Odd that that site would still be there. In a creepy way.
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Well⌠they didnât do so well in the Georgian war too⌠they won but not without significant casualties. So which begs the question⌠what exactly did russia do in the military exercises they had back in January if they are still taking heavy casualties in this war?
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I donât see how, outside of NATO reports that we would know what the January exercises were. I believe there would have been official observers but they donât publish their reports and satellite photos also arenât really available.
Maybe they arenât performing well but Russia is advancing. We think they are doing badly but to my mind more Important is how do they think they are doing. If Putin fired Gerasimov, it sounds bad but Russia has a history of this so not necessarily a bad thing.
This report is more questions than answers I guess which is the point. Fog of war for civilians is real. Those who have answers arenât talking to us. If they are, I suspect more to spread misinformation than enlighten.
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The case for actually getting information right is unfortunately not so for TimeGhostâs latest video:
Iâd say, âSo much for giving proper historical context to the headlines of today,â because I have problems to point out with this video:
INDY: Two days ago, the Russian forces bombed the Babyn Yar Memorial, a sacred site of remembrance for tens of thousands of victims of the Nazis from multiple massacres during WWII.
SPARTY: The bombing was not a mistake â they targeted a TV tower that is on the site to knock out public communications in total disregard for what they were striking.
It is true that the Russians were targeting a TV tower on the site, but total disregard? Anyone whoâs analyzing the situation without rose-colored glasses can call out flaws in that statement:
Sparty even stated that the memorial itself wasnât damaged:
It did not damage the memorial itself â but it hit ground that is the resting place of the victims.
As for âhitting ground that is the resting place of the victims,â wellâŚ
Ynetâs reporter in Kiev (yes, Iâm still using the old spelling) said, after visiting the site, the memorial was not harmed and no bomb, missile or artillery shell hit the site itself.
The damage was caused to nearby Kyivâs communications and television tower complex, some 300 meters (400 feet) away from the new memorial and a kilometer (3,000 feet) from the old one.
Three missiles â launched from aircraft flying above the cloud cover â did land around the compound surrounding the communications tower, causing great damage to buildings belonging to its administrators.
But the massive tower itself remained unharmed, but for some minor impact from shrapnel and stains caused by black smoke.
It seems the reporting that the Babi Yar Memorial itself was hit was part of the Ukrainian misinformation campaign, aimed at destabilizing the enemy. Therefore, it appears the only reliable sources of information regarding the fighting are the American intelligence agencies and those of the U.K., which are not only able to receive reliable information on events on the ground but are also able to evaluate it correctly.
Mind you, this is from an Israeli source:
Way to poison the well, guys. Not quite a good start. Thought TG wouldâve learned not to do it from the last time I criticized a TG video in detail:
SPARTY: The people of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic also suffered the highest percentage of casualties of all Soviet Republics, and the second biggest casualty rate from Nazi crimes against humanity after Poland.
I think he meant civilian casualties, in which case itâs correct. Regarding military casualties, however, ethnic Russians were still the majority of those.
SPARTY: Like with most national ethnicities, including Russians by the way, some Ukrainians did collaborate with the Nazis, but they constituted a small minority of the Ukrainian people â most were either victims of, or fought the Nazis.
True. However, that âsmall minorityâ statement is rather disingenuous to throw around indiscriminately, as a general pro-tip. Even small minorities can become nightmares for the entire group.
SPARTY: When the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, the newly-sovereign Ukrainian state came together with the Jewish community to create a memorial and continue research into the personal identity of each victim.
Nitpick here, but the memorial center was actually established in 2016 (around the time of the 75th anniversary of the massacre), not 1991.
SPARTY: It is as much a Jewish as a Ukrainian story â the memory of yet another mass murder against the Ukrainian people, that the Russian Armed Forces have now desecrated, while perpetrating yet another aggression on the Ukrainian people.
Itâs the same aggression, not another one. And I somehow doubt TG would mention the Azov Battalion and the aggression against the Donbas, however complicated it actually is.
Ukrainians arenât innocent flower children being beaten up, just as Russia isnât the good guy or it isnât me being âpro-Putinâ in this situation. Conflicting information and misinformation campaigns from both sides also donât help. That is why I took a strict pledge of neutrality regarding this conflict both for my students and in internet chatrooms.
War is complicated, and poisoning wells to provide a deliberately one-sided narrative of any war â not just the current one â only makes things worse for everyone involved.
Also, a bit of an irrelevant side note, but JD and I canât help but notice how angry Sparty was when he said that line. We suggest a calm attitude when approaching a topic like this, especially when information is all muddied.
INDY: Spartacus made an episode covering the Babyn Yar massacre a year and half ago when it happened in our timeline over on the WW2 Channel.
We have edited out the other events of that half year to give you a deeper understanding of the tragedy, and to keep the memory of the victims alive.
It is hard to watch, but an essential part of Ukrainian, Jewish, and human history that must not be forgotten.
If anyone is squeamish at ruthlessness and brutality and if he doesnât want to learn about human stupidity when studying history, heâs not suited to studying history, period. This is why I donât use trigger warnings in class â anyone who needs one is not suited for history class. Harsh attitude? Perhaps, but I stand by it.
By the way, here are some New York Times articles to prove that the massacre was never forgotten before 1991, even with Soviet silence on the matter:
October 7, 1961
December 17, 1961
August 4, 1972
So when Sparty says:
When the war ended, the site was purposefully forgotten as part of the Soviet effort to avoid talking about victims of the Nazis as being Jewish, and focusing on the tragedy of WWII as an anti-communist event.
âŚheâs sorta right, but not quite. See that poem above.
On to the description of the events, he didnât do too bad a job there. 
JD gave me this map which might be of help:
Yellow is the cemetery, white star is where the massacre happened, east star is where they were gathered, west is where the train station was.
POINT OF INTEREST: The actual location of the massacre was only pinpointed in 2020:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/mystery-solved-babyn-yar-massacre-location-pinpointed-after-79-years/
Even with my acknowledgements of the competent parts of this video though, I would suggest (a) toning down the emotional presentation just a notch (itâs understandable though, considering the war being covered, but it can be easy to manipulate a narrative with emotion, as I have noted in their U.S. Army racism video)âŚ
âŚand (b) using better and more sources (at least he used two decent ones here, which is better than the single bad source used for the U.S. Army video).
Any changes coming by, please let me know.
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