‘Putin’s terror affects everyone’: anarchists join Ukraine’s war effort (May 26, 2022)

They have a standing invitation, apparently.

We are fighting to protect the more or less free society that exists in Ukraine, without which there would be no space for activism or underground movements.
Putin’s terror is happening [in Ukraine] and it is indiscriminate. It is happening against every part of the population, but especially against the Russian-speaking parts of the population that Putin supposedly came here to liberate,
His regime is an ultraconservative, rightwing dictatorship that represses anarchists in Russia, the free press, LGBT networks. It scares even the most banal, grassroots initiatives, like animal rights activists. We see the conflict between Ukraine and Russia as a conflict between a more or less democratic state and a totalitarian one.
We have a strict screening process. We don’t want people who just come here to kill; we want them to understand what they are fighting for. — Dmytro

Putin has appropriated the word anti-fascist and he exploits it to justify his war. [Ukrainian] nationalists say if you’re anti-fascist, you’re pro-Russian, but that’s not the case.
I think both sides of the elite did a lot to create a situation whereby Ukrainians argue a lot about language and versions of history instead of how Kryvyi Rih Stal was privatised.
The cause of the war is the Russian Federation. — Movchan

Do you reckon it may be possible to break the blockade? — Olivier5

I don't see why it matters. America and Europe have enough food to feed the world several times over. If they gave a shit about starving people they'd fucking feed them. They also have enough firepower to break the blockade with their eyes shut.

So whether they'll break the blockade or not will depend entirely on whether they think it will serve their foreign policy objective or not. The starving poor are, as ever, collateral damage in their endless fucking war.

Maybe you'd like to throw some more Ukrainian bodies at it.

As ever, all this bleating about the starving poor is nothing more than useful idiots regurgitating warmongering propaganda. A minute ago we had to continue to fight Putin because of the civilian deaths, now its because of starvation. This despite the fact the the Western governments and corporations of these exact same useful idiots kill more civilians and cause more starvation in their normal activities than Putin has this entire war.

But the numbers from Afghanistan, Syria and the two Chechen wars simply show that Russia doesn't care so much about civilian casualties. — ssu

Afghanistan - Not even going to dignify that one with an answer, it was 40 years ago. are we going to allow Hiroshima and Vietnam in the comparison?

Syria - some 6,000 civilians killed by Russian forces http://sn4hr.org/blog/2018/09/24/civilian-death-toll//

Chechnya - some 40,000 civilians killed (some proportion of which will be Russian forces) according to the research of Chechnya expert John Dunlop

America's wars (for comparison) https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll

Afghanistan: 46,000
Iraq: 200,000
Pakistan: 24,000
Yemen: 12,000

So just fully explain to us all how exactly 'the numbers' show that Russia particularly cares any less (or more) about civilian casualties than any other.

I don't see why it matters. America and Europe have enough food to feed the world several times over. — Isaac

In your dreams.

The point would obviously be to lower food prices and reduce suffering the world over. Your casual disregard of the poor is noted. As long as Putin is safe, you're happy.

That is BS. — Olivier5

Food availability in rich countries in fact represents 150-200% of nutritional needs in calorific terms — Tristram Stuart - Feedback

There is more than enough food produced today to feed every last one of us. — UN FAO

Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes).

Even if just one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world. — UN Environment Programme

in developing countries, food that is perfectly fit for human consumption ends up unsold as a result of the actions taken by those further up the supply chain – brokers, exporters, importers, retailers, and consumers. — Feedback

In none of the twentieth century famines has there been an absolute shortage of food; the problem has been unequal access due to poverty, a problem that resort to food aid has not solved. In Bengal in 1943-1944 about three million people died after rice prices quadrupled in two years. Worst affected were the rural areas, where wages had not kept pace with wartime inflation, and some towns where workers were unemployed because of the dislocation caused by the war. People without money were unable to buy food and the British imperial authorities took little action (apart from moving food to Calcutta because they feared mass civil unrest). One of the worst famines of modern times therefore took place when the amount of food per head in Bengal was actually 7% higher than in 1941 and food stocks were at record levels. In Ethiopia, in 1972-1974, about 200,000 people died in the provinces of Wollo and Tigre even though the country’s food production only fell by just over 5% – during this period food was still being exported from the affected provinces and from the country as a whole. In Bangladesh in 1974 when rice prices doubled in three months after severe flooding, those who were out of work because of the disruption caused by the floods could not afford to buy food. As a result one and a half million people died of starvation. But there was no absolute shortage of food – production of rice in Bangladesh, both in total and per head terms, was the highest ever in 1974 – once again it was a problem of who had the resources to buy food at higher prices. — Clive Ponting

Around 240 million tonnes of grain are stored worldwide in order to keep the price high. That would provide every human being with 3600 calories a day

in Kenya, the policies of European supermarkets and their direct suppliers cause Kenyan smallholders to waste around 40% of what they grow for European markets – even in a country with millions of hungry people. — Feedback

The point would obviously be to lower food prices and reduce suffering the world over. You're not interested? — Olivier5

Why would we do that via breaking a naval blockade when we could do it without losing a single life simply by paying the food producers a fair wage so that they can afford the food we export?

Why would we do that via breaking a naval blockade when we could do it without losing a single life simply by paying the food producers a fair wage so that they can afford the food we export? — Isaac

Why would we do that when we can have a lovely little war?

Translation: the world can die, as long as Putin is safe.

Really?! Well, it looks to me like NOBODY in those countries cares about civilian casualties. And neither does the West, otherwise it wouldn't have instigated civil wars there. — Apollodorus

Civilian casualties during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (9+ years): 562 000 - 2 000 000 killed

Civilian casualties during the American invasion of Afghanistan (19+ years): 176 000 - 212 000 killed

There's a difference.

Why would we do that when we can have a lovely little war? — Streetlight

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that world-famous saver of lives - warfare.

Translation: the world can die, as long as Putin is safe. — Olivier5

Translation: "I've got no counter argument and the intellectual imagination of a five year old, so I'll resort to parroting the puerile trope that anyone not cheerleading the war must be pro-Putin"

Would you find it objectionable if Draghi (and/or others) would find a diplomatic way to get this wheat out of Odessa?

Civilian casualties during the American invasion of Vietnam (9+ years): 332,000

Civilian casualties during the American atomic bombing of Japan (2 days): 355,000

Civilian casualties during the American fire bombing of Tokyo (1 day): 100,000

How far back do you want to go? Just far enough to prove your point, and no further?

Shall we add up all the wars Western powers have been involved in and those of Russia? Shall we divide by the size of the country? Shall we include deaths from starvation and health poverty resulting from pecuniary postwar loan terms?

Would you find it objectionable if Draghi (and/or others) would find a diplomatic way to get this wheat out of Odessa? — Olivier5

Your point?

Chechnya - some 40,000 civilians killed (some proportion of which will be Russian forces) according to the research of Chechnya expert John Dunlop — Isaac

Again this seem to be false.

Even the Russian Federal State Statistics Service put only the first Chechen war to be 30 000 to 40 000 civilians dead. The Federation of American Scientists write of the first war:

Estimates vary of the total number of casualties caused by the war. Russian Interior Minister Kulikov claimed that fewer than 20,000 civilians were killed while then-Secretary of the National Security Council Aleksandr Lebed asserted that 80,000 to 100,000 had been killed and 240,000 had been injured. Chechen spokesmen claim that the true numbers are even higher.

Yet there's the second Chechen war, instigated by Putin himself. There the estimates of civilian casualties vary from 25 000 to 200 000. After the war Chechen officials (which are Pro-Kremlin, naturally) put the death to of the two wars at 160 000 (see here).

So hence it's interesting to actually look at what John Dunlop has actually said. From which it is obvious that Isaac, as usual, is totally clueless of there being two wars in Chechnya. But from the first Chechen war is said:

Most scholars and human rights organizations generally estimate the number of civilian casualties to be 40,000[iii]; this figure is attributed to the research and scholarship of Chechnya expert John Dunlop, who estimates that the total number of civilian casualties is at least 35,000.[iv] This range is also consistent with post-war publications by the Russian statistics office estimating 30,000 to 40,000[v] civilians killed. The Moscow-based human rights organization, Memorial, which actively documented human rights abuses throughout the war, estimates the number of civilian casualties to be a slightly higher at 50,000.[vi]

And obviously John Dunlop is talking about the first Chechen war, because the article was written in the year 2000, when the Second Chechen war was still underway (Dunlop, John B. 2000. “How many soldiers and civilians died during the Russo-Chechen war of 1994 – 1996?” Central Asian Survey 19:3-4, 328 – 338.)

Hence the civilian casualties of the Second Chechen war should be added up:

According to a count by the Russian human rights group Memorial in 2007, up to 25,000 civilians have died or disappeared since 1999. According to Amnesty International in 2007, the second war killed up to 25,000 civilians since 1999, with up to another 5,000 people missing.

And of course one should remember that compared to Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, the population of Chechens is tiny. So small, that even if we don't believe what the Chechens say is hundreds of thousands, it's still a quite genocidal killing as there are ONLY two million Chechens. Which just show what a killing spree Russia went in Chechnya, and now you have Chechen fighters fighting in Ukraine on both sides.

How far back do you want to go? Just far enough to prove your point, and no further? — Isaac

With figures from the World Wars you get high numbers of course.

My point is that Russia's way of fighting a war increases both civilian and military casualties. Similar losses that Russian units have suffered, the Western generals and leadership would flinch and pull back. Russians units can be decimated and it doesn't cause a huge political uproar. I think it's been carried from the Soviet thinking and never has the Russian/Soviet war machine care about individuals like the US Army with slogans like "safety first". Of course this has also an impact on the soldiers themselves as they can see that they aren't backed up or taken care of.

I would hazard a guess that no one here would suggest that flattening cities, killing civilians, fighting in trenches on a potato a day, or letting mountains of grain rot while people starve is a "good thing". A good many folks here, though, suggest that if you think X you must be in favour of [insert horror here].

Such arguments are not a "good thing", either. Wars happen because folks think that war is better than submission to [insert arsehole here] This applies even to aggressors, who also think that war is better than submission to [insert limitation of their power]. Thus war entails agreement to fight, and agreement that war is better than submission. Start your discussion with this agreement in mind, that the war is necessary, and the lessor evil. both sides would prefer to have their own way peacefully, but...

the civilian casualties of the Second Chechen war should be added up: — ssu

Why? Should we add up all the collective interventions in the 'war on terror'?

And of course one should remember that compared to Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, the population of Chechens is tiny. — ssu

Ah, so we should reduce your figures for the deaths in Afghanistan? Or do we only reduce figures by population size when it suits you?

And...as still goes unanswered...

Shall we include deaths from starvation and health poverty resulting from pecuniary postwar loan terms? — Isaac

As was famously espoused during the Covid crisis, total unexpected death is the only way to get a true measure of a country's general concern for civilian life.

So. Add up all the avoidable death in the world - the invasions, the starvation, the civil wars, the poor health, pollution, suicides - just how many are on Russia's hands and how many on America's?

Anything less than that is just fiddling with statistics to make your point.

Start your discussion with this agreement in mind, that the war is necessary, and the lessor evil. both sides would prefer to have their own way peacefully, but... — unenlightened

...one has to be popular to become a President and gain power, even in Russia. And for Putin, starting a war has been the way to get that popularity up. It worked earlier so well.


(Notice that the Second Chechen War started in 1999 and raised Putin's popularity from being unknown. And I will add that there have been also other reasons for the popularity, like getting the economy growing in the first decade of the Millennium.)

Ah, so we should reduce your figures for the deaths in Afghanistan? Or do we only reduce figures by population size when it suits you? — Isaac

You're really clueless, you know that?

OK. If the population is only two million and not forty million (like in Afghanistan), then 40 000 killed means that more of the population has been killed in the war.

So. Add up all the avoidable death in the world - the invasions, the starvation, the civil wars, the poor health, pollution, suicides - just how many are on Russia's hands and how many on America's? — Isaac

Too many.

To think this is a question with any significance is to espouse a dogmatic ideology that necessarily creates its negation as the eternal enemy. This is an exercise in futility that the world can well do without, that has taken over from religion as the banner under which wars and other power games are commonly prosecuted. "Your body pile is higher than mine, therefore we are the good guys." Another bad argument.

And for Putin, starting a war has been the way to get that popularity up. — ssu

I think he would have been even more popular if Ukraine had submitted.

I think he would have been even more popular if Ukraine had submitted. — unenlightened

That was the thing Putin was gambling on. And the spectacular success in 2014 likely contributed to these ideas being treated as totally serious. It worked then, why wouldn't it work now?

Besides, this reasoning is quite universal. If the liberation of Kuwait wouldn't have been such an easy thing to do, there likely wouldn't have been an occupation of Iraq by Bush Jr later. Victories promote later hubris, defeats criticism and reconsidering.

To test your interest in a specific, actual diplomatic effort as opposed to theoretical gesticulations in favor of diplomacy in general.

Besides, this reasoning is quite universal. — ssu

Yes. Exactly my point. War is always an agreement.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle. — Lewis Carroll

It doesn't say anywhere that people aren't allowed to make anti-NATO arguments! — Apollodorus

So what?! It still is an excellent example of dialectic diversion, exactly because that piece of anti-NATO propaganda routine has nothing to do with what I was questioning. Indeed even if there was no NATO and no war between Russia and Ukraine involving NATO, all my arguments challenging your theory of the rightful owners as applied to the case of the Crimean Tatars would have been exactly the same.

As for your "disputing wrt Crimean Tatar issue" you could have saved yourself that long and incoherent rant because it looks like you don't have a clue what you're disputing! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
You claimed that "Crimean Tatars became the majority" and then backpedaled by saying "I never said that the Tatars were the majority"!
So, were they the majority or not???
And, obviously, in order to even discuss Crimean Tatars and your spurious claim that "Crimea is owned by Tatars therefore it belongs to Ukraine (or America?)”, we need to establish what a Crimean Tatar is. — Apollodorus

Dude, congrats, you just offered the epitome of your intellectual misery!
Now tell me, where on earth did I claim “Crimea is owned by Tatars therefore it belongs to Ukraine (or America?)” ?! How on earth can you be so intellectually dishonest to double quote something I never written nor implied nor suggested nor believe, yet suggesting I made that claim which is a blatant lie?!
BTW if we need to establish first what “Crimean Tatar” means before discussing “Crimean Tatars” and I also repeatedly clarified what “Crimean Tatar” means to me in my past posts, why on earth do you feel so confident in mixing your claims about “Tatars” with my claims about “Crimean Tatars” to artificially suggest an inconsistency or backpedaling that doesn’t exist ?!

I stand by what I wrote and am responsible for what I write not for that you are incapable of understanding. To repeat once more the point, briefly: “Crimean Tatars” are ethnically indigenous people of Crimea who speak natively Crimean Tatar language (along with whatever cultural&genetic heritage this native language enables people to share, of course) and whose ethnogenesis show a genetic admixture of different ethnic subgroups happening within Crimea in more than 2 millennia.

But if you do not like my definition we can relay on a mainstream source like Wikipedia:
Crimean Tatars (Crimean Tatar: qırımtatarlar, къырымтатарлар) or Crimeans (Crimean Tatar: qırımlar, къырымлар or qırımlılar, къырымлылар), are a Turkic ethnic group and nation who are an indigenous people of Crimea. The formation and ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars occurred during the 13th–17th centuries, uniting Cumans, who appeared in Crimea in the 10th century, with other peoples who had inhabited Crimea since ancient times and gradually underwent Tatarization, including Greeks, Italians and Goths.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars

The Crimean Tatar language (qırımtatar tili, къырымтатар тили, tatar tĭlĭ, tatarşa, kırım tatarşa), also called Crimean language (qırım tili, къырым тили),[1] is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the languages are related, but belong to two different subgroups of the Kipchak languages and thus are not mutually intelligible.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_language

Turkic people are defined as "descended from agricultural communities in Northeastern China and wider Northeast Asia, who moved westwards into Mongolia in the late 3rd millennium BC" (Wikipedia). This is scholarly opinion corroborated by genetic, historical, and archaeological evidence, not a "myth".
This is why they are referred to as "Mongoloid", because they are related to Mongols and some even look like Mongols. "Mongoloid" is the term used by scholars:
Anthropologically, about 80% of the Volga Tatars belong today to Caucasoids and 20% to Mongoloids (Khalikov 1978).
Erdogan calls them "Crimean Turks". How is that better than "Crimean Mongols"???
Obviously, there must be some Crimean Mongols as Crimea was invaded and occupied by the Mongols. But I didn't say ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols. — Apollodorus

You just summed up the roots of your misconceptions about the Crimean Tatars. Crimean Tatars are not the Mongols of Crimea as you called them. Period! Now you are ridiculously backpedaling: proof is that you stopped to call them Mongols of Crimea and you even dare to say ”I didn't say ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols” (which is not only shameless but goofy because calling the Crimean Tatars “The Mongols of Crimea” doesn’t necessarily suggest that ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols, they could just be the majority which is again arguably wrong!). If there was nothing wrong with this label promoting Russian propaganda, you would keep calling them the Mongols of Crimea, instead of moving to “The Tatars of Crimea”.
What is mythical in your flawed reconstruction is the assimilation of Crimean Tatars to Mongols because of their putative historical origins and by conflating cultural aspects (the turkic language which doesn’t even guarantee intercommunicability between Crimean Tatars and Mongols or other Turkic people) with biological aspects (based on the obsolete distinction between Mongoloid and Caucasoid, and notice that phenotypical traits relevant for racial classifications do not necessarily prove anything conclusive about a single genotype, go figure for a mixed genotype, https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/phenotype-variability-penetrance-and-expressivity-573/).
I remind you also of the fact that you claimed “Tatars and other Turkic peoples originally came from the same area as the Mongols and are genetically closely related to them.” which is contradicted by what you just cited “about 80% of the Volga Tatars belong today to Caucasoids and 20% to Mongoloids (Khalikov 1978)” exactly for the reason that if 80% of the Volga Tatar genetic pool is Caucausoids then more closely related to Caucasoids then to Mongols and THEREFORE they should be called Caucasoid, and not Mongoloid!!!
That is also why I refuse to use the generic term “Tatars” to refer to Crimean Tatars, because that terminology will more easily trigger all your misconceptions.
By calling Crimean Tatars “Crimean Turks” Erdogan may be promoting his own propaganda as much as the Russians are promoting theirs by calling the Crimean Tatars “The Mongols of Crimea”, that’s hardly surprising: Putin is even denying the Ukrainian national identity and despite Russians consider them their “brothers” (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/16/we-are-one-people-why-would-we-fight-our-brothers-russians-react-to-ukraine-war-threat-a76414), they are now bombing them, looting them, and raping them to pursue their imperialist ambitions which are arguably more immoral than ancient Mongol-Tatar (non-Slavic) tribes killing, looting and raping ancient Slavic tribes!

On the contrary, my point was that the genetic evidence suggests that many of them are NOT Mongols, NOT Turkic, and therefore NOT Tatars, depending on their genetic makeup. — Apollodorus

You are disastrously reiterating your conceptual confusion: you are conflating biological factors (genetic evidences) with cultural classifications/identities (e.g. what language is natively spoken)! One can be 80% Caucasoid and still speak a Turkic/Tatar language natively!

What makes you think that I must prefer your NATO propaganda to mainstream sources???
And NO, your Tatar witness does NOT support your claim that Tatars are "indigenous to Crimea". — Apollodorus

First of all, this is my quote “I cited this ICCRIMEA article to support the claim that Crimean Tatars are NOT MONGOLS AS YOU CLAIM!!!”
Second, my Crimean Tatar witness supports my claim that Tatars are "indigenous to Crimea" “The above DNA test results reaffirm what we have known from history that Crimean Tatars are descendants of the various peoples who settled and lived in Crimea for centuries. The Crimean Tatars, indigenous people of Crimea, did not just come from the East, as many are inclined to think. Rather, they are the descendants of the people who moved to Crimea from different directions: Scythians, Goths, Byzantines, Genovese, and Turkic groups such as Khazars, Kipchaks, Tatars and Ottoman Turks.” Source: https://iccrimea.org/reports/genographic-results.html
Third, even assumed that the ICCRIMEA article is NATO propaganda, for sure there is no contradiction between NATO propaganda and mainstream sources, concerning the fact that Crimean Tatars are indigenous people of Crimea. Indeed I cited from other sources too: Wikipedia articles, books and anthropological papers dedicated to the Crimean Tatars, scientific papers on the genetics of the Crimean Tatars [1]. All of them support the claim that Crimean Tatars are not the Mongols of Crimea and they are indigenous to Crimea.

Approximately 75 percent of the Crimean population consisted of slaves or freedmen — Apollodorus

My question to you is still the same: if the victims of these raids and slavery market where not only the ancestors of Russians but also the ancestors of Ukrainians or from other Eastern European areas, why are ONLY the Russians repaid for the Mongol-Tatars’ past injustice through the annexation of the entire Crimea?!

Her DNA is as follows:
28% Northern Asian = Siberian (Mongol/Turk) = Tatar
20% Mediterranean = Greek/Italian
22% Northern European = Scandinavian? Baltic?
20% Middle Eastern = ? (Iranian? Turkish? Jewish? Egyptian/Arab?)

In case you forgot, Crimea is in Eastern Europe. There is no Eastern European DNA in your "evidence"! — Apollodorus

So what?! If the test doesn’t report genes that the laboratory could classify as Eastern European this is neither her fault nor laboratory’s fault. Besides the equations you are suggesting are your personal conjectures since the study maps geographic areas with DNA pools, and doesn’t offer any strong evidence to support whatever you may infer from it in racial terms.

And note that she mentions four Turkic groups among her ancestors, which amounts to an admission to being at least in part of Turkic, i.e., Mongoloid-Siberian descent. — Apollodorus

These are your personal conjectures (where again you confuse racial with ethnic concepts), besides the reference to other turkic groups is contextual to a comment about Crimean Tatars in general not to her case in particular (she didn’t say ALL Crimean Tatars! LOL).

Incidentally, note how she conveniently leaves out the Taurian people who were the original, indigenous inhabitants of Crimea!
Also note how she conveniently leaves out the Crimean Greeks who have lived in Crimea from the 7th century BC, i.e., many centuries before the Tatars. — Apollodorus

That she did so out of convenience is just your personal conjecture. Besides, I don’t know her personally, but I know your ideological bias enough to understand why you are motivated to frame her article this way.
Concerning the “indigenous” question, which is the substantial one, let’s clarify another source of misunderstanding: the claim that some people are “indigenous” may be LEGITIMATELY understood in relative historical terms, in the sense some people are “indigenous” if they occupy a land prior to the expansion of a foreign colonial power or the formation of nation state by foreign people in that land. In that sense “Crimean Tatars” are indigenous of Crimea wrt Ukrainians and Russians (as the foreign State contenders of this territory), and so they are officially acknowledged with the status of “indigenous people” by Ukrainians, EU and UN. And this is echoed in mainstream sources too.
However, the claim that some people are “indigenous” may be LEGITIMATELY understood in absolute historical terms as the earliest traceable settlers on a given territory. So the Tauri as the earliest Greek settlers in Crimea can be legitimately considered the “indigenous” people of Crimea in absolute historical terms. Does this settle the issue about the indigenous inhabitants of Crimea in absolute historical terms once for all? To me, ABSOLUTELY NO for three reasons (all supported by mainstream sources): a) in ancient times, the colonial or (semi-)nomadic nature of various ethnic groups and tribes’ settlements didn’t ensure any wide and permanent territorial occupation and control. For example, the Tauri didn’t populate the entire Crimea, but mainly the southern coastal areas of Crimea. The northern part of Crimea was exposed to different waves ethnic semi-nomadic tribes (Iranic, Germanic and Turkic). So none of those ethnic groups had stable, complete or dominant territorial occupation over the entire Crimea. In that sense even nomadic people who settled in Crimea AFTER the Tauri could be considered the earliest inhabitants of Crimea, and so indigenous in absolute historical terms, simply because they were occupying regions of Crimea never inhabited nor dominated by the Tauri! b) The assimilation of earliest ethnic groups (including the Tauri) into the Crimean Tatar ethnic group, so the blood of the ancient Tauri (and other earliest inhabitants) is still running into Crimean Tatars’ veins and being their descendants they share the “indigenous” status in Crimea in absolute historical terms. c) from an ethno-genetic perspective, since the Tatarization of the entire Crimea was possible starting from the 15th century under the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, the earliest dominant ethnic group native to Crimea in the entire Crimea were the Crimean Tatars ("The Crimean Tatar language was the universal means of communication in the Crimea from the 15th to the 19th centuries" Source:https://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/crimean_jews.shtml). And the fact that the officially acknowledged indigenous people of Crimea are so far only Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites, and Krymchaks suggests that there are no Tauri descendants that could claim or could be acknowledged the status of “indigenous” for a distinctive Tauri ethnic-group. So until you can provide evidence for the existence of an ethnic-group with mainly ancient Tauri ancestors distinct from other indigenous people of Crimea, I don’t even see the relevance of talking about them.

Finally, as I already repeatedly argued in the previous posts,
IF your theory of the rightful owners establishes for whatever reason that the Tauris as the unique earliest inhabitants of Crimea or generically “the Greeks” (as Greek is the Tauris’ original ethnicity) are the rightful owners of (part of or the entire?) Crimea,
THEREFORE you should oppose the imperialist annexation or russification of Crimea by Russians
AND promote instead the annexation/concession of (part of or the entire?) Crimea to the Crimean Tauri descendants as distinct indigenous ethnic community (if they still exist) or the Greeks
AS WELL AS the annexation/concession of (part of or the entire?) the Russian Krasnodar Krai since in the same ancient times the Tauris also colonised as first known settlers some coastal areas of the actual Krasnodar Krai (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnodar_Krai#History)!
So, now you have 2 ways to oppose Russian imperialism and promote the magnificent Indo-European Caucaisoid Greek Tauri civilisation (“in his Histories, Herodotus describes the Tauri as living “by plundering and war” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauri )! Good luck with that!

There is really nothing you can do to recover all the bullshits your have shamelessly thrown at me. You are intellectually miserable. I would even respect more professional Russian trolls than you, coz at least they are paid for it.


[1]
The fact that Crimean Tatars' ethnogenesis took place in Crimea and consisted of several stages lasting over 2500 years is proved by genetic research showing that in the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars preserved both the initial component for more than 2.5 thousand years, and later in the northern steppe regions of the Crimea. (Source: https://us.edu.vn/en/Crimean_Tatar_people-0262024006)


“The Crimean Tatars were formed as a people in Crimea and are descendants of various peoples who lived in Crimea in different historical eras. The main ethnic groups that inhabited the Crimea at various times and took part in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people are Tauri, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Greeks, Goths, Bulgars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Italians and Circassians. The consolidation of this diverse ethnic conglomerate into a single Crimean Tatar people took place over the course of centuries. The connecting elements in this process were the commonality of the territory, the Turkic language and Islamic religion.
An important role in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people belongs to the Western Kipchaks, known in historiography as Cumans. They became the consolidating ethnic group, which included all other peoples who inhabited the Crimea since ancient times. Kipchaks from the 11th-12th century began to settle the Volga, Azov and Black Sea steppes (which from then until the 18th century were called the Desht-i Kipchak – "Cumanian steppe"). Starting in the second half of the 11th century, they began actively moving to the Crimea. A significant number of the Cumans hid in the mountains of Crimea, fleeing after the defeat of the combined Cumanian-Russian troops by the Mongols and the subsequent defeat of the Cumanian proto-state formations in the Northern Black Sea region.
By the end of the 15th century, the main prerequisites that led to the formation of an independent Crimean Tatar ethnic group were created: the political dominance of the Crimean Khanate was established in Crimea, the Turkic languages (Cuman-Kipchak on the territory of the khanate) became dominant, and Islam acquired the status of a state religion throughout the Peninsula. By a preponderance Cumanian population of the Crimea acquired the name "Tatars", the Islamic religion and Turkic language, and the process of consolidating the multi-ethnic conglomerate of the Peninsula began, which has led to the emergence of the Crimean Tatar people.[19] Over several centuries, on the basis of Cuman language with a noticeable Oghuz influence, the Crimean Tatar language has developed.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars#Origin


This sort of debate has also swirled around the issue of the ethnic identity of one of Europe's most misunderstood Muslim ethnic groups, the Crimean Tatars. While the Crimean Tatars (who were exiled in toto from their homeland from 1944±1989 by Stalin) see themselves as the indigenous people (korennoi narod) of their cherished peninsular homeland, with origins traceable to the pre-Mongol period, they have long been portrayed in western and Soviet sources as thirteenth-century ``Mongol invaders’’.
Source: Williams, Brian Glyn. 2001. "The Ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars. An Historical Reinterpretation"


While the Crimean Tatars are traditionally described as descendents of the Golden Horde, the formation of this Turkic-speaking, Sunni Muslim people has pre-Mongol origins in the ancient, indigenous peoples of the Crimean peninsula. They believe their history begins with the tribes living
in Crimea in prehistoric and ancient times, including the Tavriis and Kimmerites, who occupied the peninsula from 2-1,000 B.C.E. (Kudusov 1995: 15). The Crimean Tatars therefore consider themselves one of the indigenous peoples, along with the Karaims and Krymchaks
Source: The Crimean Tatars’ Deportation and Return - GRETA LYNN UEHLING (2004)


Under the Imperial Russians, the Crimean Tatars, whose ethnic origins went back to the eleventh century Kipchaks and beyond to earlier south Crimean peoples, such as the Medieval Goths, Greeks and Italians, would begin to disintegrate as hundreds of thousands of the Tsarina’s new Muslim subjects fled Russian repression to the sheltering lands of the Ottoman sultans/caliphs. The majority of the Crimea’s Muslim Tatar peasants would ultimately leave the peninsula to par- take in hijra (migration to preserve Islam from oppression by the non- believer) to the Ottoman Empire.
Source: BRIAN GLYN WILLIAMS “The Crimean Tatars” (2016)

2. “The Westasian and Mediterranean genetic components (population of Asia Minor and Balkans) predominate in the gene pool of Crimea Tatars, the Eurasian steppe component is much fewer.” Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311805917_The_Tatars_of_Eurasia_peculiarity_of_Crimean_Volga_and_Siberian_Tatar_gene_pools
3. The Eurasian genetic influence concerns particularly a subgroup of Crimean Tatars:
“It is the most likely that discovered features of Steppe Crimean Tatars gene pool reflect the genetic contribution of medieval Eurasian Steppe nomads. The component predominant in Mountain and Coastal Crimean Tatars gene pools and in Crimean Greeks suggests that genetic contribution of East Mediterranean populations continued in Crimea for many centuries.”
Source: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-gene-pool-of-indigenous-crimean-populations-mediterranean-meets-eurasian-steppe/pdf

OK. If the population is only two million and not forty million (like in Afghanistan), then 40 000 killed means that more of the population has been killed in the war. — ssu

I wasn't talking about the changes to your argument regarding Chechnya, I was talking about the changes to your argument regarding Afghanistan. You cited absolute figures for Afghanistan because they looked big, then when you want to make smaller figures look bigger your revert to proportional figures. It's just a really transparent trick. Hence my reference to totals.

If you want to use figures to make the claim that Russia cares less about civilian deaths than America, then you need to compare the actual number of civilian deaths each country has knowingly caused, in total, by it's various actions. Anything less is just lying with statistics.

To think this is a question with any significance is to espouse a dogmatic ideology that necessarily creates its negation as the eternal enemy. This is an exercise in futility that the world can well do without, that has taken over from religion as the banner under which wars and other power games are commonly prosecuted. "Your body pile is higher than mine, therefore we are the good guys." — unenlightened

Then you might want to take the matter up with @ssu who made the claim...

But the numbers from Afghanistan, Syria and the two Chechen wars simply show that Russia doesn't care so much about civilian casualties. — ssu

...but still, I think it's relevant here. If one of your choices when fighting a bear is to let a lion in to the arena it's relevant to know whether the lion's going to do more damage to your bear than it it is you.

To test your interest in a specific, actual diplomatic effort as opposed to theoretical gesticulations in favor of diplomacy in general. — Olivier5

And how did you suppose it was going to do that? By catching me out in a cunningly worded question? Are you one of the people who think "What's in your bag, sir?" actually catches terrorists?

Of course I would be in favour of a diplomatic solution to the blockade, but I would say that even if I weren't because it's so obviously the only reasonable sounding thing to say, so I fail to see how you've 'tested' anything that you didn't already know.

for Putin, starting a war has been the way to get that popularity up. It worked earlier so well. — ssu

Yeah, what are those warmongering Ruskies like eh? Such a thing would never happen in civilised countries...

You seem to be getting increasingly confused and irrational. :smile:

You posted that propaganda piece on Tatar DNA to “prove” that Crimea belongs to Tatars and that Tatars are Ukrainians hence Crimea belongs to Ukraine.

But you haven’t answered my question of why (a) she leaves out the Tauri and the Greeks, and (b) why she has zero Eastern European DNA.

You probably imagine that we haven’t noticed, but her post was republished by Euromaidan Press, an anti-Russian outfit, back in 2015 to “prove that Putin is wrong about Crimea”! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

In other words, your "evidence" is not from some reputable scientific publication, of course not, but from evidence-free, anti-Russian propaganda literature.

Not only you have no evidence for your spurious claims, but it was YOU who brought up the Crimean Tatars!

My original argument was (1) that “every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners” and (2) that if NATO wants to give Crimea to Ukraine after it’s been annexed by Russia, it should start by returning Tibet to the Tibetans, North Cyprus to the Cypriots, Kurdistan to the Kurds, etc.

You seem to have got mad at the suggestion that Tibet belongs to the Tibetans and started hurling invectives. And you’ve been incoherently ranting ever since.

It should be obvious that Crimea doesn’t need to be given to the Tatars the same way Tibet should be returned to Tibetans (1) because Tatars are an alien minority in Crimea whereas Tibetans are native to Tibet and (2) because Crimea has been Russian (not Tatar) since 1783; for the same reason, Crimea should not be given to Ukraine.

However, as I’ve repeatedly stated, the principle that every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners needs to be applied on the merits of each individual case.

In Crimea’s case, I never said that it MUST belong to Russia. On the contrary, given that when Russia took Crimea from the Turks, Russia and Ukraine were one country, Crimea in an ideal situation should be amicably shared by Russia and Ukraine (with some additional rights given to Crimean Greeks and others).

In fact, Crimea was initially shared after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Russia was able to use the naval bases there. But this was rendered impossible when America insisted on drawing Ukraine deeper and deeper into its NATO spiderweb.

Very simple and easy to understand IMO. Unfortunately, the ignorant and the uneducated are unable to understand, and NATO jihadis don’t want to understand. This is why they irrationally insist that Crimea belongs to Ukraine, Ukraine belongs to NATO, and NATO belongs to America!

As for my referring to Crimean Tatars as “Mongols of Crimea” it’s the same as the Turkish government calling them “Crimean Turks”. It simply refers to their generally accepted Turkic/Mongol ethnicity:

Mongoloid adj.
1. Resembling or having some of the characteristic physical features of Mongolians; spec. designating or relating to the division of mankind including the indigenous peoples of eastern Asia, South-East Asia, and the Arctic region of North America, who are characterized by dark eyes with an epicanthic fold, pale ivory to dark skin, straight dark hair, and little facial and bodily hair. – Oxford English Dictionary, online version (2022).
Mongoloid
/ˈmɒŋ.ɡə.lɔɪd/ is the general physical type of some or all of the populations of East Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Siberia, the Arctic, parts of the Americas and the Pacific Islands, and small parts of South Asia. – Audiopedia
Mongoloid
Pertaining to a race of mankind, characterized by a faintly yellowish skin, an epicanthic fold, sparse body hair, and black straight head hair. – A Dictionary of Genetics (2007).
Mon•gol•oid
(ˈmɒŋ gəˌlɔɪd, ˈmɒn-) adj. 1. of, designating, or characteristic of one of the traditional racial divisions of humankind, marked by yellowish complexion, prominent cheekbones, epicanthic folds, and straight black hair and including the Mongols, Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, Eskimos, and, in some classifications, the American Indians. – Websters College Dictionary (2010).
Mongoloid
anthropological term designating one of the major groups of human beings originating from Asia, excluding the Indian subcontinent and including Native American Indians. – Forensic Science Communications, FBI Laboratory (2005).

See also:

Tatar n.
1. A native inhabitant of the region of central Asia extending eastward from the Caspian Sea, and formerly known as Independent and Chinese Tartary. First known in the West as applied to the mingled host of Mongols, Tartars, Turks, etc., which under the leadership of Genghis Khan (1202–1227) overran and devastated much of Asia and Eastern Europe; hence applied to the descendants of these now dwelling in Asia or Europe; more strictly and ethnologically, to any member of the Tâtar or Turkic branch of the Ural-Altaic or Turanian family, embracing the Turks, Cossacks, and Kirghiz Tartars. – Oxford English Dictionary (online version, 2022).

Anthropologically, about 80% of the Volga Tatars belong today to Caucasoids and 20% to Mongoloids – “Mitogenomic Diversity in Tatars from the Volga-Ural Region of Russia” (2010).

I even demonstrated to you what a REAL Crimean Tatar looks like. I think even the blind can see the resemblance with Mongols:

WIKITONGUES: Neceadin speaking Crimean Tatar - Youtube

So, I’d highly recommend you go and educate yourself before discussing things of which you have no knowledge or understanding.

The fact is that the Crimean Tatars EMIGRATED. They weren’t “expelled”. Millions of people from England, France, Germany, and other European countries including Russia emigrated to America. It doesn’t mean they were “expelled” or “persecuted”.

Moreover, the vast majority of Crimean Tatars emigrated to Turkey between 1783 and 1897 because they were a Turkic group. Clearly, they saw themselves as non-Europeans and preferred to live among their Turkish kinsmen than among Europeans. The Turkish government refers to them as “Crimean Turks” and “our kinsmen”.

Given that Tatars were a Turkic group that originated in Northern or Eastern Asia (Siberia), the original Tatars had Northern/Eastern Asian DNA.

As they migrated to Central Asia and then Europe, they mixed with the local, non-Asian populations and acquired non-Asian DNA.

If Tatars had been the “majority” in Crimea prior to its takeover by Russia in 1783, Crimean Tatars would have more than 50% Tatar DNA. But your own “witness” has majority-European not Tatar DNA and this is confirmed by Volga Tatars who are more European than Tatar.

This is entirely natural, as Tatars were a MINORITY that subjugated the local population and imposed its language on the locals. Even you have admitted that Tatars “became the majority by assimilating local populations”. Assimilation of other populations means Tatars assimilating non-Tatar DNA, resulting in Tatars with significant and even overwhelming non-Tatar DNA, e.g., your “witness” or “evidence”!

Three things become obvious from this:

1. Tatars proper were never a majority in Crimea.

2. People currently called “Tatars”, including Crimean Tatars, are in reality mostly European with some Tatar admixture.

3. Not all Crimeans who spoke or speak Tatar (a Turkic language) are Tatars proper. For example, many Tatar-speakers are in fact Greeks, also known as Urums (from Arabic-Turkish Rum, Roman).

This means that Crimean Tatars must be carefully distinguished by their ethnicity:

Tatars proper (with majority North/East Asian DNA).
Ethnically mixed Tatars (with a mixture of Tatar and non-Tatar DNA).
Tatarophone non-Tatars (with non-Tatar DNA but speaking Tatar), e,g., Crimean Greeks.

It follows that when applying the principle that “every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners”, a wide range of factors such as genetics, geography, history, language, and culture must be taken into consideration, and a decision must be taken on the merits of each individual case.

Tatars proper (“Crimean Mongols” or “Crimean Turks”) cannot be regarded as “rightful owners” because they came to the area as invaders.

Moreover, they are currently a small minority and therefore not an issue. It is made an issue by anti-Russian Westerners and CIA-NATO trolls.

In any case, Crimea has never belonged to Ukraine. It was taken by Russia (i.e., local Eastern Europeans) from the Turks (who were invaders from Central Asia) and it has been Russian ever since. So, nope, it doesn't "belong to Ukraine" and even less to America! :grin:

Of course I would be in favour of a diplomatic solution to the blockade, — Isaac

Does that mean you support Mario Draghi's efforts?