Russians In Ireland
Author: Anton Dykyi 🇺🇦 🇬🇧
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A couple of months ago, I promised to look at the posts by the largest russian emigre community in Ireland. Pre-amble: it's ridden with chauvinism, racism, support for russia and war in general. A thread 🧵
The group is maintained by several russian admins. A prominent admin is Kristina Butusova, a Latvian, and a founder of the Cultural Association "Russian Ireland".
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The group seems as your usual assortment of nostalgic posts and ads for services by the emigre community. That would be the first (and wrong) impression. The posts that get highest levels of engagement are about politics and, of course, Ukraine. Let's dive into this cesspit.
Here Kristina makes a bait post about the strain of Ukrainian refugees on public resources. Kristina posts about supposedly more than 100,000 refugees that might come to Ireland. The Irish Independent is quoted, but not further links are of course provided.
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Let's look at the typical comments and reactions by the "community": racism, chauvinism, homophobia - you've got it all, baby
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More of the same + the calls for which-hunts, questions about where the refugees live and calls for their immediate deportation. Yeah, that's ordinary russians for you. That's just one example, but I've got plenty more. Buckle up
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"Ireland is waking up" (Is there a case asking some Ukrainian refugees to go home)
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"Ukraine was sold as a New Jerusalem" Notice the thing dig at (((them))). Why do russians hate jews so much? Never understood this.
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Here's a truly gold one, by our friend, Kristina Butusova, again. Note few bits:
- She quotes a source again (no links given)
- "Putin's speech is serious"
- "Minister discussed Russia's "crimes"(!!!)" Note the comments under the post. Note the pro-putin post by Kristina herself
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More gloating about the energy emergency. Very patriotic for someone presumably being an Irish citizen
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Links to the cuckoo youtubers ("JOE BIDEN WILL DESTROY EURO"). Ehh, what?
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Posts about "Ukrainian Nazis", "Western Provocation" by "John Connolly" (totally not a GRU psyops shill, pinky promise). Reactions are as you expect - a cesspit ("nazis in Latvia" , "muh rusophobia", etc etc etc.). Tacit approval by group admins of course.
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That's enough for the first post of what will become a recurring series. Some final thoughts:
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the russian participants are ardent putinists who ardently support the war and actions of russia
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there is little to no remorse for the russia's """crimes""" (quoting the group admin)
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the group is infested with chauvinism, racism, homophobia, and lies
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the posts appear to follow a similar pattern and messaging. There are signs of a coordinated psyops campaign likely originating from GRU/IRA in coordination with group admins
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Facebook/Meta are not interested in tackling this issue whatsoever. A cowardly stance, but to be expected
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EU countries must do better due diligence on any new citizens. Social media mining and analysis should be taken seriously - "good character" test
A few grammatical, mistakes, my apologies! I also forgot to attach a translated version of pro-putin's post by the admin.
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P.S. I see this thread is getting traction. Few extra notes: For a group supposedly about russian culture, I haven't seen a single post about any "cultural" activities. Instead, it is used as another tool to spread russian psyops, just like RU embassy pages/twitter accounts
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P.P.S I will be adding more recent posts to this thread. A pure, unabated, anti-putin messaging /s
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Amplifying Derek Blighe, a right-wing, racist, homophobic provocateur. Extremely relevant to russian culture, so I'll let it slide
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"Ukraine is not affected, go back home, thousands killed in Donbas" etc. etc. etc. Is this hate speech @gardainfo ?
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"What's craic? My name is John Connoly, a farmer from Dublin oblast. I believe Ukrainians are nazis, NATO threatens russia, and Ukrainian refugees are stealing our funds. We must stop support to Ukraine Nazi regime and make friends with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Slonche!" 🥴
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Totally organic posts and hashtags by Patrick Downey and his merry band of "farmer" buds from Kilkenny Oblast. Pure psyops.
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More of the posts with the same message "Ukraine is mostly safe country, Ukrainian refugees must go home, Ukrainian refugees will destroy Ireland...". Once again, pure psyops - this time pushing anti-immigration narratives.
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"The Irish are starting to see", "Freeze and starve for Ukraine", "Ukraine is safe" - by the group admin
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Here another group member laments that "these" kids are given a place in an Irish school
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I'm going to stop here. Comments by participants are far, far more vile. The famous russian "culture" is another tool in russia's never-ending arsenal of oppression. Confront it. Boycott it. Read @maksymeristavi's excellent threads to understand the true face of russian culture.