#russian colonialism

[thyinum]

Please, when you see something written in Cyrillic, don't assume right away that it's russian. Russian is not the only language that uses Cyrillic. There are also Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Serbian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Mongolian.

It's a sensitive topic especially for us Ukrainians because russian language is a weapon. It's a colonial language, it's presented like one and only true slavic language, it erases and replaces other languages. Belarusian is literally on the verge of extinction because of russian. Ukrainian has been banned 134 times throughout history, it is still called a "village language", a dialect of russian. Russian colonialism is literally the reason why there are so many russian speaking people in Ukraine (I was one of them btw). Ukrainian is banned on russian occupied territories and people are getting in trouble or even killed for using it there, Ukrainian POWs in russian captivity are getting brutally beaten for speaking Ukrainian.

Like okay, I can get why there's this confusion, so here's a clue to understand that the language you're looking at definitely is not russian — the letter і. If you see ї (like i but with two dots) it's 100% Ukrainian. If you see j it's Serbian. Russian alphabet also doesn't have such letters as Ђ, Љ, Њ, Ў, Џ (dont confuse with Ц ). Yes, it's not always gonna be easy to detect that the language in front of you is not russian, but when you have trouble with it just ask or run it through any translation app and it'll probably tell you the language.

Hope this will be helpful.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

A Crimean Tatar man cries at a protest in Ukraine after his homeland was illegally annexed by russia in 2014. X

The Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People is the 18th of May. The 80th anniversary is 2024.

[panimoonchild]

"Don't escalate" - they said

Say that fucking Russians for who peace talks never work. Especially now, when aid to Ukraine keeps postponing. 

Today, my hands are shaking and my heart hurts, even though it shouldn't. The fear of the number of human victims because of Russia is killing me. 

Please keep spreading our voices and donate to our army and combat medics (savelife.in.ua, prytulafoundation.org, Serhii Sternenko, hospitallers.life, ptahy.vidchui.org and u24.gov.ua).

The Ukrainian mental health is held on this every day. 

Yes, please don't be ignorant. Ukrainians need that energy and hope boost to hold on now.

[folklorespring]

Sergiy Kyslytsya about russia.

[redjaybathood]

You wanna talk about settler colonialism? Talk about this:

During the two-year occupation of Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia region, Russia has brought over 100,000 of its citizens into the city

(Svidomi)

100k people in 1 (one) occupied city. I'm not talking about Mariupol, I'm not talking about Crimea, or Donetsk, Luhansk. It's just Melitopol, it's just the last two years.

[odinsblog]

RUSSIA’S SHAM ELECTIONS, where people are “helped” by armed soldiers who check to ensure they vote correctly—or else.

Does this look like they are helping to conduct a fair, peaceful and democratic election process? Or does it look like repressed voters under duress, who are being forced to vote for Putin under threat of armed Russian soldiers? (source) (source) (source)

[snovyda]

Historically, some of the biggest Russian opponents to domestic repressions are imperialists. Solzhenitsyn, most famously, is, on the one hand, bravely fighting the GULAG, and on the other hand - a vile imperialist with a sense of fascism. These aren't new phenomena, in many ways. Somehow one feels that [moving away from imperialism] is unlikely in Russia, because it goes so deep. This is just the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, this is not just one war, this has been going on for centuries. Russian imperialism is embedded in Russian humour, Russian literature, codes of thinking. It's not about statements. It's not just about policies. When Pushkin writes, I don't know, "Кавказ подо мною" ("The Caucasus lies below me"), one of his famous poems... the amount of imperialist psychology that goes into saying that - that goes very, very deep. So until those much, much deeper sort of deep cultural roots of Russian imperialism, racism and oppression are addressed, nothing is changed. So let's think what we have agency over, in a way. [...] we can change the way Russia is perceived globally and in the West. Because this idea that Russia is a great power that has the right to a sphere of influence and that has the right to suppress others because it's great - that sits very deep in people's heads across the world. We can start working on that. So why don't we start working on that? Let's get people in my world - Britain, America - to re-read the Russian classics and understand how much imperialism and oppression of others there's there. Let's start de-mystifying this idea of "the Russian mystic soul" and really start rooting it to very specific histories of violence and oppression. Let's start changing the way Russia is perceived, so it's no longer seen as inevitable and so vast and huge that you have to drop on your knees in front of it, which still sits in people's heads. That means changing the way the universities overfocus on Russia studies and completely silence the voices of Ukrainians, Georgians, Kazakhs... There's so much we can do that will make people's perceptions of Russia rooted in reality. And they will help gain self-confidence to say, "Stop, we're not dependent on you".

Peter Pomerantsev

[kana-de]

a reminder that yall literally listen and promote russian music like mua mua jaga jaga and other on all platforms ever known. none of you boycotted any of russian companies/artists at least since feb24 2022, because what? because you don't care. you never did. but when you need to boycott kpop for five, god, FIVE days you're literally right there. i haven't listened to any of russian music since spring 2022 and im perfectly fine without my fav russian artists. why can't you do the same?

[irithnova]

From : https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1783417093079081428 on Twitter

"Marina Khankhalaeva, representative of Buryatia Independence Committee. She spoke at United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues."

On the exploitation of Russian indigenous groups

[sophiemariepl]

Am I the only one here who is so damn angry about the fact that a large portion of the Slavic representation on the Western media is either Russian, Russian-coded (e.g. the Grisha Universe by Leigh Bardugo) or copies the narratives about other Slavic nations that exist in the Russian discourse about them?

[torillatavataan]

Nothing new indeed. Here are just some russified Finnish place names from the Karelian Isthmus:

Antrea -> Kamennogorsk Enso -> Svetogorsk * Heinjoki -> Veshchevo Johannes -> Sovetsky Jääski -> Lesogorsky Kanneljärvi -> Pobeda Kaukjärvi -> Kamenka Kirvu -> Svobodnoye Kivennapa -> Pervomayskoye Koivisto -> Primorsk Koivistonsaari -> Bolshoy Beryozovy Kuolemajärvi -> Pionerskoye Kähäri -> Goncharovo Käkisalmi -> Priozersk Lavansaari -> Moshchny Metsäpirtti -> Zaporozhskoye Raivola -> Roshchino Rautu -> Sosnovo Räisälä -> Melnikovo Säkkijärvi -> Kondratyevo ** Terijoki -> Zelenogorsk Uuras -> Vysotsk Uusikirkko -> Polyany Vahviala -> Yashino Valkjärvi -> Michurinskoye Vuoksenranta -> Ozyorskoye Ylä-Urpala -> Torfyanovka

* The name lives on in the name of the company Stora Enso ** You may recognise the name from the song Säkkijärven polkka

Place names in the ceded Petsamo, Salla, and Ladoga Karelia, have largely been left alone.

The population of the ceded Finnish territories was also completely replaced.

Please feel free to list more russified places from other countries.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

1945: The village of Uskut, Crimea after Stalin's deportation of the entire native population of the Crimean Tatars from the 18th-20th of May 1944.

russian colonisers had yet to move into the houses.

[panimoonchild]

Russian culture is ecocide

We have a question for animal rights activists: the guys at our positions have a small moose, its mother was hit by a mine… And here is the question: what to do with this calf? Could you please tweet us the news? If you can help in any way, please write to me in DM.

We have found people who will save the calf. Everything ends well. Here is another photo of the kiddo who also suffered from the fucking russians…

The calf is fine, we are waiting for people from the Wild Animals Rescue Center to arrive. There were problems with their access to the place. We will solve the issue.

The filnal update:

Phew, it was difficult😥 The calf was finally taken away.

Animal's whimpers of grief will haunt me in my dreams but for russians it's nothing.

[canberramaidan]

Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's main street, blown up by the russians on the 24th of September, 1941. It was part of a long pattern of communist cultural destruction across Ukraine, which included the demolition of medieval cathedrals and churches.

[odinsblog]

Message to all alleged “anti-war tankies”

If you were truly anti-war, at worst you’d at least try to pretend to be neutral, and not support either side. At best, you would not be on the side of Russia, the aggressor that, unprovoked, invaded a smaller sovereign nation that was peacefully minding its own business, was not in NATO, and wasn’t even applying for NATO membership. NATO was not the cause of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As always, I remind people that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, including but not limited to: erasing all mentions of Ukraine from schoolbooks, murdering entire civilian populations of Ukrainian cities, and kidnapping thousands and thousands of Ukrainian children (some as young as 4 months old) and placing them into “re-education” centers where they are forced to learn how to become good little Russians. Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilian targets like funerals, churches, schools and hospitals, and the Russian army is using mass rape as a weapon of war.

(Remember, Ukraine has demonstrated that they have the capability to reach Russian held territory, but unlike Russia, the Ukrainian military has only targeted military installations.)

If you can just hand wave all of the Russian war crimes and atrocities away because “America bad,” then please spare everyone your anti-war concern trolling, and your faux worries about Ukrainians dying. Just admit that as long as, lol, “communist” Russia isn’t the one being invaded, you are morally indifferent to human suffering and you actually do not care about ending wars.

Russia can end the war instantly just by going home.

[snovyda]

Reading about the Bolshevik army of the Soviet Russia storming Kyiv 106 years ago, in January 1918.

Heavy artillery shelling of the city for days, targeting the city centre. Use of chemical weapons.

Once they got into the city, they proceeded with their standard terror methods. Summary executions, murder, robberies, rapes. They shot random passersby in the streets and then immediately took their clothes off in search for anything of value to loot. The corpses were just left lying in city parks for days.

Before getting to Kyiv, the terror committed by Muravyov's bolshevik army in other places was unspeakable.

Their methods just never change.

Article on the topic (in Ukrainian, but you can use the browser translation)

Soon afterwards, the bolsheviks got kicked out of Kyiv. In March 1918, Soviet Russia officially recognised Ukraine's independence. And then later that very year, it invaded again, and occupied it.

Regimes in russia change names, but its essence has never changed in centuries.