[scrollaway]

Your freedom went away the moment you started reading Russian propaganda (or, more certainly, propaganda from our local Russian political assets)

France is not sending people to "die in Ukraine", no matter how many potholes you might find to support your bias.

[riehwvfbk]

This kind of shallow dismissal is very hard to take seriously for those of us who personally know soldiers from NATO countries who are currently "on vacation" (officially) in Ukraine. This approach, by the way, has been borrowed wholesale from Putin's playbook in Crimea back in 2014. But officially you are right, they are not there.

[pas]

there are NATO personnel already in Ukrainie officially. no need for Russian style vacation for them.

https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-18/nato-per...

[riehwvfbk]

Well, I happen to know people in the US military who have been on this vacation since the beginning of the year. I am not particularly social or well-connected, so the fact that I know someone like that means it's widespread. Downvotes or no, that's reality.

[pas]

it doesn't logically follow from the fact that you know about a group that there are similar groups.

for example let's say you know a few people who work for the military and they happen to work at Area 51. sure lots of people know military personnel, but your sample is still pretty special. without a good representative sample we simply have no idea.

[scrollaway]

First let’s get one thing clear: NATO sending personnel is not France sending personnel. The two are distinct and anyone who would make a valid point in a conversation about this understands that.

Second, Putin’s playbook is to sow discord by introducing a bunch of FUD into the political discourse across the world, something which you are doing here. So the remaining question here is: are you doing so willingly, or are you just prey to the same?

Because this is HN, I always believe it’s the latter. Still, your comment is unsourced, your account is four months old, and all your historical comments are systematically pro Russia and/or peddling common Russian talking points that “get people thinking”. Not a good look, huh?

May we meet on vacation.

[riehwvfbk]

So the "good look" is when people aren't thinking?