.”
      – Dmytro Yarosh

  3. A. Pols says:

    I’m pretty sure our troops going in to Iraq in 2003 weren’t lied to about anything…..
    LOL

  4. Nena says:

    This is a fake Russian POW, images are running on the net of him dressed in Ukrainian military uniform. No, Russian officers have no beards, it seems to be forbidden by the reglament…

    It is just as fake as this….

    https://t.me/rafapalreal/18041

    • Johnson Payne says:

      Russian officers do not have beards. only Chechen muslims and this guy is not a Chechen. fog of war and all that but hey thats why the US uses IG Facebook Twitter et al as tools of propaganda, its effective on your own people BUT not effective on Russians, who pick this stuff apart for breakfast and then move on. Thats what make me laugh, if you put the same effort into propagandising the opposition as you do your own public this stuff might fly.

  5. Eric Newhill says:

    I really don’t know, but doing a quick search indicates that beards like that are not permissible in the Russian military. Apparently, their SOF guys, like ours, can grow a “Tactical beard”. They also seem to have something like our own shaving profile (can grow a beard if shaving causes irritation, bumps, etc.), but that beard must be neatly trimmed at all times. He’s only been in the field in combat for a short while.

    Are we sure that guy is a captured Russian officer and not some Ukrainian agent dressed as one?

    • Leith says:

      Eric –

      I understood he was Rosgvardia (National Guard) and not a ‘Regular’. Do the same rules apply?

  6. Christian J. Chuba says:

    The other possibility is that the Ukrainians are pressuring their POWs to make statements like this. Everything is called a ‘genocide’ as opposed to plain old aggression. The Ukrainians have been parading around their POWs, showing them cry as they call home and apologize to the world for being evil. The NYP article shows a picture of one of his comrades with a most perfect black eye, shrapnel or please stop beating up my men and I’ll say whatever you want.

    This is exploitive.
    ———————-
    I’m certain that Russian resolve will suffer the more they push this operation. If they actually try to take Kyiv, I don’t see how they can sell that to their own people. Only time will tell how far Moscow is going to go.

    • Leith says:

      Christian –

      Allowing POWs to call their Moms and sweethearts may be exploitive. But it is kind of benevolent and is perfectly legal. They are also allowing Russian mothers to call a hotline to speak to their sons.

      A genius move I thought and even more humane than the Geneva Conventions. Perhaps those GC treaties need another upgrade?

      • Christian J. Chuba says:

        The Russian public will see this for what it is and react to it the same way we in the U.S. did when our POWs signed confessions and read prepared statements in Vietnam and N. Korea.

        To satisfy the GC, Ukraine just has to report the names and condition of their POWs. A picture would put the mom at ease without the need of live statements. Ukraine (and Russia) can and should allow for observers to verify the condition of POWs.

        The more we accept stuff like this at face value, the more we encourage it

        • Leith says:

          Christian –

          The Russian public will never see it. Independent TV & radio stations, social media, and newspapers have been shut down by the government. They are being replaced by Kremlin owned propaganda organs. And there is no way Putin will let those calls of POW Moms go through.

          I agree that observers should be allowed to visit POWs in both Ukraine and Russia. But has Russia tcaptured any POWs? Their Chechens and their neo-Nazis from LNR and DNR are not taking prisoners. If actual Russian troops are taking prisoners how are they evacuating them from the battlefield since they seem to be bogged down?

  7. tedrichard says:

    the msm seems to have forgotten in the internet world the same candy crapping unicorn fairy tales they could sell to a gullible public pre 2000 are no longer credible to any who remain alert with their critical rational brains working. of course there are still a large percentage of the american public who can be gulled into almost anything and for them there is no hope short of an in your face experience which does not comport with the make believe officially being sold that day.

    the usa is heading for a terrifying economic crisis very very soon for which the elites will have no solution since they caused it (now desperately trying to pawn blame off on russia) and for which the gulled population will be mentally unprepared to handle.

  8. fakebot says:

    “We’re ready for everything,” are the words of many captured POWs who went on to serve as propagandists, something this captured commander may very well have become.

    I don’t think many Russians want to kill Ukrainians. We’re talking about people who are about as distinct from each other as the English are to the Irish. A good many Russian soldiers will refuse to wage this war for that simple reason.

    What I find confusing is how are Russians being conditioned to believe Ukraine has a Nazi regime?

    No question Russia has been overstating the problem (not unlike a lot of white supremacist hysteria I see in our own part of the world); however, is this to say Russia is claiming Zelensky, a Jewish man, is a Nazi? Are they really going that far?

    The only thing I’ve seen coming from the Russian that resembles this Nazi narrative in anyway are those claims about those Pentagon funded labs in Ukraine and how they could be creating genocidal viruses against the Russian people. I don’t know what the Pentagon is doing with these labs (I doubt they know much themselves), but surely they are not devising ways to create such viruses against the masses of innocent Russian people. Even if they were devising a virus against Russian armed forces, surely some kind of curable disease that debilitates their forces at best, not kill them en masse.

    • Seamus Padraig says:

      Well, I’m relieved to know that our tax dollars will be financing good biological weapons, as opposed to the bad kind. After letting them less on Russian, maybe we can then sell a vaccine which gives them all VAIDS?

    • Jimmy_W says:

      Those labs used to be Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction-funded labs. Formerly part of the Soviet military biological labs (or vanilla biology labs pretending to be military to scam funds from Uncle Sam). Can’t tell if America is still paying for the labs or not. If America is paying them, and they used to be biological offense/defense labs, are they still doing the same stuff.

      The CTR program suffers from the bureaucratic problem of no end state. Once we start paying for them, we cannot stop. And they keep educating graduate students to continue the research areas we’re paying them for. It never stops.

  9. jimticehurst says:

    ALL:

    For Those Inerested..This is the Weather forecast for Those poor eople in KYEV
    without Power or Heat this Week..
    Today 30 Degrees 28 nTonight Snowing All Nite
    Tues: 30 High 25bLow
    Wed: 30 High 18 Low
    Thur: 27 High 16 Low
    Fri: 28 High 16 Low

  10. Babeltuap says:

    All throughout history regimes saturated in corruption have been run over by brutal forces. There is no other way to take it out unfortunately. Both sides of this thing are garbage. Would he set off a nuke or two? Sure. Why not.

  11. Nena says:

    Nazis in Ukraine are indeed a tiny minority, but armed to the teeth by foreign powers they have managed to get main positions at police and military, at least the positions that allow them hold a grip on the rest.

    https://twitter.com/IrinaMar10/status/1500866760265945093?cxt=HHwWisC-zbqXk9QpAAAA

    These are old known of VVP. Azov Battalion and Chechen jihadis are peers who provide hekp to each other. We know both are armed and traiend by the same people…

    https://twitter.com/classic1879/status/1500895938646261762?cxt=HHwWhICyve65oNQpAAAA

  12. Barbara Ann says:

    To all the folks here saying “But the neo-Nazi element in Ukraine is real enough” or words to that effect:

    Open your eyes. Where are the crowds of Ukrainian people welcoming their liberators? Where are the towns and cities that have spontaneously risen up, in the country Putin called “..a colony with a puppet regime“? Why are Russian forces being resisted everywhere – even in places like Kharkiv, just across the border where the supposedly persecuted Russian-speaking population is in the majority? This is no war of liberation, it is a war of conquest and you don’t have to take the alleged Lt. Col. Astakhov’s word for it.

    Read Putin’s July 2021 speech “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“. In it he says this:

    Again, for many people in Ukraine, the anti-Russia project is simply unacceptable. And there are millions of such people. But they are not allowed to raise their heads. They have had their legal opportunity to defend their point of view in fact taken away from them. They are intimidated, driven underground

    That is the ostensible rationale for the war – to free the oppressed. This speech was made essential reading for all Russian service personnel, it is the Russian equivalent of Why We Fight.

    Yes there is some persecution, but that is only part of the motivation for the invasion. Instead I suggest to you that the prime motive is the product of a delusional, revanchist mindset which considers that Ukraine is not a sovereign nation, merely an errant child of the Russian Empire. “I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia” (Putin’s July 2021 speech). In his February 21st speech (first link) Putin gave it all away “We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine”. That is a thinly veiled threat to roll the Russian frontier back (forward) to where it was in 1917- i.e. well to the west of the Dnieper.

    Well for a non sovereign country Ukraine sure has a heck of a lot of patriotic men and women willing to die for it.

    The war liberating oppressed Ukrainians from neo-Nazis exists only in Putin’s mind and I am convinced Russian soldiers must know this all too well by now. The reality is a tragic fratricidal war that has far more chance of destroying Russia than it does of destroying Ukraine. In fact when the dust settles and the heroes are counted I am sure Ukrainians will look back on the war as the pivotal event in which their modern nation was forged.

    • Eric Newhill says:

      Barbara Ann,
      If any of that is happening anywhere, like the Donbas (welcoming liberators), do you really think you/we would be informed of it? Do you really believe the “news” that is made available to us about grandmas and school girls fighting and dying while killing legions of Russians?

      I think we are the ones being lied to, again. Our media is one giant propaganda machine. I gave up on it a long time ago. Some of its massive lies I even have personal knowledge of. I’m sure that’s true of many committee members. When they’re not lying, they’re getting it wrong through laziness and ignorance. Fool me once….

      • Barbara Ann says:

        Eric Newhill

        Ah, I see you are a skeptic, in the philosophical sense. Whilst it is true that one can consider our modern media environment as analogous to Descartes’ demon, I think it is important to resist the urge to lapse into acatalepsy. At some level we have to trust our eyes and ears, the trick of course being to perceive the objective reality through the lies and propaganda from all sides.

        These days I get my ‘news’ from as diverse a set of sources as possible. That said, mainstream news reports of large crowds heckling Russian troops in many different Ukrainian towns are surely impossible to fake. But by all means point me to footage of the liberated masses placing garlands of flowers over the heads of Russian soldiers*.

        *Outside of the Donbas, where as Deap points out, the residents are clearly delighted with the recent turn of events.

        • Eric Newhill says:

          Barbara Ann,
          Yes. I’m a skeptic by nature and training. Also, haven’t we all seen enough BS coming from the media and politicians? Recently, the “Ghost of Kiev” scam (the ace fighter pilot turned out to be a video game).

          But there’s more driving my refusal to accept anything coming me at me at face value. A good friend friend of mine – very smart guy, academically – was on the cutting edge of the tech revolution back in the mid 80s. He went to work for the DoD developing computerized assessments, analysis and VR software. He always had a utopian “Brave New World” complex wherein he believed the masses could be controlled and made passive and happy via virtual realities induced via tech and chemicals. He envisioned microchips implanted in people’s heads, connected to the internet, pumping perceptions into their minds; basically “The Matrix”. I see Zuckerberg talking about his new Meta platform being something similar. My friend and I used to argue, debate the value (or lack thereof) and dangers of this model for hours over coffee and smokes (me being strongly opposed, of course). I’ve studied Bernays and the adoption of his concepts and methods and their application in modern advertising, politics and media, deeply. Then there are people like Francis Fukayama and the whole “We create our own reality” crowd. There’s open talk about developing and adhering to the “narrative” among the leadership class.

          There is a group of minds out there, a mindset, that is driven to control others and believes that in doing so it will instill a new better reality. It’s a kind of God complex. They are very hirable and their skills are applied in just about everything these days, whether it be scientifically creating narratives that will resonate with the targeted people or getting people hooked on products or acting as a mob, in unison, in the way desired by the wizards behind the curtain. The techniques may be sublime and sometimes they are obvious, but they are ubiquitous. There is no way these techniques are not being applied constantly to a situation like we have in the UKR and the economy.

          • Barbara Ann says:

            Eric

            You could probably describe me as having a Brave New World complex, but mine is the mirror image of your friend’s. Does your friend do any work for the WEF, it sounds like he’d fit right in there?

            I’ve just started reading Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society. It apparently was one of the inspirations of the Unabomber, though I’m not feeling the urge to blow people up just yet. Ellul’s main thesis is that technological progress and the wider concept of automation applied to every field of human endeavor (what he calls ‘technique’) advances independently of our will. That we control it is a comforting illusion we choose to believe, as the truth is that eventually technique will erase every trace of our humanity, if we let it.

            This is related to the Promethianism that Vox Day describes. It is what happens when a people cease to venerate a higher power through religious faith and faith in technology and scientific progress supplant it. This is where we are right now. The Christian goal of spiritual progress has been largely replaced with a secular belief system which holds that Man’s salvation lies through ever greater technological development. Ellul believes the very opposite is true, as do I. But of course once the moral and spiritual dimensions of religious faith are removed, the goals of this ‘progress’ can come to mean anything you like – say that the masses be “..controlled and made passive and happy via virtual realities induced via tech and chemicals”. Exactly the dystopian nightmare Huxley describes.

            Someone here posted a link to Archbishop Viganò’s recent declaration on the Ukraine conflict. I am a huge admirer of Viganò, would that he were Pope. He talks about the religious and ideological aspects of Moscow’s role (as the third Rome) as the katechon; that which holds back the Antichrist. In this sense Viganò’s conception of the Antichrist is as the globalists’ Great Reset agenda which enshrines the above transhumanist, dystopian thinking. As we know, the WEF has its tentacles deeply embedded in many western governments, the US included, and is actively promoting culture destroying thinking like CRT. Ellul’s would certainly recognize the GR as a quantum leap forward towards a cultural catastrophe and ultimately the final end of Man.

            I have a lot of sympathy for Viganò’s view and my sympathy for the Ukrainian people is balanced by the realization that just maybe Russia is fighting not only for her own existence, but also for the continuation of Christian civilization. Here is the link:

            https://www.marcotosatti.com/2022/03/07/declaration-of-msgr-carlo-maria-vigano-on-the-russia-ukraine-crisis/

          • Eric Newhill says:

            Barbara Ann,
            I’m with Ellul too. Haven’t read his work, but what you describe makes sense. The utopian techies think that humans can and should exist like jelly fish floating around in Kubla Khan’s Pleasure Dome their entire lives. No work. No suffering. No growth mentally or spiritually – all over-rated to their thinking. The techies may not even totally consciously realize that’s what they’re advocating, but they are when taken to the logical conclusion of they advocate and work towards.

            I’m a reformed hard ass Protestant. I think life is a little better if one enjoys a pleasure dome from time to time. But everything in balance and moderation. The most intense states of ecstasy I’ve enjoyed have been sober spiritual revelations and experiences – as well as, albeit somewhat less intense, good old worked hard and achieved a goal, survived some ordeal, that kind of thing. The thing is, all of that comes from something within my being connecting with a wider reality. It’s real, not an artificial preprogrammed simulacrum from some other human’s mind (or from AI).

            Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out.

            My friend? He freaked out when some “spooky types” wanted to use his work for “the wrong purposes”. He left the DoD and now lives a quiet humble life on a ranch in the countryside. Not a Kazinski though; wife, kids. Still trying to use tech, but now to “find God”. He just can’t seem to let go of the tech.

          • LeaNder says:

            Barbara, Eric,
            how would the legitmate president of the US have handled matters????

            asked with your positions on the stolen election in mind and Vigano’s earlier letter to Trump:
            https://www.scribd.com/document/482303889/Lettre-Ouverte-de-l-Archeveque-Carlo-Maria-Vigano-Au-President-Des-Etats-Unis-Donald-Trump-25-Octobre-2020

    • Deap says:

      I thought certain easter areas of Ukraine had officially broken away and declared their own independence, which led to the invitation for Russian troops to protect their newly independent position.

      That at least was the first few days news before Russia moved into the wider areas. Seemed like a nice finesses for the growing sabre rattling coming in from far and wide.

      What happened to those newly “independent” regions? From both sides -what did Ukraine do to them, and what is Russia’s role in these areas now?

  13. Kevin O’Malley says:

    Former papal nuncio and Catholic theologian Archbishop Carlo Viganò had a 30+ page declaration on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

    Nb: If you’re like 99% of people in the West and have embraced the Satanic propaganda (a/k/a Official Narrative) brace yourself.

    https://www.marcotosatti.com/2022/03/07/declaration-of-msgr-carlo-maria-vigano-on-the-russia-ukraine-crisis/

  14. James Doleman says:

    John Vann was “in love with the Vietnamese?”

    I’ve read much of his work and never got that impression.

    • Pat Lang says:

      James Doleman
      I knew him well. He had had a wretched life. There was an aching empty hole in his chest into which he tried to stuff the Vietnamese people. He accused me once of “Not loving the Vietnamese people.” I told him that he was correct. VN was just another place for me to fight for the US. Read my memoir.

  15. Deap says:

    A few years ago someone sponsored groups of young Ukrainians to visit cities in California. They spent time with our local neighborhood association, learning how we volunteers engaged in joint community activities.

    The young ladies were sassy, spoke little English, sneered in the corner and asked through a translator if they would ever finally meet some young people in America. A few of the young men were very sharp with considerable English language skills. One left the most lasting impression on me.

    He explained when everyone was given their own flat after the Soviet Union broke apart in those badly maintained and large government apartment buildings, no one wanted to work with other residents to fix up their units. The buildings had become a checkerboard of some cared for units and still many badly neglected units

    He explained this was because they were trained their whole lives to trust no one. He could not imagine a group of residents ever working together voluntarily for their common welfare. ( I don’t know what part of Ukraine they were from – that matters now)

    I suggested they start with a joint project that would benefit the children, a play ground or craft room -something where the parents could share a common interest that transcended politics. He shrugged and waved off the suggestion. I often wonder whatever happened after that visit.

    • Pat Lang says:

      Deap
      I traveled widely in the former Warsaw Pact countries after the fall of communism. They had a hard time getting over their snottiness.

      • Deap says:

        The trivial often does tell the larger tale, having observed a period when cruise ships started replacing their mainly Indonesian-Filipino crews with the floods of newly liberated Eastern Europeans, who were valued for their better English language skills.

        It was an unhappy experience all around – they were terrible in any hospitality role with the passengers, and inflicted terrible distress on the longer-serving and exceptionally hospitable asian crews, whom the Eastern Europeans contemptuously looked down upon and treated them as such. Overall, it created for many unpleasant and tense passenger experiences.

        Same thing we observed at a wonderful Swiss resort in Brienz (Linderhof) where the staff had a number of newly liberated East Germans. They bragged they were easily passing as “illegals” in Switzerland, due to their northern European looks and German language skills.

        In their also very good English, they would share what utter contempt they felt toward the boorish Swiss burgers, they were now forced to work for in their lowly hotel tasks. They could hardly wait to get enough money to move on to South Africa.

        Chances are they probably were superbly trained engineers or other classically educated East German professionals, doing what they had to do for their own next stages in life. Which at this point required working as hotel domestics or cruise ship cabin and dining attendants outside of floundering Eastern Europe.

        Snottiness, and barely veiled contempt is a good description. I hope they moved to a place where they found more happiness. But I also regret their talent drain that compromised their own home countries.

        Another travel tale happened on an Amur River cruise in Russia Far East right after the collapse of the Soviet Union where we got to know our Russian guides very well. One relayed how obsessed they were with the soap opera “Santa Barbara”, mainly because it showed people being polite to each other in normal greetings and displaying good table manners.

        She said groups of friends tried to match what they were learning about courteous discourse from watching this soap opera, religiously talking about every episode every day.

        The unintended prices paid when effectively destroying the effeteness of “bourgeoises” – courteous public discourse. We see less and less of this in the US too. FJB.

        • Jimmy_W says:

          Following up on that Commie lack of manners. Visitors having been to both Taiwan and China always remark on the dramatic difference in manners between the two, China being much more brutal and cutthroat, Taiwan being more mild mannered and polite. Having to wait in line for hours, and defending your place in line, just accentuate that anti-bourgeois impoliteness.

  16. Seamus Padraig says:

    Assuming this bearded guy is really a Russian officer to begin with, he’s a POW for crying out loud. Why should we accept anything he says at face value? After all, isn’t that how John McCain got his start in public relations back in Vietnam? LOL

  17. Philip Owen says:

    A uniform and a beard means that you are a patriotic member of the orthodox fascist cult. Quite a lot of this is tied up with religion.

    • Jovan P says:

      As an Orthodox Christian, I’ve never heard of ,,orthodox fascist cults”, nor do I know of any ties between Orthodoxy and fascism.

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