УБИЙСТВО ЛИБЕРАЛЬНОГО ПОЛИТИКА ( The murder of the liberal politician)

The known Russian liberal politician Boris Nemsov was killed 2 days ago in Moscow.
In my article I write about the different reasons of this bloody assassination which are discussed in Russia.

Here is the link to the Russian version of my article:
http://www.lingq.com/learn/ru/store/lesson/513068/guest

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Nice strawman argument again, Evgueny. Wouldn’t expect anything less. Still pushing that mh17 barrow? Pretty disgusting, mate.

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Hi ! =)))

Did you expect anything different from him, though? :wink: Isn’t it clear as a day, had he wrote what he REALLY thinks, he’d be immediately, er, let’s put it mildly, taken care of?..

On the other hand, I DO agree with you, one might just at least abstain from “pushing that mh17 barrow”, altogether; at least that would be more honest…

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The thing is – no serious western media is blaming anyone directly for this. Yet Evgueny is rushing to the strawman argument that all of western media is blaming someone for this, same as mh17 blah blah blah.

Pretty rich when you consider Evgueny was already fingering culprits for mh17 before any investigation- while his own government was deliberately obstructing the UN from starting an investigation. Absolutely disgusting.

He’s either lying, or, just a hypocrite. But it is hard to tell which.

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Yes, you’re absolutely right! I still didn’t see a SINGLE serious Western media to DIRECTLY blame someone for this assassination, true that! While resorting to smth having absolutely nothing to do with reality, resorting to allegedly direct accusations in this case, er, well, is not the best way, let’s put it that mildly. :wink:

Oh, mh17 investigation obstruction is a separate story in its own, right you are!

Ah, you’ll probably will be shocked with my answer to the last nearly rethoric question, but we are ALL compelled to be lying hypocrites here, in this country, due to the circumstances that are way too obvious for you to explain them here! :wink:

Is this comedy hour? No Western press is blaming Putin? In any article, about 90% will be spent on outlining how Nemtsov was a critic of Putin, how he feared for his life, how other Russians have been killed for opposing Putin, and then will usually be trotted out the lines from Kasparov accusing Putin, or some other person accusing him. Then buried in the article will be a line from Peskov or Putin or Lavrov saying that it was a terrible crime and will be investigated. I guess you’re right, none flat out state “Putin killed Nemtsov” in the headline – but the insinuation is clear. To say the Western press is not blaming Putin is putting a pretty dishonest spin on it.

And as for the hypocrisy, haven’t the Western press and politicians already judged and apportioned guilt for MH17? Investigation still going isn’t it? We all know who benefited most from the downing of MH17…

Disgusting – that’s having someone like Poroshenko addressing our parliament and going to our War Memorial. He should be in The Hague on trial, not in Canberra.

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Hi ! =))

Strange as it may seem, it’s definitely NOT Putin to be blamed, and it’s just enough to watch his reaction so as to immediately feel how much perplexed he himself is, and the reason is much too apparent…

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I don’t like to argue with someone. My experience tells me that it’s a waste of time.
At least, your countryman Wato answered you very good, thanks, Wato!
I give only the main Russian opinions about this murder and the western accusations against Putin and Russia.
You can hate Putin,and I personally don’t like some of his decisions.
But you have to pay attention to the fact that 80% of the Russian population support him.
And the main point: all people can have their own opinion - it’s OK.
If all in the world would have the same opinion, the world could be very boring.

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These ‘magic’ 80%, it’s a joke in Belarus to say something about 80% here after one of the next ‘elegant’ re-election of Lukashenko. Everybody finds these 80% funny because it’s evidently not true.
I personally know just a couple of person supporting the current regime. I can see how political technologies successfully tested in Belarus appear in Russia. 80% - that is not funny any more, it’s our common tragedy.
It’s sad so meny people still believe in any numbers they can hear from TV.

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Hi! =))

May I be rather harsh and sarcastic this time to bring up the historic parallels? :wink:

I bet he fails to gain the Soviet era habitual 99.98% in support of Lukashenko, doesn’t he? :wink:
That’s why state-run TV is surely OK, but brain function has never been redundant! :wink:

Im with Wato here, in the UK, as soon as the news broke of this Boris dying, it was Putins fault. No one said it directly, but all of our news papers and news it was implied. We tend to ignore the news though, especially after Iraq, our government lied and lied to us about how deadly Saddam and his WMD were, ignored the UN etc.

These days, the big bad wolf is Russia and Putin. MH17, the east of Ukraine, etc. Not that we pay much attention to this attempt to scare us. Perhaps not all of Putin’s decisions we agree with, but certainly over the last ten years, his foreign policy has been admired. The EU and US would certainly be IMO bombing Syria right now like they did to Libya if it were not for Russia, for instance.

“MH17 Barrow”. In the UK, as soon as that plane went down, every single news paper the next day had “Putin’s missile” or some over way of putting it, on their front page. As if the news and papers already had definitive proof it was him directly.
Months down the line, we don’t hear anything about that plane now.

I turn on my TV, apparently “Pro US troops” are fighting “Pro Russian troops” in the east of Ukraine. Every time I read or listen to anything about any situation, I have to assume they are being biased in some way. We are in this age of media propaganda. Us vs them, dichotomy.

I don’t know who to believe anymore, but certainly nothing at face value.

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At what point should we start to say, yes there always bias but we know at least some facts… people who are now deceased. …where and when deaths happened… photographic or video evidence of crimes that have third party verification etc etc

And to what conclusions are we led by facts?

the only alternative seems to be to fall into a bottomless pit of paranoia

There are certain facts we know for sure.

  1. Russian soldiers without insignia forcefully seized Ukrainian military posts and gov’t bldgs in Crimea while Russian led militia seized the local Duma, leading to a referendum in which only one side could present their views and the other side was intimidated. We know this from many sources including Putin’s admission (after his initial denial) of the role of Russian troops. This started the massive and senseless tragedy that we are witnessing in Ukraine.

  2. The same Crimean “militia” led by Russian agents Girkin, Bezler and Borodai started and led an armed insurrection in Donbas, with the same intention. Things went sour.

  3. Russian media has consistently called the Kiev government fascist, and fanned hatred and hysteria on Russian government controlled media, with fabricated stories about babies crucified by Ukrainian troops, and other nonsense using photoshopped pictures, from other conflicts, and phoney “witnesses”. This has fanned support for Putin’s war on Ukraine, incited “volunteers” to go there by the thousands, and encouraged Putin to keep supporting the insurrection with ams and troops.

  4. The presence of Russian troops, both “volunteers” and regular troops, massive Russian arms, has been documented by photos and articles, including the most recent interview in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta with a Russian tank commander from UlanUde, which has been widely circulated in Russia. At least three reporters following the story of dead returning Russian soldiers were earlier assaulted or intimidated, several TV Dozhd reporters, and Lev Shlosberg, journalist and local Pskov deputy.No one has been convicted of these crimes.

  5. Russian government officials and media continue to lie, claiming there are no Russian troops or weapons there, and throw in stories about “according to our sources there are NATO troops” fighting for Ukrainians.

  6. Both sides are using crude artillery with the result that there have been large scale civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. The result is a disaster resulting in over a million refugees, most of whom fled to other parts of Ukraine, although Russian media implies most have fled to Russia.

  7. When MH17 went down, the Russian govt issued a barrage of often contradictory but false information about Spanish air traffic controllers, Ukrainian fighter aircraft witnessed shooting at the Malaysian airliner, Ukrainians aiming at Putin’s plane, etc.

  8. There is an abundance of evidence, geolocated photos, rebel twitter posts and interviews, on the ground eyewitnesses in Torez, etc. confirming presence of Russian BUK anti-aircraft complex in Ukraine at time and place of of downing of MH17, etc, much of which is detailed in report to be found at bellingcat.com. We will eventually know the decision of Dutch investigation but evidence points overwhelmingly to Russia.

  9. Nadia Savchenko, Ukrainian soldier, was captured by rebels (video of her defiant interview is available on internet) and taken to Russia and is being held there (over 8 months) against her will, on totally unjustifiable grounds. Russia has no jurisdiction in Ukraine. There has been no evidence put forward which would implicate her in death of Russian journalists, and she is on 80+ day hunger strike. Russian authorities claim that Shavchenko, this defiant Urkainian, sought refuge in Russia, and then changed the story to accuse her of illegally entering Russia. This action is symbolical of Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Cruel, illegal, and senseless. Russia no longer wants Donbas (Novorossiya) because it is going to be too expensive to maintain it. So they have just created a colossal human tragedy for no real reason.

  10. Nemtsov was killed near the Kremlin the night before a planned demonstration. It is hard to believe that he would not be followed by Russian secret police. It is hard to believe that all 15 or however many cameras in place in the area were not working, all of a sudden, on this night. It is hard to understand why the scene of the accident was washed clean before any forensic work could be done. It is hard to understand why Putin would say this act was a “provocation” before any investigation had started. It is hard to believe that the Ukrainian secret service is the chief potential perpetrator rather than all the people who have been calling for Russian “fifth column” people like Nemtsov to be killed. It is not as if there are no precedents of opponents of the government being intimidated or killed. But for now we don’t know, but based on previous cases, we are unlikely to ever know, who killed Nemtsov.

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I should add that the level of civilian casualties in Donbas is nowhere near the level attained in each of the Chechen wars, where residential areas were deliberately targeted by Russian troops, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths. In Donbas, it would be appear that damage to civilian property has, on the whole, not been a deliberate strategy by either side.

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My God, Steve, you’ve just gathered and repeated all clichés of the Werstern propaganda. Do you really believe in all of that?..
Of course, I could repeat the statements of the Russian propaganda, but I don’t want to do it. All sorts of propaganda- Russian, Western or Ukrainian - are very biassed and not really proven like this plane crash, Russian army in Donbass etc.
We have to hope that last agreement in Minsk will be fulfilled though there’re a lot of ‘separatists’ that are not satified to live again with Kiev and would like to be independent and there are a lot of forces in Kiev that are also not satisfied to think about the federalisation and would like to continue the war. But Minsk is the only real chance to stop the war and to keep Ukaine as a united state.
It’s a disaster - this last assassiation of Nemsov, but it’s very stupid to blame Putin or Russian secret service in it. Why? For what reason? Nemsov was never a danger for Putin.
But every person can have his own opinion like Barac Obama who can’t forgive Putin that he is mnore popular not only in Russia, but even in the world in spite of all bad events of the last year. That’s why Obama leads this fierce fight against Putin using the sanctions and all kinds of provocations.
Irt’s stupid because Russia as a great country will never toady tp the USA. The Russians never bowed and scraped before somebody or something in all our History! Maybe it’s difficult to understand for the Anglo-Saxons. I can’t help here.

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Once more here comes Steve’s western world agenda. Do you ever compare the media of the both sides, or do you just consume the lies without much research and believe everything that they say with no shred of doubt? I don’t trust the western media and all western governments.

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You know I always have great respect for you, Evgueny. I spent time translating your lesson instead of doing Chinese…:) However, if this is any indication of Nemtsov’s outspokenness in his final hours
( Boris Nemtsov's final message: 'Putin has programmed Russians to hate strangers' | The Independent | The Independent ), that is, if the conversation is legit, I’d have to say that the average Western mind would indeed think it was a political assassination to silence him!

Edited out the rest, because it was 1:00 am ramblings.

I respect your opinion, Julie, like also Steve’s and the other ones. But we all can have different opinions, can’t we?
That’s why nobody makes me name ‘white’ for ‘black’ and ‘black’ for ‘white’. My lifestyle is to be franc and open.
Putin makes a lot of mistakes like we all. But I don’t see his guilt at least in the crash of MH17 and in the killing of Nemsov.
And all notorious ‘proofs’ in the Western Mass Media are for me a ‘straw man’ or a provocation against Putin. However, I give different opinions existing in Russia about Nemsov’s killing, not only my opinion.
What about Ukraine, it’s a more difficult story. Putin could without too big efforts invade into it in April and take the whole country if he really would like to do it. in facts, he wanted to take only the Crimea because of the history and the wish of the people living there. They are also not slaves and could chose what country they would like to leave and what country they would like to join. Without it we could have the second Kosovo or the second Donbas also in the Crimea.
That’s why he took part in the negotiations Minsk-2 and make the ‘separatists’ sign it up though the most of them were against any compromise with Kiev after so many victims of the peaceful people in Donbas caused by the Ukranian army.
However, I understand that the actions of Putin in Ukraine can be criticized - and we have also in Russia different meanings about it.
But not having the same views in politics, we can just be good friends in the language studying.

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Thanks for that recording. I watch Первый Канал every day, so I understand where you are coming from. For those who aren’t familiar, it’s sort of the polar opposite of Fox News in the US. When I started learning Russian, I really enjoyed it, and I even thought highly of Putin. How times have changed. Now I see the return of the cold war, a turn away from peace and democracy, and it saddens me.

Although I haven’t watched much Western coverage, I believe most of what Steve wrote. It’s not very hard to put together if you watch the news in several languages. Most of my Russian tutors don’t watch Первый Канал, and some have expressed frustration because they believe Putin was involved in this. Anyway, I realize trying to convince you of anything is a waste of time for both of us, so I’ll shut up now.

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I mostly follow Russian and Ukrainian sources.

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