According to the Post Millennial, Lira was arrested by Ukrainian security in May 2023 after he was reportedly critical of President Vladimir Zelensky’s handling of the war being fought against Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine.
Lira’s comments included claims that Ukraine’s efforts to win the captured territory back have gone nowhere and their people are dying for a war that is already lost.
Describing him as a “journalist” is an Elastigirl-level stretch.
I haven’t seen any indication that he did anything other than post wildly and transparently wrong pro-Russian claims about the war. E.g., quoting from the DB article, that Ukraine “deliberately tried to have a nuclear accident” to pin it on Russia and possibly drag America into his war, or that the Russian invasion was “one of the most brilliant invasions in military history.”
If that’s really all he did, then it’s hard for me to say that he deserved to die in prison for it. But maybe someone inside a country where around 200,000 people have been killed or wounded by the invasion might feel differently. Also, why is this article being so dishonest about what it was he said that got him in trouble?
Lira’s comments included claims that Ukraine’s efforts to win the captured territory back have gone nowhere and their people are dying for a war that is already lost.
See above.
According to the BBC, which spoke to a Ukrainian soldier on the frontlines in December, Lira’s comments appear to have contained some truth, as Russian forces have repelled numerous Ukrainian counter-offensive attempts, which have depleted large portions of their experienced fighting force. The soldier stated the troops feel left behind at this point, saying, “No one knows the goals. Many believe that the command simply abandoned us. The guys believe that our presence has more political than military significance. But we just did our job and didn’t get into strategy.”
The BBC reported that the Ukrainian force’s ability to man the frontlines could soon end as over 20,000 men have fled Ukraine since the start of the war, which has led Ukraine to only secure small victories in recent months, which included the recapture of small pieces of territory that were strategically abandoned by Russian forces.
Why is this in the article about Lira? If the article is Russian (or, anti-Ukrainian at least) propaganda, then it makes perfect sense to include these paragraphs. I’m a little hard-pressed for any other reason it would be here.
Why do you think? The US and GB are looking for any excuse to cut funding to Ukraine, because it can actually be won. Better then to let the conflict continue for many decades. There’s more money to be made in the long run. So you gotta spin a little yarn, include some unnecessary details, gesture mildly at “possible interpretations”.
The US and GB are looking for any excuse to cut funding to Ukraine
The UK has just dumped another £2.5 billion into zelenskys coffers
So it’s propaganda to say Ukraine is losing and was pretty much always losing?
Nice strawman. Specifically what I highlighted in my comment were:
- Describing this guy as a “journalist”
- Wildly misrepresenting the reason for his imprisonment
- Inserting one-sided commentary on the progress of the war overall into an article that has nothing to do with “How well is the war going?”
All of those, I would say, represent propaganda, because none of them would have any business whatsoever in the article if it were an attempt at honest journalism.
But yes, in addition, I would say that it’s propaganda to say that Ukraine is losing. If I had to point to a single objective assessment of how the war is going, it’d be this map (from this article). There’s a bunch of Ukrainian territory captured by Russia since the start of the war, and a bunch of territory recaptured by Ukraine. Ukraine could still “win” the war in the end, or they could “lose.” But for the Russians to have been fighting for almost 2 years and only have rolled from 0-150 km into Ukraine at the nearest and furthest points of the border makes it hard for me to say the Ukrainians are “losing” the war.
(Edit: Here’s the BBC article quoted in the OP article)
One sided commentary about how the war is going? What kind of fantasy world do you live in where reality and unreality have equal journalistic weight.
As for your understanding of how war works, it’s about as bad as your understanding of journalism and propaganda. The fact that Russia pushes past the areas that it now occupies is how it came to occupy those areas. You don’t march your forces to a line and just stop. You clear far ahead of what’s defensible, set up your defenses, and hold. That’s what you’re seeing in that map and the idea the Russia is losing because of that is, quite literally, lying Western propaganda.
One sided commentary about how the war is going? What kind of fantasy world do you live in where reality and unreality have equal journalistic weight.
I could send you ten different accounts of Russian soldiers going through their own version of the hell this guy was going through. If I did that, would you say they should have equal “journalistic weight” as this guy’s (assumedly very real) suffering?
Edit: I ask this because your separation of what information into “reality” and “unreality” is a very, very effective propaganda technique when those terms are given a certain type of definition. My suspicious is that accounts of suffering Russian soldiers or Russian losses, no matter how well-documented, would be classed as “unreality” or rejected for some other reason. My way of looking at the world is that as long as it’s pretty well-documented, either “side” of information can be accepted. A propagandistic view of the world is that only one “side” can be accepted, and the other side is “unreality” or has some similar reason for being dismissed. For that reason it’s a pretty important question.
You clear far ahead of what’s defensible, set up your defenses, and hold.
The west side of the Dnieper river is “cleared” by Russian forces, is it? Is that what you’re saying?Edit: Actually, let me ask it differently. So your assertion is that “winning” a war looks like pushing your forces over a river, advancing a few tens of km, then engaging in fighting and pulling back to the far side of the river, then having your enemy’s troops cross the river and entering into a protracted monthslong stalemate on your own side of the river. That’s the intended goal of the operation (“how war works”) when you’re winning; is that your assertion?
You mean holding the ethnically Russian territory and then settling in for a long conflict to drain your opponent of materiel? When your primary advantages are size, production, population, and patience? Yes. I would say that the particular position of the Russian army is achieving it’s strategic objectives quite well.
So the intended strategy is to “settle in” on their own side of the border and spring-2022 frontline, to patiently drain Australia, the EU, Canada, and the USA of materiel, until we are all exhausted by the limitless might of the Russian industrial economy?
Ukraine has problems in the war, to be sure. (A shortage of men in the war of attrition being one of them, absolutely.) But that way of explaining the strategy doesn’t make it sound like winning to me.
Considering the US is clawing back munitions from allies, UK has announced multiple shortfalls of ammo and personnel, Germany has deindustrialized, and multiple fronts have opened up against the West (Niger, Palestine, etc) and Russian production is in full swing, it sounds like a winning strategy to me. Every war the West has lost they lost against an entrenched enemy.
Yeah, FYI, he was given every opportunity to leave, and was kicked out at one point, but chose to return. He was shilling for an invading foreign power, and deliberately chose to continue despite being given every warning and chance there is. Calling his arrest unfair is some impressive mental gymnastics. So is calling him a journalist.
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I never said that. I especially did not call him a journalist. What I did say was that his arrest was justified, contrary to what some others claim in this comment section.
He should not have died, that part we can probably agree on. I’m looking forward to more info on the circumstances of his death.
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I still fail to see which “journalists” you are talking about.
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Be obnoxious asshole that does not contribute anything
“Hey I’m a journalist, you can’t touch me. Just like the bad guy from Lethal Weapon 2, I got diplomatic immunity!”
Meanwhile, the Z gang is shooting at actual journalists, but that’s ok because they are on your side. They shouldn’t have come to an active war zone. Oh sorry, special military operation zone.
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He was arrested as he was planning to leave. There was a video he had made right before he was arrested at the border on his way out on his bike. There is a video of it out there somewhere.
Not defending him, did not watch much of him aside a couple of clips. So, I cannot really opinionate either way.
I may not be a fan of his work, but it always sucks to have a journalist die because of corruption and unfair imprisonment.
