#Russia top opposition publicist Yulia Latynina today posted a comment that left my jaw wide open.
She had no more no less equated the torture and murder of 26-years old #Ukraine journalist Victoria Roschina, whose body was then mutilated before returning to Ukraine, with the death of Gonzalo Lira, a 55-years old Russian spy, alcoholic and chain smoker who died in Ukrainian prison of… pneumonia.
Latynina didn’t use some half-baked analogies, she wrote outright “he was tortured to death in the same way” (he wasn’t).
That’s not end, then she decided to continue by accusing Ukraine of “using all these tragic incidents, deaths of civilians and rocket hits” of… dehumanising Russians.
The problem is it’s not Ukrainians or Poles “dehumanising” Russians - it’s Russian army, politicians and publicists who dehumanise themselves by periodically acting inhumanely, both in deed and in word. Russian hits on Ukrainian towns and civilians are dehumanising Russians by blatant, repeated violations of International Humanitarian Right. Russian publicists periodically calling for “final solution of the Ukrainian problem” (literally that), “eradication of Ukraine and Ukrainians”, cheering the hits on civilians and justifying their war crimes act inhumanely, therefore it’s them who dehumanise themselves, not their victims.
Latynina’s original post: https://x.com/YLatynina/status/1917544968442327176 (in Russian)
@kravietz opposition
@markvonwahlde Well, officially…
@kravietz @markvonwahlde
Good point! Nowadays… they aren't opposition — nor they represent anybody: neither those staying in Russia, not those attempting to put an end to this, they are left to their own devices… And as a Russian I often feel ashamed of what I see in their articles 😩
Latynina is a special case though — at least to me she is. Even a decade ago some were in awe of her articles, but to me it seemed something like ChatGPT's output…
@kravietz @markvonwahlde
Before LLMs were mainstream. At times she was quoting early poets or medieval authors and a lot of people were like: "Oh, that is very smart!", but I was always like: yep, this text looks coherent, but is there any meaning to it, do you have any idea what that might mean? Few had an answer, and the ones who had were saying something about the imagery — well okay, but this is supposed to be a political text, WTF 🤷