News and Updates about Russia's War against Ukraine.

[airgelaal]

Russians are protesting in Germany against accepting Ukrainian refugees : https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502646830693339142

They are living in the film "goodbye, Lenin"

 

[Spikefan]

Russians are protesting in Germany against accepting Ukrainian refugees : https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502646830693339142

If they feel so strongly about it they can go back to Russia. What a vile lot.

 

[Dobre]

They can protest. And the woman in Russia, with her blank sign, has to go to jail. I'd rather see a society in which the jerks can protest than one in which the folks who are standing up for the right thing cannot.

 

[Nadya]

That totally ignores that in after the Soviet Union fell and Russia was a new country lots of Russian leaders leaned on the United States and Americans Were consulted on everything. Yeltsin begged bush for help and to be in nato and then he begged Clinton for help. Russians gave complete control over economic policies to American advisors. They did shock therapy which was a disaster and then they expanded nato and bombed Serbia while keeping Jackson vannik! Russia absolutely tried to be different! Russia was even criticized for fighting Islamic radicals in Chechnya! Russia changed while all American leaders chose to follow people like anti Russia zealot zbignew brezeinski. It is true America is partly to blame. Constant backstabbing while pretending to want resets.

Michael mcfauls book has so many details of Americans rushing in and being welcomed as guides and mentors and even idols

America could be Involved in Ukraine but Russia was meddling etc

Not just America - EU policy said Ukraine could only be in EU never Russia customs Union.

The war in Chechnya was never about Islamic radicals.

 

[ChelleC]

Russians are protesting in Germany against accepting Ukrainian refugees : https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502646830693339142

If they feel that strongly then they should return home to the Motherland.

 

[Nadya]

Apologies if this was already posted but the new batch of sanctions targets Tatiana Navka personally.

 

[babayaga]

They can protest. And the woman in Russia, with her blank sign, has to go to jail. I'd rather see a society in which the jerks can protest than one in which the folks who are standing up for the right thing cannot.

I read about a guy with stars instead of letters that was arrested. It's straight from a popular joke from Soviet times. Russia is turning into a caricature of Soviet Union.

 

[Vagabond]

Putin says grandfather cooked for Stalin and Lenin

Vladimir Putin's paternal grandfather worked as a cook for both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, the president said in a film posted on the internet on Sunday.

www.reuters.com

I'm not sure whether to believe Putin on this one, but I think that he does regard Stalin and Lenin as role models. Especially Stalin.

 

[ballettmaus]

Russians are protesting in Germany against accepting Ukrainian refugees : https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502646830693339142

I don't want to hear a single one of them whine when they're told that they should go back to where they came from or or when their business is boycotted. Those people don't deserve better. Despicable!

 

[Twilight1]

Everything Putin is doing screams Stalin to me.

Right down to torturing Ukrainians....

 

[Dobre]

Police investigated ‘unlawful entry’ onto property of White House national security aide​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/12/police-investigated-unlawful-entry-onto-property-white-house-national-security-aide/

"Law enforcement officials have been investigating an incident in which someone accessed the property of a top White House official working on U.S. sanctions against Russia, according to a police report and people familiar with the matter.

A man was seen on the property owned by President Biden’s deputy national security adviser, Daleep Singh, about 1 p.m. on Feb. 26, then fled the scene in a “blue/teal” older model BMW sedan, according to a D.C. police department public incident report.

The incident came days after the national security official became a public face of the Biden administration’s sanctions against Russia, which have escalated in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Singh joined White House press secretary Jen Psaki before briefing room cameras to explain the administration’s increasingly muscular stance toward Moscow on Feb. 22 and 24.

There was no immediate evidence of a link between Singh’s work in the administration and the alleged incident."

"But some officials have raised concerns internally about the incident, particularly given that it took place so soon after Singh became such a prominent figure in the rollout of U.S. sanctions"

 

[Twilight1]

Every Russian is potentially going to be assumed to be a spy or a threat, which just makes things especially scary for any former Russian trying to make a life for themselves in another country.

 

[caseyedwards]

The war in Chechnya was never about Islamic radicals.

Even it was just armed rebellion Russia was within its rights to put it down

 

[MacMadame]

I suppose it could all be eventual, if the Russians just overwhelm every town with artillary, missles, and sheer quantities of troops and equipment. I've got a feeling Kyiv might be a tough nut to crack. Even if the Russians did capture it, you'd have to wonder if they could hold it.

The articles I read said that too.

I am thinking, at this point, that it's going to be harder to take Kyiv than people were predicting even a few days ago but definitely last week. Not that I know anything about how to invade a city, but it seems like sitting in one place for days, getting stuck in the mud, and farmers and soldiers stealing your equipment is not a conventional strategy.

 

[PRlady]

This is a very good interview of one of the foremost Russian scholars. Interesting insights into how Putin hot himself into this and the perils of authoritarian societies, but a bit sadly short on solutions.

 

[Hedwig]

This is a very good interview of one of the foremost Russian scholars. Interesting insights into how Putin hot himself into this and the perils of authoritarian societies, but a bit sadly short on solutions.

Did you forget the link?

 

[Hedwig]

About the people protesting in Germany- they are despicable- but do not forget that they are the overwhelming minority. More than 90% of Germans are in favor of taking in refugees and helping Ukraine.

These are the same people who used covid for their means, did anti vaxx ralleys and tried to undermine the government for the last two years (plus now Russian people who never integrated into Germany)
The not Russians in the protest probably really care neither about vaccinations nor Ukraine but used the last two years for their own means. They are far right and Hitler Putin fans and just want to sew dissent.

But people in Ukraine- dont focus on them. It is laughingly few people and most of Germany is behind you!!

 

[Dobre]

The U.S. and the E.U., aiming to punish oligarchs, ban luxury exports to Russia.​

The move will prevent any shipments of high-end watches, cars, apparel, alcohol and jewelry from reaching the country.

The U.S. and the E.U., aiming to punish oligarchs, ban luxury exports to Russia.

The move will prevent any shipments of high-end watches, cars, apparel, alcohol and jewelry from reaching the country.

www.nytimes.com

"As part of a fourth wave of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the European Union and the United States announced Friday that they would no longer allow any exports of luxury goods to Russia.

The bans were designed “as a direct blow to the Russian elite,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, said in a statement, adding: 'Those who sustain Putin’s war machine should no longer be able to enjoy their lavish lifestyle while bombs fall on innocent people in Ukraine.'"

-----

it seems like sitting in one place for days, getting stuck in the mud, and farmers and soldiers stealing your equipment is not a conventional strategy.

Strategy, no. I think "fubar" is a military acronym for a reason, and that it's not all that unconventional. My friend's brother was sent to Iraq & part of his first communication home was to say that their high tech equipment had melted from the heat.

 

[Dobre]

The White House approves $200 million in arms and equipment for Ukraine.​

The White House approves $200 million in arms and equipment for Ukraine.

With the new arms package, which officials say includes antitank and antiaircraft missiles, the Biden administration has authorized $1.2 billion in weapons for Ukraine in the past year.

www.nytimes.com

Is this clarity on how some of the funds from the bill Congress just passed will be spent? Or a separate thing? Anyway, this is new on top of the $350 million in arms & equipment that have now been delivered into Ukraine since the war began.

 

[Hedwig]

I could just cry and cry

https://mobile.twitter.com/social_brains/status/1502091119651213313

 

[TAHbKA]

So who wants to go to a zoo in Nikolaev with me? Who wants to rent a flat in Kharkiv with me?
More to the point: airbnb make it possible to rent flats in Ukraine, the money goes to the flat owners. So book whatever you feel like.
The Nikolav zoo need money to feed the animals, it's possible to buy their tickets

Миколаївський зоопарк / Mykolaiv Zoo - kontramarka.ua

widget.kontramarka.ua

@airgelaal , can you send us more links of that kind? Preferably on the platforms that do not require to approve the service was delivered (for example am not sure, but I think on ebay I would need a shipping number to approve the received goods, but on airbnb/tickets to the venues/places I don't).

 

[allezfred]

Sigh. I am personally not reading this thread much anymore I disagree with the article.

But if I do try to explain why I disagree with this article it comes across that I am trying to defend Putin.

I have no interest in defending the man or appearing to do so. Especially with people here directly affected.

I am not going to change my mind on expanding NATO but the decisions were made and arguing seems useless

Oh, I am not arguing. Your silence on what is happening as Putin bombs maternity hospitals speaks volumes about where you stand on the issue.

 

[PRlady]

Did you forget the link?

Yeah that’s what happens when I post in the middle of the night with insomnia.

The Weakness of the Despot

An expert on Stalin discusses Putin, Russia, and the West.

www.newyorker.com

 

[text_skate]

FAZ posted: It is your war too! A conversation with the Ukrainian writers Tanya Maliarchuk, Katya Petrovskaya and the author Yurko Prokhasko about civilian courage in everyday war, Russian propaganda and the German affinity for Greater Russia.

Ukrainische Autoren: Es ist auch Euer Krieg!

Ein Gespräch mit den ukrainischen Schriftstellerinnen Tanja Maljartschuk, Katja Petrowskaja und dem Autor Jurko Prochasko über zivilen Mut im Kriegsalltag, russische Propaganda und die deutsche Affinität zum Großrussentum.

www.faz.net

behind paywall, I'll post here some excerts, translated by deepl, focusing on the Germany related topics more:

YP: On our side, we now understand this war as a continuation of a long historical process. And we now see how important it was for us to practise civil society through our two Maidans, that is, through the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity. These were all stages of self-discovery, of self-education, of establishing this civil society that we now have, which is the one that offers the greatest resistance, without which the armed forces would be completely lost and at the mercy. They can fight so well because they know we are in the background. Russian society has simply failed to do anything comparable.
...
Q: So the two revolutions were the crossroads. How has Ukrainian society changed since then?

KP: A feeling has arisen that you are responsible for your own life and not the state or anyone else. [...] What the Maidans have also taught us is how to build logistics that really help people. I call it the humanisation of the apparatus. All over Kyiv, special structures for sustaining life have been created in a very short time. [...] Friends of mine in the US and France create incredible human chains to buy things like medicine and ammunition. All connections are used to save Ukraine. On the other hand, when someone in Berlin asks me what will happen to petrol prices now, all I can say is: some people in Germany obviously still don't understand what is going on.
...
YP: For Putin's brand of Russian revanchism and neo-imperialism, the very existence of a Ukrainian identity is totally unacceptable. Putin's policy has very many anti-Western orientations. If he is now fighting Ukraine and wants to destroy it, then as a Great Russian he wants to destroy both the Ukrainian breakaway identity and a Western tendency in the space he sees as his empire. If you look at the logic of revolutions in Ukraine, you find that it only happens when we are existentially threatened by Great Russia. That's how it was in 1991, when we tried to break away from the Soviet Union. So it was in 2004 and 2005, when the Kremlin first actively tried to impose a president loyal to Russia on us. And so it was in 2013/14, when the attempt was made to dissuade us from the Association Agreement with the EU.
...
It has not been understood in the West that the planned destruction of this Ukrainian identity has been going on for a very long time. The German government, represented by Mrs Merkel and others, has always repeated: there is no military solution to this - they said "conflict" at the time. That is certainly true. But when you say it like that, it sounds as if you know what the solution could be. Now it has become clear: The cards were blank. There was no diplomatic solution either, the whole diplomacy failed because of this grand old plan of Putin.
...
TM: I think the West has not yet understood that this war did not start with Putin. The confrontation between Ukrainianism and Greater Russianism actually began in the mid-17th century. I have been studying Ukrainian history a lot in recent years. I wanted to know what we did wrong. For example, what went wrong in 1920, Ukraine's first attempt to become independent? It failed because there was no positive national idea for Ukraine at that time. There was only this: We are not Russians. But what we are was not clarified, and this question has always preoccupied me. Since the beginning of the war, we have had to rethink everything. For me, the question is different now. Apparently, Russia's national idea is that Ukraine does not exist.
...
YP: We see what this liberation looks like. In Kharkiv, where at most 30 people speak Ukrainian and 3 million speak Russian, Russian speakers are being murdered. The border clearly lies not in language, not even in identity, not in whether one professes this Ukrainian identity. Rather, the question today is simply: do we want to allow ourselves to live in despotism again, or do we want to continue to live in freedom and democracy. That is the only thing that counts now.
...
TM: [...] The Germans, the Austrians, the Swiss are now coming to terms with our history and with their romanticism about Russia, which Russia has exploited for propaganda purposes. At the same time, there are calls for more empathy for the Russian opposition, and people like the Austrian writer Alexander Nitzberg, who is of Russian origin, are speaking out. He just gave a big interview to the "Standard" [liberal newpaper] and in it he repeated the terrible Russian propaganda that the Ukrainians were bombing themselves. You have to be very careful who you give the floor to now and look carefully where the attacker really is and where the victim is.
...
YP: [...] Why do considerable parts of German society have such an affinity for the propaganda of Putinism? Taking that apart is not the task of Russian opposition intellectuals, but of intellectuals in Western European societies themselves. I know most people in the West don't know Ukrainian history or Ukrainian culture and don't want to understand it. But they might at least be surprised that this recalcitrant minority clings so tenaciously to this shitty identity and won't give it up. The Ukrainian identity has never threatened the Great Russian one, never questioned it, and never proceeded messianistically. Not towards itself, not towards Greater Russia and not towards the world. And that is the most serious difference.

...

Q: Now Ukraine is getting a lot of attention, why not in 2014?

TM: The world was completely preoccupied with Russia's propaganda. Everyone said there are always two sides in a conflict.

KP: With their hearts, many were on the Ukrainian side, but the economic interests were different.

YP: I think that is the whole amalgam in this war issue. The reactions of Western society at the time were very mild. The sanctions were real sanctions. The attack did not in the least stop the federal government from continuing to build on the Nordstream. But it is clear to me that the whole German complex is in this amalgam. You can take it apart. There is the complacency of the West Germans, encouraged by the long period of successful Ostpolitik. They thought: aha, Ostpolitik is working well, ergo, with the schoolmasterly finger raised, it will continue to work well. Then there is the Stockholm complex of the East Germans: We don't want to be invaded by the Russians again. But that's not the most important thing for me. There is a certain sense of comfort, the idea that Ukraine is far away, therefore none of our business, and that it's just some puny dwarf between us and Russia anyway, the two really relevant sizes in Europe. This has led to a willingness to rationally justify the Russian claims. And there we are already at the heart of the matter. The core of the German reaction at that time was not that the political order was broken in law and order, but the question of who is entitled to great historical claims and who is not. Of course you can understand Russia because Russia is so big and important, was actually the tenor between the lines.

Q:You think the mild reactions towards Russia are rooted in the German megalomania that has not been dealt with enough?

YP: The purpose of the politics of history and the culture of remembrance in Germany in the last century was to prevent Germans from experiencing themselves as great and megalomaniac again. It was very correctly recognised that this temptation to want to feel German greatness again and to draw the right from it again is simply there. I therefore think that Germany's attitude towards Russia was really always about two empires. Germany once had this idea of a thousand-year empire. And Russia has that too. And on that level, the Germans and the Russians understand and admire each other. That may be in competition and conflict, but there is a deep affinity and elective affinities. The illicit imperialism that lives on in the German phantasm and is suppressed and tamed with all its might reveals itself again and again in different ways: in Putin-ism, in the understanding of the disregard for international law. Putin and his Putinism have such a successful effect on many Germans because he awakens these instincts in them and shows them what would be possible for a Greater German soul. One can certainly compare this with the seduction of many Americans by Trump. He, too, appeals to this American imperial side: if we are great, then we can do anything.

 

[AYS]

Well, he is married to a Ukrainian. Tatiana got mercilessly trolled for her anti-war posts so she's been holding back a bit. I hope her family is doing okay. I believe her mother is with her in Russia but she was having a hard time getting in contact with her dad, who was still in Ukraine.

Trolled by Russians because she's Ukrainian?

 

[Jammers]

I bet with the Russians struggling to pacify Ukraine and not having taken Kiev is a blow to Putin's macho pride. He should thank God Ukraine has no real air force or that 40 mile convoy would end up like the Highway of Death in the Gulf war.

 

[reut]

Trolled by Russians because she's Ukrainian?

Because she "dared" to write "NO to war" (https://www.instagram.com/p/CaWvy27Kv0U/ - she closed comments afterwards because of that)

 

[Reuven]

Looks like Kyiv may not be able to resist the Russian onslaught much longer.

There are many folks in the know who disagree. Some articles have been cited above. I also follow some former intelligence people on Twitter and another site. Thes guys have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on. So, for those of you on the Twitter machine, a couple of good accounts to follow:
@oryxspioenkop
@osinttechnical
@render64
and try www.counter.social Which is a twitter-like site but free from right wing-trolls, and Russian propaganda. The three accounts above are there, too, using the same handles.

 

[Nadya]

So who wants to go to a zoo in Nikolaev with me? Who wants to rent a flat in Kharkiv with me?
More to the point: airbnb make it possible to rent flats in Ukraine, the money goes to the flat owners. So book whatever you feel like.
The Nikolav zoo need money to feed the animals, it's possible to buy their tickets

Миколаївський зоопарк / Mykolaiv Zoo - kontramarka.ua

widget.kontramarka.ua

@airgelaal , can you send us more links of that kind? Preferably on the platforms that do not require to approve the service was delivered (for example am not sure, but I think on ebay I would need a shipping number to approve the received goods, but on airbnb/tickets to the venues/places I don't).

This came up earlier in the campaign and people pointed out many Airbnb owners are absentee landlords who don’t live in the country or aren’t citizens.

 

[Nadya]

Even it was just armed rebellion Russia was within its rights to put it down

There were so many things Russia could have done to preempt it instead of putting it down.