Claims of an alleged migrant "influx" have become increasingly common in Ukraine in recent months, in what experts describe as a coordinated disinformation operation.
The central theme in these claims is that foreign labor migrants are allegedly arriving in Ukraine to replace the country's population while Ukrainian men continue fighting at the front.
The claims have spread quickly across social media and Telegram channels, and even appeared in mainstream reporting.
Although Ukrainian media o
The far-right tendencies aren’t inherent, but the far right dominates street politics, has hundreds of thousands of “normie” followers, is getting help from Reuters et all uncritically accepting their image as “senior commanders” of “respected units”, and threats and attacks on their opponents have become a continuous reality. Damn, this media is like gaslighting me. I’m not anti-Ukrainian, I’m Ukrainian. I just ask people to recognize a threat and do something about it, at least mention it by name and not pretend it isn’t there.
The antidote that the left and center have dangerously forgotten to emphasize is that fascists suck at war, they are obsessed with the imagery of violence without desiring to know how to conduct war as a profession.
This is the ultimate rhetorical rejection of fascism since fascism thrives under (fabricated and desperately hyperbolic) fears of some outside violent force… and yet even in that moment when people’s brains are most operating from a “fight or flight” mindset fascism still fails to give people what it promises in the drug of its propaganda.
In all of the cultural contexts I have experienced there is an implicit assumption that rightwing people and mentalities are more realistic about violence and better suited to understanding war. Think of the stereotype of a strong conservative man and likely you will think of something similar to what you kneejerk think of as a grizzled military general or a cowboy… but these mentalities are catastrophically suited to war since they are again obsessed with the aesthetics of war and violence and how it makes them feel to dress up in it, not the actual study of war as an academic and professional pursuit. Look no further than Pete Hegseth for Exhibit A.
You can temporarily train fascists how to conduct war intelligently, but they will always forget what you teach them in favor of fighting in a way that more closely aligns with their fascist obsession with strength and domination. Similarly you can have an army of veteran soldiers that is commanded by a fascist organization in a way that makes the experience of the veterans meaningless as they are discarded in futile military operations that are done to perform strength and force rather than win battles.
People must get this through their heads, we don’t need rightwing extremists to teach us how to kill just because they are obsessed with the imagery of killing.