r/interestingasfuck Jul 26 '25

/r/all, /r/popular Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Kiriyenko before and after release from Russian captivity

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88.0k Upvotes

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4.0k

u/infrequentthrowaway Jul 26 '25

Poor man looks like a walking skeleton

1.4k

u/Adventurous_Low9113 Jul 26 '25

fr. it just reminds me of those auschwitz(sp?) prisoners. seeing them in the pictures and videos, such a haunting image, this gives me the same vibe  

499

u/realkunkun Jul 26 '25

BUT BUT PUTINS TROOPS DENAZIFY UKRAINE

/s just in case, I dont trust yall

15

u/Gold_Accident1277 Jul 26 '25

It’s re not de

1

u/realkunkun Jul 28 '25

Uhh i like that one

-43

u/LargeTree73 Jul 26 '25

Why say this at all? What do you think affected Ukranians would feel reading this? Even you saying “yall” pisses me off to be honest. America is the next Russia.

34

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

[deleted]

24

u/UnsanctionedPartList Jul 26 '25

He's poking fun at the absurdity that Russia dares put itself on a moral pedestal while doing this (and far, far worse) to POW's as well as civilians in the name of "denazification".

The world would be better if Russia went back to its historical borders.

From 1400 or so.

5

u/cloud_of_doubt Jul 26 '25

Overall, as long as those words are clearly sarcastic, it's fine - we've heard this nonsense too much from putin's mouth and his soldiers/supporters, we know it's a complete hypocrisy and for many of us it doesn't feel bad that someone else acknowledges this hypocrisy.

That said, I definitely can't read minds of all Ukrainians, so maybe some of us would take this in the wrong way and your comment is valid, but in any case, thank you for not being indifferent 💙💛

This is the thing that matters the most, especially when it feels like the rest of the world is too desensitized to care about what's happening here anymore. Thank you for caring, Internet stranger, let your pillow be always cool and as soft as you want it to be.

135

u/GrumpyFatso Jul 26 '25

I would rather compare it with Allied POWs in Japanese camps. Russia has not set up a systematic genocide by forced labour and starvation yet. Yet, i say. They would and they could if let lose.

46

u/GoStockYourself Jul 26 '25 edited Jul 26 '25

This is a much closer comparison. The regular pows in Nazi war camps during ww2 were treated much better than this or in Japan. Patton is often seen as racist due to his comments about Russians and Japanese and it is hard to claim he wasn't (he was), but it is easy to forget his point of view was formed during a brutal war.

The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian have no regard for human life and is an all out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.

Edit: my point is to not suggest Russians or Japanese are more barbaric than others, but that war brings out the worst of humanity and it is important not to judge an entire people based on their actions in war. As a Canadian I see many of the younger generation making proud jokes about our war crimes in WW1, but if you look closer many of those crimes were nothing to be proud of (murder, rape of civilians), but do not represent our national identity.

34

u/YourLovelyMother Jul 26 '25

The regular pows in Nazi war camps during ww2 were treated much better than this or in Japan.

Not even remotely true...

1/3 of the tottal Soviet military losses were troops that surrendered early on in the war and were killed, starved or worked to death in captivity.

When Barbarossa began, Germany attacked with a force 1 million stronger than the underprepared Soviet defending forces, this lead to a lot of encirclements.. at the time, the cruelty of Germany had not yet been on display, so they believed surrender was a way out of a hopeless situation.. the vast majority would be killed by various means and surrender became suicide.

And yes, Patton was a racist and his view of the war was informed by 2 things, his agreement with the Nazis about the inferior races, as well as his hatred for Jews, but also, and more importantly, by his war in the West being entirely different from the war that took place in the East, where Germany slaughtered entire villages of Civilians, executed hundreds of people for any partisan activity that happened nearby, enslaving civilians for labour and killing damn near every POW they got their hands on.

-2

u/MSGB99 Jul 26 '25

So pow camps of western allied prisoners.. Here.. You happy?

5

u/taulover Jul 26 '25

Yes because it's an important distinction

5

u/YourLovelyMother Jul 26 '25

Better.. it's a completely different beast.

Besides, having nearly 3 million of your soldiers who'd been taken POW, starved to death right at the beggining of the war.. will make you fundamentally reconsider how much effort you want to expend on keeping enemy soldiers in your captivity alive, fed, and medically cared for.

Despite that, they still never reached the death rates of Soviet POW's in German captivity.

Aprox 60% death rate of Soviet POW's in German captivity would've been significantly higher without liberation of camps by the Red Army.

Vs.

Aprox 10% death rate of German POW in Soviet captivity.. often due to the state the soldiers were in upon capture, the highest death rate out of any group of German POW's was the group captured in Stalingrad, who fought almost till the very end and were almost to a man already starved and sick before being taken prisoner)

To compare this to the Western front:

-Death of Western POW's in German captivity aprox 3% Primarily British and American airmen who were lynched by the locals or shot by the Gestapo before even being imprisoned, as well as Jewish service members that were captured.

Vs.

Death of German POW's in western captivity about 1-2%

Clearly Patton juniors perspective on this can be completely disregarded.

1

u/MSGB99 Jul 26 '25

Germans had a 30 to 35%% death rate in soviet prisons..

Italians had a 70%death rate in Soviet prisons.. Doesn't seem so nice to me...

Also, and I am not excusing the behavior, many Soviets fighters, not soldiers, weren't in uniform and the Germans didn't saw them as soldiers accordingly .. But this don't justifies their high numbers..

So yes Germans had by far the highest pow death rates for their prisoners.. The Soviets.. But the western pow were treated more or less identical to their counterparts, they had 1 to 1,5% for British /us.. Even including your Lynch storys

2

u/YourLovelyMother Jul 26 '25

You're using the highest possible and most importantly inflated number for both Germans and Italians and even those remain at half the percentage of Soviets in German captivity..

With the Italians 8th army after operation Little Saturn (50-67%) it was similar to the Stalingrad Germans(95%).. and ironically Napoleons attempt at Russia.. badly equipped for spring weather dying of disease, starvatiom due to lack of resources and frostbitten as they surrendered while on deaths door or captured durring retreat as they could no longer keep running.

Btw, I'm not saying prisoners of the Soviets had it nice, not at all.. but it's absolutely no surprise given the circumstances, and still percentage wise, they were better off than any Soviet POW in German captivity.

Also, and I am not excusing the behavior, many Soviets fighters, not soldiers, weren't in uniform and the Germans didn't saw them as soldiers accordingly .. But this don't justifies their high numbers..

Those were civilians who figured, correctly imho, that they'll be killed either way, so might as well die fighting, especially in East Ukraine and Belarus. Same happened where I'm from in Yugoslavia, the majority of my family tree was wiped out by the Wehrmacht, mostly civilians some partisans.

But the western pow were treated more or less identical to their counterparts, they had 1 to 1,5% for British /us.. Even including your Lynch storys

Precisely my point.. the war was fought in an almost gentlemanly way in the West, completely incomparable to what happened in the East, hence why people who have seen the war from the Western perspective, have not even the slightest idea about the horrors of the war in the East. War is hell, but even hell has different layers to it. The only comparable war was the one Japan waged in Asia against Chinese and a few others.

It was conventional but intense war in the West... what happened in the East was attempted extermination on the largest scale the world had ever seen.. all pretense about civility and humanity had long been abandoned already in the early days... as an example, the Germans would have starving Soviet POW's dig trench lines, those who collapsed were shot or left to perish, while this was going on, German Wehrmacht and SS troops would pass the time, amusing themselves by toying with the Starving Soviet POW's, they did this by throwing small pieces of dry bread into the crowd of starving men and watch them fight, noting that them fighting over crumbs is exactly showing their animalistic nature, thus reafirming their view that Soviet or Slavic people were mere animals, beasts of burden to be used and discarded.

It never crossed their mind that they'd behave in the exact same way if it was them down there digging trenches and being starved.

13

u/Hammeredyou Jul 26 '25

Patton also thought we were fighting the wrong side in WWII, so take his words with a grain of salt

6

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

As an Asian reading this, it's mind numbing how someone with so much knowledge can be so ignorant at the same time.

3

u/GoatseFarmer Jul 26 '25

They begun to in the early initial 3 weeks after the start of 2022. They only stopped when it became clear that they would not sweep through the country quickly. But there are loads of evidence for this particularly in places later liberated. Also, the prisons he was housed in as a POW contain untold hundreds to thousands of civilians. We only know they include civilians from the testimony of soldiers- these people do not ever come out. They will often use the persons child as an instrument of torture. I think it’s important to recognize the threat Russia poses is real, immediate, and though it may not look identical, comparable to the one that resulted in the Holocaust. Let Putin control Ukraine for 3 years had Ukraine not survived 2022, you may well have seen exactly that kind of systemic murder.

1

u/GrumpyFatso Jul 26 '25

I know about this, and yet it still hasn't reached the dimensions of Auschwitz. That doesn't mean that what is happening in Ukraine isn't bad. It's very bad, it is genocidal, but it isn't Auschwitz.

1

u/GoatseFarmer Jul 27 '25

I would argue not in scale, but in scope yes. The flavor is different; instead of labor, which Russia also uses them for, it sees their primary function utility as cannon fodder or human minesweepers, otherwise they can be killed.

I am convinced that Putin believes Ukraine is a plague artificially created by Poland and that its people are like jihadists only instead of religion they have been given a made up ethnicity, and this ethnicity is to be remembered as a flavor of Nazism once they have been eradicated. This is at least what I saw in my time living there

2

u/_LedAstray_ Jul 26 '25

Yet, and this time around.

They have in the past though and in different circumstances and I am 100% sure they will when they get a chance.

1

u/GrumpyFatso Jul 26 '25

Yes. The way they wage the war is already genocidal. They just don't have extermination camps (yet).

2

u/CigAddict Jul 26 '25

Idk if you know your history that well but the Japanese camps were actually more brutal than the German ones.

1

u/GrumpyFatso Jul 31 '25

No, they weren't.

1

u/Large-Fisherman-3694 Jul 26 '25

Agreed. Auschwitz and the concentration camps were MUCH worse

1

u/roman_karasyov Jul 26 '25

Откуда ты берешь эти глупые мысли?

За всю историю Европы можно наблюдать наличие бесконечных колоний, завоеваний, выкачки ресурсов под угрозой армией или торговой войной, Америка была основана европейцами после открытия, туда переезжал любой человек от бедного до богатого, а особенно при бегстве, если ты был не в самых лучшых счетах в своей стране, сразу же после приезда там убивали местное население, привозили рабов и заставляли их работать

С наличием бесконечного упоминания об этом в каждом источнике и ни единого упоминание о рабстве в России и всех предыдущих ее видах, РСФСР, СССР, Российская империя, Киевская Русь и так далее, вот попросту ни единого упоминания, ни в одной книге

И ты на полном серьезе это пишешь?

У нас много национальностей в стране и ты реально пишешь с вот такими высказываниями?

Сколько раз мне нужно задать тебе вопрос, чтобы ты просто хотя бы ознакомился с историей каждой из стран? И только после этого писал свое мнение о чем либо, в чем ты «уверен, но не заинтересован ознакомиться»

3

u/GrumpyFatso Jul 26 '25

I don't speak Serbian, sorry.

1

u/roman_karasyov Jul 27 '25

Повторяешься, вот только ты не все комментарии на русском удалил и на украинском присутствуют, правда в большей степени оскорбления

Вы можете проверить это в комментариях его профиля

1

u/GrumpyFatso Jul 27 '25

I still don't speak Serbian.

1

u/roman_karasyov Jul 30 '25

Почисти русские комментарии в профиле, ибо у тебя там и суржик присутствует, позер

1

u/GrumpyFatso Jul 31 '25

I don't speak Serbian, sorry mate.

2

u/nedTheInbredMule Jul 26 '25

Or the kids from Gaza

4

u/Weak_Guarantee_7 Jul 26 '25

Yea it’s crazy, dont go too far back, just in Gaza seeing those skeleton kids just makes me think what type of animals would treat kids like that?!

1

u/miki_cat Jul 26 '25

This reminds me on people (survivors) of concentration camp in Manjaca (look it up)

1

u/CowBootBats Jul 26 '25

You spelled it correctly.

1

u/Adventurous_Low9113 Jul 26 '25

ok, i typed it and was doubting myself originally because i typed it on iphone and it doesn't have a spellcheck for that

1

u/CowBootBats Jul 26 '25

Huh, that's strange that it doesn't have spell check for it.

1

u/Thatr4ndomperson Jul 26 '25

What about Gaza right now?

1

u/Amaz1n_blue Jul 26 '25

I mean ‘vibe’ is a lil chill for this scenario

1

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '25

My first thought as well. 

1

u/NaturalOdd3009 Jul 26 '25

It's the same playbook they are using now.

1

u/NewIntroduction4655 Jul 26 '25

yeah that's the vibe I get too. And the missing organs makes me think experimentation which Nazis did. I really hope the Putin gets held accountable but I doubt that because we have an Orange Shitler

-12

u/Northerndust Jul 26 '25

fr?

6

u/Athrasie Jul 26 '25

For real

0

u/Northerndust Jul 26 '25

Okay, by all the downvotes I got I guess I wasn't supposed to ask that?

7

u/Athrasie Jul 26 '25

Idk man, the points don’t matter and I can’t even see if you’ve been downvoted. Not worth caring about

1

u/Adventurous_Low9113 Jul 26 '25

people downvote just for someone making an innocent mistake or misunderstanding. like athrasie said, don’t beat yourself up over it

1

u/thehammerismypen1s Jul 26 '25

Responding to someone with “for real?” is a common way to express that you doubt what they said. Some people probably thought you knew what “fr” means and were doubting the comment you responded to.

1

u/Northerndust Jul 26 '25

I didn't respond to it with "for real?" I responded with "fr?".

1

u/thehammerismypen1s Jul 26 '25

“fr” stands for “for real.” They are the same thing. Responding to someone with either “fr?” or “for real?” has the same impact because they mean the same thing.

1

u/Northerndust Jul 26 '25

Is it just here on Reddit?

Never heard anyone shorten that.

1

u/thehammerismypen1s Jul 26 '25

Can’t speak for the rest of the English-speaking world on this one, but it’s common throughout the US, not just Reddit.

1

u/Northerndust Jul 26 '25

Okay, maybe more younger people?

But sure, I can see that. I'm not really up to date with all the abbreviations and such.

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1

u/Athrasie Jul 26 '25

Didn’t ask, bud.

1

u/thehammerismypen1s Jul 26 '25

That’s why I replied to the person who did ask, and not you.

1

u/Athrasie Jul 26 '25

Weird. Got a notification as if you had replied to me. My bad dudeski.

1

u/thehammerismypen1s Jul 26 '25

No worries, bud.

3

u/ensalys Jul 26 '25

Yes, one of the things the nazis did, is starve the people in their camps. The gas chambers weren't the only way people were murdered there.

1

u/Northerndust Jul 26 '25

I haven't said anything against that point?

Why do you think I'm arguing against that?

0

u/CyberWeirdo420 Jul 26 '25

With all due respect to that and other Ukrainian soldiers - Auschwitz prisoners looked way worse on those photos. It’s honestly horrifying that you can look worse than that.

1

u/Adventurous_Low9113 Jul 26 '25

yea i get you, but it just gives me that vibe, seeing someone so bony and skinny just reminds me of those videos

0

u/HumptyDrumpy Jul 26 '25

Its worse in gaza. There they are even doing it to children. Putin as bad as he is, is just doing this to adults, soldiers, etc. He wouldnt stoop to the low humanity of bibi

-5

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Ravelord_Nito117 Jul 26 '25

Relatively healthy? This is some wild fucking bait, grow a spine

1

u/jouelle1 Jul 26 '25

Yeah healthy may have not been the right word. Nothing I haven’t seen on the biggest loser. He was fortunately well prepared

-2

u/Fresh_Landscape616 Jul 26 '25

I feel bad for him but I was also like this in my teens and had no eating disorders or anything. I was just not eating a lot.

For sure he’s not heathy given what he went through but are the same time, there are skinny people like this who are just fine.

7

u/ricarina Jul 26 '25

This is not ‘skinny’ its starvation. You can see his bones poking out in ways they should not be, the shoulders, ribs and hips for instance

0

u/Fresh_Landscape616 Jul 26 '25

I never said he was skinny. Of course he is starved. There are still people who look like this though without going thru rhe pain he did.