Quote:a Russian Kiwi has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Russian soldiers who are illegally invading Ukraine.
Auckland woman Antonina Ovchinnikova runs a Russian language channel on Telegram – an encrypted messaging service – where she posts Russian nationalist propaganda and updates on the invasion of Ukraine.
Ovchinnikova, who has lived in New Zealand for 10 years, has now raised 1.5 million Russian rubles (about NZ$43,000) and bought gun sights, machine gun mufflers and even drones for the soldiers.
In an interview, the woman justified raising money for the units because she believes the Russian military is invading Ukraine for “denazification” and that Russia owns Ukraine historically and therefore is entitled to occupy its land.
Ovchinnikova said it did not worry her if the gear she raised money for went to units that were killing civilians, because she believes they are Nazis, and she couldn’t control what the units were doing in Ukraine.
Her beliefs are standard Kremlin propaganda espoused by Vladimir Putin himself as a justification for the invasion and have no basis in fact.
Ovchinnikova asks her followers for rubles and for the money to be sent to Russian bank accounts, including some held by Sberbank, a bank which is the subject of sanctions by New Zealand.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3007252...in-ukraine
Hard to believe she has committed no crime here... I guess it would require Putin to be officially labelled a terrorist or found guilty of war crimes before anyone supporting him could be held accountable...
Ovchinnikova said it did not worry her if the gear she raised money for went to units that were killing civilians, because she believes they are Nazis, and she couldn’t control what the units were doing in Ukraine.
Does this not come under the "Hate speech" that the Government is trying to eradicate?
But then where do we draw the line, she is only (wrongly) doing what she believes in, by exposing herself like this
she may get one or two hostile visitors, who knows?
I read that. She seems to believe Putin's propaganda without really looking at any other view.
"Ovchinnikova said it did not worry her if the gear she raised money for went to units that were killing civilians, because she believes they are Nazis, and she couldn’t control what the units were doing in Ukraine."
While its true that during WW2, some Ukrainians were Nazis, (some Ukrainians were among those posted with rifles on top of trains taking people to death camps, in case any managed to get out of the cattle car) there were some who weren't & who sheltered Jewish people.
If it isn't a crime, then perhaps it should be - although :'one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter' - it may depend on how we look at it.
Even if some Ukrainians were Nazis back in the day, surely any left alive would be not long for this world? It's like punishing the son for the crimes of the father.
There are locals who think Ukranians are nazis - they swallowed that message with the other Russian messages about vaccines etc...yup - a lot are antivaxxers.
I have often wished there was a way of deporting new New Zealanders if they break the social contract with us, their hosts. But then, I am rather proud of being a born kiwi and value it as the most amazing gift. Thing is, this woman is entitled to her utterly stupid beliefs. It isn't illegal to be an idiot. It is just a huge pity so many people agree with her, and actually gave her money...
Stupid stupid woman.
(01-11-2022, 05:52 PM)Oh_hunnihunni Wrote: [ -> ]I have often wished there was a way of deporting new New Zealanders if they break the social contract with us, their hosts. But then, I am rather proud of being a born kiwi and value it as the most amazing gift. Thing is, this woman is entitled to her utterly stupid beliefs. It isn't illegal to be an idiot. It is just a huge pity so many people agree with her, and actually gave her money...
Stupid stupid woman.
I found myself wishing there was some devilishly clever way of diverting those funds to the Ukraine.
I see the police are now looking into this according to the news today.
Personally I hope we can get her deported, no place for people like that in NZ...
She is being investigated now for a possible breach of New Zealand’s sanctions against Russia.
They will go soft on her because she believes Russia is doing the right thing.
Hopefully she can be deported ASAP.
Surely, even the most devoted Putin fan must realise that in this country, this is well out of order. And yes, given our stance on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia perhaps she should be deported - depending on circumstances, since there's always the chance she may be mentally ill.
The view of a Russian Kiwi woman is that our govt should declare the Russian govt to be a terrorist organisation.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeala...oscow.html
"A Ukrainian-Kiwi believes Russia's invasion of Ukraine is "terrorism" and is calling on the Government to do more to criticise Moscow.
It follows a revelation by Stuff that Auckland-based Russian woman Antonina Ovchinnikova has raised about NZ$43,000 for Moscow funding weapons such as gun sights, machine gun mufflers and drones for the soldiers.
Ukrainian-Kiwi Anastasiya Gutorova told AM on Wednesday it's "very concerning" what Ovchinnikova is doing and has called on the New Zealand Government to step up.
"I know that New Zealand's existing laws prohibiting hate speech are very narrow, but this clearly falls within them because this woman is promoting Russian propaganda to thousands of her followers, which calls for the extermination of Ukrainians," Gutorova told AM co-host Ryan Bridge.
Gutorova is pushing for the Government to declare Russia a terrorist state, which would make Ovchinnikova's activity illegal, as any activity financially supporting terrorist acts would be a crime.
"The bigger issue here is that she is openly and actively financing terrorism from New Zealand and the only reason she can do that is because the New Zealand Government hasn't acknowledged the fact that Russia's campaign in Ukraine is terrorism," she said."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/p...YQZTK6QL4/
"Under the Russia Sanctions Regulations, New Zealanders were prohibited from providing services and funds to sanctioned individuals or entities.
The spokesperson cited New Zealand’s sanctions implemented against “a number of Russian banks including Sberbank”.
Okay...
Should we be able to deport people who offend our sensibilities, or break our laws? On clear evidence without further fuss?
Like, say, the Christchurch mosque mass murderer?
But wouldn't that make as as bad as them?
(02-11-2022, 05:11 PM)Oh_hunnihunni Wrote: [ -> ]Okay...
Should we be able to deport people who offend our sensibilities, or break our laws? On clear evidence without further fuss?
Like, say, the Christchurch mosque mass murderer?
But wouldn't that make as as bad as them?
And
that is
precisely the point. Whenever people claim to want to hang, or put in stocks, or far worse, & far more cruel 'punishments' then you have to wonder just how we'd then be any better than the person who committed the crime in the first place.
(02-11-2022, 06:23 PM)Lilith7 Wrote: [ -> ] (02-11-2022, 05:11 PM)Oh_hunnihunni Wrote: [ -> ]Okay...
Should we be able to deport people who offend our sensibilities, or break our laws? On clear evidence without further fuss?
Like, say, the Christchurch mosque mass murderer?
But wouldn't that make as as bad as them?
And that is precisely the point. Whenever people claim to want to hang, or put in stocks, or far worse, & far more cruel 'punishments' then you have to wonder just how we'd then be any better than the person who committed the crime in the first place.
I have to confess to being okay with the death penalty, under some circumstances...
Maybe it is not possible to be free of double standards if we are truly honest people. After all, human beings can hold two opposing thoughts in their heads without exploding...
(02-11-2022, 12:05 PM)Lilith7 Wrote: [ -> ]Surely, even the most devoted Putin fan must realise that in this country, this is well out of order. And yes, given our stance on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia perhaps she should be deported - depending on circumstances, since there's always the chance she may be mentally ill.
Sadly so many of them are a lost cause, I guess it would partly depend on how long she had been living in NZ and the amount of Russian propaganda/media she has been following while living here.
In saying that, it definitely does appear there is a reasonable percentage of their population who oppose the war, so they cant all be that brainwashed, but many are afraid to speak out against his regime, so the number of people against putin could be higher than we realise.
It gets more complicated than that too, as they are quite a patriotic country and many dont want to bring the "motherland" into disrepute, even if they dont like Putin's regime.
Yes deportation seems to be the obvious choice, but can we? Is she an NZ Citizen or permanent resident and if she is a Citizen we couldn't do bugger all but if she is on a Visa then yep get rid of her.
It seems to me that all these type of folk and the ones that go down the rabbit hole use this telegram app to do their dirty work and contact each other, if we could get rid of this app perhaps it would make things easier to deal with, but then again we couldn't do that because of freedom of speech etc.
We are in a bind!
Yep, we're a strange species. So much so that I sometimes wonder if perhaps earth isn't the lunatic asylum for the universe.
At one time, we had 'deprogrammers' who were generally hired by desperate parents to rescue their kids who'd somehow got involved with various cults. Maybe it might take similar 'deprogramming' for those caught up in the misinformation/disinformation which isn't uncommon now.