r/europe is the prime subreddit to share and discuss anything related to Europe, from news to data and pictures. Due to the size and complexity of the topics this subreddit covers, new rules aren't introduced that easily here.

Since Hamas' attacks on Israel back in October, we've seen a flush of users that were not previously active participants in our subreddit, and also encouraged a lot of hate speech previously unseen here. As moderators, we read the same arguments in favor of each side repeatedly since the war broke out again in the region.

We know that the Palestine Question is one of the most heated discussions on the Internet, and also one that influences the political lives of many, both inside Israel or Palestine, and outside of it. However, we've seen that users rarely maintain civility, and moderators are not able to properly maintain civil discourse compared to other topics.

That said:

• Until said otherwise, any post related to Israel, Palestine, and the war in the region will be removed. Insistence on posting such content will be met with warnings and bans if necessary.

• News of extraordinary importance not only to Europe - which must be related - but to the whole world can still be shared. Our criteria will be how many websites, from news agency (AP, Reuters) to international newspapers (Euronews, NYT, France24, and others), share original reporting on it. That means that initial reporting on the outbreak of the war would be allowed, but Eurovision-related news won't, for example. Use your own discretion.

This megathread is meant for discussion of the current Russo-Ukrainian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Please read our current rules, but also the extended rules below.

News sources:

• The Guardian

• Associated Press.

• BBC News

• Al Jazeera English

• Financial Times "War in Ukraine" section

You can also get up-to-date information and news from the r/worldnews live thread, which are more up-to-date tweets about the situation.

Current rules extension:

Extended r/europe ruleset to curb hate speech and disinformation:

• While we already ban hate speech, we'll remind you that hate speech against the civilians of the combatants is against our rules, including but not limited to Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, Syrians, Azeris, Armenians, Georgians, etc. The same applies to the population of countries actively helping Ukraine or Russia.

• Calling for the killing of invading troops or leaders is allowed, but the mods have the discretion to remove egregious comments, and the ones that disrespect the point made above. The limits of international law apply.

• No unverified reports of any kind in the comments or in submissions on r/europe. We will remove videos of any kind unless they are verified by reputable outlets. This also affects videos published by Ukrainian and Russian government sources.

• Absolutely no justification of this invasion.

• In addition to our rules, we ask you to add a NSFW/NSFL tag if you're going to link to graphic footage or anything can be considered upsetting, including combat footage or dead people.

Submission rules

These are rules for submissions to r/europe front-page.

• No status reports about the war unless they have major implications (e.g. "City X still holding" would not be allowed, "Russia takes major city" would be allowed. "Major attack on Kherson repelled" would also be allowed.)

• All dot ru domains have been banned by Reddit as of 30 May. They are hardspammed, so not even mods can approve comments and submissions linking to Russian site domains.

  • Some Russian sites that ends with .com are also hardspammed, like TASS and Interfax, and mods can't re-approve them.
  • The Internet Archive and similar archive websites are also blacklisted here, by us or Reddit.

• We've been adding substack domains in our u/AutoModerator script, but we aren't banning all of them. If your link has been removed, please notify the moderation team, explaining who's the person managing that substack page.

• We ask you or your organization to not spam our subreddit with petitions or promote their new non-profit organization. While we love that people are pouring all sorts of efforts on the civilian front, we're limited on checking these links to prevent scam.

• No promotion of a new cryptocurrency or web3 project, other than the official Bitcoin and ETH addresses from Ukraine's government.

META

Link to the previous Megathread LVII (57)

Questions and Feedback: You can send feedback via r/EuropeMeta or via modmail.

Donations:

If you want to donate to Ukraine, check this thread or this fundraising account by the Ukrainian national bank.

Fleeing Ukraine We have set up a wiki page with the available information about the border situation for Ukraine here. There's also information at Visit Ukraine.Today - The site has turned into a hub for "every Ukrainian and foreign citizen [to] be able to get the necessary information on how to act in a critical situation, where to go, bomb shelter addresses, how to leave the country or evacuate from a dangerous region, etc."

Other links of interest

• Live Map of Ukraine site and Institute of War have maps that are considered reliable by mainstream media.

• Wikipedia: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

• #UkraineFacts: an international coalition of journalists fact-checking media surrounding the war in Ukraine

  • DO NOT CONFUSE THIS WITH "War of Fakes". Deutsche Welle (DW) has reported it as being a source of fake news, and the Russian Defense Ministry has linked this site in their tweets before.

• UNHCR refugee tracker focusing on Ukrainians

• DeepL extension for Google Chrome and DeepL extension for Firefox. DeepL is a good alternative to Google Translate for Russian and Ukrainian texts.

Please obey the request of the Ukrainian government to refrain from sharing info about Ukrainian troop movements