what the fuck is happening in Russia?

https://i.imgur.com/LGOxLiV.jpg?1

With details about post-Soviet politics, and links to relevant background sites, please.

Many Western experts and politicians loved to repeat the story of "rich Russia and poor Ukraine". The fact is, that except of extra rich Moscow and Petersburg, Russia is an underdeveloped country, and average Ukrainian province lives much better than average Russian province.

— Sergej Sumlenny (@sumlenny) March 28, 2022

Thread above compares living conditions in Russia and Ukraine. Link below goes to a reading list from historian Simon Sebag Montefiore.

https://www.waterstones.com/blog/the-best-books-on-russia-and-revolution

In the Ukraine thread, we were talking about Timothy Snyder's 2018 book

The Road to Unfreedom

Yeah, I was looking at info that said Ukraine is 23% Russian speaking and like 25% of economic activity, and waaaay more broadly developed economically. I do get the sense it's Russia that's the relative backwater outside of Moscow St. Pete. How do typical (if such a thing exists) Russians see it themselves? Side: I was surprised at the annihilation of Mariupol given it is/was like 95% Russian speaking, but saw something that it was aimed at a particular Oligarch?

I've read a couple of things recently talking about the centralization of power and that the regions have been getting weaker in recent years, but that also the special military operation is sucking in a lot of Rosgvardiya from those regions?

I remember the Khabarovsk protests from a couple of years ago, where the police (Rosgvardiya?) didn't beat the protestors up (because they were supporting Furgal and the cops also supported him over Moscow?). Whats likely to happen in places like Khabarovsk?

@Hunter

How typical Russians see the situation inside the country, as well as comparative to Ukraine, is a tough question to answer and I'll need a couple days. It's also a bit of a moving target. Do we mean from 1991 to 2014, or 2014 to 2021, or during the war right now? For now, Kamil Galeev has published a series of threads on Twitter that delve into current affairs in Russia. He's not perfect but it's a good start. Regarding the oligarch in Mariupol, I'm not sure but I'll see if I can find anything. At this point the bombing seems like punishment for not surrendering fast enough. Mariupol also barely avoided conquest in 2014, and some people have argued that this is 'payback.'

@anvil

Once again, Kamil Galeev to the rescue:

In discussing the collapse of Russia and rise of separatist states on its ruins, many focus on ethnic conflicts and identity politics. That's not completely wrong. I'll argue however that the main drivers of collapse will be geographic and socio economic...That will be the major factor of Russian collapse. It's not that regional authorities will suddenly declare independence. They won't, at least for now. It's that they will act in the best interest of their regions. Because if a catastrophe happens there, they'll be blamed for it.

In acting in the best interest of their regions under the deficit of literally everything they'll inevitably stock up, thus breaking supply lines and technological chains...

Russia won't fall because of collective morally justified action. It's cohesion will be broken by its own officials aiming to avoid catastrophe in their own region. That will be a de facto economic separatism, political one will come much later

Khabarovsk is an interesting case because it's about as far from the Moscow power center as you can get. You may have read that on the whole, this region tends to be more independent, hence Furgal's defiance and his arrest sparking massive protests.

https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/the-distance-between-moscow-and-russias-far-east-is-growing/

Despite the huge crowds of people, though, the protests did not change anything politically. For the center, it may also have seemed counterproductive to clamp down on them and risk an even bigger backlash. Why not just let them peter out like the Hong Kong protests a few years back? Then they could divide them up into new provinces:

https://www.asianews.it/news-en/New-provinces-in-Russia's-Far-East-will-reinforce-Putin's-centralism-53767.html

The operation is definitely sucking in Rosgvardia from all over Russia. Documents from soldiers in Ukraine, and some POWs themselves, have also confirmed this.* One bit of anecdotal evidence: a recent protester was called in to a police office was surprised to see it staffed exclusively by women. Maybe all of the men were gone fishing? Some are refusing to go, though:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-riot-police-dismissed-krasnodar-b2045577.html

*this could vary region by region, though. Judging by arrest videos from the last month, Moscow especially still seems very heavily staffed

In discussing the collapse of Russia and rise of separatist states on its ruins, many focus on ethnic conflicts and identity politics. That's not completely wrong. I'll argue however that the main drivers of collapse will be geographic and socio economic

— Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) March 26, 2022

TY.

Also Holy wow the length of that thread!

I've read quite a few of Kamil Galeev's twitter threads. I noticed he was talking about the role of organized crime recently (though I'm still not sure how distinct that is as a thing from siloviki?)

I saw an intervew with Khodorovsky from 2017 recently where he said Putin had lost much of his power and organized crime was running the show, but in his recent interviews he makes no mention of organized crime and seems to say Putin is running the show. I imagine he's not particularly trustworthy

I imagine he's not particularly trustworthy

Anvil do you mean Galeev or Khodorkovsky? I see Galeev as an interesting commentator but definitely not the last word when it comes to explaining Russia. I've seen some criticism of him on Twitter as well, and ended up following those people also, to get their own perspective as well.

If you meant Khodorkovsky, I've seen very little of what he has to say about Russia, and so can't speak to his trustworthiness.

I meant Khodorkovsky (being untrustworthy) though I don't really know, just seen him saying contradictory things at different time, no that that necessarily means anything

Not seeing any particular reason to doubt anything I've seen that Galeev has said, a lot of it is opinion anyway but I've not read anything that seems untoward. I would unfollow if I got that sense

Has anyone else here seen Alex Gibney's doc on Khodorkovsky from 2019? It's a great doc, even accounting for Khodorkovsky's own interests and agenda. Curious as to what he's leaving out of the story.

Yes, I’ve seen. Enjoyed it but can’t remember much now, unfortunately. I do remember some acquaintance from Russian saying Khodorkovsky was “still a bad guy.”

Oh no, never mind, I saw the one from 2011.

How organic is this pro-russia convoy/rally in Berlin? I've saw there was one in Thessaloniki too, but I got impression that was local cranks/fascists and smaller and less organized.

Suggestions the moon is thinking of applying to join NATO meet a stiff response etc etc

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/04/12/russia-will-restart-moon-landings-says-putin-a77323

Maersk (you know, the #2 shipping company on the planet) leaving the Russian market.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQPrseLXIAUsGBw.jpg

Yes. That is huge.

Putin's bravado in the face of sanctions, announcing that the Russian Federation is large enough to go it alone, was nonsensical. If things continue along this road for another few years Russia will be reduced to a nation of starvation and chaos. Or else it will become a wholly owned subsidiary of China, Inc.

Apparently Navalny is "missing"

“There is no such convict here. We do not know where Alexei is now and what colony they are taking him to,” Alexei Navalny's press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, said https://t.co/c37hXp0iQM

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 14, 2022

Putin knows that if he has Navalny killed he will be strongly condemned by the great majority of the international community, for the 250th time.

I was thinking about the Belarus protests the other day and how they dissipated. I'd read that initially Lukashenko had been employing old brittle monolithic soviet style propaganda and which was ineffective. But at a certain point had brought in Russian propagandists (or Putin forced them on him?) and changed tack to the more purposefully contradictory, disorienting, flexible, 'post-truth' stuff we're familiar with elsewhere - turning protestors against each other, sowing division and distrust

I can't tell if Russia's internal propaganda and media messaging is kind of moving in the opposite direction, a more brittle monolithic messaging, tighter control. I feel like February and Z IS an explicit change from passivity to energized population, that seems to lead simultaneously to a stronger dog but a weaker lead

https://i.insider.com/62a7160ba464ed0019583628?width=800&format=jpeg

The hurried rebranding means employees are seemingly scribbling out the Golden Arches from McDonald's ketchup packets to reuse for Vkusno & tochka.

the McNuggets are now apparently just called.. 'nuggets'

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYHS91TWYAAB44K?format=jpg&name=medium

Destroy both says everyone else.

Did Z a solid by knocking ukraine out of the world cup tbf

https://i.imgur.com/Cy6SNrh.jpg

Moscow-vetted queen what?

I've read a certain amount about Ukrainians forcibly taken into Russia (1.5-2m), but not really all that much about why. Other than attempting to crush any dissent and intimidate. But is there more to it? Whats their longer term plan for them?

There's a bunch of articles I've seen but they're largely about the process itself: filtration camps, destinations as far away as the other side of Russia (Vladivostok, for instance).

The initial explanation for getting them out of Ukraine is that in places like Mariupol, Russia either did not allow, or simply shelled and shot up the corridors to Ukraine; refugees were thus 'encouraged' to go in the other direction, sometimes given to understand that it's as simple as "you can die, or go to Russia."

There doesn't seem to be any rational, or even irrational 'policy' reason for this to be happening except for the very dubious PR factor of making it look like Russia is taking in its poor, long-lost Ukrainian 'brothers.' There is even an underground network of Russian volunteers working hard to get them back OUT of the country, for ex: through the border by Georgia, or to the Baltics through St. Petersburg.

There's also the fact of the declining Russian birth rate and the numerous cases of kids being separated from their parents, or orphans being taken into the country, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it is *the* reason because it's too malicious and depressing to contemplate.

Then again, as is often the case in this war: the cruelty is the point.

On the subject of destroying England but not Wales, I remember devouring books about nuclear war when I was younger - because of "Two Tribes" and nuclear paranoia - and one of them pointed out that a chain of about six megaton-range nuclear groundbursts in a line parallel with the England/Wales border would render England uninhabitable for decades. By extension England also means London, which means the entire United Kingdom.

Looking at NUKEMAP this does appear to be the case, because the prevailing winds are from the west and southwest. An 800kt bomb detonated on Portsmouth would spread fallout over London, which wouldn't destroy the city but would tank the economy, because no-one is going to want to work in the Square Mile if they have to spend every day locked inside a hermetically-sealed bunker. It would be futile burning £50 notes in the faces of homeless people because they would all be blind.

In real life the Russians did apparently have Cardiff on their target list. There was even a nuclear survival bunker in the city. Wisely the people who designed it didn't put it underneath a large building, unlike in Threads:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60244090

I do wonder how the average Russian feels about Ukraine. Especially bearing in mind that sharp generational gap. From a British perspective the only remotely comparable scenario would have been an invasion of Ireland during the height of the Troubles, perhaps on the back of the discovery of North Sea Oil. Ted Heath would have been pilloried by the international community, particularly the United States, but he could have argued that Britain was self-sufficient. But it's very difficult to comprehend something like that happening so it's hard to put myself in the position of a Russian person contemplating a mechanised invasion of next door.

A while back some Russian soldiers were irradiated after being ordered to dig trenches in the vicinity of Chernobyl:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/world/europe/ukraine-chernobyl.html

Supposedly because none of the soldiers had heard of the Chernobyl disaster, because they were born in the 2000s and it just isn't featured in the Russian media. Does the average Russian teenager even know that Ukraine is a thing? They're unlikely to go there on holiday, so why would they even know it exists?

I do wonder how the average Russian feels about Ukraine.
...
Does the average Russian teenager even know that Ukraine is a thing?

This was linked earlier in the Ukraine thread but might be new to you:

http://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/03/feeling-around-for-something-human

I haven't seen this yet but it appears to cover the same ground:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qmQs2LbnaE

English subs, of course.

There's also the fact of the declining Russian birth rate and the numerous cases of kids being separated from their parents, or orphans being taken into the country, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it is *the* reason because it's too malicious and depressing to contemplate.

This is what I had been wondering about, I'd not seen it mentioned explicitly, or even implicitly really. The declining birth rate, ageing society, population pyramid are a problem, but it being perceived as a problem is another matter still, nevermind thinking 'lets steal people' being a solution! And yet...over 1% of the people in Russia are Ukrainians that have been taken

i think sending it ties into a scheme ongoing since the 2010s or before and obviously connected to what happened in the previous century to rebuild the far east demographically, turning it into a viable asia pacific logistics and trade hub. there haven't been many takers for resettlement schemes. but ukrainians don't have much choice, i guess. tass reports 2800 people will be sent to primorsky or khabarovsk by the end of the year: https://1sn.ru/bolee-800-ukrainskix-bezencev-pribyli-v-xabarovskii-i-primorskii-kraya-za-poslednie-sutki.

New Yale study says that whatever the Kremlin is claiming publicly, their economy is going to hell in a hand basket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-imploding-sweeping-sanctions-corporate-exodus-yale-study-2022-7

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/21/daughter-of-putin-ally-alexander-dugin-killed-in-car-bomb-in-moscow-reports

so close- what a tragedy

Denazification begins at home.

Is this more likely to be FSB or similar?

Compact magazine claimed that Dugin and his daughter are "anti-fascist"—This is total bullshit.https://t.co/Db9Lvu9laM

— John Ganz (@lionel_trolling) August 22, 2022

"The war in Ukraine is not happening in isolation. While Russia is contesting the US-led security order in Europe, China is challenging it in Asia. A geopolitical transition has begun whose results may not be fully apparent for decades. But the post-cold war order that has governed the world for the past 30 years is drawing to a close. From its demise, a new balance of power will emerge."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/22/six-months-war-putin-ukraine-russia-nato-energy-prices

Meanwhile in Russia

📅 Today marks 83 years since the signing of the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the USSR.

📹 Watch our retrospective video for information on the state of affairs in Europe prior to the signing of this document.

🔗 https://t.co/0oj5eo5QbC pic.twitter.com/mxyonaFXDt

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) August 23, 2022

they missed the bit out where hundreds of thousands of the Red Army died/got captured because Stalin wouldn't believe his own NKVD agents' multiple reports on an imminent invasion. But I agree with some of the Brit bashing!

Speaking of Brit bashing -

On the one hand, the 1939 William Strang mission to Moscow was a last-ditch effort doomed to failure. On the other hand, why the fuck did they pick this guy to begin with:

During the late-1930s, Strang was a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship, which was pro-Nazi.

Strang became of interest to an undercover MI5 agent, Eric Roberts, who was operating under the pretense of working for the Gestapo, with the intention of identifying potential fifth columnists. In 1943, he reported on one of the diplomat's female friends who was possibly his lover.[5] Unaware of her connections, Strang had told her "that he personally hated the Jews and regarded the Bolsheviks and the Jews as the two greatest enemies of all that is decent".

Not exactly outlandish views in the Tory Party at the time I would have thought.

Stafford Cripps didn't have much success in Moscow either. Maisky noted in his diary that they much preferred negging with out and out Tory shits rather than Labour people of the British left.

Zelenskyy has ratified Law 5371.
Workers now have no right to bargain, and trade unions cannot protect them. pic.twitter.com/SUauiTqmaH

— The International Magazine (@TheIntlMagz) August 23, 2022

Russia's best and brightest are firebombing military conscription centres. https://t.co/ezH1eatNdG

— libcom.org (@libcomorg) August 24, 2022

https://theins.ru/en/politics/252885

This train is on fire: how Russian partisans set fire to military registration and enlistment offices and derail trains.

Loving the sneaky lil Z in Unionize there

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fa-8CIEagAAfcJF?format=jpg

Some disturbing news coming out of Latvia by the looks of it too

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FN0pdUTUYAQSqVj?format=jpg&name=small

On tbe other hand, they look to have found some good news in Kherson

Today Russia deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Kharkov region. pic.twitter.com/IpQ4TOnMqC

— The International Magazine (@TheIntlMagz) March 9, 2022

interesting spelling there

https://i.imgur.com/UI2i80y.png

The chairman of the board of Lukoil, Russia’s biggest privately held oil producer and one of the few Russian companies to criticize the invasion of Ukraine, has died after falling out of a hospital window, Interfax reports https://t.co/wM9r1KAkQn

— max seddon (@maxseddon) September 1, 2022

jeeeesus this world

it has been suggested he was having a smoke and it might have been an acidental fall. CSI Moscow doing the forensics on some ciggies his dead hand was still clutching.

Wow happens a lot in Russia pretty wild that all those windows in tall buildings are so tempting to lean just a little to far

Russian building codes must mandate man-size operable windows in all skyscrapers.

I can see why smoking has a much higher mortality rate in Russia now

at this point I'm starting to wonder if Conor Clapton insulted the Kremlin.

lool

In (post)Soviet Russia you have tears for heaven

Accidental falls is now the leading cause of death among connected Russian executives and bureaucrats.

A top Russian executive has died falling from his boat near Vladivostok, local media reports.
Ivan Pechorin has been described as an ally of Putin, who reportedly picked him for the role.
Pechorin is the latest in a string of unexplained deaths among Russian bosses. Another Russian energy boss has died in mysterious circumstances after "falling overboard" from a boat, according to local media reports.

Ivan Pechorin's body was found washed up around 100 miles from Vladivostok in Russia's far east, on Monday after a two-day search, local outlet VL.ru reported.

Pechorin fell off his moving boat on September 10 as it sailed near Russky Island, the outlet reported. He was the Aviation Director for Russia's Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (KRDV), which described his death as an "irreparable loss."

Do we know for sure that the numbers of executives being assassinated has increased in 2022? It was common through out the 1990s and into the early 2000s, then the idea is that assassinations started to clear up, but did they really or is that just received wisdom and it just happens to be getting more attention now?

Not the data collection assignment i was hoping for. Would be v interesting to see though.

kinda good thread

Since there is a lot of interest in what is the reaction to the recent military setbacks in Russia, a🧵with an update.
There are three distinct groups in Russia:
1/25

— Greg Yudin (@YudinGreg) September 14, 2022

how is this deplorable

The laymen are the those carelessly enjoying their lives while people are dying in Ukraine. It is obviously deplorable but the upside of it is that these people are completely unwilling to participate in war actively in any way https://t.co/kGLYiBZaL6
6/25

— Greg Yudin (@YudinGreg) September 14, 2022

silence is violence?

there is a wiki page dedicated to the russian businessmen deaths :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_businessmen_mystery_deaths

Reportedly died from a "drug-induced heart attack" during a shamanic ritual, though critics allege 'toad poison'

End of an era, Bald & Bankrupt kicked out of the country and barred from entry. Sorta weird propaganda/interrogation video released from Birobidzhan

My dear friend Putesy

Pressed specifically on the issue of Crimea, Erdoğan replied “Since 2014, we have been talking to my dear friend Putin about this, and this is what we have requested from him. We asked him to return Crimea to its rightful owners … unfortunately no step has been taken forward.”

All seems increasingly desperate

Putin televised speech announced for earlier this evening, delayed, rescheduled (has this happened before?) to tomorrow morning

Talk of mobilisation or widescale conscription (with expatriation 'illegal' from tomorrow)...how is this not a losing endgame for them?

expatriation fleeing, that should be

good read

Long post I'm afraid but I wanted to explore the question of potential Russian nuclear use carefully rather than simply asert or dismiss it as a possibility. https://t.co/TVO6mKmxhQ

— Lawrence Freedman (@LawDavF) September 20, 2022

Live from a Russian with his stove on 24/7 spending only 1.44 EUR / month pic.twitter.com/fWiadi7j6u

— yuu ★ (@fwyuuka) September 20, 2022

vlads...

well fuck.

Flights out of Russia sold out fast after Vladimir Putin's announcement... flights to popular destinations such as Istanbul in Turkey and Yerevan in Armenia were snapped up, and prices for remaining seats skyrocketed.

Evgeny, a 31-year-old Russian living in the UK, told the BBC: "Absolutely everyone is afraid, everyone is sending around different information on mobilisation. It is very difficult to figure out what is true and what isn't. Nobody trusts the government."

this doesn't bode well

if they can afford it they can stay visa-free in Turkey for up to 90 days, can't blame them tbh.

And another one falls down a flight of stairs.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-aviation-scientist-anatoly-gerashchenko-falls-to-his-death-in-latest-plunge-mystery

It's a plunge mystery...

if they can afford it they can stay visa-free in Turkey for up to 90 days, can't blame them tbh.

365 days in Georgia - not just Russians, Georgia offers 365 days for anyone!

Large number going there since February has led to rent increases and other pressures though

I liked this summation that actually brings in a lot of the history into it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtwyT4NIyZo

Didn't know whether to put this here or in the Ukraine thread. Regardless, a longish but worthwhile read about exactly how fucked Russia is, and how this "mobilization" basically amounts to Putin pounding the table and nothing more, because logistics and materials and money are not on his side:

A brief Twitter thread: what I think of #Russia's capability to even arm its reservists properly.

TL;DR: Russia would struggle to even reactivate meaningful quantities of Soviet surplus heavy weapons fast enough, much less manufacture enough modern kit to matter. 1/

— Janne M. Korhonen 🇫🇮🇪🇺🇺🇳🐟🇺🇦🇵🇸 (@jmkorhonen) September 22, 2022

what if the russians read this finnish blockchain researcher's analysis (he has "been studying industrial mobilizations since 2020," which is around 10,000 waking hours) and decide not to as he's sure they will launch human wave attacks against enemy artillery? did he ever think about that?

Pretty powerful video. In Dagestan locals clearly don't want to go to war with Ukraine. The recruiting officer argues they have to fight for the future. – We don't even have a present, what future are you talking about," replies a Dagestani man. pic.twitter.com/1O4ob2GhSN

— Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) September 22, 2022

So I'm headed for the nearest foreign border...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/my-heart-sank-with-news-of-draft-russians-flee-in-droves

apparently draft notices were delivered by mail, not electronically, which implies this has been in the works for some time.
news of men being interviewed at border crossings and airports about their military status, purpose of their trip and whether they have a one way ticket.

also news of men getting drafted even though they don’t fall within the criteria outlined by government

Apparently they also served draft notices to jailed protestors

the morale of these draftees is going to about where is was with guys drafted into the Vietnam War in 1972

scenes from the draft.. some of these guys look pretty old

Еще видео с моего родного города Нерюнгри Республика Саха (Якутия) pic.twitter.com/haaWQX17uf

— Polina (@poli_golobokova) September 22, 2022

President Keyes otm

I'm sure they will be drafting heaviest in places a long long way from Moscow or St Petersburg.

small difference: vietnam and the usa don’t share a border.

if Ukraine presented any real danger to the Russian Federation that would be a significant difference, but the only 'threat' here is a set of mostly abstract geopolitical considerations, so, not so very different from the USA and Vietnam.

The point about morale is germane.. nobody wants to be the last killed in a pointless, losing war. I watched a british documentary about the U.S.'s final days in Vietnam, and the grunts were basically hiding in trenches and waiting for some kind of peace deal. They were no longer actively conducting the search & destroy missions ordered by the brass

Unfortunately for these Russians, these HIMAR systems can land right in your trench like a fly landing on a cucumber slice.. I think 200 were killed last week when a rocket landed on a bus station where they were hiding out.

(correction: it was last month, not last week)

i haven't kept up, has iron maiden written a fucking amazing song about this war yet

yeah, too bad Lemmy's not with us anymore, I'm sure he could write a sick jam about the "Azov Brigade!!" defending a steelworks to the bitter end

if Ukraine presented any real danger to the Russian Federation that would be a significant difference, but the only 'threat' here is a set of mostly abstract geopolitical considerations, so, not so very different from the USA and Vietnam.

well, it’s more than just about geography but yes, having a shared border makes for a very different dynamic - including how some russians feel about the war.

including how some russians feel about the war.

how do you think these particular Russians you have in mind are feeling? and are they a significanty body among the conscripts or simply "some Russians" not asked to go fight?

this may be a weak analogy, but imagine some troops from seattle sent to attack vancouver BC.. they might follow orders, but their hearts ain't in it. Too much in common

It's so depressing that no matter one's degree of knowledge, life experience, personal politics or opinions, they can just look at these events with an almost boundless level of cynicism and be right <i>so often</i> that it's almost convincing to <i>always</i> look at Russia/Russian goings-on this way.

I know there's some die hard communists on here I've had some run-ins with, and other people who are probably more level-headed than I am, and a few of either type who are probably more forgiving of the Soviet Union or whose horror or distaste is appropriately offset by the none-too-innocent perfidy of American and Western empire, and I get that, but it is so fucking depressing to see all this playing out and have one's worst fears come true, the most cynical expectations fulfilled.

There's a historian named David Glantz, for instance, who's done great work in the early 2000s and almost single-handedly converted the reputation of the Red Army in WW2 from a bunch of scrubs being sent into the meat-grinder with NKVD machine-guns at their back to a disciplined, organized, mechanized force used intelligently to help prosecute an apocalyptic conflict to a successful end, and you know, he's right. The Red Army DID start off shitty, but they got better, and it's important for the historical record to reflect that. It's one of the many ways that the USSR has been mis-remembered and its reputation unfairly maligned, whether you're ultimately a fan of what it stood for or not. The anti-communists and the rehabilitated Nazi generals moaning about "Soviet hordes" had their way for too long, and the record had to be corrected.

But now? Now, all the worst stereotypes of the USSR and Russia, fair or unfair, are coming true. (Except the Orientalist bullshit about "Asiatic hordes," sometimes afloat in twitter when some wag posts a picture of a Buryat soldier or Chechen Kadyrovite and labels them "savage," as though more "pure" Russian soldiers aren't capable of the kinds of atrocities we've already seen enough of this year). Whatever your 'position' is, you just can't be cynical ENOUGH when it comes to this conflict.

Take the Azov bullshit just as the ultimate example: Russians were using their attack on Mariupol as a primary example of "denazification," they captured the Azovites as a telling lesson in "doing right by those poor misled Ukrainians, who are really bamboozled Russians after all;" they were going to put them on trial, in fucking CAGES, and have their own 21'st century Nuremberg tribunals. Hell, they even (probably) killed a bunch of them in Olenivka, and blamed it on the Ukrainians for reasons known only to the Russian army but probably having more to do with torture than the Azovites revealing Nazi secrets. Makes sense so far, right?

But what do they do in the end? They trade dozens of them, including commanders and twitter-famous members of the regiment, in exchange for some shitty no-name Russian officers and a fucking Ukrainian: Medvedchuk, the would-be Russian stooge. It's such a betrayal of everything that the most nuanced, anti-Nazi Western observers have come to expect, let alone the rabid Russian nationalists for whom Azov was akin to Satan's personal goon squad, such a fucking brazen handbrake turn from "denazification" or even the soft-pedaling of said policy as the Russian army got bogged down earlier this year, but still made noises about the upcoming Azov trials in Mariupol. And virtually on the same day that they announce the not-so-partial mobilization inside Russia? Forget saying this is a "spit in the face" of this or that faction, these or those observers from afar. At this point, is there anyone who's not covered in a Biblical flood's worth of saliva, save those happy full-time cynics laughing from inside their submarines? They don't need to see or observe anything when they're always proven right.

This is just one series of circumstances within a short time during this awful war, but it's a useful kind of prism through which to see these bizarre, seemingly contradictory events. Regardless of how evil the outcomes are, they are the result of an amoral, plodding policy that is beyond mere ethics, factional passions, or "realism." Excuses, justifications, rationalizations are chosen and discarded at will with little to no regard for any humans or their reactions. War has often proven to be fertile ground for the absurd, but rarely to this extent.

Moomin, I always appreciate your comments, since this whole shit-show began

"I know there's some die hard communists on here I've had some run-ins with, and other people who are probably more level-headed than I am, and a few of either type who are probably more forgiving of the Soviet Union or whose horror or distaste is appropriately offset by the none-too-innocent perfidy of American and Western empire, and I get that"

Proceeds not to get it.

It's a weird rant. And whatever stereotypes you may hold in your head about Russia (or the USSR though I don't think that matters) it really doesn't matter.

Unfortunately the partial mobilization means the conflict will be prolonged, and the nuclear threat means that some negotiation with Russia will need to take place to de-escalate the conflict.

Any consensus on how the mobilization is going to work? I can see how it can potentially solve some of Russia's rotation issues, but beyond that its unclear what kind of plan there is (yet?).

I can't tell if the nuclear threat is different to the previous nuclear threat, what size/type device would be deployed or what location, where it would accrue more advantage than a non-nuclear strike

I don't want to fuck about and find out.

Proceeds not to get it.

It's a weird rant. And whatever stereotypes you may hold in your head about Russia (or the USSR though I don't think that matters) it really doesn't matter.

Weird post imo. Nothing anyone posts here "matters", strange criticism to make.

I mean to say that going on about USSR as something to be defended by "ilx communists" or Russian stereotypes isn't a way to think about this conflict.

If you want to, that is.

Suggesting that current Russian policy mirrors the worst stereotypes that have been thrust at Russia through the ages does not have to be some sort of skeleton key to understanding the conflict, it can just be a person of Russian origin expressing dismay at what their country has turned into. In, you know, the Russia thread.

Given what else is in that post I wouldn't say it's "just" exasperation at domestic politics, which is a feeling I know about.

Well no, it's also exasperation at foreign policy.

Proceeds not to get it.
Proceeds not to get what? Russia's legitimate security concerns, I assume?

"I get that" it's just something people say in the middle of an argument with someone. Oh, I get what you are saying. Just a thing to clear their throats before carrying on like they would do.

how do you think these particular Russians you have in mind are feeling? and are they a significanty body among the conscripts or simply "some Russians" not asked to go fight?

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

i think they love their children too

I know there's some die hard communists on here I've had some run-ins with, and other people who are probably more level-headed than I am, and a few of either type who are probably more forgiving of the Soviet Union or whose horror or distaste is appropriately offset by the none-too-innocent perfidy of American and Western empire, and I get that, but it is so fucking depressing to see all this playing out and have one's worst fears come true, the most cynical expectations fulfilled.

― borrowed Ostalgia for the unremembered 80s (MoominTrollin)

i don't really understand most of your post, but by "communists" you're thinking, like, soviet apologists, right? what folks on the left would call "tankies"? the communists i know are _not_ favorably disposed towards russia or particularly forgiving of the soviet union's atrocities.

I'm dense, so thank you for stating explicitly what I now assume xyz's point was.

xxps i don't particularly feel like explaining multiple nuances in russian/ukrainian relationship (partially because moomintrollin knows a lot more historic context and would do a much better job at explaining it) but no, it's only similar to vietnam drafting when you trivialise it to something simplistic - and russian/ukrainian relationship is anything but.

to be clear: i would love to see this idiotic mobilisation to serve as a trigger for civil unrest, i'm just perhaps cynical enough to not expect that it will actually work that way or expect that it will result in more russians supporting ukraine. it won't.

i've learned a lot over the past few years about revolutionary politics in post-democratic states

people who speak russian tell me that "what is to be done?" in the original russian is a call to revolution

it's hard for me to see it as anything but a shrug

of course, the people united will never be defeated

of course, despots throughout history have known this

putin and the oligarchs have spent the past decades isolating and marginalizing any voices of dissent

of course few people will actually be happy with nicho - with putin's disastrous policies

it doesn't seem remotely plausible that revolution will make things better

it hasn't worked that way in any of the other revolutions and attempted revolutions we've seen in our lifetimes

it is fairly clear at this point what kind of person one has to be to succeed in russian politics

equally clear (even, one must imagine, to putin, even if he will never admit it publicly) is what the russian state is and is not capable of doing

putin wants conscripts to fight in the ukraine? that is fine. actually going to the front, to die for his stupid little war, that is out of the question... does that mean then that one must fight against putin?

if the russian people value their individual survival more than the abstract idea of "liberation" i can hardly blame them

whether that be the "liberation" of the ukraine or their own "liberation" from putin

What hurts is that people appear to be pretty mutable, their behavior and lifestyle and even beliefs can change quite quickly due to any number of inputs. This can be positive but also quite frightening depending on the example used (1930s Germany!)

So, going back to the "stereotypes" talk, there is no such thing as some essential "Russian" mentality. Or a "Chinese" mentality. Or an "American" mentality. But it entirely possible for a mentality to be required to succeed in a given social or political context, giving rise to cadres who happen to possess or cultivate or affect such a mentality. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. This is where we are in contemporary Russia - an inexact but analogous mirror image of the late Soviet period, suffused with cynicism and incompetence, sure, but also paradoxically competitive careerism (you gotta hustle to be a regional industry manager or a member of the Politburo, after all).

Some of those old stereotypes and attitudes - "they pretend to pay us, and we pretend we're working" - sound like they're equally applicable today. I recently saw a theory re: the earlier Russian offensive in the Donbas, compared to the recent and somewhat more successful Ukrainian drive in Kharkiv Oblast, to the effect of: "the people in charge were making small advances over a wide area in order to be able to report constant weekly territorial gains." And so we return to that old saw about the Soviet factory, asked to meet a quota of two tons of nails, producing one two-ton nail. Technically, the plan was fulfilled.

Regarding the "run-ins with communists" paragraph, that was just my attempt to answer a question that no one had yet asked in response, something like "well sure, but what about negative American stereotypes that America then goes and confirms, over and over?" I'm not looking to accuse any communists, real or imagined on my part, of being "soft" on the Soviet Union or Russia currently and as I've tried to explain above with my reference to the history of David Glantz, I don't believe that the USSR was a 100% evil monolith that carelessly ground its citizens into the dust. The point I was working on is that in my eyes, while the search for nuance in what the Russian leadership is doing and how it is steering the war is commendable, it also appears to be increasingly futile, and produces less accurate results than simple crude cynicism. Especially cynicism fueled by decades of stereotypes that this leadership appears to be bent on resurrecting, one after the other. Which is depressing.

"Some of those old stereotypes and attitudes - "they pretend to pay us, and we pretend we're working""

Sounds like a typical ilxor tbh.

Another revealing video. Scene inside a mustering station in Russia where an officer yells at angry, resentful men who have been mobilized.
“That’s it- playtime’s over. You’re soldiers now!”
pic.twitter.com/oTfomvgsUf

— Patrick Reevell (@Reevellp) September 23, 2022

That podium has seen some shit.

That's one motivated looking military force

I'm not sure what to make of the mobilization. Or rather, the form the mobilization appears to have taken, and what the immediate purpose.

On the face of it, it seems haphazard (consequence of procrastinated then rushed decision?)

I'd thought would solve short term rotation issues but rather than going specifically for people with recent service, which would make some sense - it seems haphazard and random, if we're to belive these vids are representative.

And many in Moscow and St Petersburg too not just the periphery.

And more generally about mobilization not just this specific form, what effect this has on demographics. Russia currently has manpower shortage with ever shrinking working age population

The Russian economists Maxim Mironov (@mironov_fm) and Oleg @itskhoki (of IE University and UCLA respectively) have published an important thread estimating the likely demographic impacts of mobilisation on Russia. A translation follows. ⬇️ /1

— ChrisO (@ChrisO_wiki) September 25, 2022

Seems to be "troops" from the separatist regions who are behind a lot of the more egregious behaviour carried out by the Russian forces - which makes sense, civil war and all that. I saw an interview with a young guy from one of the areas recaptured by the Ukrainians and he said the actual Russians weren't that bad but that the separatists were "crazy".

Sounds like a typical ilxor tbh.

― xyzzzz__

i'm pretty open about it tbh, my entire existence is spent in this state of shell-shocked brezhnevian malaise.

Come for what the fuck is happening in Russia?, stay for what the fuck is happening on what the fuck is happening in Russia?.

when the supply chain started breaking down i gave up. when i was a kid i was told that the reason america was better than the soviet union was the strength of our supply chain. the soviets, on the other hand, suffered random supply chains, random gluts. you couldn't plan for anything, it was more, well, what's going to be available this week?

i stopped being able to make plans a long time ago. the leaders i guess are still making noises and putting out their usual propaganda. there is no point in listening. they are talking to please themselves. what am i going to learn? why are the flags flying at half-mast this week? the dangers of enemies, domestic and foreign? half of the time i am one of the "enemies" they are warning against.

or perhaps they will tell me how much they care about trans people, this government that has for three years failed to listen to my pleas to call me by my legal name. every time i tell someone they are outraged and they assure me they will correct the problem immediately. i never hear from them again. my name is not corrected.

i have a strong work ethic. i like to work. i believe in work. what are they paying me for? what am i accomplishing with my work?

they are tremendously supportive of me at my workplace. tremendously understanding of the mental illness i suffer. every few months or so, perhaps when the sky is on fire or perhaps when there appears to be a serious possibility that we will all die in a nuclear attack, i will have a breakdown and i will go on short-term disability and they will teach me how to better deal with My Problems. this is the only thing that can be done.

My Problems are the only ones i have the power to deal with. therefore it follows, does it not, that the best thing is to act as if the only problems that exist are My Problems. if there is a problem and it is outside of my ability, what good does it do me to dwell on it?

so i go back to my job in healthcare, where every day for the past several years i see people dying of preventable diseases, and what do they do? they call me a hero! a hero, like batman, or like stakhanov. see what good an ordinary man can do?

oh, or woman, of course. an ordinary woman. or an ordinary non-binary thing. person. thing. of course it does not matter what gender you are. you must understand this is all very new and it is very difficult for us.

the russians, sting tells me, love their children too. did my parents love me? very much. very much. did they hurt me, neglect and abuse me? yes. very much.

america loves me. america _cares_ about me.

they are tremendously supportive of me at my workplace. tremendously understanding of the mental illness i suffer. every few months or so, perhaps when the sky is on fire or perhaps when there appears to be a serious possibility that we will all die in a nuclear attack

you have to understand, the problem wasn't _really_ that i was afraid that we were all going to die, it was that my marriage was falling apart. that was what i learned in my treatment program. certainly nobody except for me and my ex can be held accountable for this. our workplaces were both very supportive of us during covid. they didn't want us to go into the office and spread diseases. we could work from home. they were responsible, they cared about us, and a lot of people were not as fortunate as us.

so we were responsible too. we spent all that time just with the two of us. we didn't talk to anybody else, because other people, you know, other people were not so responsible. we didn't want to be responsible for someone else's death due to our own selfish negligence. was it stressful, just the two of us together, nobody else, nobody to support us except for _the internet_? yes, certainly, but there is no reason for me to begrudge my employer and the wiser minds in my government their _concern for the general welfare_. obviously that had to be of the utmost importance.

but of course at the same time one couldn't... one couldn't hold people who were selfish and negligent responsible for that. is it _fair_ that sociopaths should reap the rewards while the rest of us bore the costs? doesn't matter. it doesn't matter what is fair or just, what matters what is _practical_, and the most _practical_ thing is to allow rich sociopaths to profit while we suffer.

the most practical thing for my ex and i was to sell our house, which we loved, which we hoped to grow old in together, and move into separate squalid rooms neither of us can quite afford on our own. people tell me that i will be happy for this, one day, that it opens so many more opportunities for me. like many russian people, i am used to people telling me things that i do not believe, and accepting their words without complaint.

Jeez the end of that xpost ChrisO thread of the two economists:

Losses will be comparable to those of DNR troops - British intelligence estimates that as of June (3.5 months into the war) they left 55% of their original strength. It can be assumed that in the next 6 months the losses among the Russian mobilised may amount to 60-70%. 31/

— ChrisO (@ChrisO_wiki) September 25, 2022

And how such decimation will contribute to

... Russia currently has manpower shortage with ever shrinking working age population

― anvil, Sunday, September 25, 2022

As an old WASP male American Deep South hepcat hubcap, I know some of where you're coming from, MoominT, re the frustration, rage, nausea, and struggle with default kneejerk cynicism, which can be a kind of survival mechanism and deadly for others, also plain worthless---I know it better looking over the shoulders of some Black commentators---glimpsing what they and you and Russians (and others) in Russia know more of---glad that some of the latter are making it across the border, so far---

That podium has seen some shit.

― borrowed Ostalgia for the unremembered 80s (MoominTrollin), Sunday, September 25, 2022 11:02 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

That's one motivated looking military force

― I've seen things you people wouldn't belieeeeeeve!!! (Matt #2), Sunday, September 25, 2022 11:15 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Not going to link it here, but there's a video of one of those officers getting capped by a mobilized man in Úst-Ilimsk earlier today.

(not those specific officers, but same role different city)

A young man shot and wounded the chief recruitment officer at a military enlistment station in Russia’s Irkutsk region on Monday, local authorities said, as thousands of fighting-aged men continued to flee the country to escape being summoned to duty in President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The alleged shooter in the attack on the recruitment chief, at a military commissariat in Ust-Ilimsk, a small town in Irkutsk, apparently was distraught that his close friend had been called for duty despite having no prior military service.

Putin, announcing the partial mobilization, had said only experienced servicemen would be summoned. “We are talking about partial mobilization,” the president said in a national address. “In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.”

But there have been a torrent of reports all across Russia, including from ardent supporters of the war, of people being summoned for duty despite having no prior military service, or being too old or otherwise physically incapable of going to war.

And now---well, search with "Kremlin admits mistakes" (re mobilization)

BREAKING - Russian FSB security service says it has detained Japanese Consul in Vladivostok - RIA - Reuters News

— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) September 26, 2022

twitter pundits are weird, so what is chris o saying, that if "russian civil society" doesn't collectively decide to hold mass protests against putin they're the ones responsible for any conscripts who die in the ukraine, because "russian civil society" has a "choice"?

god as if my monday wasn't shitty enough already

Unrelated to The War, but interesting:

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin grants Russian citizenship to former US security contractor Edward Snowden.

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 26, 2022

So they can draft him!

I don't usually read much Twitter punditry, but was struck by this study he quoted, posted upthread:

Losses will be comparable to those of DNR troops - British intelligence estimates that as of June (3.5 months into the war) they left 55% of their original strength. It can be assumed that in the next 6 months the losses among the Russian mobilised may amount to 60-70%.

look i know it's rude of me to say but i feel like chelsea manning has come out of things a lot better than snowden did, and i can think of one decision manning made that may have helped

also the curse of three letter acronyms strikes again, i can only read that as "do not resuscitate" troops, i can imagine that losses among soldiers who have DNR orders on file would be pretty severe

I thought it was the Department of Natural Resources, who are more accustomed to citing hunters for going over their bag limits or doing life-jacket checks on recreational watercraft.

i can think of one decision manning made that may have helped

She repudiated Glenn Greenwald, but that's probably not what you were thinking of.

now i'm wondering what the correlation between repudiating glenn greenwald and taking estrogen looks like, i mean it's a small sample size but i, too, repudiate glenn greenwald

seriously edward snowden not transitioning is a fucking tragic blow to humanity, the guy looks like abi thorn pre-transition and look how _she's_ turning out

look i know it's rude of me to say but i feel like chelsea manning has come out of things a lot better than snowden did

this seems uncontroversial

.. anyway, what the fuck is happening in RUSSIA

A few hundred (mainly female) protesters gathered in the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk earlier today to protest mobilisation

While performing the Yakut Osuokhai folk dance they shouted "no to war" and "no to [Yakut] genocide", local media report https://t.co/DZlvHcXRAI pic.twitter.com/MBiukhr8Pl

— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) September 25, 2022

They chose an interesting staging ground for the protest; the statue in the background is of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platon_Oyunsky

A Yakut communist, playwright, translator, statesman, and eventual victim of the Great Purge, he was posthumously rehabilitated in the 1955; a statue of him was erected in 2003.

I kept searching trying to figure out who it was but the results kept coming up with Lenin, whose statue has graced the main square in Yakutsk since 1967. Despite being described as Yakutsk's "cultural heritage," however, its future remains uncertain. Critics point out that plans for it to be refurbished this year have run into budgetary difficulties: not all of the funds necessary have been allocated.

Newly mobilized Russians are told what they need to take to the war. Spoiler - pads and tampons.
(English subtitles) pic.twitter.com/CumYqqpuit

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) September 26, 2022

also in the bizarro russian news: “a petition to provide vegan and vegetarian military rations has gathered over 25000 signatures”

'ask your family to send tourniquets!'

geez that inspires confidence

Looks like enlistment/mobilization centers being set up at the Georgian border at the main Verkhnii crossing. If true, looks like effecticvely like a partial border closing

Questions about the capacity of Georgia (and to lesser extent Armenia) to absorb anti-mobilization Russians (also maybe between March exiters and September exiters)

welp, the votes are in, everybody wants to join the Russian Federation - that's democracy in action

Solovyov gets drafted and goes crazy. pic.twitter.com/bd8lMf4zFi

— RealSubtitles (@R82938886) September 27, 2022

A weird people in my uneducated opinion

RIP red tie man

I do not think those are real subtitles.

If they are, that's a really weird exchange

click through and it’s made very clear they’re fake comedy subtitles

yeah not really sure what’s the purpose of this tweet or the fact that reposting it might not provide the necessary context.

the original exchange is revolting - and should be presented as such.

in the actual bizzaro russian news: those who are drafted are advised to buy and bring their own supplies. clothing, first aid etc

which essentially means: you can buy better chance of survival - if you can afford it.

if Russia wanted to preserve the illusion that they're still a world-class fighting force, this incursion has pretty much shattered it.. creaky old equipment, poorly trained & supplied troops, a chaotic command structure, rampant corruption, looting, etc. They have plenty of cannon fodder, but that's about it.

i’m holding slight hope it’s these kind of news that will contribute to mass discontent - because this is something that they can’t blame ukraine for

.. or the west

in the actual bizzaro russian news: those who are drafted are advised to buy and bring their own supplies. clothing, first aid etc

This was an issue with American troops in Iraq 2 as well, iirc.

I was gonna say.

maybe we just need one general what the fuck is happening thread

#onethread

What do Russians think of the Pitchfork 90s lists?

how the fuck do you leave off Yegor i Opizdenevshie??

from meduza:

sources close to kremlin say the russian government is not in the rush to annex because the "PR effect during mobilization will be close to zero". they also say the kremlin understands that russians haven't been convinced yet the annexation is necessary, although the official propaganda says the regions are economically beneficial, and referendums followed by annexation is an absolutely "normal process" - including the west (quoting such examples as texas joining the US).

there is also the thinking that such a delay would leave some room for negotiations. although currently the main headache for moscow is the wide spread discontent due to the mobilization. the kremlin conducted a closed survey and the results were not to their liking.

it appears the plans to block the borders for any men within the drafted age group are on hold for now - "we underestimated the amount of people trying to flee and we can't risk it - because we don't have enough enforcement".

reminds me of playing Command & Conquer, I know exactly what point in the game he's at

The only people who are ready to live according to US rules are "political masochists and other followers of non-traditional political relations," a homophobic joke.

Putin rants about sex change operations. "This is unacceptable. We have our own future. pic.twitter.com/n99bow1BaA

— max seddon (@maxseddon) September 30, 2022

What a weird rant...

I mean it’s only weird if one discounts everyone who talks like that these days

More on today's speech:

I wish every single person in the West would listen to Putin's speech. Obviously, that won't happen so let me summarise as a professional translator for 10+ years. He states, as he has done from the outset, what his intentions and complaints are in the plainest terms possible.🧵

— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) September 30, 2022

Lovely mix of truths, exaggerations, elisions, prejudices, fantasies, and lies.

xp

Some fairly valid points, meant solely to rationalize his hateful and brutal form of imperialism.

(Quote starts with “They flattened…”)

German cities without "any military need to do so". There was no need for this except to scare us and the rest of the world. Korea, Vietnam. To this day they "occupy" Japan, South Korea and Germany and other countries while cynically calling them "allies".

— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) September 30, 2022

Yeah, pretty sure Dresden was payback for the Blitz

and the V2 program

Churchill was also interested in dropping anthrax over Germany along with poison gas.

elvis t otm

"Yeah, pretty sure Dresden was payback for the Blitz"

the RAF were the first to target and kill German civilians in the air war between Britain and Germany. The "payback" rhetoric has always been a load of bollox. Unless your name is Aimless and confidently talking history channel level trash as knowledge is your ting!

so you're not into trash talking, eh?

Pretty sure Churchill didn't need much of a reason to merrily kill thousands of people.

Comrade Putin, thank you!

So bizarre seeing the transphobia in the middle of anti-colonial talking points.

"how do you do fellow members of the global south and victims of western colonialism?" pic.twitter.com/o7YbykoXVj

— Luka Ivan Jukic (@lijukic) September 30, 2022

So bizarre seeing the transphobia in the middle of anti-colonial talking points.

Is it that bizarre? LGBTQ is an expression of western imperialism. Galloway was making similar points in Batley recently, seems relatively standard by now

It's not bizarre in the slightest, he's just casting his nets wider with a few extra keywords and phrases.

He knows there's plenty of people in the West who agree with him, including many in government.

The same strategy as Fox News bigoted blowhard Tucker Carlson appropriating the language of economic justice to sell Republican policies. Folks don’t have visceral tribal allegiances to neoliberalism like they do to race, nationalism, or gender roles. Now that neoliberalism is widely failing, it’s getting to be a hard sell so they have to resort to the bait-and-switch.

neoliberalism is always a hard sell and has to be forced on people and I think the punitive/authoritarian/austerian side (the culture war stuff) is always at least implicit- and people get to pretend they're fighting power when they make that stuff explicit (trump brexit etc etc) instead of rejecting the logic altogether which would be too hard and might have actual consequences

the thing that leapt out at me from putin was the what I thought of as duginist and eurasianist touches- I don't know enough to know if this is the actual core of putinism or if it's more like a dogwhistle to a certain faction but it's striking anyway

unfortunately it will resonate to some extent- anyone who knows anything about syria knows how bullshit the anticolonial stuff is from russia - sadly that doesn't include a large proportion of the western lefts (and dissident rights) he's reaching out to here

Right maybe Syria isn’t so clear to some because it was recent whereas the West has centuries of colonialism to attack. Except that Siberia was basically a colony of Russia initially, wasn’t it? And attacking the West for slavery — yes atrocious, but. What exactly was the difference between slaves and serfs? Was it just skin color or

Anyway I came to say neoliberalism was not a hard sell in the USA in the late 20th century and it doesn’t seem like the corporate co-option of progressive politics in that era was a uniquely American issue — Labour, SPD in Germany and I’m sure others were glad to benefit from the largesse of the 1%.

"Is it that bizarre? LGBTQ is an expression of western imperialism."

Is it?

Well to those bozos it is

"Is it that bizarre? LGBTQ is an expression of western imperialism."

Is it?

It is beginning to look that way, if I'm understanding him correctly

to who, exactly?

The right wing in Europe is casting LGBTQ as a corruption, a malign (outside) influence to be resisted.

sure, I was just calling anvil's phrasing into question as it appeared to give legitimacy to the argument, which I don't think it deserves

There is no legitimacy to that argument whatsoever. Unlike anti-colonial discourse.

Of course not. It's pure reactionary politics.

Well anvil is stating it's not bizarre or strange to see transphobia being called upon but usually reactionaries don't care for both anti-colonialism or trans rights.

This isn't about Putin but the two issues being spread out like this in the same speech.

reactionaries do care for stories of national victimhood

Opportunists going to opportune.

fascism's whole shtick iirc is getting a guy up there to be like "too many solid things have melted into air lately (because of the jews)-- but don't worry we've invented a murder ritual to bring them all back" and then just continuing to accelerate ultraviolent gangster capitalism while yelling on tv about god and dad; so it's not too weird to find it also willing to say there has been too much colonialism lately (because of the gays).

when the supply chain started breaking down i gave up.

I know I’m about a week behind but just wanted to comment that this post and the next one were lovely pieces of writing.

dlh - thanks. I get it now.

I see it as an attempt to fuse ‘western neoliberal imperial hegemony’ with ‘western cultural degenerate globalism’, and these are manifestations of the same thing, and they are done by the same people using different tools. The West is invading, with their NATO, and their LGBT, and their UEFA, and their so-called color revolutions (which, like Maidan, are in fact CIA coups), meddling where they’re not wanted, who needs them?.

It doesn’t seem bizarre because its not even original, its been pushed for years, in the west too, Galloway, Greyzone types. In the west we might get diluted versions for certain audiences tweaked a little, away from explicit ‘LGBT is bad’ to a more flexible ‘LGBT is cynically weaponised by elites’.

Not a million miles away from trying to fuse 'Corporations are bad' people with 'Corporations are bad because they are woke' people. Or using 'the west' for one audience, and 'globalists' for another

I've been watching this guy's videos talking to Russians, mostly in Moscow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1420channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1420channel

not me trying to link to the channel '1420'

Very good thread on nuke talk of the last few days.

Haven't yet heard a compelling case as to why, for the west, Putin's use of tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine turns Ukraine from its status now - a cause worth a proxy war - with limited some risk into a major war with significantly elevated risk of the worst outcome. 1/

— Patrick Porter (@PatPorter76) October 3, 2022

A much bigger Russian collapse will unfold in the coming days.

— Francis Fukuyama (@FukuyamaFrancis) October 3, 2022

always so prescient is this lad, give him a tenner and the lottery numbers for Wednesday are all yours.

If he's looking at open source data then he needs to say more. If he's dropping hints based on a classified briefing or a leak than he needs to say less.

History is over... NOW

wait

NOW

Wanda Jackson’s Fukuyama Mama

It does seem a fairly safe bet, just based on momentum, that Russia will continue to see setbacks on the battlefield in the coming days, though Fukuyama's tweet seems to imply something bigger than that. Not sure what information he has, other than Putin's evident desperation.

I think people are underestimating the extent to which Fukuyama operates on pure vibes.

Not sure what information he has

Does he have information or a desire for people to pay attention to him?

The latter. I think his comparative advantage is supposed to be an ability to recognize emerging patterns more quickly in data that everyone has access to.

in the chicago academic scene a lot of people are into post-history

I don't really have any view on whether his "End of History" thing was wrong or just early. But I do know it was a hugely successful and durable meme that he dined out on for years and parlayed into various comfortable sinecures. So not necessarily evidence of incompetence.

One of his predictions from February:

* The collapse of their (Russia's) position could be sudden and catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of attrition.

More predictions.

happy october everyone pic.twitter.com/Dhq7DOO0MZ

— isi litke (@isilitke) October 3, 2022

Mr. Fun At (Halloween) Parties.

Joyce Carol Oates did it better

Yup.

at worst a war crimes

Any thoughts on why the US has released to NYT info that it believes Ukraine was behind the Dugina assassination?

I didn't think Ukraine was behind the assassination (and this particular release doesn't necessarily mean it was either). No idea why this was release (and released now), or even if it was intentional release

anyone with a hot take?

Letting Putin know that we're not in the business of assassinations on Russian soil? Gotta be on his mind.

yeah, we're too busy sabotaging pipelines to assassinate his cronies' children

I'm trying to get my head around the large numbers of torture sites in Ukraine that we're still probably only scratching the surface of. Particularly the seemingly unco-ordinated and purposeless nature of them. Is this ingrained in some way, an extension of Dedovshchina?

Its difficult to imagine going from zero to hundred so quickly, from regular life in Russia to this, unless it was already part of life to some degree. And if it wasn't...a lot of the torturers will be going back to everyday life in Russia eventually

They might be not be "going back to Russia" though. There's anecdotal evidence that some of the worst behaviour has been by separatists from Russian controlled areas of Ukraine.

Even if thats the case, the fact these sites seem to be all over and in places where the separatists aren't deployed (or are they? not sure) suggests its across the board, or at least fairly standard

That being said, I'm not all that clear who the separatists are, or what the dividing line between separatists and little green men is, or how much that line has changed between 2014 and 2022

This is a really weird line of thought, the notion that abhorrent behaviour in war and justifications for it is linked to national origin or whatever is not supported by most of recorded history.

Yeah, maybe, I'm not sure what to think either really. It might be that in other wars this is standard too, I know there was Abu Ghraib and others so maybe its just being reported more with the unprecedented level of access we have?

I mean, to pick one example from about a million in history…we know about some of the atrocities committed by the British in Kenya before independence because there were survivors and there are some surviving documents. But before leaving the country they dumped huge amounts of documents in the Indian Ocean rather than handing them to the new Kenyan government. What do you think was so bad that they couldn’t risk it being discovered?

The difference is whose torture is considered torture, and whose is considered an unfortunate if understandable cost.

I think the thing they couldn't risk being discovered was evidence of atrocities. Quite possibly directly ordered but maybe unfocussed and random as is seemingly the case today in Kharkiv and other oblasts

I'm not sure there is a difference, but if there is it would be the role of conscripts, regular Russians that weren't even troops a few months ago. How does one go from working in a cafe in January to torturing people in March?

You may well be right, that this is something intrinsic, that the exception isn't Russians, its Ukrainians - and the story isn't "why are Russians torturing?" at all, but "why aren't Ukrainians torturing? (unless of course they are too and we're not seeing the reports)

I will say this as nicely as I can.

A while ago I was unfortunate enough to encounter a free soldier F event in central London. All around me were men on motorbikes being cheered by huge numbers of people. Ordinary people cheering for the right of a British soldier to kill Irish civilians and walk free, because to kill us in cold blood in the streets is less of a crime than to be held accountable for it. How do you think I feel that I live somewhere where people voted for a government that included that as part of their policy agenda?

No people is uniquely monstrous. Given opportunity, a lot of people will excuse the worst atrocities, there’s really no more to it than that.

I think its essentialist to think any particular people are intrinsically more or less monstrous than any other people. We shouldn't pursue that line of thinking. I think a large percentage of any country is completely fine with killing in theory and enjoy seeing it on tv. I think a smaller but still large percentage of people would kill without even thinking abuot it. Doing torture...probably starting to drop off a bit but still higher than we would like

I think what you're suggesting is that the people who are ok with this, are actually able to jump right into torture - without having some level of it already being present in society? I think this is true for some, but still seems a big step for people without prior experience to some degree. Its not something I'd feel ready to step up to without some level of desensitization first

Stanley Milgram to thread.

(even though his study is super-flawed)

From what I can tell, much of this doesn't seem to fit that pattern though, much doesn't seem particularly directed (although there is that too). There's a chaotic element

Initially thought you were referencing the Monkey Ladder experiment, which I'd never heard of until recently (most likely also flawed, but interesting!)

Is that like Monkey Tennis

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSn3-fRTanipMj496Tnuqahw4WEK2zH6YwEoQ&usqp=CAU

Mass shooting at a Russian training ground

A deadly shooting at a Russian military training ground in the Belgorod region has killed 11 and injured 15, according to official sources. Unconfirmed reports by witnesses say the number of casualties may be as much as twice that. The incident allegedly occurred when Russian officers made derogatory remarks about Allah to volunteers of Tajik origin. Official reports say there were two shooters, both of whom were killed. A witness says a third shooter escaped. The incident occurred against the backdrop of frequent shelling in Belgorod and complaints from soldiers about conditions at the training ground and on the front lines.

See pilot.. pic.twitter.com/rcAnunTRaK

— ka0_nash1 🇪🇺 🇨🇿 🇺🇦 (@J4rr1N) October 17, 2022

why?

Will the pilot get picked up for a full series?

Russia has SO MUCH empty space to fly training missions, yet they chose this spot?

maybe it wasn't a 'training mission' after all

Wow, that photo

LOL truly the Russians are just trolling us now.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-british-navy-personnel-blew-up-nord-stream-gas-pipelines-2022-10-29/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fh0FiM7XEAYaUGY?format=png&name=360x360

Vadim Boyko, a Russian colonel who was involved in the autumn mobilisation commits suicide in his office by shooting himself 5 times!

Funny enough it wasn't the bullets that killed him, it was the fall out of the hospital window.

Well, it was drinking the vial of polonium that caused him to fall out of the hospital window.

Bringing back the Purgin' Thirties.. darkness at noon and all that

Bump thread every time an oligarch dies under mysterious circumstances

Russian real estate tycoon Dmitry Zelenov passed away earlier this month after tumbling down a flight of stairs while visiting friends in the French Riviera, according to a local outlet and an independent Russian outlet.

The French newspaper Var Matin reported Sunday that Zelenov, 50, had been dining with friends in Antibes on Dec. 9 when he suddenly became unwell, falling down a flight of stairs and suffering critical head injuries. He succumbed while receiving treatment at the Hospital Pasteur in Nice.

Baza, an independent news channel on Telegram, reported that Zelenov had toppled over a railing and hit his head. Authorities informed the oligarch’s friends around 7 a.m. the following morning that he’d died without regaining consciousness.

The channel also said it was “known” that Zelenov had previously undergone vascular surgery for unspecified heart problems.

The Antibes Police Department is currently investigating Zelenov’s cause of death, according to Var Matin.

The 50-year-old was the former owner of Russian developer Don-Stroy, which constructed the 61-story Triumph Palace Tower in Moscow, one of the tallest residential structures in Europe. Before the company fell under the control of Russia’s state-owned bank VTB after succumbing to the 2008 financial crisis, Zelenov’s net worth was estimated at $1.4 billion, landing him on the Forbes list of Russian billionaires.

Zelenov is the latest in a long line of top figures in the Russian oil, gas, technology, and financial sectors to meet suspicious and untimely ends—the most recent being Anatoly Gerashchenko.

The former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI), Gerashchenko took a mysterious fall “from a great height” at the organization’s headquarters in September. The institute’s press office called the 73-year-old’s death “the result of an accident.”

A fortnight before Gerashchenko’s death, 39-year-old Ivan Pechorin, an executive appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to help oversee development in the Arctic, himself took a strange fall off a moving boat off the Russian coast. And two weeks before that, Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s second-largest oil company, died after purportedly falling out of a hospital window, plummeting six stories to the ground.

I'm seven years older than that guy? Proof positive that when you accumulate wealth past a certain event horizon, it drains you into a husk more effectively than any leech or ghoul.

I mean, not to make excuses for late Russian oligarchs, but he looks about 50 to me.

oh shit, apparently there's a war going on

RIGA, Latvia — After nearly 10 months of war, but referring to the brutal invasion of Ukraine instead as “a special military operation,” Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday finally called it a “war” for the first time, setting off an uproar among antiwar Russians who have been prosecuted for merely challenging the Kremlin-approved euphemism.

“Our goal is not to spin this flywheel of a military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” Putin said during a televised news conference following a government meeting on Thursday. “This is what we are striving for.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/22/putin-war-ukraine-special-operation/

https://64.media.tumblr.com/d892e26be4d5c85bd78aad31b801fb6a/tumblr_mff7wxN8AF1rlho0no1_500.gif

love Putin's whole "Look, I didn't want this either" strategy

Russia’s richest MP mysteriously dies in India

In India, found the body of the richest deputy of Russia Pavel Antov. His body lay in a pool of blood under the windows of the hotel where he celebrated his 65th birthday.

The Russian Telegram channel Shot reports that the body of billionaire Antov was found on Saturday in Rayagad (Odisha state). Previously, it was established that the richest deputy of the Russian Federation fell from the third floor.

there is nowhere safe for these Russian billionaires on the hitlist, even if they buy a holiday on the ISS - they are going through the window.

It's just what the tabloids traditionally called "a gangland slaying".

when u come at the prez be careful not to fly out a window or off a balcomy

So clumsy

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sudden-russian-death-syndrome/ar-AA15MHof

Putin is increasingly isolated 👀!!!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/30/putin-isolated-russia-ukraine-war/

Has a special TV channel where he watches sables fight each other to the death

Feel like I've been seeing variations on that article since the day the invasion started.

Putin is not isolated from his secret police and state surveillance apparatus. So don't worry, he's still OK.

Great piece on the politics of protest in Russia and with a bit on Belarus.

I've been frustrated, depressed and alarmed at this "what's wrong with Russians for not rising up" debate, which I find dishonest, venal and dangerous. Since it's not going away, I took a stab at it. With lots of personal stories from Russia and beyond.⬇️https://t.co/E7PybmRQIs

— Almut Rochowanski (@rochowanski) January 11, 2023

I don't think anyone believes that Russians are not overthrowing their government because the population is egoistic and doesn't feel that strongly about the war in Ukraine or their own woes. Unless you know nothing of the world and where unhappy populations are controlled and repressed.

One up-and-coming Ukrainian journalist tweeted in all seriousness that Russians, unlike Ukrainians, “just don’t have a history of revolutions” (I’m not linking to her tweet, because that would be unkind).

lol

Ha, that could either be deep sarcasm or maybe an implicit "at least not GOOD ones."

I don't think anyone believes that Russians are not overthrowing their government because the population is egoistic and doesn't feel that strongly about the war in Ukraine or their own woes. Unless you know nothing of the world and where unhappy populations are controlled and repressed.

― Nabozo, Friday, 27 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Part of it is responding to discourse on twitter where sadly people do go off.

nazism in ukraine

Watched two of the BBC's Putin vs The West three part doc.

There's a lot of predictable hypocritical shit from those you'd expect (the UK PMs and associated high-ups especially). Talk of Russians bombing hospitals in Aleppo and then going back to hit them again (no suggestion of this being anything other than calculated)...no mention of Western Allies also hitting hospitals (if only via misdirection or incompetence) which was documented at the time.

Maybe the only worthwhile bits are when people, albeit with obvious bias, are quoting Putin and the contrast between those quotes demonstrating his blinkered ideological rhetoric and the predictable framing elsewhere in the doc of Putin as master poker player. Particularly in this case the late night bickering between Cameron and Putin that ensued after negotiations broke down with Cameron claiming he brought up LGBT rights ahead of Sochi 2014 only for Putin to actually trot out the 'if I give those rights we will have even fewer babies' as a defence.

All the footage of Putin (and Medvedev) hanging out in London, France, meeting Biden and Obama etc. only 8-10 years ago does look like from some distant parallel reality now.

This St.Petersburg cafe explosion thing seems fishy.

whatever the russian media reports will be what the russian government (aka Putin) thinks will gain him the most pro-war propaganda value. beyond that it's anyone's guess.

dunno what could be fishy about a propagandist blogger killed by an exploding trophy at a cafe owned by a mercenary warlord engaged in a power struggle with the ministry of defense

The only thing fishy is that the blogger dude didn't fall out a window while having a cigarette

This makes me think it was an explosive rigged Billy Bass trophy that took this guy out.

Film from Putin's latest cabinet meeting...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psTfieh911M

5 1/4" Male Baseball Explosion Trophy Hand Painted Resin These Hand Painted resin trophies feature an Exploding Design that Explodes Right Out at You!

https://rumble.com/v2g4xfw-aussie-cossack-appeals-to-wagner-group-boss-evgeniy-prigozhin.html

Simeon Boikov with a list of suggestions of Australians and New Zealanders to Prigozhin to capture for a potential prisoner exchange between Russia and Australia

Probably more for the sovereign citizen thread, I'm not sure Prigozhin has time for this cat at the moment

Pretty interesting article on the relationship between Putin and the Russian vodka industry, including a history of just why vodka is so important to the Russian treasury:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/05/05/vladimir-putin-vodka-empire-00095109

Yeah read that yesterday — fascinating deep dive.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/22/senior-russian-official-dies-after-privately-bemoaning-fascist-invasion-a81223

Dodik back in Moscow again, not a good sign

OK Roman Super is a great real name.

Some interesting stuff on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/romasuper/posts/pfbid02acSu1nMWXWsxMFci4Q1aFKhrdR7GH1i18JENxLQtsMVHER96raJ9Fu5T1sziqrR5l

So, uh...

Following news that the FSB has charged Prigozhin with inciting an armed rebellion, he’s suddenly gone silent on Telegram...

— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) June 23, 2023

Last seen hanging from a window ledge by his fingertips while black-suited men stamp on his hands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acl_k4Xav_A

Interesting interview with Russian volunteer medic who was on the Kharkiv front. The interviewer struggling a little bit but does a good job, though the guy is a touch unnerving

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QGaKhiOCTo

Part II

A little less intense but might just be that I got used to his weird laughing at stuff. Thought the interviewer did a good job in keeping himself to a minimum

its pretty long altogether, nearly 2 hours, so there's a lot in it

- Has treated and worked with Wagner people, good guys and professional
- Doesn’t know whats behind Prigozhin’s recent turn, maybe the war changed him.
- Almost all injuries treated from mines or artillery, almost no bullet wounds of any kind
- Since going back to Moscow has received a lot of praise and gratitude from people for having the balls to go to the SMO
- Sanctions havent affected him personally other than unable to install Zoom on his phone
- Banking apps are more sophisticated in Russian than UK or Germany
- Corruption is normal in every country but has declined since the start of the SMO
- Support for the military is high, same for PMCs. There are a few percent against it but these malcontents exist in every country
- Ukrainians, Moldovans, and the Baltics are separatists and should be treated as such. Not real countries. Equivalent of Wales or Catalonia. I think same for everyone in post-soviet space but didn’t elaborate or mention specifically, and interviewer didn’t ask
- Has some level of respect for Ukrainians but they must understand they have to live within Russian borders
- Bucha was a psyop
- Hasn’t seen any torture or mistreatment only things like punching pows in the face nothing more serious. Hasn’t treated many Ukrainian POWs though, mostly Russians
- Constitution protects freedom of speech you might get a fine but thats probably it
- Nuclear strike is very unlikely because why would Russia strike their own lands
- War will be won but will probably need to draft another million
- “Loves the tsar hates laws passed by the Duma” (said a little tongue in cheek)
- Putin still thought of well, but is more of an arbiter than a dictator. There is no alternative anyway
- Everyone understands war was inevitable but why didn’t Putin do it in 2014. Too timid?
- Russia has been too soft. We know where the politicians live why do we not bomb them?

Blandly declaring that the nearly 50 million people who live in Ukraine, Moldava, or the Baltic nations must simply reconcile themselves to being reabsorbed by Russia because, uh, just because this is what they must do. Very persuasive.

Ehh, pretty sure Wales is a real country

Barely.

Blandly declaring that the nearly 50 million people who live in Ukraine, Moldava, or the Baltic nations must simply reconcile themselves to being reabsorbed by Russia because, uh, just because this is what they must do. Very persuasive.

I don't think he's particularly interested in persuasion. Its more a statement of fact as he sees it and that this would likely require force (which seems a strange tense to use as it is already requiring force). I don't know that there is anyone to persuade

Its more a statement of fact as he sees it

I understand, but there are no facts about the future, just beliefs.

For millions of people it is already a fact, and if he re-enlists for another stint he will be in the business of attempting to make it a fact for more . He is relatively explicit about this, and as a participant this is more than just beliefs

https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-give-account-post-mutiny-prigozhin-meeting-pmc-wagner-not-exist/

Asked whether the Wagner Private Military Company would remain a fighting unit, Putin seemingly became agitated.

“‘Well, the PMC Wagner does not exist!’ Vladimir Putin exclaimed,” according to Kommersant.

wow

West has become a brutal caricature of himself. This is what happens when you are so committed to your liberationist philosophy that you believe that foreign invaders shld be allowed to amputate vast swathes of territory from countries they don’t believe shld be allowed to exist. https://t.co/rJ8zPKujQp

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 14, 2023

Western aid, such as it was, came after Russian occupation, and Urkraine is still not in NATO. On this subject, West is kneejerk at best, like Chomsky and lesser lights/

For millions of people it is already a fact

Living under Russian occupation

I like how for many, ending the war means Ukraine makes all the concessions.

To end the Iraq War, Iraq should have made compromises on territory.

"I am not pro-putin but my positions happen to give Russia all the advantages."

Not to defend West, but unless Russia just gives up, it seems unlikely that this will end without Ukraine ceding at least some territory, if not to Russia then perhaps to some quasi-independent statelet a la Transnistria.

they've definitely sold the war to Russians as a purely defensive one, I don't think they talk much about de-Nazification anymore.. now it's an existential battle for the Motherland

Strelkov arrested on charges of extremism. Wonder why now?

Gubarev as well and possibly Alknis, the Angry Patriots being targeted but unclear how serious

Whats the story behind whats happening right now in Makhachkala? Unintended consequence of Moscow's recent turn away from Israel? I'd assumed actual control of the region is handled similarly to Chechnya rather than directly from Moscow but hazy on that, either way no significant unrest or protest prior to this over disproportionate mobilisation or other issues over the last 18 months, though this would be something of an easier target and maybe an outlet for building tension over that too

I was mildly surprised that Makhachkala was considered a suitable destination for a flight from Tel Aviv, but checking the redwings site that is one of their normal routes

I don't know much about it other than what I read in the FT, which has had several articles. My impression was that it was a combination of people reading the tea leaves that Moscow was taking a more critical stance against Israel, and also the fact that Dagestan has been kept on a short leash (the current government leader is a military guy who was formerly in charge of "counter-terrorism" operations in the North Caucasus) with respect to expressions of popular dissatisfaction and pressure had been building up. Also apparently Dagestan is a popular transiting stop for passengers from Israel connecting to other destinations in Russia.

what i've gathered is that there's been a lot of anger on social media there about all the civilian deaths in gaza, and some telegram channels incited the anti-semitic mobs at the airport, taking advantage of the anger about gaza. one of the telegram channels responsible for the incitement is known to have had ties with russian dissident figure ilya ponomarev, but he's denied any current involvement.

Presidential elections set for March 17. Putin has confirmed he will be standing again.

Interestingly Girkin is a candidate

he's already in a pickle for calling Putin "weak" (apologies).

I've just seen that Putin is normally priced around 1/5 to win presidential elections, now he's drifting out slightly to 4/11 because of the war.

that is old odds I was reading from months ago, I think he will be about 1/5 and was previously drifting because:

It’s not that new betting sites think he can lose the next election, it’s that they reckon he might not be there to contest it.

Kinda funny he can't just say 'ok ok we actually are at war so no election' not that having one is much risk more just why trouble yourself with the charade at all.

war SMO

Girkin posted this on his Telegram channel earlier this year and is currently in pretrial detention after getting charged with "public calls for extremism" :

“For 23 years, the country was led by a lowlife who managed to ‘blow dust in the eyes’ of a significant part of the population. Now he is the last island of legitimacy and stability of the state, But the country will not be able to withstand another six years of this cowardly bum in power.”

Where were you seeing those betting odds Calzino? It never occurred to me to even look!. Though that looks to be too inconsequential a movement to be indicative of anything? Its not unfeasible to assume he runs again and wins in 2030 either

why trouble yourself with the charade at all.

While I wouldn't exactly call it an election as such, I think it does serve a purpose thats more than a charade. While its more of a validation exercise than anything else, that still serves as a purpose, especially to the passive/depoliticized majority, as an affirmation of the man rather than any specific policies or actions.

The fact the result will probably be 75-80% rather than 95%+ I think shows an intention to choreograph a certain level of plausibility

Having said that, who knows on the results, things are different than 2018 so it might not follow the same pattern - were there odds on the margin of victory?

https://smarkets.com/event/42623628/politics/europe/2025/01/01/00-00/russia/2024/04/07/12-00/2024-russian-presidential-election

https://www.gambling.com/uk/news/russian-election-betting-odds

xps

in the top link you can get 1.01 on a Putin presidential win which is like 1/100! I couldn't find anything on oddchecker though and the other link is out of date.

Today, as on Friday, the lawyers tried to get to IK-6 and IK-7 — two colonies in the Vladimir region where Alexey @navalny might be. They have just been informed simultaneously in both colonies that he is not there.

We still don't know where Alexey is.

— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) December 11, 2023

(missed this one)

Pro-Putin regional politician found dead outside his house
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/europe/egorov-russia-dead-outside-house/index.html

A politician from the party of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been found dead in a courtyard outside his home, local media reported Thursday, adding to the growing list of Russian elites who have died under unclear circumstances in recent months.

Vladimir Egorov, a Tobolsk City Duma Deputy from the ruling United Russia party, was reportedly 46 at the time of his death, which was reported by Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing the press service of the Investigative Committee for the Tyumen Region in Russia.

There were no “external signs of criminal death” on Egorov’s body, investigators told Kommersant. The committee “could not confirm the information about the circumstances of the deputy’s death” to Kommersant, it said, as they are “still conducting an autopsy.”

Russian state media TASS meanwhile reported on Thursday that Egorov “was found dead in Tobolsk,” also citing the regional committee. And unofficial Telegram channel Baza – which has links to Russian security services – said Egorov’s body “was discovered in the courtyard of his house on Kedrovaya Street” on Wednesday.

Kommersant and TASS reported that investigators are still establishing the causes of Egorov’s death, while the Tobolsk City Duma published an obituary on its social media page Thursday saying that Egorov died “as a result of an accident.”

some interesting things happening in bashkortostan, which just happens to be the biggest republic within russia

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/01/17/riot-police-clash-with-thousands-of-protesters-following-activist-s-sentencing-in-russia-s-republic-of-bashkortostan

I know its not directly linked but I think Bashkortostan overperformed in mobilisation, relative to other regions, which may be a contributory factor in unrest. I think fastest to achieve its targets. Will have to go check that, so take with pinch of salt

With the Ukrainian children that have been transferred into Russia, I can't really tell where they're going to be resettled, or how they're being distributed across the country. It seems plausible it could be part of a program to change the ethnic makeup of particular regions via a form of population transfer, but without knowing where they're being sent to and in what numbers, difficult to tell

Russia's horrible demographics obviously worsened by the invasion, but at the same time if figures are correct, 0.5% of Russia's current population is an abducted Ukrainian child (as of last July, could be higher now), so at some point the invasion potentially has a net positive in terms of population

nothing to do directly with the war. I have seen Russian youtubers uploading vids of the old dilapidated Soviet heating systems that are still in use that are out of operation because of freezing burst pipes and people are saying this shit is unacceptable, there is a crowd huddled around a fire chanting "We are freezing!". Roads flooding with water because of burst water pipes. Because of slashed municipal budgets and the war drain on workers there are piles of rotting rubbish are being buried in the snow rather than collected and infrastructure maintenance seems almost non-existent. I didn't catch the locations but obv not Moscow. Idk maybe it's always a bit like this in the provinces, but the war has certainly made it much worse.

Novosibirsk, will be one of them. Provincial yes, but Russia's 3rd largest city, one of the fastest growing, and 90%+ ethnically Russian. Maybe kind of an Edmonton equivalent

Thoughts on Putins margin of victory in next months election, and on Nadezhdin?

I can't tell but it feels like the Kremlin got caught in some indecision over Nadezhdin, if they pull the plug after letting him get this far (unless it was a weird way of extrapolating potential support via petition size). Putin also seems caught between the two stools of wanting a resounding margin of victory at the same time as a feeling of legitimacy (with that line creeping ever upwards). Where the right line is for that is I don't know

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/08/russian-anti-war-candidate-boris-nadezhdin-says-he-is-barred-from-election

Interesting article on the intellectual roots of Putin's Eurasian vision:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/02/22/russian-exceptionalism-foundations-of-eurasianism/

Estonian PM Kaja Kallas placed on the list of wanted persons

Almost as amusing as Trump this guy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/vladimir-putin-tucker-carlson-interview-footage-sharp-questions

Elsewhere in his interview with Zarubin, Putin said that he preferred Joe Biden to Donald Trump but was willing to work with any US president.

Zarubin asked the president who was “better for us” out of Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican.

Putin replied without hesitation: “Biden. He is a more experienced, predictable person, a politician of the old school,” but added “we will work with any US president who the American people have confidence in.”

the russian media is fawning over carlson being amazed at low grocery prices in moscow - well, yeah, when the average monthly salary is $770 and the government controls many prices, what do you expect, you idiot? but hey maybe he’ll move to russia

Navalny dead, reportedly.

Strange a prison wouldn't have bars on its hospital windows.

I’m thinking particularly of this remarkable interview where he describes what Novichok poisoning actually feels like. https://t.co/gla6V4z1Yw

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) February 16, 2024

Yep, even if he wasn’t bashed on the head today, he was murdered by the state as surely as Nemtsov via that poisoning and subsequent denial of medical services.

never understood why he returned to russia after his hospitalization

There is of course a long, proud tradition of Russian dissidents writing in exile, so yeah, I don't know why he went back, knowing it meant at least more imprisonment, if not certain death. Pretty tragic.

That doc (HBO?) was pretty great. The guy had cojones.

“I have to go back.” Speaking just before he returned to Russia, Navalny told me: “I don’t think that I can have such a privilege of being safe in Russia, but I have to go back, because I don’t want this group of killers [to] exist in Russia. I don’t want Putin ruling Russia.” pic.twitter.com/ScgHCb7jYu

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) February 16, 2024

Also not obvious he would have been safe in Germany given how many people have been murdered by ‘autonomous patriots’ like Vadim Krasikov in the last few years.

Interesting read on the aftermath

The Federal Penitentiary Service has announced the death of Alexei. However, it remains crucial to await confirmation from his legal team and family. So far, here are my reflections on the matter:

First, politically speaking, it's a difficult truth, but Navalny's decision to…

— Tatiana Stanovaya (@Stanovaya) February 16, 2024

"this fash cunt was Russia's Mandela" lads my head hurts i've lost touch with words

Maybe we should have a rolling islamophobia thread, until we do this goes here I guess

Navalny referring to Muslims as cockroaches and advocating for their extermination https://t.co/uxvoCKtr5g pic.twitter.com/SJHmzTTpru

— j (@jrc1921) February 16, 2024

Masha Gessen on Navalny and nationalism in 2021:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-evolution-of-alexey-navalnys-nationalism

Worth keeping in mind that Russia likens all its enemies to right wing Nazis, but Navaly by all accounts evolved past any such inclinations. I think that video is from 2007.

I'm not celebrating his death, and I'm sure he would have been better than Putin, but not going to beatify him either, as our politicians seem to be doing.

Navalny had moved past the overt far-right stuff, and those clips are all 15 or so years ago, I agree.

That being said, I'm not convinced by how much he had moved past it, and I don't think there was anything positive about him either, and a Russia with less corruption but continued colonialist aspirations would also be a worry

As to our politicians beatifying him, I see that as a form of political technology. Whether it serves a purpose or is counter-productive I can't really tell. It is kind of weird when even much more overt people like Strelkov are just called "opposed to Putin" without providing context of "wants to kill harder and faster", but at same time "puts opposition leader in jail" or "kills opposition leader" is the story regardless

I don't think there was anything positive about him either,

Actually, going back over it, I'm kind of on the fence about this. In some ways its easy to look at it like "he just wanted to get rid of the corruption and didn't have a problem with invading Ukraine or colonialism in general" and I've kind of reflexively in that position. Likely partly subconsciously as a reaction to western praise. But I'm not all that sure about relying on 15+ year old clips, regardless of being somewhat dubious of how much changed, or how much that was misjudged triangulation in first place. Russia doesnt have all the much room for manoeuvre

He was at best a quasi-liberal Russian chauvinist late into his career but opposed to the most recent Ukraine war and idk if he landed substantially to the right of a lot of the Western politicians memorialising him. There has barely been any mention of, let alone support for, his politics vs his undeniable bravery and the loss to the wider pro-democracy movement

I think thats fair. Its complicated, especially when assessing someone over a long period of time

I think its also appropriate to judge people from the context in which they operate in, more than the one I operate in

what was Navalny's position on those uniquely Russian supermarket trollies with coin deposit slots, just asking for Tucker Carlson.

unique how? coin deposit shopping trollies are standard in Portugal, France.

There's plenty of them over here too but I imagine they're all unique to Tucker Carlson.

ah ok wasn't aware of the tucker video, sorry calz

I'm guessing you can't bet on the what percentage Putin gets, but if you could I'd say 79%

179%

100% эта сука

87 seems to be the number. Anything less than 105% is a defeat though.

87 is high, more so than I would have thought. Rigged elections generally fall into two categories, those that are theoretically plausible and genuinely contain a level of intent to persuade voters they're alone and all their neighbors are against them, like a big of exaggeration of something which might be true via all the other means of creating support - and then those that are meant to laugh at the public and make a mockery of everything like the Zaporizhia referendum results of 99.4%, dispensing with any pretence

Putin has always stayed in the upper reaches of the first category, but this feels too high for that

several killed at the Krokus concert hall near Moscow, several men in combat fatigue entered & shot at the crowd + explosives too

(Crocus)

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/03/22/at-least-12-reported-killed-in-mass-shooting-at-moscow-concert-hall-a84578

I'm sorry but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fPjQZwhrOE

Oof

oof..uck

Haven't seen mention yet of what the concert/performance was. Probably irrelevant to the incident, but would be helpful to know.

People are still trapped inside the fire-ravaged Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow, where a shooting and explosions occured earlier, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

The fire has engulfed a third of the concert venue building and the roof of the building is almost completely engulfed in flames, TASS reported.

a rock band called Picnic was scheduled to play & the attack happened before the start of the show

https://78.ru/news/2024-03-22/basist-gruppi-piknik-strelba-v-crocus-city-hall-nachalas-pered-samim-koncertom

"Bassist of the band “Picnic” Marat Korchemny told the details of the shooting in the capital’s Crocus City Hall.
“The shooting started in the hall just before the concert. A series of shots rang out. The whole group was saved, everyone is safe, now we are trying to evacuate,” he said in an interview with the Petersburg Diary newspaper."

not saying this means anything but they were banned from playing in Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea, it says here

The venue is apparently owned by Putin/Trump liaison and Miss Universe host Aras Agalarov.

Hmm

His company Crocus Group was the general contractor for two stadiums that hosted the 2018 FIFA World Cup matches.

Crocus City Hall hosted the Miss Universe finals in 2013. Donald Trump attended the ceremony and met with the Agalarovs.

at least 40 dead

It feels just as likely to be a Russian mafia operation as anything else.

hmm

The attack followed a statement issued earlier this month by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that urged the Americans to avoid crowded places in the Russian capital in view of an imminent attack, a warning that was repeated by several other Western embassies.

The fact that Ramzan Kadyrov was one of the first to condemn it suggests otherwise.

(xp)

remembering the moscow bombings that preceded the chechnya war - it would not be above putin to organize something like this

considering how much fodder it will provide for russian propaganda machine my bet is on putin, absolutely.

Islamic State have claimed responsibility on its Telegram channel for the attacks at the Crocus City Hall near Moscow, Reuters is reporting.

Oh, that's nice they have a Telegram channel.. are they on TikTok as well?

Is that meant to be sarcastic? I would assume they are unless TikTok has banned them.

https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/caliphatetok-tiktok-continues-to-host-islamic-state-propaganda/#:~:text=New%20research%20by%20ISD%20reveals,TikTok%20without%20facing%20any%20consequences.

Does Telegram not ban self-avowed terror groups?

Hamas broadcasted October 7 on its telegram channels

Leaving aside where and why, a multi gunman attack is significantly unusual for IS no? That said the wikipedia list of their claimed recent attacks is longer and more varied than I thought it would be.

I'm sure it's trite to say, but the concert hall itself and the gunmen are so similar to the opening of Tenet...

Also similar to the Paris attack

What is the motive

Revenge for russia being in africa?

all the ghoulie villains from the past are coming back now for the big finale.

Did IS not mention why they did it when they claimed responsibility?

Okay found this: https://economictimes.com/news/international/world-news/why-did-isis-k-attack-a-moscow-theater/articleshow/108721361.cms

Or if you want something much longer https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/09/islamic-state-afghanistan-khorasan-propaganda-russia-ukraine-war/

THE #MOSCOW TERRORISTS: I’ve watched a half dozen videos of the terrorists action. They are attacking “Alpine style”, Fast & light. AK automatic rifles, poss IEDs & extra magazines in packs. Civilian clothes. No suicide bomb belts or vests & not fighting to death. People…

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) March 22, 2024

93 dead, likely to rise.

Russians claiming they apprehended (some of) the perpetrators preparing to cross the Ukrainian border. Oh-oh.

so I hear no police turned up until 30 minutes after the first gunshots were fired, and then it took 1 hour 20 mins for the Russian special forces to turn up. hmm

all Tadzhik nationals xposts

115 dead now

Ty Lukas

"All four direct perpetrators of the terrorist attack, all those who shot and killed people, were found and detained. They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border. A total of 11 people were detained."

Man aren't they great at figuring this all out so quickly afterwards, shame about ignoring the warning from the enemy (US intel) days beforehand.

pretty cruel of IS to do this, there must be a lot of liberals twisting their guts inside out trying to pick a side

Putin has to find a way to blame the attacks on Ukraine. otherwise he’d have to pull forces out of the war to send them after Isis.

i wouldn’t trust any info from the russian government
it is quite interesting however how the chechens were able to apprehend the supposed terrorists so quickly and easily

new kinds of torture are being invented for these guys, I bet - apparently a video of one of their interrogations was published where the terrorist's ear was being cut off & he was forced to eat it (it says here in a Belgian newspaper)

oh cool!

That's not new, it happened in Django

that'll teach you not to sell any more forged Van Gogh originals in the Russian federation

good read: https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-russia-president-1999-chechnya-apartment-bombings/30097551.html

how did these dudes let themselves be taken alive

I've still to read more fully on this so its not a strongly held opinion but one things that spring to mind is the people taken might not necessarily be the people who did it. That would be one reason they let themselves be taken alive, as they didn't know they were going to be taken. It is the one thing that is somewhat surprising

ie if they had escaped, it might be better to at least find someone to stand in for them

They were wearing the exact same shirts in the pre-photo (in front of the IS flag) and in the arrest/torture screenshots. I don't know if they thought they would get away with it and not be dehumanized into nothing for the rest of their lives but they were stupid enough to do this in the first place, not thinking fits.

stop making me conspiracy-pilled

Fwiw I don't think its a conspiracy and I think the attack is almost certainly what it looks like. Its really more like if some Tajiks did it and those particular Tajiks couldn't be located would some other Tajiks do? But given everyone knew an attack was going to take place beforehand its more than likely they were easy enough to locate afterwards. It is weird they missed the opportunity for martyrdom though, that seems to be an intrinsic and fundamental error

they were working on the kill now, martyr later plan

starting to think that perhaps putin wasn’t behind it, they’d plant a stronger link to ukraine
so far the attempts to pin it on ukraine seem pretty desperate (“ukraine denies it, so it must be ukraine!”)

They've pivoted to 'we know IS did it but WHO hired them? I think we would know who'

yeah, they're now implying that the US, UK and Ukraine are somehow behind it, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever

faking evidence does take time. i’m sure we’ll have some “authentic” confessions soon

lol at lukashenko saying the terrorists tried to flee to ukraine because it would be preferable to belarus
did he not get the memo

its not unlikely that Putin (and inner circle) genuinely thinks the US is behind the attack, because the US is behind everything (including Ukraine)

No way Putin genuinely believes that.

He may not but he will give you a four-hour lecture about it.

He believes the CIA was behind Maidan, he believes the CIA was behind the Arab Spring, so it isn't impossible. His general mindset is that organic instances of protest or action don't really exist, and are manifestations of an exercise of power by a larger entity.

Its also partly why he doesn't think of Ukraine or Slovenia or Costa Rica or Spain as real. To him they are franchises of the US

(citations needed, as usual)

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/31/politics/navalny-russian-prisoner-database-hack/index.html

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/article32404487.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200e/1_sdc_mdg_chp_62818.jpg

what the fuck is happening in Washington D.C.?

Leaving Celtic for the MLS?

the 4 concert hall terrorists are in a video where they say (Chechens speaking Russian, all using the same words) that they were to contact someone in Ukraine.

That's how they earned a bowl of soup

hired by a Putin crony, told someone else hired them, told where to go and when, ambushed on the way back into Ukraine by a waiting military squad who was either in on it or "tipped off" as to their whereabouts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to remove restrictions on the work of minors in order to cope with the shortage of workers in the economy, which the authorities estimate at hundreds of thousands of people.

The government and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives should consider "promoting employment and stimulating employment" of citizens aged 14 and over, according to a list of Putin's instructions published on the Kremlin's website.

dragging kids into armament factories now

Damn

Probably safer than meatpacking factories at least.

(citations needed, as usual)

Apologies, I think I posted that when I was on the bus on the way into town and forgot to add later. I don't think I noted anything down specifically as I tend to listen to things when running rather than reading but I'll see what I can find

Gleb Pavlovsky Frontline PBS Interview 2017

I wonder how long until Shoigu falls from a window/expires from some mysterious health condition that had previously shown no symptoms of

I think he's 'pretty safe, he hasn't exactly been fired or even demoted. Just looks like a sideways kind of move, and brining in an economics guy as the replacement looks more like gearing up for the long haul

Patrushev is the more interesting move, but at sam time his son got promoted. We're squarely back in reading the tea leaves kremlinology era now, but I think this might not be much more than a simple reshuffle

I was listening to a Russian podcaster saying that this sideways move has much reduced the influence and status of Shoigu to the point that he's practically a nobody now.

Which podcaster?

Technically he's now replacing Patrushev who definitely isn't a nobody! That being said, Patrushev's power and influence is probably contained inside Patrushev and not his office, so it could be this is a case of being promoted out of harms way. But Putin rewards loyalty, arguably above anything else, and Shoigu certainly has a lot of that

oh not someone I'd recommend to anybody, he's an idiot. But he's right about some stuff and badly wrong at other times. Lol, he reckoned Tucker Carlson is a good journalist, that kind of wrong. Sometimes I prefer the bad podcasts just for background noise while I'm washing the dishes and for occasional lolz.

and he tells amusing stories about his childhood in the Soviet Union and stuff from the Yeltsin era, which is always good value.

I'm sort of in two minds when it comes to this stuff. I found the long-form video interviews with the Z patriot medic from Bakhmut and his Wagner mate upthread really interesting. It was good to be able to hear from them directly, by someone that didn't interrupt and gave them the floor.

But if they had controlled the podcast instead of being interviewees, I'd have been less inclined to listen - even though the interviewer barely challenged them at all (which is good! I don't really want interviewers to challenge guests, just ask good, probing, interesting questions, and give them space). But I think there is a need to hear 'wrong answers' too

Not that there is a "wrong answer" to "why did you volunteer to fight in Bakhmut?", so there's kind of nothing to challenge on other than understanding the perspective (as well as the experience)

bump

Popov dubiously arrested for stealing 100m roubles worth of metal after criticising the meat grinder tactics. He seems like someone on borrowed time. He was apparently popular with the rank and file, Putin doesn't like that kind of shit.

has he by any chance a broad yorkshire accent

he could probably do a better Yorkshire accent than Jason Issacs!

Timur Ivanov and Vadim Shamarin also arrested, along with a couple of others, not sure of significance of timing.

These feel separate to the Shoigu move. Shoigu must be delighted with his move

wars with a smile on his face but the lad needs trophies

"Mystery"

Mystery as Russian Judge Dies after Falling from Window
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-judge-dead-natalia-larina-falls-window-1909104

listed a suspected suicide as a cause and said she had left a note

Прощай, жестокий мир!

'goodbye cruel world!'

Another one...

Putin's close ally shot dead in Moscow
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ar-AA1rB5uS

The body of Konstantin Zavizenov was found by his son in a mansion in Moscow's Istra district on Tuesday night, the state news agency RIA Novosti reported. Law enforcement told the news agency that the death was tentatively ruled a suicide, but some expressed doubts about that explanation.

His son found a note and alcohol on a table in the house before hearing a gunshot in another room of the house. According to Russian media reports, Mr Zavizenov's wife had recently caught him having an extramarital affair and had filed for divorce.

News of his death was shared by Ukrainian-born racing driver and political commentator Igor Sushko, who expressed skepticism about claims that Mr. Zavizenov committed suicide

Remember when whats his name drove his tanks up to moscow and DIDNT keep going?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62jp68p315o Police use water cannon as Georgia EU protests erupt for second night

"Protestors threw pyrotechnics" sounds a lot more boring than "gatling fireworks cannon" : https://imgur.com/gallery/cops-vs-dude-with-gatling-fireworks-cannon-L3ayoL0

I saw some Russian cctv footage of a "gold heist" committed by masked robbers. The gold in this robbery was all the butter they could carry. Thanks to galloping inflation and an apparent scarcity of dairy products in the shops, butter has become the new caviar in Putin's overstretched war economy.

Saw some Twitter posts (have not checked for accuracy) about the cops raiding Moscow nightclubs and sending people to be conscripted. Press gangs!

Saw some Twitter posts about cops raiding Moscow nightclubs on a Saturday night for conscripts. Press gangs!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/17/lieutenant-general-igor-kirillov-russian-general-killed-moscow-explosion-chemical-weapons

no way of knowing so far if it was a domestic dissidents or a Ukraine Secret Services job, but who gives a fuck about the piece of shit.

The Ukrainians are claiming it.

getting the Moscow assassinations out of the way before they break up for Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

exploding e-scooter, that's some james bond level shit

acessnated

tbf e-scooters have been known to explode without any involvement by the SBU.

their counter-espionage game has completely gone, jeff.

Now singers are "falling out of windows".

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/17/friends-of-russian-anti-war-singer-vadim-stroykin-cast-doubt-on-official-version-of-his-death

on a more sombre note

Classic old skool twitter thread that quickly explains the terrible situation for Ukraine, but puts into context with recent history and some class based analysis.

1/ Thoughts after reading #Trump's plan for Ukrainian "reconstruction," which will effectively turn #Ukraine into an American colony burdened with a $500 billion bill that is proportionally much larger than what post-WW1 #Germany had to pay in reparations.https://t.co/z25hFijvjQ

— Ingar Solty (@IngarSolty) February 18, 2025