I have checked on one Ukrainian YouTuber whose videos I have occasionally enjoyed, although I was not a subscriber. Here is his extensive take on the conflict, accompanied with some first-hand information about the “not targeting civilian targets” lie, the “NATO expansion is the problem” canard, “denazification” misinformation, the victim-blaming, whataboutism, and others. For example – Russian tanks are shown to fire into apartment buildings. That is not an imprecise airstrike, that is a deliberate war crime.
I did not enjoy this video at all, but I watched it all all the same.
Content warning: war, violence, explosions. Video cannot be embedded thus -click-.
Video has hard-coded English subtitles. I do understand enough Ukrainian to confirm that they are correct.
Powerful video. I hope he and his family are OK.
A very sad video. I too hope his family and him are okay.
I could watch the video, if only I would be willing to sign in. I don’t. I do have a pretty good idea what it is about, I think. The хуйло called Путин is devastating a country and killing its population.
(whispering)You may want to change an into a as “ukrainian” doesn’t start with a vowel in pronunciation.
@René
It does when pronounced sensibly (i.e. as Slavic nations pronounce it) and not according to nonexistent English rules. Honestly, some typos and mistakes will always be present in my titles and articles, sometimes deliberate, sometimes accidental. If I tried to correct every small mistake that creeps in, I would be at it all day and got nothing else done. I would love to omit “the” and “a” from my writing altogether because they are both completely nonsensical and redundant words, they have no meaning, convey no information and there is absolutely no sensible reason why any language should have them.
Fuck English language and its multitude of stupidities..
Yes, I am in a foul mood.
Huh, I’ve been speaking English my whole life and never noticed that an is used for nouns that start with a vowel. It doesn’t seem to apply to some words that begin with Uk. I certainly pronounce Ukraine with initial U.
A ukulele, an apple, and an orange walked into an English pub. Yes, this makes no sense but sometimes *A* simply sounds wrong.
Sorry about the foul mood.
@5
That’s because those words start with the invisible consonant Y: “Yookraine”.
What gets weirder is the behaviour in front of words beginning in H.
@xojohn An invisible consonant is not a thing. You can’t read invisible letters. Y is a semi-vowel in any case. An is also used when the h is silent as in an hour, an herb, an honor, but it’s a hero or a hinge.
@7
Definitely is too. That’s why the space before Ukraine is actually a little bigger than normal, to fit the invisible Y in.
Silence is not sufficient: by some (but not all) speakers it is “an historic event”.
Regardless of the correct use of invisible letters, both Ukraine and ukulele violate the rule in English where an is the indefinite article used for nouns that begin with vowels.
I’d definitely use “a Ukrainian” or “a ukulele”. An just feels wrong. So “a” before words that start with the consonantal Y.
Back in the ancient days (ca. 2010 on the internet), there was the saying “trolling is a art”. I guess you could say the same about spelling.
I feel it’s pointless to discuss the finer points of English grammar with a person who began their comment with I’d.
Invisible spelling (?!) should be self-explanatory.
In any case I hope these people and my various friends in Ukraine are still alive, which is far more important. Fuck Putin!
@12 …or someone who thinks there’s anything remotely wrong with “I’d”…
I am being fed up with quibbling over the minutiae of English grammar, so cut it off.
I posted this on Pharyngula. Thought it might be of interest.
One of the founts of tankie wisdom is a ‘journalist’ called Pepe Escobar. Read this brilliant analysis by him, written on Feb 24;
https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/7266
Apparently Ukraine lost the war in the first hour;
I wonder where Pepe Le Peww got his info on the day of the invasion.
@Rob Grigjanis, that article aged like fine raw chicken. However, it made me nearly puke, it is that awful. Anyone who roots for Putin like this is neither progressive, nor leftist, nor a decent human being.
I guess it is the same thing as with the accidentally published celebratory article a few days after the start of the war. I.e. it was written in advance with full confidence in the Russian invasion and scheduled to be published at a specific time as a propaganda boost. Only the Ukrainian army has thrown a lot of sand into the propaganda cogs by not folding immediately as Putin thought they would.
I think that a lot of this comes down to Zelenskyy personally. He did not follow the script. He did not flee, he does not cower in a bunker somewhere out of danger, he was not quickly assassinated and above all, he is skilled, charismatic, and persuasive orator when it comes to the pinch.
Charly @16: What makes me want to puke is that we still see people commenting on FtB who take ‘journalists’ like Escobar seriously, even after they have shown beyond any doubt that they are nothing more than Putin PR hacks.