Funny how that works.

But the weapon manufacturers are happy. Seems like that's whose running the country now!

I guess their preferred styles of mass slaughter and intimidation are slightly different. Their social conservatism is all the same though, regardless of what Putin's propagandists here will have you believe.

There have been Chechen battalions on the "Donbas Russian" side for over a year. Ossetians, too. Along with various other ethnicities from Russia.

As for "Nazis," Parry's hung up on a symbol. Hate Jews, believe in ethnic supremacy, shut down the non-Russian orthodox churches (whether Adventist, Baptists, or Ukrainian orthodox) and arrest and humiliiate pro-Ukrainian sympathizers, ban Ukrainian, and bash gays, even fly the Russian or Soviet flags and say Stalin and Beria were cool, and in Parry's book you're just fine. As long as you don't include symbols from WWII that are "Nazi."

It's not the substance. It's the form. Shit in the form of a swastika is pure evil. Shit in the form of a hammer and sickle is better than tirasmisu.

Lost in the story was the OSCE observation of trainloads of Russian armaments north of Mariupol. It's one of those funny observations that everybody's come to accept without being willing to worry about. Ukraine: "Russia's providing armaments. Look, here there are." Russia: "No, we're not." And the West mostly said, "No, we have to conclude there's no evidence Russia is, because if so it would be an escalation." Later, it's clear Russia is, but since the furor's died down, those who knew and wouldn't say it out loud shrug their shoulders: "So?" Those who knew and insisted on the truth have a pyrrhic victory--right all along, the result is still dead Ukrainians and an emboldened Russian nationalist movement based on Russian superiority, Orthodoxy, empire, and, in part, ideology.