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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • The war is largely in a stalemate at the moment. Odds are, if this continues for years longer, Russia will eventually win just by virtue of having more people to send to die for the country, but if it comes to that, Russia will suffer far moreso than they already are, both due to increased strikes within Russia and just loosing the majority of their working population.







  • I mean, at least in this summary (the article is pay-gated) it sounds like his point is valid. The line, “The fact that he was a soldier does not mean that he was a Nazi.”, seems suspect, but I assume by “Nazi” he means the ideology or the political party directly, which could be true. Again, working purely off the summary. As Himka stated, those in Ukranian divisions may have been motivated to volunteer by fear of continued Soviet atrocities after witnessing the Holodomor and other crimes against humanity, or by vengence for these crimes.

    If Yaroslav Hunka did join for these reasons, I think the matter is a lot more grey. If you watched your family and friends die to a violent, genocidal government, its not weird that you might be willing to work with another if you think they’re a less immediately dangerous. Of course, if thats not the case, or he did support the Nazi party, the ideology, or if he was involved in any of the division’s war crimes, then all of this is out the window and he deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law. My point is that he should be proven guilty before being counted as a supporter of the Nazi ideology, and there is still room for error currently (unless there’s social media posts or other evidence I don’t know of).

    Edit: And just to be extra clear in case it wasn’t obvious, I think supporters of the Nazi ideology, its modern incarnations, facists, and racists are all terrible. I think anyone who supports these belefs should be denounced and avoided. I just also believe that it is important to be certain of the accusation of something so awful before condeming someone for them.


  • Everything stops after that right? There can be no saving grace for someone who was in the SS.

    There are some rare cases where where individuals would breifly join SS divisions, specifically to fight the Soviets rather than due to alligence to the Nazi ideology. Larry Throne is a notable example. The First Galician seems to have had a significant number focused on fighting the Soviets in a similar matter, although elements of the division did commit atrocities in Poland. Canada’s 1986 investigation into the division after the war concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to condem the whole group

    Of course, “not found guilty” doesn’t mean innocent. My point is purely addressing the, “There can be no saving grace for someone who was in the SS.” I still think this is a ridiculous situation, that he should not have been invited unless they can confirm with great certainty that he was not a supporter of the Nazi ideology and did not commit any crimes. If they can’t even check what division he served in, clearly anything more is outside their ability. Hopefully he is investigated properly given the spotlight, and extradited if needed.

    Edit: Worth noting that this was a Ukranian division after the Holodomor. Its no wonder that many would be willing to join a war against the country that had murdered millions of their people already. For scale, its estimated that the Holodomor killed 3-5 times as many as the holocost in Ukrane.