>Dough
>scruffy band of tin soldiers
https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1497365845642780673
RUSSIA: "Russia does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which are part of Syria" Polyansky called out Israel on using the word "Tel Aviv", which indicates Russia does not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of "Israel", but as a Palestinian city. – at UNSC
https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1497418988673974275
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/25/russia-ukraine-president-zelensky-family-target/
The Washington Post has reported that Zelensky had been warned by the US for weeks over threats to himself. The publication reported CIA director William J. Burns, who met Zelensky in January, had warned the Ukrainian president to take his security seriously.
“We have been making him aware not only of the threat of Russian invasion, now a reality, but also the threat to him personally. We stand ready to assist him in any way,” US Representative Adam B. Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told The Washington Post.
>The Washington Post has reported that Zelensky had been warned by the US for weeks over threats to himself. The publication reported CIA director William J. Burns, who met Zelensky in January, had warned the Ukrainian president to take his security seriously.
>Sounds as if he needs to be protected from the CIA/whatever….
>“We have been making him aware of the threat to him personally.” US Representative Adam B. Schiff
Marge Simpson is Ukrainian
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/world/europe/militias-russia-ukraine.html
Far-right militias in Europe plan to confront Russian forces, a research group says.
Members of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion leading military exercises for civilians amid the threat of a Russian invasion, in Kyiv, this month.
The Russian attack on Ukraine has prompted a flurry of activity among far-right European militia leaders, who have taken to the internet to raise funds, recruit fighters and plan travel to the front lines to confront the country’s invaders, according to a research group.
In recent days, militia leaders in France, Finland and Ukraine have posted declarations urging their supporters to join in the fight to defend Ukraine against a Russian invasion. The posts have been located and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, a private organization that specializes in tracking extremist groups.
Rita Katz, the director of SITE, said that numerous far-right white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups throughout Europe and North America had expressed an outpouring of support for Ukraine, including by seeking to join paramilitary units in battling Russia.
The motivation to travel to Ukraine, she said, was to gain combat training. It was also ideologically-driven, she added, since these far right groups viewed the fight against Russia as a fight against communism, clinging to World War II historical narratives, and associating modern-day Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, with the former Soviet Union.
“Instability in Ukraine offers white supremacy extremists the same training opportunities that instability in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria has offered jihadist militants for years,” said Ali Soufan, who heads the The Soufan Group, which has been documenting for several years how the conflict in eastern Ukraine has emerged as an international hub of white supremacy.
“Civil wars and insurgencies frequently draw in outside volunteers; some may initially join for humanitarian purposes but still exacerbate and prolong the conflict and violence,” he said in a statement to the Times.
The apparent mobilization of far-right groups could be problematic for the Ukrainian government, playing into Mr. Putin’s depiction of Ukraine as a fascist country, and his false claim to be waging war against Nazis who control the government in Kyiv. In reality, Ukraine has a democratically elected government and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish.
Some of the activity appears to be centered on the Azov Battalion, a unit of the Ukrainian National Guard that has drawn far-right fighters from around the world, SITE said. That group came together following the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and saw action against pro-Russian militias.
In one declaration, posted this week on the messaging app Telegram, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a leader of the Azov Battalion’s political wing called for a “total mobilization” of the group, and pointed volunteers toward recruitment resources online.
Earlier this week, Carpathian Sich, a Ukrainian group, posted donation information to its Telegram channel, seeking money from its followers via PayPal, as well as with the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron cryptocurrencies.
The same information was shared on several Finnish and French far-right sites, among them “OC,” a white nationalist site. This week, the group posted a pro-Ukraine statement on its Telegram channel, encouraging its subscribers to make donations to Carpathian Sich. A subsequent post said, “Just like the U.S.S.R., Putin will be defeated,” by aligning “French nationalists” with the Ukrainian people.”
Neo-Nazi and white supremacist Telegram users from Finland also encouraged fellow Finns to join the fight alongside Ukrainians, SITE reported. One post said, “the age-old duty of the Finns has been to wage war against the Russians.”
“Russia has always been persecuting us, and that snake will not drop until it knocks its head off,” said the post, according to SITE. “The best solution would be to make a collective surprise blow and knock out Moscow to the Stone Age.”
https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/
Facebook Allows Praise of Neo-Nazi Ukrainian Battalion If It Fights Russian Invasion
The reversal raises questions about Facebook’s blacklist-based content moderation, which critics say lacks nuance and context.
Facebook will temporarily allow its billions of users to praise the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit previously banned from being freely discussed under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, The Intercept has learned.
The policy shift, made this week, is pegged to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and preceding military escalations. The Azov Battalion, which functions as an armed wing of the broader Ukrainian white nationalist Azov movement, began as a volunteer anti-Russia militia before formally joining the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014; the regiment is known for its hardcore right-wing ultranationalism and the neo-Nazi ideology pervasive among its members. Though it has in recent years downplayed its neo-Nazi sympathies, the group’s affinities are not subtle: Azov soldiers march and train wearing uniforms bearing icons of the Third Reich; its leadership has reportedly courted American alt-right and neo-Nazi elements; and in 2010, the battalion’s first commander and a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Andriy Biletsky, stated that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].” With Russian forces reportedly moving rapidly against targets throughout Ukraine, Facebook’s blunt, list-based approach to moderation puts the company in a bind: What happens when a group you’ve deemed too dangerous to freely discuss is defending its country against a full-scale assault?
According to internal policy materials reviewed by The Intercept, Facebook will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.” Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”
The materials stipulate that Azov still can’t use Facebook platforms for recruiting purposes or for publishing its own statements and that the regiment’s uniforms and banners will remain as banned hate symbol imagery, even while Azov soldiers may fight wearing and displaying them. In a tacit acknowledgement of the group’s ideology, the memo provides two examples of posts that would not be allowed under the new policy: “Goebbels, the Fuhrer and Azov, all are great models for national sacrifices and heroism” and “Well done Azov for protecting Ukraine and it’s white nationalist heritage.”
>SITE Intelligence Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SITE_Intelligence_Group
SITE Intelligence Group is an American non-governmental organization that tracks online activity of white supremacist and jihadist organizations. It is based in Bethesda, Maryland. From 2002 to 2008, SITE Intelligence Group was known as the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute. SITE is led by the Israeli analyst Rita Katz.
To view the bulk of the contents and reports of the SITE website a person, government, or company must subscribe to SITE Intelligence Group.
On September 2, 2014, SITE sent the video of Steven Sotloff's apparent beheading to its subscribers before the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant released the video.
On August 18, 2021, Katz commented that “The Taliban of today is immensely savvy with technology and social media" and, in regards to demands by U.S. conservatives wanting "to know why former president Donald Trump has been banned from Twitter while various Taliban figures have not", responded that "The Taliban is clearly threading the needle regarding social media content policies and is not yet crossing the very distinct policy-violating lines that Trump crossed.”
>SITE is led by the Israeli analyst Rita Katz.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?180201-1/terrorist-hunter
January 15, 2004
Terrorist Hunter
Ms. Katz talked about her book, Terrorist Hunter: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman Who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America, published by Ecco. Ms. Katz, who had originally had the book published anonymously, talked about growing up in Iraq and the course that led her to become a terrorism investigator in the United States. She argued that there are many front groups in the U.S. that funnel money to Muslim terrorist organizations overseas. Ms. Katz also talked about the reach of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, the influence of Saudi Arabia, and the way the Internet is used to recruit future terrorists. Following prepared remarks, she responded to questions from the audience.
>Facebook will temporarily allow its billions of users to praise the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit previously banned from being freely discussed under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy.
>The Azov Battalion, which functions as an armed wing of the broader Ukrainian white nationalist Azov movement, began as a volunteer anti-Russia militia before formally joining the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014; the regiment is known for its hardcore right-wing ultranationalism and the neo-Nazi ideology pervasive among its members.
>Facebook will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.”