#Ichkeriya

[unhonestlymirror]

Draw Ukraine beating the shit out of Russia?

Since I've done it already twice, I have a better idea

[samueldays]

'Effectively, Ukraine has eliminated Russian ground forces'

...claimed an 'Eastern Europe expert' in this thread in March 2022, one month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I was reminded of him when looking through some chatlogs today. At the time, I thought he was making absurd predictions, but figured he might try to water them down to claim something like accuracy if Ukraine won in the next month or two, stretching the definitions of words.

Now it's been a year and a half, and I want to revisit Sergej Sumlenny's bluster, not just for him being thoroughly personally wrong, but as a general reminder that anyone can call themselves an expert, and still be completely wrong.

In the first month of the war, this guy was saying shit like:

Russia and its army are about to collapse. RU obviously has no reserves left

Russia has been "about to collapse" every month for the last twenty months, somehow.

According to Ukrainian intelligence (and they get much info from the US I guess) Russia has already used 95% of all its ground forces gathered for the invasion, and it makes almost 100% of Russia's active ground forces. Effectively, Ukraine has eliminated Russian ground forces

If Ukraine would resist several more days, I am sure Russia will face the biggest defeat in its history. Nothing comparable. It will also trigger independency movements in Russia-occupied countries of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Ichkeriya, Sakha, Komi and others

I am not seeing these things that were supposed to happen after "several more days".

When Moscow army will be eliminated (and it nearly is)

I am also sure - very soon we will face a shiny glorious future without the Prison of Nations. Thank to brave Ukrainians.

"very soon" has come and gone, Sergej, why are you still here?

The simple explanation, IMO, is that this guy is a pure propagandist, nothing else.

Perhaps he was never attempting to say anything true at all, he was completely disconnected from the evidence, Ukraine paid him to say pro-Ukraine things so he said the things his paymaster wanted. If Russia had paid him, he would have said the opposite.

But the thing about the Sumlennys of the world is that someone has put quite a lot of money into making them look expert. A Twitter account is free and can be set up in five minutes. A website for the European Resilience Center, maybe fifteen minutes and ten bucks to host. The content over at European Resilience, with regular updates, takes a bit more work. But Sumlenny being interviewed by external sources like France24 is not so easily manufactured.

For more on Ukraine's planned counter-offensive and all of the latest in Russia's brutal year-long invasion, FRANCE 24 is joined by Sergej Sumlenny, Journalist, Political Analyst, and Managing Director of the European Resilience Initiative Center.

Sumlenny got similar treatment in a wide variety of news outlets from ABC to Al Jazeera. Journalism delenda est. Both for Sumlenny personally, and for the many other journalists who interviewed him, respected him, failed to fact-check him, treated him as an expert, and gave him the prestige of an expert. There's two different meanings of "expert":

"expert" as in "has a credential and is used as a source on the subject being discussed"

"expert" as in "consistently produces good results and correct predictions"

and Sumlenny was very much the first sort. Which also has two meanings when I say it: that he was not the second sort, and that people did cite him and invite him and treat his opinion as being worth more than some random Tumblr blog.

(One might like to have a word that only means the second sort of expert. Good luck keeping it!)

The information ecosystem is polluted by Sumlennys. It's easy and common to go "Russian bot", but one should also have a mental space for "Ukranian bot", and then expand that term far enough to include Sumlenny, or have some other term for the less-obviously-bot-like people performing expertise as they spout nonsense. There is no side that is free of lies and nonsense, there is no credential that is clean, there is no institution that is clean. The clown world experts are everywhere. Sumlenny was not acting alone, nor is he unique, Sumlenny merely happened to get my attention, and the "factcheck" system that journalists love to talk about didn't catch him. It's not going to catch slightly more subtle lies. Epistemology is hard.

[darii-thegreat]

I btw lived with russians. I've lived with them for half a year, at least. and you know what? I'm not in Ukraine atm. they have lived outside of russia for a long time. and they still support it. yes, they say, it's not true.

but they to my face they don't care who wins, they want war to stop.

they don't know what ichkeriya is. they don't care that they started multiply wars in a span of 30 years.

they want news to stop because they make them depressed.

well, russia makes my friends dead, so i will continue to make all of you depressed until you go fuck off

[unhonestlymirror]

If you had a bad day, look at a Chechen woman absolutely destroying two russians in Finland

[unhonestlymirror]

A great deal; you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way; they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should - so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

[unhonestlymirror]

Quick sketch of Ichkeriya

[unhonestlymirror]

"We don't talk about current triggering dark events" - oh really, well I do, goodbye, I am glad for my existence itself being triggering for ya

[unhonestlymirror]

Honestly, it always amazed me how in Ukrainian society, we spread awareness about occupation of Ichkeriya, Sakartvelo, Crimea, even indigenous Siberian people - but when it comes to Belarus, our Baltic neighbour who was literally shot dead and russified not so long ago, who also had heavy repressions and artificial famines by russians - in fact, it still is repressed by russia through Lukashenko's regime and victims of repressions are MY PEERS EVEN - then suddenly Belarus is "Slavic russia's sister". And it was like this even before 2022 russian invasion of Ukraine. I really don't get it. The similarities between Belaruthian culture/language and Lithuanian are, in fact, so noticeable, that russia tried MULTIPLE TIMES to sew them together and label LITHUANIA "Slavic russia's sister", TOO. AND LITHUANIA IS NOT SLAVIC AT ALL, IT IS BALTIC. BALTIC. ALWAYS HAS BEEN. WHY THE HELL BELARUS IS SLAVIC, THEN. That's also why Lithuanians nowadays really don't want to have connections with Belarus - they don’t want to fall under russian occupation again.

People believe that if we sacrifice Belarus to russia then we will be safe?? It didn't prevent russia's invasion of Ukraine. The first step of decolonizing russia, the first step of returning back our safety is accepting the fact that Belarus is not "Slavic russia's sister".

Some of these costumes are Lithuanian, some are Belaruthian.

[unhonestlymirror]

Ukraine when people draw fanart of poor moscow on fire in 1812, but no one draws Ichkeriya's Grozny being the most destroyed city 2003 (because of russia), or destroyed Aleppo, or occupation of North Osetia, or occupation of Chishima and Karafuto or occupation of "brotherhood ussr nations" or partition of Germany on GDR and FRG, or invasion in Qazaqstan, or-

[unhonestlymirror]

I'm Asian American, and I myself didn't see an issue with your doodle of Belarus and China (though, I'm glad you added more context on why China was trying to flirt with her, because I would've been confused on what it's referencing to). The person who called you out is not wrong about anti-Asian racism existing; there is a long history of racist Orientalists and white supremacists drawing caricatures exaggerating our small eyes. So when we learn about this and are hurt by it, we subconsciously start seeing (re: projecting) it when we think it's happening, even if there may be no racist intent.

BUT not everything has a racist undertone or intent. International relations are more complex. Like @themrsalbertwesker said, we're not a monolith. Asians still come in different eye shapes. In my eyes (no pun intended lol), his eye shape was just your stylized way of China expressing flirtation.

Yeah, people's eyes are usually more narrowed when they're smiling, yk

I would make a different design (of eyes as well) if I drew some specific groups of people of China, like I draw Ichkeriya completely different looking from russia.

I also headcanon the bigger countries having wider range of appearances to change, so I can draw the one character looking completely different from time to time

I know how it happens with projecting, and that's why I don't have any negative feelings. I can be biased too sometimes. I already explained everything I could, so if people still see something offensive, I can't fix that...

Anyway, that comic was 100% satirical and focused on Belarus, so I'm not surprised XD. I apologise for not adding context earlier, though. Feel free to redraw it, if you feel something to change for the better!

[unhonestlymirror]

You know what I find funny? russians having moto "russia will be free" - because by this they mean the same country within the same borders. Well, the only way for russia to become free is to stop being called russia and fall apart into a thousand small pieces - which not-like-others russians don't want to happen, in fact. They don't want Ichkeriya to become independent, they don't want people of Siberia to become independent, they want to live in their "happy" fairytale in which they can consume its resources and complain how bad their life is and how people who speak their own language are russophobic. That's why the "new russia" flag is fucking funny to me.

[unhonestlymirror]

Evaluating the countries of Eastern Europe (in which I've been) by whether they deport Himaruya✨️🕊

Latvia: 1/10- they don't know what is hetalia and Thanks God, lucky people

Lithuania: 2/10 - also don't know what is hetalia, but if they see chapters with their country and russia, they will ask him, "Whose Crimea is", "What do you think about Ichkeriya" and other stuff which will make him feel uncomfortable. Lithuanians love Japanese people, but they absolutely can't stand russia supporters, so idk.

Belarus: 5/10 - Belarus people hate violence, however, russians, who occupied it, WILL deport Himaruya to Poland, not because he's the hetalia author but because they simply like making people suffer. And you don't wanna know what happens to those who are being deported to Poland from Belarus

Poland: 4/10 - they do not care about hetalia. They would be upset by how Japanese people perceive them, tho.

Ukraine: 8/10 - we want to forget hetalia like it was a nightmare. Also, most of us never heard about it. But if they did, Himaruya would be deported to his beloved russia, being previously kicked by feet. I am surprised he's still not in the Myrotvorets list.

[unhonestlymirror]

*chokes and shakes Himaruya like Kermit the Frog*

Who are those others??? By whom he was forced to be an underling??? By whom he was EVER bullied??? GDL (Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine), who minded their own business until moskovia (russia) started invading it, killing and raping people? Maybe Qazaqstan and other Central Asian countries whose leaders were beheaded and whose heads still remain in russian museums??? Maybe Sakartvelo, Ichkeriya, Syria??? Maybe Japan, whose Chishima and Karafuto got occupied and destroyed completely, and whose daruma doll was stolen as "matryoshka"? Maybe Latvia, who has a catastrophic percentage of russian-speaking people even now? Maybe Poland???? Don't be ridiculous.

[unhonestlymirror]

So many russia fans in hetalia - and not a single one of them draws Ichkeriya. Cowards. What a shame. SHAAAAAAME.

[unhonestlymirror]

I dislike "russian liberals" even more than rashists because the second one are at least honest in their bloody intentions. Ask any russian liberal if Ichkeriya, Siberia, and others should be independent - and they won't answer you. Because their perfect russia is still imperialistic russia